Survey written by Anver Versi

On September 11, when terrorists reduced the twin towers in New York to a gigantic pile of rubble, burying some 5,000 people in the process, the world finally woke up to the full dangers posed by religious extremism. The ferocity, determination and utter ruthlessness with which the terrorists carried out their mission shocked and horrified the West. ?This is a battle like no other,? said United States of America’s President George Bush as he declared a ?War on Terrorism’. He was quick to concede that this ?asymmetric’ war would not be won by conventional means. The United Kingdom’s Prime Minister, Tony Blair, added that the world would have to be reordered if the fight against terrorism is to be won.

But while the terror assault on this scale is a new phenomenon for the West, particularly for the US, it has been an old and deadly battle in several Muslim states, particularly the north African countries. Extremist groups with political agendas, hiding their true motives under the cloak of religion, have unleashed horrific reigns of terror on innocent civilians — slaughtering thousands, blowing up and burning property and carrying out spates of assassinations. Their aim has always been to create chaos and panic in order to overthrow legitimate governments through the use of force.

Few countries in the Maghreb have been spared the deadly attentions of the extremists. Most are still locked in combat with this dangerous enemy. Only one can say that the war against extremist-inspired terror has been won. That country is Tunisia.

When you visit Tunisia today and see a modern, thriving, progressive and very stable country, you might find it difficult to believe that only two decades ago, Tunisia was on the brink of being swept under an extremist flood. In the mid 1980s, a weak and disunited government, high rates of unemployment, a growing sense of marginalisation among the masses, a lack of direction and a feeling of betrayal among the people created the ideal conditions for extremism to flourish.

The outlawed radical fundamentalists were quick to take advantage of the public disaffection and mounted a series of terror campaigns, particularly in Sousse and Monastir. They targeted institutions, including mosques, and people, both local and foreign. They set out to undertake a campaign of armed subversion, destroy the economy through fear and impose their will on the populace through intimidation. By claiming that their movement was based on religion, they tried to lure the gullible and the ignorant into their ranks. They tried to silence opposition by claiming that attacks on them were tantamount to attacks on Islam.

Iron grip on population

With the government, which had lost touch with the people, floundering out of its depth, it seemed that Tunisia would slide into anarchy and that the extremists would impose an iron grip on the population — much in the same way as the Taliban were to do in Afghanistan in the 1990s.

Tunisia in the late 1980s was crying out for a saviour — someone who could fight and win this ?asymmetric’ war on terrorism and also change the direction of the country politically, economically and socially.

At the eleventh hour and fortunately for Tunisia, somebody heeded that call. In 1987, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali took over the leadership of the country from the ageing Habib Bourguiba and the era of The Change was set into motion.

This was Tunisia’s own war against terrorism. History shows us that the campaign against fundamentalist extremism was a resounding success and the war was won on all fronts.

How Tunisia won the war against terror and terrorism

How did President Ben Ali plan and execute his successful campaign against fundamentalist extremism? His first strategy was built around the concept of ?knowing and isolating your enemy’.

The extremist movements deliberately attached themselves to hardline Islamic fundamentalist tendencies. They ?kidnapped’ Islam — a religion of great diversity and tolerance — and through the use of terror and intimidation tried to impose their own, distorted version on the population. They channelled the genuine grievances of the people to their own cause and sowed the seeds of disunity not only within the country but even within families. Given the socio-economic situation of the time, it was not too difficult for the extremists to blur the edges of genuine Islam and their own version (which is in fact anti-Islamic in its form and function). The poor, the dispossessed and the hopeless were attracted by the promises of instant salvation made by the leaders of the movements. The climate of fear they generated increased the confusion of the people.

Ben Ali set out to separate the extremists from the Islamic faith they were attempting to use as cover and expose them for what they were — radical groups with dubious political agendas who were willing to use any tactic, including people’s religious beliefs in their quest for power. Gradually, Islam was prised away from the fundamentalists and returned to its proper place in society. True Muslim values, tolerance, charity, forgiveness, hard work, knowledge, peace and love began to replace the false values pushed by the hardliners.

Islam was ?liberated’ from the fundamentalists. Only the state would oversee religious affairs. This came as a huge relief to minority communities such as Jews and Christians who, after enjoying Islam’s traditional tolerance for other faiths for centuries, had begun to fear for their futures during the height of the fundamentalist terror.

He also attacked the fundamentalist base directly by defining terrorist acts as: ?any offence relating to an individual or collective enterprise whose aim is to harm persons or property by intimidation or terror. Acts of incitement to racial or religious hatred or fanaticism are treated in the same way, whatever the means used?. This broadened the concept of terrorism and took away one of the fundamentalist’s main weapon — generating hatred against other faiths. The courts could now act to nip in the bud any attempt to target vulnerable groups.

Attacking causes of extremism

But Ben Ali stressed, as soon as he came into office, that the battle against terrorism would not be won simply by arresting and trying terrorists. It would only be won when conditions conducive to the growth of fundamentalism no longer existed. Everywhere in the world, there is a direct link between extremist ideas and appalling social conditions. The roots of extremism grow where you find poverty and despondency. People become easy prey for the unscrupulous political entities who try to channel this frustration into religious fanaticism or political fascism.

