Tunisian National Dialogue Quartet
106-673: The Troika in Power Opposition : Quartet Leaders Leaders in Government Opposition Leaders Assassinated The Tunisian National Dialogue Quartet ( Arabic : الرباعي التونسي للحوار الوطني, French : Quartet du dialogue national ) is a group of four civil society organizations that were central mediators in the effort to consolidate democratic gains and form a lasting constitutional settlement in Tunisia following
212-513: A "critical mass" when Ennahda appreciated that any potential formal coalition between the Quartet and the political opposition would presage regime collapse. At this juncture, fear of an irreparable civil conflict began to spread, and on 6 August, Constituent Assembly President Moustapha Ben Jaafar halted all legislative proceedings. Therefore, it was only through a third national dialogue convention, convened on 25 October 2013 that any lasting settlement
318-497: A "unity front" further ensured the success of the Quartet. Reflected in statements by UGTT officials and UTICA president Ouided Bouchamaoui , opening up Tunisia to foreign investment was a key development the Quartet hoped to achieve. While hardline UGTT officials did not share this view, the contingent represented in the Quartet's ability to form a historic pact with UTICA cemented the Quartet's capacity to dominate mediation. Both legislative and presidential elections were scheduled as
424-544: A National Council of Social Dialogue, composed of representatives from government, UGTT, and UTICA. All three partners praised this tripartite arrangement as "the guarantee of a permanent, regular and comprehensive tripartite dialogue." Political scientists have noted the high degree of involvement between civil society elites, the Troika , and the opposition during the Transition and post-uprising period. Certain observers have viewed
530-560: A broad-based appeal for the nascent government. Moreover, the inclusion of the Order of Lawyers and the Human Rights League supplied added weight to legitimating the arbitration mandate UGTT sought for the Quartet. The Human Rights League had been in close alignment with the Ben Ali regime with many Ennahda supporters working within its ranks, so its inclusion further bolstered the credentials of
636-562: A collection of related dialects that constitute the precursor of Arabic, first emerged during the Iron Age . Previously, the earliest attestation of Old Arabic was thought to be a single 1st century CE inscription in Sabaic script at Qaryat al-Faw , in southern present-day Saudi Arabia. However, this inscription does not participate in several of the key innovations of the Arabic language group, such as
742-435: A corpus of poetic texts, in addition to Qur'an usage and Bedouin informants whom he considered to be reliable speakers of the ʿarabiyya . Arabic spread with the spread of Islam . Following the early Muslim conquests , Arabic gained vocabulary from Middle Persian and Turkish . In the early Abbasid period , many Classical Greek terms entered Arabic through translations carried out at Baghdad's House of Wisdom . By
848-1077: A dialect of Arabic and written in the Latin alphabet . The Balkan languages, including Albanian, Greek , Serbo-Croatian, and Bulgarian , have also acquired many words of Arabic origin, mainly through direct contact with Ottoman Turkish . Arabic has influenced languages across the globe throughout its history, especially languages where Islam is the predominant religion and in countries that were conquered by Muslims. The most markedly influenced languages are Persian , Turkish , Hindustani ( Hindi and Urdu ), Kashmiri , Kurdish , Bosnian , Kazakh , Bengali , Malay ( Indonesian and Malaysian ), Maldivian , Pashto , Punjabi , Albanian , Armenian , Azerbaijani , Sicilian, Spanish, Greek, Bulgarian, Tagalog , Sindhi , Odia , Hebrew and African languages such as Hausa , Amharic , Tigrinya , Somali , Tamazight , and Swahili . Conversely, Arabic has borrowed some words (mostly nouns) from other languages, including its sister-language Aramaic, Persian, Greek, and Latin and to
954-483: A lesser extent and more recently from Turkish, English, French, and Italian. Arabic is spoken by as many as 380 million speakers, both native and non-native, in the Arab world, making it the fifth most spoken language in the world, and the fourth most used language on the internet in terms of users. It also serves as the liturgical language of more than 2 billion Muslims . In 2011, Bloomberg Businessweek ranked Arabic
1060-677: A millennium before the modern period . Early lexicographers ( لُغَوِيُّون lughawiyyūn ) sought to explain words in the Quran that were unfamiliar or had a particular contextual meaning, and to identify words of non-Arabic origin that appear in the Quran. They gathered shawāhid ( شَوَاهِد 'instances of attested usage') from poetry and the speech of the Arabs—particularly the Bedouin ʾaʿrāb [ ar ] ( أَعْراب ) who were perceived to speak
