The Middle East and Japan Four Years after the "Arab Spring"
—Reflections on the Shooting Incident in Tunisia

The shooting incident, in which three Japanese tourists died along with other victims, took place at the Bardo National Museum in Tunis on March 18, 2015. Originally a palace, the museum stands next to the National Assembly, surrounded by a quiet residential district. I visited myself last autumn.

This is not the first terrorist attack Tunisia has experienced. But the majority of previous incidents have been confined more or less to border regions, and to have one take place at the heart of the capital was naturally a shock. But the incident was not followed by any major disorder, and I believe that there has been no fundamental change in Tunisia's course toward democratization.

I first became interested in Tunisia and the rest of the North African region when, as an undergraduate at Sophia University, I had the opportunity to study abroad in France and met a number of exchange students from the Maghreb—a region that encompasses Tunisia and the rest of North Africa. It is the westernmost part of the Arab world, and possesses a unique culture. Most of its population are Muslims, and it is a member of the Islamic world. But it was also historically a colony of France, and belongs to the Francophone linguistic community. In other words, it is a region of diverse cultural elements—Arab, Islamic, French, Mediterranean, and African.

As a graduate student I did overseas study in Tunisia, and then, during the latter half of the 1990s, worked there as a researcher at the Japanese embassy in Tunis and as a specialist from the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA). During the time I lived in Tunisia, what has been called the dictatorship of President Ben Ali was at its peak. Whenever you turned on the TV it seemed all that was being broadcast was news of the president and his wife; the mass media were strictly controlled and the general atmosphere made it almost impossible to discuss politics.

In comparison to the 1990s, Tunisia after the "revolution" of 2011 has changed immensely. The people of present-day Tunisia undoubtedly enjoy the freedoms won in that revolution. They are also fiercely proud of the fact that it was their country's revolution that touched off the broader world—historical event of the Arab Spring. One of the reasons I am optimistic about the future of democracy in Tunisia is this aspect of popular consciousness.

However, it is also true that a number of difficult issues remain unresolved. Above all, the most serious problems are youth unemployment and regional disparity. Four years after the revolution the unemployment rate remains high: as much as 30 percent among youth with higher education. The problem of unemployment is even more severe in rural areas. Resolution of these issues is crucial for Tunisia, but there is no prescription for immediate relief. This is because they are structural problems of society and are linked to the state of the global economy. What to do after graduating university—how to find a rewarding job and lead a secure and stable life—are problems that Japanese young people are also familiar with. And we have to think of these issues globally rather than unilaterally.

Japan's relations with Tunisia have mainly revolved around the import trade in Mediterranean tuna; but even before the revolution, in 2010, the number of Japanese tourists to the country stood at more than 10,000 annually, so some sort of grassroots cultural exchange has been taking place. The recent shooting incident is tragic, but I hope that it will actually serve as an opportunity to expand cooperation and exchange between our two countries in a variety of fields.

As I mentioned a moment ago, Tunisia saw the genesis of the Arab Spring—but of course the wave of democratization that swept through the Arab world beginning in 2011 cannot be discussed as if it were a completely homogenous phenomenon. In each country the movement, shaped by local conditions, has taken completely different forms and developed in different directions—in Syria it has devolved into a civil war; in Bahrain it was suppressed by force.

It is also inappropriate to see the Arab Spring as solely about political democratization, and argue its merits or failings in those terms. The revolutionary uprising of the Arab people in 2011 did not end with an effort to effect a transition in political systems from dictatorship to democracy. It was also a struggle to change society as a whole to achieve more immediate, personal freedoms and secure economic stability.

In this sense, it is difficult to evaluate what has happened in Egypt, where the government of Mohamed Morsi, democratically elected after the revolution, has been supplanted by a military regime headed by General Abdel Fattah el—Sisi.

The Western countries and Japan have labeled this regime change a coup d'etat, and many people see it as a major setback to, if not the outright failure of, the Arab Spring. And in fact, there are Egyptians as well who see the authoritarian aspects of the new regime, such as its thoroughgoing repression of Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood, as a sort of return to the pre—revolutionary days of Hosni Mubarak.

On the other hand, President Sisi has had a certain amount of success in areas, such as public order and the economy, where Morsi had been ineffectual. Amid the public bashing of the Muslim Brotherhood, the current regime receives favorable support and recognition—at least on the surface—from citizens. Thanks largely to a massive infusion of economic aid from Saudi Arabia and other countries, the economy is doing better than it was four years ago. Income from tourism has increased, and subsidy reforms are underway. The present government has also succeeded politically in winning the support of a variety of political forces.

Thus, it is important to observe without prejudice the direction in which the changes initiated by the Arab Spring are evolving, country by country, region by region—something which will require flexible habits of mind. This can also be said of how we think about democracy. It is true that democracy is effective in creating a society of liberty and equality. But for those who believe that their society should be grounded in the faith and practices of Islam, Western—style democracy may not be the most rational political system. If they want to change their society and country, they are thus faced with the question of which to use—the Islamic model or the Western model. And it is important to see that this is not simply an issue of ideology but one of policy and practical interests.

Large—scale terrorist incidents believed to have been engineered by Islamic radicals have continued unabated in 2015. In January there was the Charlie Hebdo incident in France, an attack on a publishing house that had satirized Islam; in March, the shooting incident in Tunisia; and in April, the shootings at a university in Kenya.

Looking back, such incidents have gradually increased in the years since 9/11, but it is undeniable that they have grown even more frequent in the period since the Arab Spring. The lid that held down the frustrations of many has blown off, and the resulting eruption has taken some very unpleasant forms. An extreme example of this is the "Islamic State," which became widely known in Japan through the Japanese hostage crisis.

One thing we must not forget is that these terrorist incidents are abhorrent to most Muslims as well. At the time of the Charlie Hebdo attack, statements deploring the violence were issued by heads of state and the mass media in countries throughout the Middle East and Islamic world, and many Muslims participated in demonstrations protesting the incident.

Since the majority of the Japanese news coverage of Islam and the Arab world we are exposed to has to do with such incidents, unfortunately we tend to connect the religion itself with terrorism and to develop unnecessary fears and prejudices toward Arab people.

Of course this is not limited to Japan alone. As a result, Arabs living overseas feel anxious. In the wake of the Charlie Hebdo incident in Paris, there was widespread fear and concern that, as after 9/11 in New York, there might be a wave of reprisals and anti—Islamic sentiment.

It goes without saying that Islam strictly forbids murder, and its fundamental values and ethics are scarcely different from our own. Given what we have in common, we ought to be able to get along more easily as fellow human beings. Arabs have a positive image of Japan, seeing it as a model for a country that possesses a different culture than the West and has successfully pursued its own unique course of economic development.

At present, I teach in the Department of French Studies at my alma mater, Sophia University. Unlike my own student days, there are now students who come to us already interested in the Francophone Arab world and Africa. It is my sincere hope that the number of such young people will continue to grow and that they will help Japan develop more positive relations with North Africa and the rest of Africa and the Arab world.