Youth in Tunisia took to the streets last week to express their frustrations over economic woes and anger of police brutality in the country that launched the Arab Spring a decade ago when Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, who ruled the country for a quarter-century, was ousted from office.
Out of work, out of money, with the COVID War decimating business and tourism, 36.5 percent of youth are unemployed while GDP in Tunisia contracted by 8.2 percent last year.
In response to the uprisings, the government approved a “cabinet reshuffle,” and appointed nearly a dozen new ministers to lead various departments. President Kais Saied indicated he would reject the new ministers, according to The Economist. He claimed some had conflicts of interest, and there were no women.
Al Jazeera reported that protesters on Saturday marched into the Tunisian capital of Tunis to call out what they saw as abuses at the hands of law enforcement.
The protesters say they are concerned that the gains they won during the 2011 Arab Spring uprising could evaporate. The Saturday protest had flashes of violence, as some clashed with police, and police officers used batons to strike demonstrators.
The report said the protests have been “near-daily” since earlier this month, and more than 1,000 people have been arrested. The country’s media has reportedly been unfavorable to the protesters and referred to them as “petty criminals” and “hooligans.”
The FT report said Prime Minister Hichem Mechichi tried to assuage the protesters and said they remind officials of “our priorities.” Yet, the protests have ensnared the country for weeks. Some signs read, “Police everywhere, justice nowhere.”
TREND FORECAST: As we reported back in 2011, two Trends Journal staff members, John Anthony West and Gary Abatelli, were in Egypt when the Arab Spring broke out in that country.
From their observations and analyses of what was being ignited and the power shifts taking place, we had forecast that the uprisings would simmer down, and any changes to existing governments would be minimal and/or temporary. In fact, Tunisia was the only lasting success from the Arab Spring.
While there were uprisings in Libya, the powers of the United Kingdom, the U.S., and France, with NATO’s backing, were responsible for the overthrow of its leader, Muammar Qaddafi, not the Arab Spring uprisings.
Indeed, America’s president at the time, Barack Obama, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, along with his appointee to the Security Council, Samantha Power, another Nobel Peace Prize winner; his Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton; and U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice, had all declared, “Qaddafi has to go.”
Now, a decade later, with Libya destroyed and wracked in civil war and economies across the Middle East devastated by the COVID War, “Youth Revolution,” one of our Top Trends for 2021, will spread across the region.
Some regimes will be overthrown, some countries will descend into civil war, and others will remain under strict totalitarian control.
TOP TREND FOR 2021: “YOUTH REVOLUTION”: As we had forecast in December 2020, in 2021, the uprisings and revolutions that were sweeping the world before the COVID War will accelerate dramatically, as billions of people sink deeper into economic despair.
In response, governments will again attempt to use the COVID War as a “legal” justification to prohibit protests. But, as Gerald Celente says, “When people lose everything and have nothing left to lose, they lose it.” And lose it, they will. Thus, we maintain our forecast that protests will escalate into civil wars, and civil wars will spread to regional wars.
Also, as citizens by the millions flee their nations for neighboring safe havens, especially Europe, anti-immigration populist movements will accelerate, with new political parties, some youth-driven, overthrowing establishment parties.
