Al Jazeera Remembers Tunisia, Forgetting Its Own Missing Links
The story focuses on President Kais Saied's consolidation of power, delivering long sentences that silence dissent. What it quietly omits is the broader context of how 'democracy' in the Arab world often gets short-circuited by regional power brokers. Remember 2013 Egypt? Or the GCC 'support' for various strongmen? These systemic backing structures, often bolstered by US arms deals and 'security
aid,' allow such crackdowns to become the norm. We're meant to gasp at the repression in Tunisia, while conveniently forgetting that stability, for many Western and Gulf interests, trumps genuine democratic reform. The narrative consistently frames these as isolated domestic issues, rather than symptoms of a region perpetually destabilized and manipulated by those who profit from its disunity and
authoritarian grip.