EPA/TIM BRAKEMEIER Letter from Tunis ‘There might be another revolution’ Tunisian pro-democracy groups won the Nobel Peace Prize, but radicalization looms.

Tunisia has made international headlines for the third time this year. But it was good news, for a change: the Tunisian National Dialogue Quartet was awarded the 2015 Nobel Peace Prize “for its decisive contribution to the building of a pluralistic democracy in Tunisia in the wake of the Jasmine Revolution of 2011.”

Rewarding the Tunisian transition with a Nobel Peace Prize was an excellent choice. Not because it has been successfully concluded. It is an excellent choice because the transition continues to be a fragile process that needs all the support it can get.

When the National Dialogue Quartet was formed by four civil society organizations in the summer of 2013, the country was on the brink: The assassination of two left-wing politicians and major public unease with the Islamist-led government had caused a political crisis that was about to escalate. Dialogue was initiated and led by the Tunisian General Trade Union, which later joined forces with the Tunisian employers’ organization as well as the Tunisian Human Rights League and the National Order of Tunisian Advocates.

Mediating between government and opposition, the Quartet prevented the country from sliding into chaos and violence, and facilitated the creation of a technocratic government and adoption of a progressive constitution.

"What is the point of seeking revenge? It doesn’t help anyone" — Abdelkarim Harouni, minister and former prisoner.

The Quartet is a product of the forces that have kept Tunisia from following the disastrous path of the other Arab Spring states: The country has a strong civil society and political factions — including the Tunisian Islamists — that are willing and able to compromise. The Ennahda party is more moderate than its counterparts in other Arab states, but more importantly, has proven that it can find common ground with its political opponents, including those responsible for their persecution for the better part of the past 30 years.

Abdelkarim Harouni, a minister in the Ennahda-led government, was imprisoned for 16 years, several of which he spent in solitary confinement. He experienced torture and continued to be harassed after his release in 2007. Now he works with those who are responsible for his ordeal.

“Before the revolution there was always a police car behind me — when I became a minister, there was always a police car in front of me,” Harouni said, jokingly. “What is the point of seeking revenge? It doesn’t help anyone. The best way to annoy them is by being part of the political process.”

But if the Tunisian transition looks successful in comparison, massive challenges remain.

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The Tunisian uprising was fueled by the activism and courage of young men and women, driven to protest by a lack of future prospects. Yet Tunisian affairs continue to be dominated by an older political class. The Quartet can be credited with a crucial role in keeping the Tunisian transition on track at one of its most critical junctures. But it has failed to sufficiently include and address the concerns of the generation that made the transition possible in the first place.

The ouster of the Ben Ali regime raised enormous hopes for the disfranchised and disenchanted Tunisian youth but the problems — like massive youth unemployment — that made them take to the streets still persist.

This explains one of the most puzzling developments in the country’s recent politics: Tunisia is both one of the most liberal countries in the Arab world — the region’s only democratic success story — and one of the most fertile recruiting grounds for the Islamic State. Seifeddine Rezgui, the engineering student who slaughtered 38 tourists at a beach resort in Sousse, reportedly had a girlfriend, drank alcohol, and was a local breakdancing celebrity and Real Madrid supporter. His transformation to an Islamist terrorist was by no means inevitable.

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Shortly after the Sousse attack I spoke to Syrine*, a young teacher from Kairouan, the city where Rezgui studied. I asked her for her thoughts on the 2011 revolution. “It's not that it was great before,” she said. “But things are changing for the worse. Nothing is working like it used to. The economy is a mess. The strikes are never-ending. Honestly, I don't see the light at the end of the tunnel. The political assassinations were enough of a nightmare, and now this.”

I asked her in which direction she thought the country was heading — was it getting better or worse?

“Are you kidding me?” she replied, and laughed in disbelief.

Syrine’s sentiment is widely shared and is symptomatic of the disillusionment that now poses a major threat to the transition. Large swathes of Tunisian society are of a split mind: The democratic transition is good in theory, they say, but disappointing in practice.

Many are proud of having brought down Ben Ali and his corrupt and repressive regime. “Tunisia, first democracy of the Arab World” reads the graffiti on Avenue Habib Bourguiba, the Tunisian equivalent of the Champs-Élysées. But democracy has not delivered on its promises. Unemployment has risen, public services from garbage collection to transportation have deteriorated, and going out at night has become more dangerous. Many now feel that things were better before 2011.

