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Mouldi Fehem, a member of the PDP, one of the parties present at the event, disagreed with the representatives of the coalition, stating that it was normal for parties who share similar views to gather and express their opinions, especially now with the “advent of religious extremism.” “We are all here because we want to protect people’s freedoms and rights,” he said. When asked about attendees who shared close ties with the RCD, he replied, “We should not let our desire for revenge take control over us; we should first see who really was accountable for the crimes committed by the former regime.”

The transitional justice system is not working well, and unless something is done the previous clan will take over again.

The discourse of the union’s leadership—which calls for nationalization of major sectors and includes elements of pan-Arabism and anti-imperialist nationalism—is finding appeal among a population disenchanted with the leading parties’ ability to improve their economic situation. The union has also found natural partners in the Popular Front, a political coalition of leftists and pan-Arabists, and in remnants of the old regime, whose hybrid ideology incorporates nationalism, socialism, and pan-Arabism

As a structured political party with large parliamentary representation but little influence inside state institutions, Ennahda in particular has aimed to change the status quo, as its new elite within the Tunisian interior remains largely excluded from the established economic circles in the coastal cities.

seek the political backing of the IMF and G7 countries, who are demanding that Tunisia speed up ongoing structural reforms to the economy. However, these measures are very unpopular, reawakening old grievances and notably sparking widespread anti-austerity protests in January 2018

as UGTT leaders accuse Chahed and Ennahda of being manipulated by the IMF and foreign countries, the camp in power is going on the defensive. They have alternately called for negotiations, stalemate, and compromise with the UGTT, ultimately capitulating to the UGTT’s primary demand on February 7 to increase wages in order to avert the planned February 20 strike

The more Tunisia’s foreign partners demand substantial structural reforms, the more the current coalition will confront popular anger that puts these reforms on hold, lest the coalition provoke a larger upheaval that could topple it. This will in turn make it harder for the government to abide by Tunisia’s commitments to its international donors, at a time when it needs their support to keep a grip on power

Essebsi's movement has scared both liberal secularists and Ennahda supporters alike.  A return of the crooked, corrupt, and cruel former regime is everything that they fought against -- not just in the past 2 years, but in the last 30 years. While Ennahda will point to the abuses against Islam, and secular liberals will point to the harassment of human rights activists and infringements on freedom of expression, both will point to the ultimate failure of the Bourguiba/Ben Ali experiment to bring real progress to many parts of Tunisia. While visitors to Tunisia's coastal areas can see the development and progress of the last 50 years, it takes only a few minutes to get to villages that remain poor, backwards, and lacking in any opportunities to progress. They will point to the promises of Ben Ali to provide education and work, even while the educational system declined and job opportunities dried up. They will point to the fact that closer relations with the west only brought tighter visa restrictions and low-wage jobs.

Some have pointed to Mustapha Nabli, who has links to the former regime, but spent the last 12 years at the World Bank prior to coming back after the revolution to lead the Tunisian Central Bank. He is well respected in international circles and has already engaged in fierce debate with the coalition government over the central bank's independence, and as a result has received open calls for his sacking by President Marzouki himself. Others have cited Taieb Baccouche, a former labor and human rights leader, who most recently served with Essebsi as Minister of Education in the transition government. He has been making the rounds in Tunisian media on behalf of the Call.

the CPR and Ennahda have proposed legislation that would limit RCD participation in any future government. While political activists in Tunisia have long regretted the relative immunity granted to the former regime officials, many Tunisians continue to place the blame firmly on Ben Ali and his family. Essebsi has capitalized on this sentiment by stating that these proposals are anti-democratic and would only further polarize a society that needs unity. Nevertheless, with control over the government and the assembly, the coalition could tighten the rules to make it difficult for the Call to field candidates

The work for Essebsi's movement will be able to convince Tunisians that they can keep the gains of Tunisia's independence leaders while upholding the values of the revolution. For Tunisia's secular left, the Call represents an opportunity to join a party that may have real traction with ordinary Tunisians, but also signifies a capitulation for what many have worked so hard to change. Like in Egypt, the rise of two conservative parties (the Islamists and the Call) is a disappointment to those who fought for human rights and civil liberties. At the same time, in this conservative society it is hardly surprising that the debate is characterized by what kind of conservatism Tunisians will choose between

Blocking websites like Facebook and Twitter would have angered the business masters in whose lap [Hosni Mubarak’'s son] Gamal Mubarak was sitting. It was an unholy coalition between the sponsors of the corrupt regime and the popular social-networking Web sites.

youths in Egypt, pre-revolution, lived two lives, one online and one off-line. The off-line life is very limited in access to information, freedom of speech and mobilization, and even in access to each other. For decades, it was illegal for five people to gather for any reason (per emergency law), although it was tolerated except when it was politically motivated. Online political activists used terms like “group,” “room,” and “comment” as if they had physical meanings. The Internet offered an open environment that politicized the youths, allowed them to raise awareness on possibilities of shaping their future, diversified their perspectives, anonymized their identities, gave them the taste of free speech, and pushed them to see through the regime propaganda and despise it.

