Tunisia is bogged down in a multifaceted crisis. Tunisian officials travel from one international forum to another to explore possibilities of aid and to prevent the economic and financial situation from becoming more complicated. The results of their action remain difficult to measure, even unknown, and the official press releases which abound on these visits give nothing concrete, on the way in which the country will compensate for its financial dearth and shorten this period of lean cows. Disarmed and powerless, the authorities are walled in silence and prefer not to communicate too much, apart from a presidential word that seeks to reassure…
The President of the Republic, Kaïs Saïed, received at the end of the week the Tunisian delegation led by the head of government, Najla Bouden, on his return from the Swiss city of Davos, where the prestigious forum of the same name was held, a place of convergence leading personalities from the world of politics, the international economic and financial sphere…
The meeting focused on “the results of Tunisian participation in the World Economic Forum, and the intensive meetings that took place between members of the Tunisian delegation and a significant number of foreign officials, having achieved many positive results, including clarification of the economic and financial situation in Tunisia”, (Dixit, press release from the presidency).
It is true that during the three days of their presence, at this meeting of international lobbying par excellence, the Tunisians chained meetings at the highest level and attended circles of debate, having analyzed the state of the world in the face of the immeasurable challenges today, including the Coronavirus pandemic and the Russian war in Ukraine, has only heightened the complexities. We do not know more about the content of these discussions, apart from the polished and appropriate language of the official communication.
Understand today’s world
This 21st century, which has entered its third decade, is an accelerator of change. Strangely and as a sign of the times, which have no similar in history, the different countries are confronted with the same difficulties; inflation, precariousness, unemployment, impoverishment, the crisis of confidence between peoples and their leaders, anguish in the face of an uncertain future, inconsolable popular anger…
The three major challenges by which Pandora’s box was opened, and the worst is succeeding evil are called: climate change, food crisis, and energy crisis. These three pitfalls are in the process of darkening the horizon of the planet, of worrying its leaders, just as much as the decision-making circles where they are, of drawing a new world order in total rupture with what we have already known, whose contours are not yet clear and precise.
A new deal that does not leave the choice to each other to change and adapt, under penalty of being crushed by its steamroller. Indeed, here and there, we are thinking about how to provide the right answers to these new and daunting problems.
International meetings are only an additional opportunity for consultation, reflection, and proposing possible solutions and scenarios for a new development model, the pillars of which are no longer a nourishing earth, a soil with resources inexhaustible, a healthy natural environment, etc. Far from it, the model in the making must, in fact, be designed to counter and minimize the consequences of a high-risk world, by which we mean extreme weather phenomena, fossil fuels that are running out, world agriculture that no longer manages to feed all mouths, pandemics which are rumbling… These are threats against human security in its broadest sense, even against life, which we are facing.
It is in this very particular and unprecedented context that relations between countries, in a bilateral or multilateral framework, between groups, with international organizations and donors, are placed, rethought, and refounded.
Nothing could be done without a deep and accurate understanding of reality, to be able to think about and design the relevant and pragmatic solutions to bring to it.
Count on yourself first!
The distress is general and the suffering is global. No country will deign to come to the aid of another, and even less an organization, if they do not perceive in the applicant for this assistance a real vision, a real ability to get out of the rut, first of all, to through a truthful and quantified diagnosis of the situation proceeding from a scientific approach, then timely, achievable and reliable responses to the difficulties posed, and finally relying on oneself, and own funds which will have made it possible to tackle the problems and to have a beginning of concretization and results.
All this to say that the solution for us will come neither from Davos, nor from Washington, and even less from New York, or from Brussels… but quite simply from inside Tunisia.
Perhaps without realizing it, we are giving the rest of the world the image of a country that does not know what it wants, which lacks clarity ideas, and programs, which is a master of double-talk. These irrelevant debates, this discordance, even at the highest level of the State, these endless clashes between the authorities, the intermediary bodies (parties, organizations)…, give us the image of a country disunited and of a crumbling national fabric…and what is more alive, totally out of step with the issues and challenges of today’s world.
No country could be built in conflictuality, in this climate of permanent tension which makes us forget the essential to focus on the subordinate, which relegates fundamental questions to the background, to concentrate on ideological problems, rights- de-l’hommists, clansmen, and narrow partisans. Even the struggle for the conquest of power, if there was a struggle, should not be based on these themes from another time and another age.
International organizations have demanded a condition sine qua non for approving an aid plan for Tunisia, ie a consensual reform program approved by all, which is far from being the case. Help yourself, heaven will help you, they will tend to remind us.
The solution will not come from the people, but from the leaders, they have appointed to meet their expectations, improve their living conditions, and appease their concerns…unfortunately, this is not the case. Tunisians are faced with a difficult daily life, each day sinking a little more into disillusionment and disaffection in an anxiety-provoking context, in a desperate search for a glimmer of hope to which they can cling.
And we are not ready to perceive the end of the tunnel, without reconciling with ourselves, putting order in the internal house, making prevail the spirit of compromise, and national unity to the quarrels which do not don’t end and become aware of our real problems which jeopardize the State and its sustainability… It’s not a choice, but it’s a duty dictated by the urgency of the moment. Ego, authoritarianism, and exclusion get us nowhere; Tunisia could not hope to recover, without attaching itself firmly to the rope of cohesion, sacred union, and collective action.