“The revolution in 2011 was progressive, it was about freedom and human rights,” said Sana Ben Achour, a long-time civil society activist who is now running Beity, a charity dedicated to Tunisian women. “But if we continue like this, if we do not manage to fight poverty, if things are not getting better soon, then there might be another revolution. And this revolution is going to be regressive.”

The upward trajectory many had assumed would continue is becoming increasingly less certain. The terror attacks in Sousse and Tunis’ Bardo National Museum have had a serious impact on tourism, a sector that made up roughly 15 percent of Tunisia’s gross domestic product in 2014. The political energy that was focused on maintaining peace and writing the constitution neglected to pass meaningful structural reforms. Endemic bureaucracy and corruption, more than security concerns, deter foreign investors.

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The transition to democracy is a lengthy, chaotic, and at times unfair process. Whether the Tunisians succeed will depend on their patience. But the post-2011 governments have failed to significantly improve the situation, and Tunisians are getting increasingly impatient.

It does not help that economic concerns are now compounded by security threats.

Reckless driving and a stubborn refusal to wear a seatbelt still cost far more lives than terrorism — as does the lack of maintenance of public infrastructure. But the tense atmosphere that has followed the terrorist attacks has allowed the government to resort to autocratic practices: The incumbent government, led by the newly founded Nidaa Tounes party, which many see as a new incarnation of Ben Ali’s Democratic Constitutional Rally (RCD), quite successfully purports that human rights and security are mutually exclusive.

An anti-terrorism bill that flouts several international human rights standards was passed earlier this year; a draft bill to protect the armed forces that undermines free speech and a legislative proposal to establish a Higher Judicial Council that threatens the independence of the judiciary, are part of the same trend. Reports of police brutality and torture have become increasingly frequent.

These measures are unlikely to have a major impact on the country’s security. What Tunisia’s security apparatus needs is serious structural reform: Under Ben Ali security forces were primarily geared towards keeping citizens in check, and they remain incapable of coping with the terrorist threats that have emerged in recent years.

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Determined to claim Tunisia as a success story, the EU prefers to overlook many of these problems, causing irritation among Tunisian human rights activists and politicians alike. Many also lay partial blame on Europe for the deteriorating security situation.

“They come over and create a complete mess in Libya. And now we have to deal with it,” a senior member of the Tunisian Human Rights League, one of the four National Dialogue Quartet organizations, said.

The perpetrators of the attacks in Sousse and Bardo were trained in a jihadist camp in Libya, which became a failed state and a safe haven for the Islamic State following the Franco-British-led intervention in 2011. The 460km border between both countries remains largely unprotected.

If Tunisia fails, our problems are going to be the EU’s problems” — Jawhar Ben Mbarek, law professor and activist

Europe has promised much but delivered little. One of the cornerstones of future EU-Tunisian relations, the Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement (DCFTA), has caused major concern across the country, as many fear that the economy is not ready for competition with EU companies, and resent the establishment of free movement of goods and services without free movement for people.

“It does not work,” one activist said. “In theory a Tunisian company will be able to bid for tenders in the EU. But in practice, even if a Tunisian business wins a contract, it will not be able to execute it because its employees cannot get visas to enter the EU.”

Since the 2013 military coup in Egypt, Tunisia is the last of the Arab Spring countries where hope of a successful transition remains justified. Officials in Brussels and in the EU delegation in Tunis emphasize their determination to make Tunisia a success, as they increase financial and technical aid to the country.

But Tunisian politicians, government officials, and civil society activists all say the same thing: The EU’s current level of support is not enough. Not even close.

“They don’t get the emergency of the situation. We are a small country, it would not take that much,” said Jawhar Ben Mbarek, a law professor and president of the Doustourna civil rights activists network. “It is in their interest to help. Whether migration or terrorism — if Tunisia fails, our problems are going to be the EU’s problems.”

In spite of these misgivings Europe is popular and EU engagement is seen far more positively than that of the United States or the Gulf monarchies. Many urban upper- and middle-class Tunisians feel much closer to their northern neighbors than to sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East. And in many ways they are. Less than 200 kilometers separate Tunisia from Italy.

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Tunisia lacks the natural resources that neighboring Libya and Algeria have in abundance. But it has a modern and well-educated population. The country has the potential to become an affluent and well-governed state. Winning the Nobel Peace Prize is a well-deserved recognition of what has been achieved so far and might encourage hope and patience in Tunisians as they continue on their path towards becoming a sustainable democracy.

But we shouldn’t forget that this may not be enough – things can still go terribly wrong.

*Name changed

Ragnar Weilandt is a doctoral researcher at the Université libre de Bruxelles and the University of Warwick.