Democracy is not confined to the electoral process
By: Saloua Charfi
International habits, customs, and law stipulate that governments ought to respect the existing commitments, treaties and agreements made by their predecessors. Governments may change, but the State as a moral entity symbolizing the people remains, and agreements are made on behalf of the people.
Therefore, in theory and according to customs and international law, a new democratic government in Tunisia ought to maintain the existing agreements on human and women’s rights.
It’s even unconstitutional to repeal the laws related to these agreements, as the Tunisian Constitution establishes the superiority of treaties over the law.
However, the legal logic is not necessarily the strongest when it comes to a drastic change. Also, it all depends on the nature of the regime to result from the elections, even if they meet the democratic standards.
First, let’s agree on the concept of democracy. Is it a philosophy that is basically founded on equality and respecting freedoms and human rights on the collective and individual levels? Or is it a simple process of elections and thereby of access to power?
For some people in Tunisia, democracy boils down to casting a vote in the ballot box, even if that doesn’t reflect the basic foundations of the democratic philosophy.
Seen from this angle, the nature of the governance of the future Tunisian regime will depend on its understanding of the concept of democracy.
A regime may represent an absolute majority then choose a non-egalitarian society project that will put an end to the rights acquired by women and men in general, in the name of the will of the majority who elected the regime based on such a project.
On the contrary, a regime resulting from a majority that adopts the democratic philosophy, and not only its formal election process, will defend the existing human rights and will even cancel the reservations of the former regime, especially concerning women’s rights.
Such a regime will ensure the freedom of belief, so that everyone can get dressed, get married and make their will as they wish and not following a law that restricts freedoms under some ideology.
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Your Comments
commentsAnonymous About about 1 year ago
Stop your devious propaganda for the old regime whose heads have fled with their tails between their legs. Today, Thursday 17 February 2011, Assabah newspaper published horror stories about the bloodshed that took place in Kasserine and Sidi Bouzid during the uprising. It also dared to speak for the first time about the mass rape of men and women by Ben Ali’s police. But none of that stops you from tackling the “rights acquired by women and men in general” under the old regime. Since when did men and women (except for those favorited by the regime) ever have any rights in Tunisia? Speaking of the existing treaties and agreements, you dare add that they “are made on behalf of the people”. Did Ben Ali and his henchmen ever consider the people or were they commissioned? The Prime Minister has recently stated on TV that all the elections held in Tunisia since the independence, i.e. for over 55 years, were rigged. So don’t shuffle the cards. You did that in your classes at the Institute of Press, that promotes false propaganda for the regime. A president appointed by electoral fraud cannot represent the people. After the departure of Ben Ali with his billions, thousands of political prisoners were freed. Others are still waiting. Thousands of Tunisians were exiled. Hundreds were massacred during the uprising. Thousands are fleeing right now to Italy to escape the misery left behind by Ben Ali. Yet, here you are expressing your concern that the situation may deteriorate when Tunisia gets a democratic government. Does democracy scare you?
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Anonymous About about 1 year ago
This Saloua Charfi, with her retarded and reactionary media speech, cannot provide a vision of tomorrow’s Tunisia, because she and other Ben Ali boot-lickers like her who are still flattering the illegitimate government of Ghannouchi, are part of the past.
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salouadh About about 1 year ago
Democracy is not confined to the elections; it’s a number of laws and citizen rights. It’s about rights and duties. I think that the achievements of the Tunisian people are no longer negotiable.
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Anonymous About about 1 year ago
We are better off without your secularism. We kindly invite you to keep it for yourselves, commit to it, and leave us alone. You should rather export technical development to other societies, and honestly collaborate with others, because your interests are not conflicting with collaboration; the latter actually guarantees honest and decent interests and peace… However, you’re monopolizing the sciences that you learned from the books of Arabs and Muslims, while their sources and authors are well-known to all. Needless to give you the example of the Book of Optics (Kitâb al-Manâzir), by the optical specialist Ibn al-Haytham, being translated in France, and then attributing the rules of optical engineering to Descartes instead of Ibn al-Haytham… Do opacity and falsification really help??? By Allah, they don’t. History cannot be distorted and falsified, and it does not forgive those who mess with it, as it will definitely put them in the trash bin that fits them…. Europe now despises its secularism, and knows Islam more than Muslims do, but it doesn’t want to embrace Islam out of arrogance and vanity. With its fake civilization, Europe is moving insanely fast towards a horrific end and blunt fall. I’d like to tell you that its fall won’t be with weapons and fire, but will rather be internal and automatic… I’m not saying that because I am Muslim, but rather based on an academic and scientific logic, historical information, civilization norms, and the laws of free sociology… The obvious truth is that Islam is the best for the entire humanity, as it has a number of positive, constructive and progressive aspects that do not contradict with logic, while it offers the heart and conscience a deep comfort that can only be felt by honest researchers who are seeking the truth, even if they are non-Muslims. On this front, the French philosopher Roger Garaudy agrees with me… As for this miserable bunch of ignorant people who didn’t even finish their education, such as Habib Bourguiba, Hamadi Redissi, Olfa Youssef, and Saloua Charfi… they are all sad jokes. They are rusty tools of the colonizers, who are behind the main idea of enslaving the entire world for the interest of an abnormal group known to all… I urge all people to learn before claiming knowledge, and to respect other people’s minds.
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