Tunisia’s Inner Workings Emerge Online

[pampango]

Source: New York Times


Officers on Tunis’s central artery, Avenue Bourguiba. In a remarkable shift,
the police organized a protest of their own on Saturday in solidarity with the revolution.

Tunisia’s interim government was holding its first meeting since the ouster of former dictator Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali. Moufida Tlatli, an internationally known Tunisian filmmaker, took her seat as culture minister. Two opposition leaders stepped aside to confer privately. The prime minister confided that he was still in touch with his old boss, Mr. Ben Ali, who had in fact left hoping to return again after a brief hiatus.

And then came the first policy dispute with the holdover members of the old ruling party, known as the R.C.D.: they objected that the new minister of youth and sports, the dissident blogger Slim Amamou, was not wearing a tie. In the week since Mr. Ben Ali’s flight, Mr. Amamou has become a kind of embodiment inside the cabinet of the revolution’s roots in the online world of Twitter and Facebook. Before the advent of such networks, local outbursts of unrest here were quickly crushed. This time, the revolt flashed across the country as protesters shared video of their own demonstrations. Grainy cellphone images of a clash with the police in one town egged on the next.

In a remarkable shift, the police, previously the enforcers of Mr. Ben Ali’s rule, organized a protest of their own on the city’s central artery, Bourguiba Boulevard. They wore red armbands in solidarity with the revolution, complained that Mr. Ben Ali and his family had put cronies in charge of the security forces and demanded a trade union that could negotiate for higher wages. Tunisians were stunned to see police officers, once silent and terrifying, complaining about their working conditions in interviews with Al Jazeera.

Outside of Tunisia, a Saudi Arabian and two Moroccans have joined the more than a dozen attempted self-immolations to take place in the region in imitation of the suicide that kicked off the Tunisian uprising. There were reports of protests citing the Tunisian example in Yemen. And The Associated Press said the police killed more than a dozen protesters in Algeria, where the opposition party draped a Tunisian flag over its balcony.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/23/world/africa/23tunis.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

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"Mr. Ben Ali, who had in fact left hoping to return again after a brief hiatus." Don't think it's going to happen. Hope Mr. Ali enjoys life in Saudi Arabia.

[Hardrada]

1. This sort of solidarity brought down the tsar.

If the police and the troops refuse to fire on protestors, down goes the government We could use this sort of thing here though the militarization of our police is a problem.

[Ghost Dog]

2. It really is as simple as that,

isn't it.

[Hardrada]

3. General Strikes help too.

[bemildred]

4. Yep, you cannot shoot everybody to warn the rest. nt

[Hardrada]

5. That would be like what Brecht said about dissolving the people

to get a better populace!

[Ghost Dog]

6. Strikes, but also occupations and workers' take-overs -

- where vital production and distribution channels remain open under organised 'revolutionary' control.