Since the Egyptian government had made the brick-and-mortar world so unfriendly to free expression and the Internet was so readily available to just tweet, update Facebook, or send a quick blog post, it became the space to express your thoughts or post a news item. As the people posted live, people would react live and a conversation developed. I believe 2010 was a tipping point for this interaction; we went from conversation to a public debate, and just not with activists but with a larger, less engaged tech-savvy population. Administrators were very deliberate in cultivating a relationship with this population.

none of the administrators in Egypt, for obvious reasons, could use his real Facebook identity to administer the page, and that was a violation of Facebook terms and conditions. Nadine, given her relatively safer location, was the firewall whenever Facebook realized the fake identities we used and deleted them. She would give us back access.

the most important factor in triggering the Egyptian revolution was the effect of Tunisia’s revolution, which did not start on Facebook. Neither did any of the other Arab revolutions. If it weren’t for Facebook, the Egyptian revolution would have started anyway. The effect of a Facebook call to a timed revolution with a large outreach (that activated an organized political activist community that’s been in the making for decades) is making the revolution shorter, more organized, with fewer casualties and more theatrical. These are important effects, especially to reduce casualties. But the multitude of factors involved with the startup, the process, and the success of the Egyptian revolution makes the Facebook effect a minor one

the angle that I hear most on Arab revolutions in Western media is the social media/Facebook/Internet one, rather than the more important, stronger and more direct effect of the injustice perpetuated by the dictators sponsored by Western regimes.

We have to remember that 850 people died. Not just Facebook profiles but flesh and blood people

There are essentially no non-state institutions in the country. Saudi Arabia has not had trade unions since the 1950s, when the government banned them in the oil-rich province where the then-American oil company ARAMCO was based. Likewise, there are no legal political parties, youth associations, women’s organizations, or independent human rights organizations.

By intervening, the Saudis hoped not only to protect their Bahraini ally, but to split their internal opposition using sectarian politics. As the protests grew and the GCC deliberated, the Saudi official press peddled the regime’s line: an Iranian-Shia conspiracy was targeting the Sunni heartland. The champions of Sunni Islam would save the Gulf from the Iranian-Shia takeover. The Saudi regime proved not only to its subjects, but also to Western governments, a determination to crush protest and expel Iranian and Shia influence from the peninsula. The message to President Obama was to think twice before supporting democracy and human rights in the Arabian Peninsula. The message to Saudis was that critics would be tarred as traitors to the nation and enemies of the faith.

All local newspapers reported on it favorably.

Many in the younger generation are critical of the regime’s repressive gender policies, but they support its opposition to the Shia as alien, heretical, and loyal to Iran.

the “liberal press”—also officially controlled—published articles denouncing sectarianism. Liberal authors attacked sectarian preachers of hate and instead celebrated national unity, wataniyya. Not that these liberal authors favored political protest or close ties with the Shia. Rather, they offered Saudis an alternative discourse that still served the regime’s interests. With society divided between supposedly liberal intellectuals and hateful preachers, the regime confirms in the minds of people that it alone can broker between the fiercely opposed groups.

Protesters avoid arrest by supporting the king and demanding that bureaucrats respect his royal decrees. Anger is therefore channelled toward low-level civil servants without challenging the regime directly or insisting on royal intervention. As long as protests do not question the policies of senior members of the royal family, they are tolerated, perhaps to some extent welcomed as a means to vent public anger.

The press has dubbed the wave of small-scale demonstrations “protest fever.” Importantly, women are uniting in pursuit of their interests and rights, suggesting that this is the beginning of a civil rights movement. Saudi women have agitated before—in 1990 some were arrested for violating a driving ban—but the 2011 protests are different. At local and regional levels, women’s demands are more fundamental than before. They want employment, the right to vote in municipal elections, and freedom of speech.

When protesters agitate for the end of the regime, they are shown no mercy. As of this writing, seven demonstrators have been shot and killed by Saudi security forces. In the virtual world, government agents continue to use propaganda, counterarguments, and rumors against calls for protest.

should pressure start coming from the West, the Saudi regime knows how to exploit its allies’ weak spots: fear of terrorism and an insatiable appetite for oil and military contracts.

Digital activism will continue to provide an outlet to a population denied basic freedom. But with popular unrest largely under wraps and the West silent, the regime faces no threat in the short term.

The economic and social deprivation, political oppression, and corruption that triggered revolutions elsewhere are all present in Saudi Arabia, but these alone are not sufficient to precipitate an uprising. Saudi Arabia does not have trade unions—the majority of its working population is foreign, which has stunted the growth of organized labor—a women’s movement, or an active student population, three factors that helped to make protests in Tunis and Cairo successful. Elsewhere in the Arab world, in the absence of these important factors, revolt stumbled, turned violent, and could not progress without serious foreign intervention. Libya is a case in point.

where the state is the only institution that matters, effectively bringing people together offline may be impossible