At the end of February, the president of Tunisia, Kais Saied, opened Pandora’s box and directed his demons towards the weakest. The Tunisian leader denounced the “violence, crime and unacceptable practices” caused by the “hordes of illegal immigrants” and accused them of being part of a “criminal plan designed since the beginning of the century to alter the demographic composition of Tunisia and turn it into a country African without ties to the Arab and Islamic worldâ€.
His words, which echoed the theories of the world extreme right about a supposed “Great replacement”, sparked a witch hunt among the 21,000 sub-Saharan Africans who live in the smallest country in the Maghreb. Hundreds of black people were attacked or detained and several embassies repatriated several of their citizens. Although weeks later Saied himself denied that his words were racist, called sub-Saharan Africans “African brothers” and announced measures to alleviate the damage, according to analysts, the persecution of the weak migratory link is not accidental and illustrates the anti-democratic decline from Tunisia.
For Ines El Jaibi, a Tunisian lawyer and activist, the situation is worrying. “We are at the most critical moment for Tunisian democracy in recent years – she explains to this newspaper -; Tunisia’s democracy has experienced a high risk, but now we are facing a moment of critical deterioration, in imminent riskâ€. For the researcher, the setback is evident. “Right now we cannot call Tunisia a democratic country. We have not had a military coup, but today there is only one power in the hands of the president, which he commands unilaterally. If nothing changes, Tunisian democracy may be demolished. There are politicians persecuted by the courts, attacks on freedom of expression, a government incapable of resolving the deterioration of the economic situation…”.
For El Jaibi, the beginning of the landslide occurred two years ago. After being elected in 2019, President Saied carried out a self-coup in 2021 by taking advantage of the covid pandemic to dismantle democratic guarantees and gather almost total power in his hands. Since then, Saied has gone on the attack with verbal violence reminiscent of that used now against migrants. In addition to describing opponents, activists or trade unionists as “enemies”, “criminals”, “terrorists” or “traitors”, he has multiplied the arrests of critics.
Analyst Monica Marks issued an icy warning a few days ago in The Continent. “The witch hunt against politicians or against migrants are two sides of the same coin: a new, dangerous and highly destabilizing dictatorship is consolidating in Tunisia.”
Heba Morayef, North Africa Director of Amnesty International, was also blunt. “The president needs to stop looking for scapegoats for his economic and political problems.”
The fact of the matter is in the empty pockets. Since the Arab spring that overthrew the authoritarian president Zine el Abedine Ben Ali in 2011, the country has entered a spiral of instability that has hit the state coffers, highly dependent on tourism, which were further frozen due to several attacks terrorists. The impact on the economy of the pandemic, which has again emptied hotels, and the war in Ukraine, which has sent food and fuel prices soaring, has left many Tunisians in dire straits.
The recent cruelty against the immigrants drinks in addition to a historical resentment, varnished with racism, between the Tunisians and the sub-Saharan foreigners, which seeks political gain. In an analysis for Al Jazeera, Tunisian academic Haythem Guesmi poked at bone. “(Saied) knew that his attacks on black migrants would be echoed by the authoritarian, fascist and racist tendencies of his followers. He has realized that immorally targeting a vulnerable minority would intimidate his opponents and give his regime more room to wield his power and demonstrate its authority.”
