A Quote by Paul Wolfowitz
If the Arab world today looked like Tunisia, it would be a huge blow for the extreme ideologies. But Tunisia needs more support than it is getting, particularly from their close neighbors in Europe who have a great stake in North Africa.
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I think Tunisia has a specific place in the Arab world and in Africa because it is a tiny Muslim country, but it's very open minded. It's the first country to start the Arab Spring, for example.
Marseille has a big Muslim community. The good thing is it is a melting point: all nationalities in there. Everyone is fine with each other. It is really close to North Africa, to Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco, so a lot of them come from there.
I think it is extremely important that the West support this experiment [of Tunisian democracy] with investment, with aid, with symbolic support, not just flows of democracy assistance …If Tunisia can’t make it, what are the prospects for the rest of the Arab world?
Certainly Tunisia was the first in Muslim world. It's been like that for a long time and women play an important part in Tunisia. There are women in all professions. Doctors, dentists, lawyers, politicians, journalists and so on.
In Tunisia, where women have long enjoyed greater rights than many of their Arab neighbors, women pushed for and won a new electoral code that guarantees women will make up half of a candidates' list for office.
The external support can never substitute internal support, the example that we have to look at very well is Egypt and Tunisia ; they have all the support from the West and from the Gulf and from most of the countries of the world. When they don't have support within their country, they couldn't continue more than - how many weeks ? - three weeks. So, the only reason we stand here for two years and a half is because we have internal support, public support.
Literacy in Tunisia is almost 100%. It's amazing - no country in the region or even in Asia can match Tunisia in education.
I think no country is going to be immune from the Arab awakening because the Arab awakening is driven by deep human longing for dignity, for justice and for freedom. I think that applies to young people in Saudi Arabia as much as to young people in Egypt, Tunisia, or Yemen, or Libya, or Syria. If I were in Saudi Arabia, I would be getting ahead of this and looking for ways to appreciate those aspirations and align my country with them.
If you look at the list of the top wheat importers for 2010, almost half of them are Middle Eastern regimes: Egypt, Algeria, Iraq, Morocco, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Libya, and Tunisia. Egypt is the number-one importer of wheat in the entire world. Tunisia leads the entire world in per capita wheat consumption. So it's no wonder that the revolutions began with Tunisians waving baguettes in the streets and Egyptians wearing helmets made of bread.
You can understand Tunisia revolution as a failure to censor the internet. And Libya had that failure too. It's very difficult for governments that are autocratic and don't have broad popular support to be in power when a lot of people have these devices. That was what Arab Spring was about, that people could express this and lead to revolution.
My family were very poor. I am one of nine siblings: two girls and seven boys. Only my brother and I play in Europe, and then three more work in Europe, and another plays in Tunisia. This family is a footballing family, but our lives have not always been good.
I see encouraging signs of democracy developing in other places in the Middle East. In Tunisia, in Iraq, and now in Egypt. Tunisia is the one Muslim country that does something for girls and education. As far as I know, this is the only Muslim country where this is true. There is compulsory education for girls from the age of 5.
What Tunisia urgently needs, is freedom and the building of a real democracy.
I would like to extend to you our deep appreciation and thanks for the position the United States has taken in support of the democratization process that has taken place in Tunisia, in Egypt, and what is attempting to take place in Libya.
The problem with what we call the 'Arab spring' is that these are very nationalistic experiences. Tunisians are concerned with Tunisia, Egyptians concerned with Egypt and so on.
Even after the whole democratization process, it's quite clear that the United States are not seen in a positive way in all the Muslim-majority countries - in Egypt, in Libya, even in Tunisia - even though we have now a kind of trying to be recognized as democrats by the Islamists who are running, you know, Tunisia and Egypt. But the popular sentiment is very, very negative.
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