Man Waving Ansar al-Sharia flag, 2013. Photo courtesy: Ansar al-Sharia Tunisia Facebook page
By Fabio Merone
High-flying political rhetoric from Tunisia’s Ministry of Interior does not match the complicated nature of its declared enemy, Ansar al-Sharia. This religious group, rather than being the violent radicals the government makes them out to be, has evolved out of Tunisia’s domestic Salafist movement through careful dialogue among its supporters. Government officials need to address Tunisia’s security challenges, but without shutting out religious groups who could still turn out to be peaceful. A nuanced security policy meant to distinguish between Tunisia’s enemies and devout masses is needed to prevent escalation and ensure stability.
Ansar al-Sharia (AST) and the Salafist movement are not the same thing, and they came to be identified with one another only recently. The Salafist phenomenon was a largely spontaneous movement coming from the depths of society, especially rooted in the disenfranchised neighborhoods of the country. A mix of social marginalisation and loss of hope brought many to join its ranks. AST represented the idea of institutionalizing the movement that was growing spontaneously in large areas of the country–in a sense, they were the moderate part of the larger movement.
This is not to say that the Salafist movement is nothing but despaired people. There is an ideological charge in Salafist thought, especially in its jihadist version, a radical vision of the world drawn from religious references shared by much of local society. These young people translate Islam’s message into a radical ideological tool to make war against the system and the world around them, which they perceive to be excluding them. When the first ‘sheikhs’ appeared in the mosques in the aftermath of revolution, they could easily attract the same youth that arose against the Ben Ali regime and that now were kept outside the institutional processes of the political transition.
The decision to create an organization in fact started a large debate within the broader Salafist movement. In jihadi literature, creating an organization is a ‘bidaa’ (reprehensible innovation) that goes against the principle of unity. Why create an organization? Will Ansar al-Sharia become just another party like the Muslim Brotherhood? What do they need an organization for? For Khatib Idrissi–the most prominent Salafist-jihadist sheikh-the only outcome in this project would be to attract a police response and divide the Muslim community (which in their point of view refers only to Salafists). This discussion lasted for months and leading thinkers of the international jihadi movement, who backed the Ansar al-Sharia project, took part through Skype conferences.
The objective of this project was a mix between the prominent salafi-jihadi thinker Mohammed al-Maqdissi’s theory of jihad al-tamkin, meaning to consolidate an Islamic state, and an original Tunisian experience. Because of the situation the country was experiencing in the aftermath of revolution, especially with newfound freedom of speech, it was considered possible to build the Islamic state through dawa (proselytizing). Meanwhile, the movement should have been preparing this ‘new Islamic state’ by working on a program, and by forming new political cadres and personnel.
Ansar al-Sharia leaders at a press conference, May 16, 2013.
A classical jihadi group pursues jihad in order to affirm and defend the true religion. Jihadis perceive themselves as shouldering the duty of defending the Islamic community (umma). They do not think in terms of a program to build a state, and they instead operate according to a logic of enmity toward the rest of society. This approach existed in the Tunisian jihadi movement as well, but AST, on the contrary, was attempting to bring this large Salafist audience into a more institutionalized movement that stressed the necessity of pursuing the jihad (in this case understood as ‘struggle’) through peaceful means.
AST leader Hassen el-Breick appeared on television precisely to show Tunisians AST’s will to participate in public debates just like a normal member of society. The annual Kairouan rally, which was canceled in May 2013 in a conflict with the government, was another way of showing the new Salafist project in the light of day.
While the nature of the armed groups that have been discovered by police in the last months is not clear, I tend not to believe the theory of an armed wing of Ansar al-Sharia, parallel to a facade of dawa, for two reasons. One is linked to my personal experience in the fieldwork, during which I have met several high- and mid-level leader. They were very conscious of the possibility that violent actions may create a climate of confrontation with the state that would damage their project. The AST strategy of abandoning violent jihad in favor of dawa was considered successful by both national and international jihadi leaders following Tunisia.
The second reason why I do not believe in an armed AST wing is that because an ideological social movement as AST has its own political aims, and if they decided to change their strategy in order to begin a classical armed jihad, they would have declared it. The organization’s official statements instead have kept the typical intonation of a jihadi movement that does not want to step into violent action. The rhetoric is based on the concept of patience, which the Prophet applied to himself and the first Muslim community when persecuted in Mecca.
This is not to deny the existence of armed groups in the larger Salafist movement, some of which may consider themselves as part of AST or may belong to it without having leadership roles. With the state crackdown, any form of a structured movement disappeared, encouraging small groups of radicalized people to move without a political guide or broadly accepted strategy. Further, a supply of weapons entered the country, mainly as part of a smuggling network leading to other destinations. This network of people may have come into clash with police when they felt too much pressure on them. It is also possible that there is some degree of overlap between these smugglers and groups of radicalised Salafists.
Second, it is likely that a foreign presence, mainly Algerians, infiltrated in the country, though not on a large scale. This is the consequence of the French campaign in Mali against al-Qaeda-linked groups and the presence of a large informal weapons market in Libya. It is also linked to the regional restructuring of groups related to al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), an originally Algerian group that is trying to develop into a larger regional network.
What to do then? The first step is to avoid using the security issue for partisan political aims. The second is to implement a broader strategic policy that combines security aspects of the issue with a larger cultural and sociological approach.
The police are only one segment of the different kinds of experts that should be working together. The security apparatus (and the court system) furthermore should learn to act according to the principles of the rule of law and not vengeance, using more sophisticated means of investigation then so-called ‘confessions.’ Third, a selective policy of repression should be carried out, giving a space for the moderate camp and pushing them toward a political solution. Fourth, a larger public debate should be opened on the theological themes, with Salafists and jihadi Salafists invited and allowed to express themselves freely.
The state apparatus and the political elite should make an effort to develop a much more complex vision of the situation than a simple ‘war against terrorists’ in which good is fighting evil. They should distinguish between violent takfiri and ‘simple Salafists,’ between those that want to legitimately build their desired society and those that believe that their absolutist vision must be imposed with force and violence.
As was the case with Ennahdha movement in the 1990s, neither the Salafist movement nor Ansar al-Sharia will simply disappear. It will come back again and again. It is necessary to recognize that the Salafist phenomenon is not a foreign monster to be imposed on Tunisian society. It is a very Tunisian phenomenon coming from disenfranchised areas of the country that, for better or for worse, are trying to express their ideals.
Fabio Merone is an assistant researcher at Dublin City University. He has worked for a year on a research project funded by the Gerda Henkel Foundation on the evolution of Islamism in Middle Eastern and North African countries after the Arab Spring. Merone has authored and co-authored several articles on Salafism in Tunisia. He lived in Tunisia for more than a decade, working as a correspondent for the Italian NENA news agency.
This post reflects the opinions of the author and not of Tunisia Live as a publication.
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