PARIS - Tunisia, is one of the 22 members of the Arab League in a serious and profound economic crisis, maybe with a low resolution. It is the smallest North African country covering 163,000 square kilometres - more or less twice the size of Belgium, Netherlands and Luxembourg and a population of 10.5 million.
It is also full of charm and moderation of its climate, history and culture. It was once the pillars of cultural dynamics and influence of the Roman Republic and Empire. The first mandate be Christianized, it was the land of Saint Augustine and the main source for Catholic evangelization in Africa. Originally mainly Berber Islamized it was conquered by the Arabs, and became a dependency of the Sublime Porte and therefore Turkish for centuries.
It became a French protectorate, not a colony - as in the case of the neighbouring Algeria - in the nineteenth century. This difference helps explain the relatively higher conservation of Tunisia's social structures and local traditions.
After achieving independence in 1956, Tunisia accepted a French style Republican Constitution, which established a presidential system of Government. The first President, Habib Bourguiba, was fierce emerged victorious as its counterpart in Algeria the leader of the liberation movement, which much faster – and much less. A highly westernized leader, Bourguiba maintained the lay character of the State, he took over from France, and many of its economic relations with the West (in particular France, of course), in a committed way than Algeria has much after independence.
Makes some rare attempts between Marxist groups failed to take. Unlike other African or Middle Eastern countries, Tunisia remained largely a country of free enterprise, allowing some industrial development. In recent years become Africa's leading exporter of industrial products exceeds even in South Africa and Egypt.
The aged Bourguiba was also weakened in 1987, still in Office. His Interior Minister, Zine el Abidine Ben Ali, after Prime Minister appointed was soon managed to certify Bourguiba as medically unfit and ousted him from the Presidency.
The new leader was already suppressed for the Islamic movement have found a policy he intensifies after he President. Non-Muslim and secular Tunisian citizens - and much of the world, particularly in France - were grateful. They made excuses for the brutality that was Ali's politics behind Ben, endorsed the results without observation and questioning the means that have been achieved.
But these funds ended leading the almost total suppression of freedom of expression in Tunisia: a censored press, the imprisonment of journalists, political processes and arbitrary arrests in all circles of society, not just those bindings to the Islamic movement. Aim was to suppress all forms of democratic opposition.
Ben Ali's regime was a pure dictatorship. He and his family, empires in the local economy, built in almost every industry curves and make a fortune for themselves.
But the industrialization policy was maintained. A true middle class comparable Egypt, but unlike any other Arab country, with the possible exception of Morocco created.
And then, like everywhere else occurred 2008 growth, social tensions of global economic crisis, which began fueling. Muzzle the press and Parliament have been established, was the only way to relieve this tension in the streets.
The police fired on the crowd on several occasions, but turned out to be too weak to intimidate the protesters. The decisive moment came when the army of former suppression of protests. Once refusal to support his regime was clear of the army, Ben Ali, Saudi Arabia fled to after France refused, to welcome him into exile.
For a moment there was hope for a national unity Government, in which Ben Ali's rump Cabinet, and the opposition would prepare a presidential election combine. But an angry audience would have none of it. Only left was a coalition comprised of the former divisions that make in the absence of a prestigious institutional framework, a return to stability slow, difficult and dangerous.
Tunisia is in danger. Islamism could emerge ultimately victorious. It is also possible that Tunisia is undergoing the Arab world's first "bourgeois" revolution. If so, Tunisia uprising could be a game-changing event for the entire region.
Michel Rocard is a former Prime Minister of France and a former leader of the Socialist Party Copyright: project syndicate, 2011.
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