هذا التقرير متاح أيضًا بـ العربية
Egyptians are closely watching the developments unfolding in Tunisia these days, where protests are taking place that may be the first of their kind in years with this level of momentum against President Kais Saied’s rule, coinciding with the fifth anniversary of the exceptional measures he took on July 25, 2021 measures that are still regarded as one of the most controversial turning points in Tunisia’s modern history.
Although the protests seen in Tunisian streets were initially driven by economic and living demands, amid rising unemployment, repeated water and power outages, and worsening social conditions, the political and human rights dimension looms large in the background as one of the main forces that has reignited Tunisia’s mobilization after years of stagnation, repression, and a tightened security grip.
Contrary to what many had expected, this mobilization reflects the continued vitality of Tunisia’s political scene and the failure of the security-based approach to eliminate the opposition or permanently push it out of the public sphere, despite the restrictions imposed on it and the isolation it has endured over the past several years. This development is provoking concern and anticipation not only inside Tunisia, but beyond it as well.
The reverberations of this atmosphere quickly reached the Egyptian street from its earliest hours, where people began viewing it from sharply different angles, reviving memories of 15 years ago, when Tunisians first raised their famous chant now echoing once again “The people want the fall of the regime.”
Between anticipation and anxiety, support and apprehension, Egyptians today are watching what is happening in Tunisia with bated breath, fixed on the possibilities of the moment and its open-ended trajectories. So through what lens are Egyptians viewing this Tunisian mobilization?
Why Tunisia?
Despite protests erupting in a number of countries around the world most notably in India, where the “Cockroach Movement” has emerged as one of the biggest challenges facing Narendra Modi’s government the Tunisian protests succeeded in eclipsing other developments, imposing themselves as a central focus of attention for Egyptian news sites, social media platforms, and online audiences.
That is due to Tunisia’s particular sensitivity for Egyptians. It remains present in the popular imagination as the first spark that paved the way for Egypt’s January 2011 revolution, in addition to serving as an important gauge Egyptians use to read regional developments and assess the extent to which the Arab street can regain its vitality and move in the face of security crackdowns and authoritarian rule.
Some Egyptians have long repeated the notion that as long as Tunisia has not risen up, no other Arab capital will rise up either, regardless of the motives behind that uprising or where it may lead. In the Egyptian popular imagination, Tunisia has become associated with the idea of an independent variable that could trigger dependent political and social transformations extending beyond its geographic borders into its Arab surroundings.
Egyptians also see a great deal of similarity between the Tunisian scene and their own domestic reality: the concerns are comparable, the shared issues are many, and the aspirations are nearly identical, alongside similar economic crises, the closure of public space, the tightening of pressure on the opposition, the erosion of freedoms, the spread of corruption, and governments’ failure to meet even the minimum needs of citizens.
For that reason, the Egyptian street views Tunisia as the first testing ground and the clearest indicator of the direction of the Arab scene, as well as a way to anticipate signs of political and social mobilization. It is also seen as one of the strongest catalysts capable of stirring stagnant waters across the region. Accordingly, this broad interaction with video clips of the Tunisian protests and their slogans is understandable: a segment of Egyptians sees in those chants an expression of its own general mood, concerns, and aspirations, even if not voiced directly.
The protests in Egyptian media discourse
Up to the time of writing, Egyptian media discourse in its handling of the Tunisian protests has been marked by a clear degree of caution and watchfulness, using relatively restrained news language and relying largely on statements issued by official bodies, news agencies, and established centers. It has also, as much as possible, avoided publishing opinion- and analysis-based material, contenting itself with relaying developments on the ground without expanding on their characterization or interpreting their political dimensions.
The state media, represented for example by the newspaper “Al-Ahram,” even preempted the outbreak of the protests by adopting the Tunisian regime’s narrative, which described the electricity and water outages and the spread of fires as “unnatural phenomena,” while warning that there were parties seeking to inflame the situation and exploit the crises to achieve political goals, and that the state would not stand idly by in the face of this and would confront it with full firmness, according to statements by Tunisian President Kais Saied.
