Interviews with Abdel Aziz BelKhodja

It´s a big step for democracy. But we´re always far from democracy. Because in democracy, you have rules, okay? And that’s what happens. That didn´t happen in Tunisia for that election. When you compare it with the election of [Former Tunisian President Zine el Abidine]Ben Ali with that, it´s completely different. The problem is that last month in Tunisia [during the October 2011 campaign for the constituent assembly elections], we were not talking about democracy here with programs, with political differences. We were talking only about the position of Islam in the Tunisian society. And that´s very, very bad because in Tunisia, we don´t have any problem with religion.

So we must talk only about politics, about what kind of system we will use– presidential system or parliamentary system, okay? But we only talked about religion, about secularism. We were talking about secularism. And about other problems that are not so really important. But everybody was talking about it, and it´s very bad because the real problem is economic problem. You have poverty in Tunisia. Very big poverty. But they were only parties when they talk with people, they only give promises, okay? Only promises. “I will give you.” “I will make you.” “I will give you.”

This success of Ennahda had a lot of reasons. [Ennahda is a moderate Islamist party that won the largest share of the vote in Tunisia’s first free elections in 2011.] But I think there is one reason. It’s that we didn´t talk about it. It´s because in front of a lot of parties, 20 I think, more than 50 parties, the Tunisian electorate was completely afraid. He didn´t understand what happened with all that parties that talk about the same thing, but differently. So the reflex of the Tunisian, is to go to the party that give the more confidence. And the more confidence is– the first step of confidence is God, okay and religion.

So, they went to that party, because they didn´t understand what happened. The problem with an Islamic party, that´s true of Ennahda, it´s an Islamic party. The problem is that when you talk about religion you are out of the political land, okay. You can´t have a confrontation with them, because the problems always take another way. You go out from politics, you know, and when you go out from politics, it´s impossible to have real confrontation with that party. You know, you you can´t talk about a program, you can´t talk about democracy, you can´t talk about freedom, about the values. Because you always fall in the same system of communication.

Some are with God, and the others are against God. So, you are completely out of order. Look what happened since ten months in Tunisia. [Abdel refers to the period between the Tunisian Revolution and the Constituent Assembly elections in 2011.] We were talking about atheism, we were talking about secularism, we were talking about Israel, you know. We´re talking about everything and not about politics. The first problem of the constitution is the political system.

Nobody talks about that political system, you know, or very, very few about the difference between presidential regime, and parliamentary regime. We didn´t talk about the basis of the politics in Tunisia. That´s why I am against religion in politics.

Abdel Aziz Belkhodja is a Tunisian writer, publisher, and democracy advocate. In 2003, he penned a satirical novel called The Return of the Elephant in which he criticized the authoritarian regime of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. Belkhodja’s narrative is set 100 years in the future where Tunisia has become an influential, democratic nation pitted against a tyrannical United States. This fanciful portrayal of the United States worked to spotlight the repressive policies being practiced by Ben Ali’s government.

Beyond his literary criticism of the Tunisian government, Belkhodja challenged the regime more directly via the Internet. In the midst of the country’s 2010-2011 revolution, he appealed to army, police, and government officials to abandon Ben Ali.

After the fall of Ben Ali, Belkhodja helped found the Tunisian Republican Party and served as its leader. The Republican Party joined the Democratic Modernist Pole, a coalition of four political parties and several civic initiatives, which ran in Tunisia’s constituent assembly elections in October 2011. He has since left politics to focus on his writing.

Belkhodja is the author of several novels and histories of Carthage including The Ashes of Carthage, The Stars of Anger, Love Mosaic, The Sign of Tanit, and Hannibal, the True Story.