The Ghannouchi Verdict and the Trap of Choosing between Tyrants in Tunisia |
A Tunisian court sentenced Rachid Ghannouchi, the 84-year-old leader of the Islamist Ennahda movement, to life in prison this week. Former Prime Minister Ali Larayedh received 42 years. Retired officer Kamal Badawi got life plus 32 years. The charges: terrorism, running a secret security apparatus, and conspiring against the state.
The Western press will spend the next week debating whether this is justice or political persecution. That is the wrong debate. The right question is this: how did Tunisia, the Arab world’s one genuine democratic experiment, arrive at a moment where the only available choices are an Islamist movement that spent a decade undermining the republic it pretended to serve, and a one-man government that has abolished the very institutions democracy requires to survive?
Tunisia is not choosing between democracy and authoritarianism. It already lost democracy. It is now choosing which kind of authoritarian project gets to write the obituary.
Ghannouchi’s Record Deserves No Romanticism
Let us be precise about what Ennahda actually did with its decade of dominance following the 2011 revolution. The movement that presented itself to Western audiences as “Muslim........