1166-511: A model of regime transition, and in 2016 issued an addition $ 2.9 billion under the Extended Fund Facility to continue bolstering the regime's efforts to cut back public debt. Certain historians have offered critiques that despite the Quartet's ability to bring political actors to the table, the UGTT and UTICA have been unable to push for economic restructuring. Even though these unions enjoyed
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#17328584995361272-634: A more robust national reconciliation. Following a series of internal meetings, UGTT emerged decisively to provide overtures to three distinct national civil society organizations, the Tunisian Confederation of Industry, Trade and Handicrafts , or UTICA, the Tunisian Human Rights League , and the Tunisian Order of Lawyers . In October 2012, the organizations convened, with all parties but Ennahda and CPR represented. The involvement of
1378-638: A natural analog to what National Salvation Front activists in Tunisia saw as the correct course of action in deposing the Islamist government. Their proximity to the Ben Ali regime and the largest corporate firms, role in organizing a number of general strikes, and institutional make-up enabled the UGTT to initiate proceedings. Following the assassinations of opposition leader Belaïd in February 2013, UGTT sought to formalize
1484-558: A privileged position during the transition, critics such as Joel Benin view the economic structure of the state as unchanged. The Foreign Investment Promotion Agency of Tunisia has largely been immune from opposition organizing. While critics acknowledge "a new public discourse," the September 2014 Invest in Tunisia Conference evinced an economic climate amenable to IMF and World Bank aid packages. The Quartet has also been criticized for
1590-628: A result of the Dialogue process. The legislative elections saw Nidaa Tounes , the dominant party of the National Salvation Front coalition, win a plurality of seats in the Assembly of the Representatives on October 26, 2014 . Additionally, on 24 November 2014, Nidaa Tounes leader Essebsi defeated Marzouki , CPR leader and willing participant in the now-dissolved Troika. On 9 October 2015,
1696-576: A result, many European languages have borrowed words from it. Arabic influence, mainly in vocabulary, is seen in European languages (mainly Spanish and to a lesser extent Portuguese , Catalan , and Sicilian ) owing to the proximity of Europe and the long-lasting Arabic cultural and linguistic presence, mainly in Southern Iberia, during the Al-Andalus era. Maltese is a Semitic language developed from
1802-462: A script derived from ASA attest to a language known as Hasaitic . On the northwestern frontier of Arabia, various languages known to scholars as Thamudic B , Thamudic D, Safaitic , and Hismaic are attested. The last two share important isoglosses with later forms of Arabic, leading scholars to theorize that Safaitic and Hismaic are early forms of Arabic and that they should be considered Old Arabic . Linguists generally believe that "Old Arabic",
1908-530: A settlement among all parties. Following this, on 18 June 2012 UGTT announced a "political initiative" seeking national reconciliation. The initiative politically was troubled from its inception as Ennahda sought to exclude centrist party Nidaa Tounes from any negotiation process. In addition, the looming specter of a general strike called by UGTT should Ennahda refuse to comply did not bode well for fruitful discussion. Ennahda had historically been excluded from such unionist campaigns, with Islamist representation in
2014-465: A single language, despite mutual incomprehensibility among differing spoken versions. From a linguistic standpoint, it is often said that the various spoken varieties of Arabic differ among each other collectively about as much as the Romance languages . This is an apt comparison in a number of ways. The period of divergence from a single spoken form is similar—perhaps 1500 years for Arabic, 2000 years for
2120-509: A surge between 2011-2013, in which over 60 percent of secularists claimed to have no trust for Tunisian Islamists. Polarization became such that the National Salvation Front included in its coalition in July 2013 a Tunisian Tamarod Movement, of which its analog in Egypt was calling for President Mohamed Morsi's deposition. These events have been cited by political scientists in critiquing the labeling of
2226-513: A two-day general strike, and according to Ian Hartshorn, were able to mobilize around 50 percent of their membership. The seat of the Constituent Assembly , Bardo Palace, began to immediately draw in thousands of protesters. Sit-ins and explicit calls for the deposition of the Troika were not uncommon. Professor Mohamed-Salah Omri describes this protest following Brahmi's assassination as reaching
