“… instead of responding to the demands of the Tunisians ‘who have sacrificed their lives for freedom, the Constituent Assembly is discussing non-existent problems like identity or the niqab’.” But harping on Islamic morality is an easy way for a government to look piously busy while avoiding more meaningful issues. “Tunisia: revolution betrayed, return of […]
Tunisia: Muslims besiege university, take hostages to demand face veils, end of mixed classes
The Sharia Spring marches on. Have we mentioned that we tried to tell you? Well, we tried to tell you. “Salafists besiege Tunisian university: Dean, professors taken hostage,” from Middle East Online, November 29 (thanks to Twostellas): TUNIS – A group of Salafists disrupted classes on Monday at a university west of the capital Tunis, […]
Tunisia: Islamic party figure who announced aspirations to caliphate selected as prime minister
“Last Sunday, [Hamadi] Jebali, the party’s number two official, alarmed some by bringing up ‘the caliphate’.” The Ennahda party did not sweep him under the rug in embarrassment for reportedly going on about his personal aspirations to be a modern-day successor to the first few rulers of the entire Islamic world after Muhammad’s death, the […]
Tunisia: Pro-Sharia party’s claims to be moderate ringing hollow
Shocker: Tunisia’s Islamic supremacists, after being dubbed “moderate Islamists” in the mainstream media, are showing themselves to be anything but “moderate.” And so here we go yet again: I tried to tell you. When I started warning last winter that Islamic supremacists were in the best position to take advantage of the uprisings in Tunisia […]
New Tunisian PM: “The liberation of Jerusalem starts here. I will be the sixth righteous caliph.”
The English in this report is marginal, but the import is clear. The Righteous or Rightly Guided Caliphs were, according to Islamic tradition, the first four successors of Muhammad: Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman, and Ali Ibn Abi Talib. Then some add Hasan, Ali’s son, or Umar II, who came slightly later. And Hamadi Jebali is […]
Tunisia’s mosques face “gradual conquest by the most hardline Islamists”
The Tiny Minority of Extremists again turns out to be less tiny than advertised. A few months ago, the stock answer to concerns along these lines would likely have been that Tunisia is a modern, moderate Muslim country, and even if there a few whackos, this sort of thing can’t happen. The foreign policy of […]
Tunisian women demonstrate to protect rights after Islamic party dominates election
So, are they racists or Islamophobes? They are neither, of course: they know how high the stakes are. “Tunisian women demonstrate to protect their rights,” by Bouazza ben Bouazza for the Associated Press, November 3: TUNIS, Tunisia (AP) “” Some 200 Tunisian women demonstrated Wednesday in downtown Tunis in defense of their rights, following the […]
Media whitewashes Tunisian leader Ghannouchi’s Islamic supremacist, pro-jihad, pro-Sharia views
Shock horror! Imagine: the mainstream media whitewashing the jihadist views of an Islamic supremacist leader! It’s unprecedented! Shocking beyond measure! “Media Whitewash Ghannouchi’s Radical Islamist Views,” from IPT News, October 31: A recurring media theme in recent days is that Rachid al-Ghannouchi and his Ennahda Party, which won last week’s Tunisian elections, are “moderate” Islamists […]
Tunisia’s Jews ‘discouraged’ after Islamic party win
Why? Do they possibly know something about Islam and the Islamic party that the learned analysts of the West don’t know? Naaah. Couldn’t be. They must just be “Islamophobes.” “Tunisia’s Jews ‘discouraged’ after Islamic party win,” by Mariette le Roux for AFP, October 31: LA GOULETTE, Tunisia “” Gilles Jacob Lellouche, a member of Tunisia’s […]
Tunisian Elections and the Road to the Caliphate
Tunisia, where the 2011 Arab uprisings began, remains an ominous model for where these uprisings will end. The nation’s first round of elections are in, and, as expected, the Islamist party, al-Nahda, won by a landslide, gaining over 40% of the seats in the national constituent assembly. As usual, the mainstream media, interpreting events exclusively […]