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It's interesting how limited the coverage of these events have been compared to what happened after Iran's elections a couple years ago, although the scope of the violence appears to be similar.
More than 50 people were killed in three days of rioting in Tunisia's central Kasserine region, a union official told AFP Tuesday, reporting more violence and sniper fire overnight.
Tunisia has been a US and western ally for a while, and has been quite stable for years - however, a lot of that "stability" was built up through repression, including such things as secret police, networks of "informers," an opaque judicial system, and detainee abuse.
However, since Tunisia has been such a loyal western ally, a lot of this has apparently been overlooked over the years. What does the lack of coverage of the deadly riots in Tunisia say about the way our media chooses its stories?
Are we supposed to be interested in things that happen outside our borders? I mean, what does this have to do with Sarah Palin or Glenn Beck? Aren't mass murders only interesting if there is some link to the political "vitriol" in our country?
It's interesting how limited the coverage of these events have been compared to what happened after Iran's elections a couple years ago, although the scope of the violence appears to be similar.
Tunisia has been a US and western ally for a while
Ever since it became independent from France in the '50s.
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and has been quite stable for years - however, a lot of that "stability" was built up through repression, including such things as secret police, networks of "informers," an opaque judicial system, and detainee abuse.
Tunisia has a facade of being westernized, liberal, and "tolerant" - but behind that facade is a very brutal dictatorship. Ben Ali keeps everything nice and shiny to give the country a better image for the West. He even set up a fake human rights organization called Tunisia Amnesty to refute Amnesty International's denunciations of the illegal detentions, torture, deaths in custody, autocratic rule, phony elections, etc. He's a very image-conscious dictator. If other dictatorships were as conscious of their image, the dictators who ruled them would be less hated.
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However, since Tunisia has been such a loyal western ally, a lot of this has apparently been overlooked over the years. What does the lack of coverage of the deadly riots in Tunisia say about the way our media chooses its stories?
It's OK if they're on our side and they're fighting against "Islamists" (some of Tunisia's political prisoners are indeed Islamists but not all of them).
I hope their citizens aren't armed, it will make the crack down much easier.
Well, the country in that region with the most heavily-armed citizens is Yemen, and they aren't in any better shape. Nor is Pakistan, where fully-automatic rifles can be purchased by anyone older than 16 or so in some areas.
The rioting began in response to unemployment and soaring food prices, and was spurred on by Wikileaks revelations about corruption and human rights violations, but is now being directed against the government itself.
Well, the country in that region with the most heavily-armed citizens is Yemen, and they aren't in any better shape. Nor is Pakistan, where fully-automatic rifles can be purchased by anyone older than 16 or so in some areas.
I suppose we'll have to take your word for it, but I thought this was about Tunisia?
Tunisia's in considerably better shape than Yemen or Pakistan. Tunisia has an extremely high literacy rate and is officially secular. For years, as long as the regime could provide economic growth there was no outpouring of popular discontent against its oppressiveness. (Think a smaller scale version of China or perhaps Spain 50 years ago.) However, the system can no longer provide jobs for educated youth, and thus young people are turning against the system. Despite Ben Ali's insistence that the rioters are jihadis or jihadi sympathizers this seems more related to the general "rebellion of the millenial generation" that's occurred throughout Europe but which has barely touched the US (the New School disturbances in NYC and Black Brigades activity on the West Coast being the only examples in America) than to Islamism. Especially because of the Wikileaks cables revealing the level of corruption in the Tunisian government.
Interesting, but i really don't care about Tunisia.
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