In the USA from 1775 to 1783, in Geneva in 1782, in the United-Provinces from 1783 to 1787, in the Austrian Netherlands in 1789, the revolutions of the 18th century were always independence wars against the empires and the colonial powers. Even during the French Revolution from 1789 to 1799, the attacks against the monarchy were a rejection of foreigners, embodied by Marie-Antoinette and the attempted escape of the King in June 1791, which was considered as a betrayal. Is today’s Tunisian revolution, called the ‘Jasmine Revolution’, an heir to those revolutions? Is it the start of a series of revolutions in North African? These are not easy questions. After all, the context is a bit different…
Tunisians, after all, are not oppressed by any foreign power, but by their own government. Ben Ali is a kind of dictator. Anyone who disapproves of the regime is imprisoned or even killed. Ben Ali is extremely rich because he owns most of the big industries in the country.
Tunisia was under a French protectorate from 1881 to 1956. The only two presidents of Tunisia have been Bourguiba and Ben Ali. During their “reigns”, they instituted State terror in order to undermine French influence. It was a kind of forced decolonization. That’s why there are a lot of similarities between the Jasmine Revolution and the French revolution of the 18th century.
We are in the 21st century, and plenty of new parameters have appeared. The most important is the media. In Tunisia, everything is under Government control, even Internet. The media have been used for propaganda to make people proud of their country, and to hide the real intentions of the Government… And I think that’s the biggest difference between the Revolution in Tunisia and the revolutions of the 18th century; without this media control, a revolution would have taken place twenty years ago or it would never even have taken place.
But if the context is globally different, the facts can be compared to the old revolutions. Therefore, we can say that the Jasmine Revolution is indeed like the revolutions of the Enlightenment. And, if the revolution which is taking place right now in Egypt, the 21st century is going to become a century of political dislocation in North Africa.
Article by Thibault Prat
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