Secularists are being pitted against Islamists as of Sunday's polls loom, writes RUADHÁN Mac CORMAICin Tunis
HABIB BEL HEDI is still bemused by how he found himself a player in the most hard-fought battlefield of post-revolutionary Tunisia. Long recognised as an important figure in the country’s small but dynamic artistic world, Bel Hedi - an affable theatre and cinema producer – was thrust into the national spotlight in June when the Cinéma AfricArt, the art-house venue he ran with friends in the capital, Tunis, was forced to close after an attack and death-threats by Islamist militants.
Sitting in his office four months on, his deep voice filling a room adorned with posters of his company’s films, he tells the story as if he still can’t make sense of it.
The cinema had scheduled a double bill for invited guests; one of the films was called Laïcité, Inch’Allah (Secularism, God Willing), made by Franco-Tunisian director Nadia El Fani. Shortly before the screening, a group of about 80 young men gathered outside the theatre. “They started shouting anti-secular, anti-atheism slogans,” Bel Hedi recalls. “And then they started talking to the young staff at the door, saying: this film won’t be shown.
“Next thing, they started showing blades in their mouths, telling the guys at the door they would be killed if the film was shown.” There were two policemen at the door, but they grew scared and – knowing they couldn’t be assured of reinforcements due to a police strike – decided to flee. The crowd then attacked.
“They starting hitting us. One of them had gas he sprayed into my face. I resisted. They broke the door. There was an iron bar I used to defend myself, but there were lots of them and I couldn’t see very well. I hadn’t fought with someone since I was 15 years old.”
When the crowd reached the theatre, they drew the curtain and said people would be killed if the film was shown. The police eventually returned and made some arrests, but the cinema’s fate was sealed: the landlord grew nervous and ordered its closure.
Artistic freedom has become one of the battlegrounds in the debate that dominates the run-up to Tunisia’s first free elections on Sunday: that which pits secularists against Islamists. Violence broke out last week when a group of 300 Islamists reacted angrily to a decision by the Nessma TV station to broadcast Persepolis, an award-winning animated film which they said denigrated Islam by showing an image of the Prophet Mohammed. This led to an apology from Nessma management and provoked counter-protests from liberals.
The debate has been injected with added urgency by recent opinion polls showing the main Islamist party, Ennahda (meaning ‘The Renaissance’), will emerge as the biggest political group after Sunday’s election.
Islamist parties were systematically suppressed during Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali’s 23-year rule. Many of Ennahda’s candidates have spent decades in prison and its leader, Rachid Ghannouchi, returned to Tunisia this year after 22 years in exile.
In its manifesto, Ennahda presents itself as a moderate party determined to uphold Tunisia’s relatively liberal legal code, which gives women some of the strongest rights in the Arab world. The party condemned the violence used in the anti-Persepolis protests, while defending people’s right to peacefully express anger about the film.
Ennahda is the best-organised party in the country; it is running candidates in every constituency and does particularly well in rural areas.
But its rise alarms many liberals, who accuse Mr Ghannouchi of using a “double discourse” for electoral ends – making soothing, moderate noises nationally while taking a harder line among sympathisers. They’re particularly concerned that women’s rights will be rolled back – that polygamy could be on the agenda or that the veil could be imposed, for example.
At a press conference attended by more than 100 Tunisian and foreign journalists yesterday, the 70-year-old Ghannouchi – wearing spectacles and a sharp grey suit – was at pains to insist Ennahda was a peaceful, tolerant and pluralist party motivated “not by a spirit of revenge, but reconciliation”.
Flanked by senior party members, he predicted Ennahda would become the biggest party but sought to reassure the public that it was determined to defend social gains made over the past 50 years. There was nothing to fear, and opponents who claimed otherwise were fear-mongering – “the final weapon of losing rivals”.
“We are keen for national reconciliation to end the pain of the past,” he said. How could a party that is so popular be the enemy of Tunisia?” On women’s rights, not only would gains be upheld, but the laws would be strengthened to enshrine equal pay and fight sexual harassment.
“Perhaps we need to insist a million times on it. We need to emphasise our commitment to women’s rights,” Ghannouchi said.
In any event, he added, there was a pragmatic imperative for Ennahda not to renege on its pre-election pledges. “If we were not to stick to our promises, we would lose our vote in a year. Any party that loses women’s votes will not get into government.”