Despite Sousse, Tunisia is getting many things right

Tunisian resilience is real – and the international community should help it maintain a course of steady reform, writes HA Hellyer

A woman looks at flowers laid on Marhaba beach in Sousse, where 38 people were killed in last Fridays terror attack in Sousse. Jeff J Mitchell / Getty Images

Last week, a young man by the name of Seifeddine Rezgui strolled onto a Tunisian beach and opened fire on dozens of defenceless tourists. It later transpired he saw himself as a member of ISIL and the group claimed responsibility for the attack. As a result, Tunisia’s fragile democratic process stands in the dock. When horrors like this happen what gains can really be claimed to exist as a result of 2011’s uprising?

There will be some who will want to say none. There will be those who will look at the killing of the Egyptian public prosecutor in Cairo this week or the killing of dozens of Egyptian soldiers and civilians in Sinai on Wednesday, and conclude that a response that values security above all else is required. Indeed, one only has to look at the region more widely, and it is possible to conclude almost anything you want.

But that isn’t actually the lesson to be drawn from this. It might seem counterintuitive to make this argument, but the Sousse catastrophe can be taken as evidence of how Tunis is getting things right.

We ought to consider there are large numbers of Tunisians who have left the country and joined ISIL abroad. There are two questions to ask and the answers are important in understanding where Tunis ought to be heading. The first is why did Tunisians become “recruitable” for ISIL activities in Syria, Iraq and Libya? And secondly, why did they leave Tunisia, as opposed to engaging in radical activities domestically?

There are two items to note here. Firstly, there will be a range of reasons why any individual becomes susceptible to radical recruitment. Despite the fact that many politicians insist the only real factor is radical ideology itself, that claim rarely holds up. There is no single radicalisation process. There will be many factors and while ideology is certainly one of them, it’s seldom the only one. Likewise, the attempt by some to negate the role of ideology in radicalisation is regrettable – ideas do indeed matter, and sometimes, they matter more than anything else.

As the Tunisian government moves forward, it is important they avoid the policy implications of both of these extremes. Ideology matters and it must be tackled.

In that regard, it is prudent for the government in Tunis to be clear about its intolerance of any kind of incitement to violence that may come from any quarter.

While some may chafe at the notion of working against incitement, wanting to protect such speech under the rubric of protecting freedom of speech, that should not stop the Tunisian government from moving forward – not all speech is (or should be) protected, particularly when it leads to harm. The concerns of some in this regard are well-noted, but there is an easy way to ameliorate those concerns, and that is via a consensus-based process.

If the main forces of Tunisian society agree – and thus far it seems there is a consensus that something must be done – Tunisia will be more likely to avoid any reactionary and counterproductive decisions.

Just as important is addressing the other factors that allow young Tunisians to become vulnerable to radical recruitment.

But, and here is the critical thing to note, those who have been recruited have generally avoided carrying out radical acts at home, as compared to the numbers of Tunisians who have engaged in such acts outside the country.

This is in stark contrast to what has happened in other Arab countries that went through the 2011 uprisings. And that is crucial. Tunisians must be very aware that their democratic experiment has probably averted many tragedies thus far. It is easy for them to focus on the disaster of Sousse, but they must also consider that the threat of ISIL domestically has largely been contained. That is testament to the resilience of the democratic experiment in Tunisia.

There are great temptations and pressures placed on that experiment, not simply emanating from inside the country itself, but also in the international community.

Tunisians ought not to think that they should be listening more attentively to more strident voices. On the contrary, regional players ought to be taking more pages out of the Tunisian book.

Tunisian resilience is real – and the international community should help it maintain a course of steady reform, supporting it in securing its territory from all threats, without sacrificing respect for fundamental rights. Other countries have taken that route – and it hasn’t worked well for them. Tunisians needn’t make the same mistake.

Dr HA Hellyer is an associate fellow in international security studies at the Royal United Services Institute in London, and the Centre for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution in Washington, DC

On Twitter: @hahellyer