Ebook: Understanding Revolutions: Opening Acts in Tunisia

On 17 December, 2010, in the sleepy, provincial town of Sidi Bouzid, a Tunisian street vendor, Mohamed Bouazizi, set himself on fire to protest the relentless harassment he faced at the hands of state officials. This politically driven suicide sparked protests that would engulf the Tunisian state, and spread throughout the region.
The Tunisian Revolution is the only revolt of the Arab Spring that is widely considered to have ‘succeeded’. In this book, Azmi Bishara's grapples with the specific political make-up of Tunisia, and how it determined the development and survival of the revolution. He begins by analysing the context of the revolt (including lagging economic development, high unemployment, authoritarian rule etc.) and compares this to the revolutionary setting within other Arab states. Bishara then carefully sets out the political contours specific to Tunisia and the formation of political parties within the country on the eve of the revolution. He unravels the gradual, daily dynamism of the events which left former President Zin El Abidine Ben Ali with no alternative but to flee the country. Bishara lucidly explains a dizzying series of developments, describing the path of the Tunisian revolution.
This book critically explores the issue of gradual democratic reform and the peaceful transfer of power within the Tunisian context, with implications for the wider region. Two important questions are raised: how must social movements deal with states which refuse to participate in the dialectic process of reform, and what happens when a regime leverages fissures in collective identity to threaten the breakup of not just the state, but the entire social fabric of a country? Bishara concludes that Arab democratic reformers must focus on these questions, pointing out the importance of a unified nation and the establishment of democracy based on equal citizenship for all.