As for independent and private newspapers, their treatment of the events varied. Some focused on economic conditions and social conditions, presenting them as the main — and perhaps only — reason behind the outbreak of the mobilization, while other papers offered a more clearly political picture and linked the protests to the tightening of pressure on the opposition, the erosion of freedoms, and the imprisonment and arrest of opponents, considering the mobilization one of the expected consequences of the measures Saied has taken since 2021 something reflected in the chants demanding his departure and the fall of the regime.
Even so, Egyptian media discourse as a whole focused on a number of core pillars, chief among them highlighting the participation of Ennahda and the National Salvation Front, in a clear indication of the presence of political Islamist groups within the mobilization, while relatively overlooking the participation of civil, liberal, and other political currents. This emphasis can be read as an attempt to frame the protests within a specific ideological image, in a way that may help cast doubt on their motives or diminish their political and social diversity.
The economic and living dimension also dominated most coverage, with electricity and water outages, heat waves, fires, and rising prices taking up the largest share of attention compared with political and rights-related files such as judicial independence, the arrest of opponents, Decree No. 54, and the future of the political system. This reflects a clear tendency to avoid politicizing the mobilization and to confine it, as much as possible, to its economic and social scope.
Overall, Egyptian media discourse in covering these events relied primarily on a straight news narrative, far removed from analytical or opinion treatment. Hardly any opinion pieces or extended editorials were published addressing the significance of what is happening in Tunisia and its possible trajectories.
This approach differs strikingly from coverage of the events of 2021, when Egyptian newspapers devoted broad space to the measures taken by the Tunisian president and presented them at the time as a major political victory and an unprecedented achievement in confronting Ennahda and currents associated with political Islam and the revolution.
One event, three positions
It is impossible to say there is a single Egyptian position on what is happening in Tunisia. Egyptians’ reading of these protests, though they are one event, proceeds from three main levels that reflect their political and intellectual differences. The first is represented by supporters of the Egyptian regime, who tend to back the Tunisian government led by Saied and view the protests, like most popular movements anywhere, as a state of chaos that threatens the country’s security and stability. They rely on familiar narratives aimed at casting doubt on the mobilization and tarnishing its image, such as claiming that Islamists are behind it or that it is receiving support and funding from foreign actors.
The second level is represented by supporters of freedoms and rights and by those from the revolutionary current, who see these protests as a practical embodiment of the Tunisian people’s right to rise up against the authoritarianism of Saied’s rule and his individualistic tendencies, especially after the exceptional measures he has taken since 2021, which, in their view, have helped entrench one-man rule and weaken institutions.
This has led to what the country is currently suffering from: a decline in services and public facilities, a deterioration in citizens’ living standards, and a major setback in the area of freedoms and rights.
Supporters of this current do not pay much attention to the narrative repeated by those who reject the protests and question their motives and aims. They believe the demands being raised on this scale are no longer tied to Ennahda alone, nor to Islamists in general, but have become an expression of a broader Tunisian popular mood that includes multiple political and social constituencies and is linked to general demands concerning freedoms, economic conditions, basic services, and the future of the political system.
Between these two positions lies a broad segment of Egyptians who are not directly aligned with the regime, nor fully aligned with the opposition or the revolutionary current, but instead represent what could be described as a third camp. It recognizes Tunisians’ right to protest the deterioration of their political, rights-related, and living conditions, but at the same time does not support the official regime and does not place full trust in the Tunisian opposition, which it sees as fragmented and lacking both unified leadership and a clear program capable of offering a convincing political alternative.
In sum, Egyptians do not treat events in Tunisia as an internal matter concerning Tunisians alone. Rather, they view them as an early indicator of what other Arab countries may witness, starting from a firmly held belief among some of them that Tunisia is capable of transmitting the contagion of political and revolutionary mobilization to its surroundings, as happened during the Arab Spring.
Hence this broad Egyptian interest in what is unfolding, while the clear divisions in assessing the protests, their motives, and their possible outcomes reflect the state of anticipation and anxiety hanging over the scene, amid close monitoring of what the Tunisian events may produce and whether they will remain confined within the country’s borders or open the door to broader political and social transformations in the region.