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#17328584995362332-503: A type of Arabic. Cypriot Arabic is recognized as a minority language in Cyprus. The sociolinguistic situation of Arabic in modern times provides a prime example of the linguistic phenomenon of diglossia , which is the normal use of two separate varieties of the same language, usually in different social situations. Tawleed is the process of giving a new shade of meaning to an old classical word. For example, al-hatif lexicographically means
2438-499: A variety of regional vernacular Arabic dialects , which are not necessarily mutually intelligible. Classical Arabic is the language found in the Quran , used from the period of Pre-Islamic Arabia to that of the Abbasid Caliphate . Classical Arabic is prescriptive, according to the syntactic and grammatical norms laid down by classical grammarians (such as Sibawayh ) and the vocabulary defined in classical dictionaries (such as
2544-470: A wider audience." In the wake of the industrial revolution and European hegemony and colonialism , pioneering Arabic presses, such as the Amiri Press established by Muhammad Ali (1819), dramatically changed the diffusion and consumption of Arabic literature and publications. Rifa'a al-Tahtawi proposed the establishment of Madrasat al-Alsun in 1836 and led a translation campaign that highlighted
2650-727: Is a Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world . The ISO assigns language codes to 32 varieties of Arabic , including its standard form of Literary Arabic, known as Modern Standard Arabic , which is derived from Classical Arabic . This distinction exists primarily among Western linguists; Arabic speakers themselves generally do not distinguish between Modern Standard Arabic and Classical Arabic, but rather refer to both as al-ʿarabiyyatu l-fuṣḥā ( اَلعَرَبِيَّةُ ٱلْفُصْحَىٰ "the eloquent Arabic") or simply al-fuṣḥā ( اَلْفُصْحَىٰ ). Arabic
2756-564: Is a national trade union center in Tunisia . It has a membership of more than one million and was founded January 20, 1946. The UGTT is affiliated with the International Trade Union Confederation and the Arab Trade Union Confederation . Author Safwan M. Masri has noted the influence of "notable intellectuals such as Tahar Haddad ," among other early twentieth-century reformers and thinkers, on
2862-585: Is a minimum level of comprehension between all Arabic dialects, this level can increase or decrease based on geographic proximity: for example, Levantine and Gulf speakers understand each other much better than they do speakers from the Maghreb. The issue of diglossia between spoken and written language is a complicating factor: A single written form, differing sharply from any of the spoken varieties learned natively, unites several sometimes divergent spoken forms. For political reasons, Arabs mostly assert that they all speak
2968-542: Is a sister language rather than their direct ancestor. Arabia had a wide variety of Semitic languages in antiquity. The term "Arab" was initially used to describe those living in the Arabian Peninsula , as perceived by geographers from ancient Greece . In the southwest, various Central Semitic languages both belonging to and outside the Ancient South Arabian family (e.g. Southern Thamudic) were spoken. It
3074-553: Is apparent in UGTT's continued threat to mobilize strikes throughout the Dialogue process, such as that in Toezur in December 2013. In addition, Holmes and Koelher note that the assassinations of Belaid and Brahmi , along with a massive surge in Constituent Assembly resignations from the opposition are evidence that elites often failed to find common ground on transition procedure. Polarization in Tunisia between Islamists and secularists saw
3180-469: Is believed that the ancestors of the Modern South Arabian languages (non-Central Semitic languages) were spoken in southern Arabia at this time. To the north, in the oases of northern Hejaz , Dadanitic and Taymanitic held some prestige as inscriptional languages. In Najd and parts of western Arabia, a language known to scholars as Thamudic C is attested. In eastern Arabia, inscriptions in
3286-408: Is credited with establishing the rules of Arabic prosody . Al-Jahiz (776–868) proposed to Al-Akhfash al-Akbar an overhaul of the grammar of Arabic, but it would not come to pass for two centuries. The standardization of Arabic reached completion around the end of the 8th century. The first comprehensive description of the ʿarabiyya "Arabic", Sībawayhi's al - Kitāb , is based first of all upon
Tunisian National Dialogue Quartet - Misplaced Pages Continue
3392-468: Is credited with standardizing Arabic grammar , or an-naḥw ( النَّحو "the way" ), and pioneering a system of diacritics to differentiate consonants ( نقط الإعجام nuqaṭu‿l-i'jām "pointing for non-Arabs") and indicate vocalization ( التشكيل at-tashkīl ). Al-Khalil ibn Ahmad al-Farahidi (718–786) compiled the first Arabic dictionary, Kitāb al-'Ayn ( كتاب العين "The Book of the Letter ع "), and
