Promoting peaceful coexistence between political actors with divergent worldviewsTunis, 19 May 2017Author: Salahedine Jourchi
Translated from Arabic by: Khadidja Neggazi
Edited by: Charlotte Mounier
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Introduction
Analysing the interaction of religion and political violence in Tunisia is an urgent matter that requires joint work by the actors concerned in order to consolidate political participation and prevent potential violence. It is therefore necessary to build a mediation space between Islamists, secularists and other Tunisian stakeholders to reduce tensions and protect the nascent political transition. The project stems from the recommendations of the four meetings on the interaction of religion and politics in the public sphere, held in February–March 2016 in Istanbul, in September 2016 in Doha and in March 2017 in Istanbul. A first workshop was therefore held in Tunis on 3 March 2017. One of its recommendations was to evaluate experiences of political cooperation between actors with divergent worldviews. The Al-Jahedh Forum, the Cordoba Foundation of Geneva (CFG) and the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs (FDFA) accordingly organised a second workshop in Tunis on 19 May 2017 to meet this need. The workshop sought to encourage Tunisia’s political elites, whatever their ideological reference – notably religious and secular – to coexist, dialogue and work together. It addressed two experiences whose significance goes beyond the Tunisian context to serve as a model in a wider Arab and Islamic context: the 18 October 2005 initiative and the Troika coalition government. The first, launched under President Ben Ali, was an opposition front against those in power; the second took the form of a governing coalition of different parties.
The workshop focused on the evaluation of the 18 October initiative as a model of cooperation between Islamists and secularists; the evaluation of the Troika experience; the identification of the strengths and weaknesses of the two experiences; and, finally, the crisis between the Ennahdha movement and the Tunisian General Labour Union (UGTT).
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