Informed Comment Homepage

Thoughts on the Middle East, History and Religion

Header Right

  • Featured
  • US politics
  • Middle East
  • Environment
  • US Foreign Policy
  • Energy
  • Economy
  • Politics
  • About
  • Archives
  • Submissions

© 2025 Informed Comment

  • Skip to content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
Featured

Tunisian Nobel Recognizes role of Labor Unions, the Left in Democratic Transition

Juan Cole 10/11/2015

Tweet
Share
Reddit
Email

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – –

How many American news reports about the Nobel Peace Prize given to the Tunisian Quartet that pushed the country toward democracy and compromise will mention that two of the four organizations so honored are national labor unions of workers? A third was an attorneys’ guild.

The four groups, who came together in summer, 2013, are The Tunisian General Labour Union (UGTT), The Tunisian Confederation of Industry, Trade and Handicrafts (UTICA), The Tunisian Human Rights League (LTDH), and the Tunisian Order of Lawyers.

When Western reporters writing for corporate newspapers ponder why a transition to democracy has been difficult for some countries (and not just in the Arab world), they almost never suggest that it is because workers are not unionized enough or that unions are not sufficiently engaged in civic life. The sleight-of-hand of the editors for the rich is to focus on difficulties presented by “tribe” or sectarianism. But what institutions in the Middle East actively overcome these primordial identities? Labor unions and peace and human rights groups.

With rates of unionization in single digits in the United States and would-be presidential candidates such as Scott Walker running on union-bashing (he had to withdraw from the race), it is hard for Americans with their plutocracy to imagine a place where unions remain active, networked and able to push society in progressive directions. But few social scientists think Germany, e.g. would be nearly as successful as a society without its labor unions. The dominance of oligarchs and lack of workers’ rights in some parts of the former East bloc probably played a role in their political failures and violent struggles.

I tell the story of Tunisia’s remarkable seven-league-boots’ steps toward democracy in my recent book, just out in paperback:
The New Arabs: How the Millennial Generation is Changing the Middle East

Suffice it to say that two political assassinations roiled Tunisia in spring and summer of 2013. Muslim extremists targeted politicians of the far left National Front. Many Tunisians began losing faith in the ability of the center-right, Muslim-tinged government of the Renaissance Party (al-Nahda) to govern the country and finish drafting the new constitution.

In summer and fall of 2013, the two labor unions above joined with youth demonstrators, human rights workers, and activist attorneys to pressure the Renaissance Party to finish up the constitution and to resign in favor of a technocratic government that could oversee new elections for a regular parliament in an unbiased fashion. Renaissance dominated the first freely elected constituent assembly of October 2011 after the people threw out Zein El Abidine Ben Ali and his dictatorship. That assembly was supposed to craft a new constitution in 2 years and act as a parliament until a regular legislature could be elected.

But the Renaissance Party dragged on in power into fall of 2013. There were not only controversies about its tolerance of secular freedom of speech and potential coddling of Muslim hard liners, but also about whether it would put Islamic canon law (sharia) in the constitution or whether it would strengthen or weaken women’s rights.

Because of the masses of students in the streets (and the student unions could have been mentioned by the Nobel Committee), and because of their alliance with the labor unions and other forces, the Renaissance Party quickly finished a secular constitution and passed it through parliament in January, 2014 and then resigned in favor of technocrats. The new government oversaw elections in fall of 2014, which were won by secularists.

The Renaissance Party deserves enormous credit for its commitment to dialogue, and for compromising with its critics. But it has to be admitted that the party was pushed in this direction by the labor unions, youth and other activists, women who demonstrated in the streets, and human rights organizations. The 2013 Egyptian military coup against the Muslim Brotherhood government in that country may also have put al-Nahda into a mood to compromise.

In my book, I recount the role of the labor unions and of youth and student activists in this so far promising transition.

We should conclude that for national advancement, democratization and social development, states such as Wisconsin and Michigan need more, not fewer activist unions. The Tunisians are getting it right, even as America’s plutocrats try to shut down or marginalize America’s own unions.

Filed Under: Featured, Peace, Tunisia, workers

About the Author

Juan Cole is the founder and chief editor of Informed Comment. He is Richard P. Mitchell Professor of History at the University of Michigan He is author of, among many other books, Muhammad: Prophet of Peace amid the Clash of Empires and The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. Follow him on Twitter at @jricole or the Informed Comment Facebook Page

Primary Sidebar

Support Independent Journalism

Click here to donate via PayPal.

Personal checks should be made out to Juan Cole and sent to me at:

Juan Cole
P. O. Box 4218,
Ann Arbor, MI 48104-2548
USA
(Remember, make the checks out to “Juan Cole” or they can’t be cashed)

STAY INFORMED

Join our newsletter to have sharp analysis delivered to your inbox every day.
Warning! Social media will not reliably deliver Informed Comment to you. They are shadowbanning news sites, especially if "controversial."
To see new IC posts, please sign up for our email Newsletter.

Social Media

Bluesky | Instagram

Popular

  • Are Cyberattacks and Iran's Port Explosion the First Salvo in Disrupting U.S.-Iran Nuclear Talks?
  • Trump, the Suez Canal, and the end of Eisenhower's World Order
  • My Palestine: An Impossible Exile
  • Rümeysa Öztürk freed, as Judge Warns of Grave Threat to Free Speech
  • Even as it Strikes Deals with Trump, the Gulf Embraces Chinese Tech Giants

Gaza Yet Stands


Juan Cole's New Ebook at Amazon. Click Here to Buy
__________________________

Muhammad: Prophet of Peace amid the Clash of Empires



Click here to Buy Muhammad: Prophet of Peace amid the Clash of Empires.

The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam


Click here to Buy The Rubaiyat.
Sign up for our newsletter

Informed Comment © 2025 All Rights Reserved