I spent the last 4 years working across the Arab world in an international development organization to implement design and leverage projects aiming to support the civil society efforts to inject a new dynamics in its relationship with the state through always a special focus on Youth as the main actor for change. That’s how I started getting closer to the cleavage of Youth realities of in the Middle East generally and in Tunisia in particular
I’m celebrating my third month in Berlin and I still remember that I made a promise to myself about starting to relate some of my observations and field insights on different societal economic and political matters in the Arab world and in particular Tunisia, thus to give another perspective of the Arab world beyond the traditional academic papers and the international journalistic coverage, especially that today we live in a globalized world where terrorism became a trans-border issue. The sharing of comparative experiences is crucial to understand the impact of policies that can counter this chimera.
All along the last Month, Tunisia was on the headlines in Germany as the country of origins of the terrorist behind the Berlin Christmas market attack . Noticing that some European and international press early coverage emphasized on Tunisia as the pool of international terrorism, I felt a need to react not only because I’m a Tunisian but as well because I was witnessing a public debate on matters that might exacerbate the situation on the long term.
As a Tunisian leaving in Berlin, I wish I could have the right words for all the grieving families but no words can console those who lost their beloved ones on such initially joyful times. What I know is that I do care about what happen not only because I’m a Tunisian but also because I know how does it feel to wake up as a nation on such news during holiday’s time, the feeling of fear mixed with a sentiment of revenge and hate toward those who can end the life of innocent people whose only fault is their willingness to enjoy life and celebrate Christmas.
Now that sometimes has passed and ISIS terrorism has affected Germany directly, this is seen by some analysts as a repercussion of Germany joining the fight against ISIS coalition in December 2015. Even though Germany didn’t join the airstrike mission, the german parliament approved a mission that included sending six Tornado reconnaissance jets, a frigate to help protect the French aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle, refueling aircraft and up to 1,200 military personnel. Revenge was not the only reason…
In the aftermath of the attack, far rights parties across Europe started pointing immigration and not later than few days ago, the use of the term “NAFRI” by the Cologne Police was heavily condemned by the major political parties as an example of racial profiling, in the general public sphere the reactions were different as it was about the fact that the police are just doing their job to protect ladies from another mass harassment incident. It is a legitimate point of view but let’s acknowledge the fact that first there is no Nafri, there is Moroccan, Algerian, Tunisian, Libyan and Egyptian. Second, arresting people on the base of their skin color is not an efficient way of protecting the crowd, many people from those “suspect” countries are white and a lot of them can be mistaken for not being Arabs, the second point might be sarcastic but it is true.
To cut short the debate on this, my point on the “NAFRI” word is the following: unless there is a technology of identifying suspect like the one in the science fiction movie, “Minority reports”. Such approach is inefficient and can simply deepen the feeling of exclusion of this community and create the ideal recruitment pool for terrorist groups like ISIS. This is exactly the ultimate motive of ISIS: create societal distortion on the question of immigrants in order to use it as an argument for attracting young people.
While we are looking at two different incidents(Berlin Attack, Cologne incident), with completely different motives, Some might say the common factor remain Tunisians, that’s how I have been asked questions like how come such a country can exports citizens capable of committing such atrocity and at the same time citizens that can build a democracy.
A closer look at Tunisia will show us that between 2011 and 2016, terrorism has made more than 200 victims between civilian and security agents in addition to several hundreds of injured and traumatized people all over Tunisia. This country is struggling to build a new societal model and the last 6 years had a tremendous effect on the social psychology of all the citizens, if we add to that the dismantlement of the security machine after the fall of the dictatorship, we can understand a little bit better why those reasons among others helped a large number of young Tunisian to join ISIS cause and be some of the most brutal and feared fighters in Iraq and Syria.
The echoes of the Berlin attack had a shock effect on the Tunisian society as Germany is considered as the most genuine ally and supporter of the young democracy. I remember the sentiment of despair and impotence among the general public every time a Tunisian is committing atrocities around the world. Despite the fact that all of them have burnt their Tunisian passport and pledged allegiance to the Islamic State, they are still called Tunisians and they were born and raised in same country as us, feeling responsible for their act is unfair, holding ISIS only responsible means recognizing to some extent ISIS as an actual state which is not the case. This is the dilemma…
Solution wise, the security tide collaboration is of high priorities in this situation but it is not the only one needed. As I said before, the ultimate goal of ISIS is to create instability climate that can help to create cracks within the societal structure, those cracks will automatically lead to the exclusion of a social groups which is the favorite recruitment pool, and we have seen that in Tunisia.
In order to avoid this scenario, there is an important role the media can play to restrict the space for discriminatory narratives and the attribution of the responsibility to a specific group or minority.
Beyond the apparent reasons of such attack as the classic discourse of fighting the infidels, we need to acknowledge that for such terrorist groups the success of the Berlin attack can be reached if they create an environment where the fear of the other is dividing the society and causing the alienation of the excluded minorities. Those minorities will go through an identity crisis as they are neither part of the German societies nor their native societies. This will be the ideal scenario for the attraction of young people and a long term approach to sustain the recruitment processes. The strategy adopted by ISIS to respond to the international efforts is to bring the field of battles in the home countries of those who are part of the international coalition. Creating a suitable environment will be needed through such attacks.
People are wondering why Tunisia, such a small country is one of the most important exporter of foreign fighters, beyond the economic and political fragile situation of the country. A deep identity crisis within Youth helped the propagation and adoption of the extremist discourse. We notice this same reason within the second most important contributor in fighters to Deach which is the European Union.
Beyond the security response to this attack, an important awareness and solidarity building efforts must be undertaken to avoid creating a schism within a tolerant society. The role civil society can play is crucial in this kind of situation and the more examples promoted of successful and community engaged young people from Tunisia and elsewhere the more impact this will have on the society, German civil society partnerships with the its Tunisian pair are growing in number and in quality, this can leverage more initiative in Germany and not only in Tunisia to showcase and engage with the Tunisian Diaspora communities.
Because the political parties embarked in the 2017 electoral race. We need to expect that this might dictate other approaches to this question and that’s why the media and the civil society are now more than ever needed to be the spear head of this new challenge. Germany has attracted more than a million immigrants and this will have a positive impact on the labor market in the next couple of decades because it will diminish the effect of the aging society. In order to benefit from the economical dividend, an intense societal integration programs are implemented but alone they can’t’ be efficient if there is no participation of the wider public which is a process that can last for decades but need to start as soon as possible.
Germany is now at a crucial moment in its history; prove to the world that it’s still a country that dare to prevail values that can build a strong and unified societies and generations or take a step backwards to adopt the approach of its neighbors which gives more opportunities and space for the rise of the far rights movements and the Islamist extremism groups movement, France had chosen the second to some extent which caused not only a lot of causalities but a crack within its society and the strengthening of Marine le Pen for the next presidential election.
Opinions and ideas by Sadem Jebali 