Comments on: An update from Tunisia and its ongoing revolution https://blog.p2pfoundation.net/an-update-from-tunisia-and-its-ongoing-revolution/ Researching, documenting and promoting peer to peer practices Thu, 28 Apr 2011 15:42:46 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=5.5.17 By: Ed M https://blog.p2pfoundation.net/an-update-from-tunisia-and-its-ongoing-revolution/comment-page-1/#comment-484184 Thu, 28 Apr 2011 15:42:46 +0000 http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/?p=15352#comment-484184 You seem to think that Nahda are a progressive organisation. In fact, if you’d listened to the comrades of the LGO on the issue of the Islamists in Tunisia, you’d know that the US and the dictatorship are not the only people who regard Islamism as a threat – trade unionists and feminists in Tunisia widely see Nahda as a mortal threat. Nahda activists recently attacked the synagogue in central Tunis and went on the rampage in a red-light district. Why should you be uncritical of the Nahda leadership’s claim to be legalistic and moderate?

The policy of socialists and leftwing dissidents under the old regime was to protest against the curtailment of the Islamists’ political rights, torture of the Islamists, etc – but never to make an alliance with them. The only people who are soft on the Islamists in the workers’ movement now are the Stalinists in the PCOT. Tunisia is a secular country, the secular, egalitarian instincts of all social classes are very strong, and visible on the streets. Leftists abroad absolutely must not start soft-headedly regarding Nahda as some kind of authentic expression of popular will, just because Tunisia in in the ‘arab world’.

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