3498-566: Is not present in the spoken varieties, but deletes Classical words that sound obsolete in MSA. In addition, MSA has borrowed or coined many terms for concepts that did not exist in Quranic times, and MSA continues to evolve. Some words have been borrowed from other languages—notice that transliteration mainly indicates spelling and not real pronunciation (e.g., فِلْم film 'film' or ديمقراطية dīmuqrāṭiyyah 'democracy'). The current preference
3604-836: Is official in Mali and recognized as a minority language in Morocco, while the Senegalese government adopted the Latin script to write it. Maltese is official in (predominantly Catholic ) Malta and written with the Latin script . Linguists agree that it is a variety of spoken Arabic, descended from Siculo-Arabic , though it has experienced extensive changes as a result of sustained and intensive contact with Italo-Romance varieties, and more recently also with English. Due to "a mix of social, cultural, historical, political, and indeed linguistic factors", many Maltese people today consider their language Semitic but not
3710-559: Is the third most widespread official language after English and French, one of six official languages of the United Nations , and the liturgical language of Islam . Arabic is widely taught in schools and universities around the world and is used to varying degrees in workplaces, governments and the media. During the Middle Ages , Arabic was a major vehicle of culture and learning, especially in science, mathematics and philosophy. As
3816-584: Is the variety used in most current, printed Arabic publications, spoken by some of the Arabic media across North Africa and the Middle East, and understood by most educated Arabic speakers. "Literary Arabic" and "Standard Arabic" ( فُصْحَى fuṣḥá ) are less strictly defined terms that may refer to Modern Standard Arabic or Classical Arabic. Some of the differences between Classical Arabic (CA) and Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) are as follows: MSA uses much Classical vocabulary (e.g., dhahaba 'to go') that
3922-413: Is to avoid direct borrowings, preferring to either use loan translations (e.g., فرع farʻ 'branch', also used for the branch of a company or organization; جناح janāḥ 'wing', is also used for the wing of an airplane, building, air force, etc.), or to coin new words using forms within existing roots ( استماتة istimātah ' apoptosis ', using the root موت m/w/t 'death' put into
4028-516: Is used to denote concepts that have arisen in the industrial and post-industrial era , especially in modern times. Due to its grounding in Classical Arabic, Modern Standard Arabic is removed over a millennium from everyday speech, which is construed as a multitude of dialects of this language. These dialects and Modern Standard Arabic are described by some scholars as not mutually comprehensible. The former are usually acquired in families, while
4134-445: The Lisān al-ʻArab ). Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) largely follows the grammatical standards of Classical Arabic and uses much of the same vocabulary. However, it has discarded some grammatical constructions and vocabulary that no longer have any counterpart in the spoken varieties and has adopted certain new constructions and vocabulary from the spoken varieties. Much of the new vocabulary
4240-505: The 2014 constitution , UGTT, working within the Quartet, was able to secure the right to strike and the right to form new unions without constraints. Before the newly ratified constitution, the 1994 labor statute governing the capacity of the UGTT had precluded any strike activity that threatened vital industry. In this way, the success of the National Dialogue enabled the most labor-friendly constitution in Tunisia's history and displayed
4346-436: The Constituent Assembly of Tunisia . Only having won 89 of 217 parliamentary seats, Ennahda was forced into a tripartite coalition, joining secular parties CPR and Ettakatol . However, the alliance was tenuous, and Ennahda was accused of attempting to impose an Islamist juridical order on the state. On 20 March 2012, protests were held in response to Ennahda's proposed constitutional provisions that would have codified Islam as
Tunisian National Dialogue Quartet - Misplaced Pages Continue
4452-561: The Xth form , or جامعة jāmiʻah 'university', based on جمع jamaʻa 'to gather, unite'; جمهورية jumhūriyyah 'republic', based on جمهور jumhūr 'multitude'). An earlier tendency was to redefine an older word although this has fallen into disuse (e.g., هاتف hātif 'telephone' < 'invisible caller (in Sufism)'; جريدة jarīdah 'newspaper' < 'palm-leaf stalk'). Colloquial or dialectal Arabic refers to
