ABSTRACT
Tunisia has been the spearhead of the so-called Arab Spring. Between December 2010 and January 2011, before anywhere else, a people’s rebel movement in Tunisia overthrew Zayn al-‘Abidin Ibn ‘Ali (Ben ‘Ali), who had been in power since 1987. He was the first in line of many leaders (including presidents, sovereigns, and dictators) in the Arab world who had ruled their countries for decades and were driven out by the people’s will in the end. We can say that the Tunisian uprising has been a true revolution ( thawra ), for it seems to have transformed both the institutional system and the people’s mentality. The Tunisian revolution has, first of all, been a “dignity” ( karama ) revolution, as confirmed to me by Osama al-Saghir, a young deputy in the constituting assembly and later in the parliament for al-Nahda , the moderate Islamist party led by Rashid Ghannushi. This “dignity” has been restored through liberation from dictatorship; it is a dignity asserted in building a new Tunisia in terms of its economic, social, and political aspects.