Ben Ali spelt out the equation. Unless the breeding grounds of extremism were dealt with terrorism could never be wiped away. To defeat terrorism, the whole social, political and economic structures would have to be changed. The war on terrorism would also be a war on poverty and need, a war on ignorance, a war on despondency and marginalisation, a war on disease, a war on inequality and a war on oppression.

It is interesting that some 13 years later, Britain’s Prime Minister, Tony Blair, while making an impassioned speech in the aftermath of the US terror attacks, used the same language to map out a strategy for combating terror. ?We must reorder the world? he said. It was obscene that a billion people in the world lived on less than $1 a day and that injustice and inequality were rampant.

Double edged strategy

Ben Ali’s strategy against terrorism was thus double edged: one was to stop the terrorists in their tracks and the other, and by far the more difficult one, was to eradicate the causes of extremism.

One of Ben Ali’s first acts was to bring about a process of national reconciliation. All segments of Tunisian society, all classes, all interests, all ideologies, all political parties were invited to discuss the future shape and form of the country. This led to the National Pact, signed in 1988 and it showed that the driving interests of all Tunisians were the same: people wanted better standards of living, education for their children, opportunities for themselves, peace and security and the right to worship in their own way without fear or intimidation.

This the President promised to fulfil. He asked for support from all sectors, including big business and religious leaders. He got the support and in the short space of a little more than a decade, has transformed Tunisia into one of the most progressive countries in the developing world (see box). Anyone who believes that the condition of women in places like Afghanistan is Islamic should visit Tunisia. Women here are better educated, have more professional qualifications, hold higher positions in government and commerce, are better protected in law and earn higher incomes than women in any other developing country. The women in Tunisia are treated as Muslim women should be treated; the women in the Taliban’s Afghanistan are treated contrary to every Islamic code.

Over the past 13 years, Tunisia has slashed the rate of poverty to a negligible 4%; 75% of the population own their own homes; infant mortality has halved, life expectancy has increased, virtually all children receive education; young people get free vocational training or very soft loans to start their own businesses and Tunisia has become the second most computerised country in Africa after South Africa.

Is it any wonder then that you will find it a very hard task to discover a fundamentalist in Tunisia today? The swamps of misery in which extremist ideologies thrive have been cleared away. People still flock to the mosques to say their prayers, they fast during the holy month of Ramadhan, they read and recite the Quran, they pay their religious dues and they live their lives according to best traditions of Islam, in peace and harmony. They have retaken their beloved religion from the fanatics. This is the real victory over terrorism.

West had ignored warning from Tunisia

As early as 1994, President Ben Ali had warned Western countries of the serious dangers of allowing fundamentalist terrorists to exploit the right of political asylum.

In an interview with the French national daily, Le Figaro, Ben Ali said that Tunisia’s twin strategy against terrorism — a strict application of the law and social justice — had virtually wiped out the fundamentalist base.

?Confronted by those who use religion to seize power by force,? he told the newspaper, ?and use violence to reach their ends, we have had recourse to a multi-dimensional policy: starting at the level of schools and going on to a wider policy which combines economic and social action at the level of the country’s development.?

He stressed that the goals of the fundamentalists were political and had nothing to do with religion — least of all Islam which is a religion of peace and tolerance and expressly forbids the taking of innocent lives for any reason. ?The fact that the fundamentalists use violence and murder shows that their motivation is not religious but exclusively political,? he said.

But he warned that fundamentalism had become a problem for the West whose countries ?serve as rear bases for fundamentalist terrorists?. Known terrorists, claiming human rights abuses and exploiting the political asylum system in the West, were setting up multi-national networks in order to destabilise legitimate governments in the Muslim world.

He gave a clear and, as events turned out, prophetic warning: ?Now fundamentalism is your problem,? he said. ?I mean that of Paris, London and Washington. France, Great Britain and the United States are being used as a safe haven by fundamentalist terrorists; in the name of freedom and democracy, asylum is granted to the enemies of that very freedom and democracy.?

President Ben Ali demanded an international code of conduct that would oblige signatories to refuse asylum to anybody engaged in acts of terror. Speaking at the 12th ordinary annual session of the Council of Arab Ministers of the Interior in 1995, he said: ?The clauses of such a convention should focus on making such acts (terrorist) criminal in national law, a commitment to carry out international mandates, firmness in extraditing the authors of such acts and a refusal to grant asylum to this type of criminal, shelter them in any way whatsoever or give them any kind of protection.?

In 1998, addressing a similar gathering, President Ben Ali again spelt out his concern that terrorists were given far too much freedom of action in foreign countries. He said: ?Continuing to take no account of the movements of bands of extremists and terrorists, of their places of residence and their movements through states, amounts to encouraging those bands to plan and commit the most odious crimes, as long as they do not feel hunted wherever they are and exposed to punishment with all the necessary speed and vigour.?

Needless to say, the West paid little attention to these warnings until it was too late. As we were going to press, the British Home Secretary, David Blunkett, announced that amendments to the Asylum and Immigration laws would forbid known terrorists from entering the United Kingdom.

Development defeats fundamentalism

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