4558-494: The northern Hejaz . These features are evidence of common descent from a hypothetical ancestor , Proto-Arabic . The following features of Proto-Arabic can be reconstructed with confidence: On the other hand, several Arabic varieties are closer to other Semitic languages and maintain features not found in Classical Arabic, indicating that these varieties cannot have developed from Classical Arabic. Thus, Arabic vernaculars do not descend from Classical Arabic: Classical Arabic
4664-419: The "learned" tradition (Classical Arabic). This variety and both its classicizing and "lay" iterations have been termed Middle Arabic in the past, but they are thought to continue an Old Higazi register. It is clear that the orthography of the Quran was not developed for the standardized form of Classical Arabic; rather, it shows the attempt on the part of writers to record an archaic form of Old Higazi. In
4770-859: The "purest," most eloquent form of Arabic—initiating a process of jamʿu‿l-luɣah ( جمع اللغة 'compiling the language') which took place over the 8th and early 9th centuries. Kitāb al-'Ayn ( c. 8th century ), attributed to Al-Khalil ibn Ahmad al-Farahidi , is considered the first lexicon to include all Arabic roots ; it sought to exhaust all possible root permutations —later called taqālīb ( تقاليب ) — calling those that are actually used mustaʿmal ( مستعمَل ) and those that are not used muhmal ( مُهمَل ). Lisān al-ʿArab (1290) by Ibn Manzur gives 9,273 roots, while Tāj al-ʿArūs (1774) by Murtada az-Zabidi gives 11,978 roots. Tunisian General Labour Union The Tunisian General Labour Union ( French : Union Générale Tunisienne du Travail , UGTT . Arabic : الاتحاد العام التونسي للشغل )
4876-454: The 11th and 12th centuries in al-Andalus , the zajal and muwashah poetry forms developed in the dialectical Arabic of Cordoba and the Maghreb. The Nahda was a cultural and especially literary renaissance of the 19th century in which writers sought "to fuse Arabic and European forms of expression." According to James L. Gelvin , " Nahda writers attempted to simplify the Arabic language and script so that it might be accessible to
4982-569: The 2008 Gafsa Riots, was able to successfully navigate the Tunisian Revolution to its advantage. UGTT responded to Bouazizi's self-immolation by calling a strike in Sidi Bouzid and formulating plans for strikes in outer-lying districts. Mouldi Jendoubi, deputy secretary-general of the UGTT , quickly mobilized further strike efforts and eventually called a general strike on 14 January. Converse to
5088-562: The 4th to the 6th centuries, the Nabataean script evolved into the Arabic script recognizable from the early Islamic era. There are inscriptions in an undotted, 17-letter Arabic script dating to the 6th century CE, found at four locations in Syria ( Zabad , Jebel Usays , Harran , Umm el-Jimal ). The oldest surviving papyrus in Arabic dates to 643 CE, and it uses dots to produce the modern 28-letter Arabic alphabet. The language of that papyrus and of
5194-812: The 8th century, knowledge of Classical Arabic had become an essential prerequisite for rising into the higher classes throughout the Islamic world, both for Muslims and non-Muslims. For example, Maimonides , the Andalusi Jewish philosopher, authored works in Judeo-Arabic —Arabic written in Hebrew script . Ibn Jinni of Mosul , a pioneer in phonology , wrote prolifically in the 10th century on Arabic morphology and phonology in works such as Kitāb Al-Munṣif , Kitāb Al-Muḥtasab , and Kitāb Al-Khaṣāʾiṣ [ ar ] . Ibn Mada' of Cordoba (1116–1196) realized
5300-400: The Dialogue an example of pacted transition. Pacted transitions occur when a state is undergoing a period of democratic consolidation and divergent elites can agree upon a shared trajectory governed by common rules. These rules often include a pledge to avoid violence, to work within existing institutions, and to demobilize popular unrest. South Africa's early 1990s transition often serves as
5406-418: The Dialogue process. A number of financial efforts have been put in place to bolster the continued growth of Tunisian democracy since the Dialogue. Beyond continued USAID and EU support, Tunisia 2020, a forum that courted international and private donors from over 70 countries accrued $ 14 billion worth of aid to continue growing the economy, bolstering job creation, and enshrining democratic norms. Notably,
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#17328584995365512-567: The European Investment Bank and the Arab Fund for Economic and Social Development each provided loans worth 3.1 and 1.5 billion, respectively. In a 17 December 2017 interview with the United Nations, UTICA leader during the Quartet and Nobel Prize recipient, Ouided Bouchamaoui , echoed this pro-investment sentiment. Bouchamaoui urged for further liberalization to attract foreign capital: "A number of laws need to be revised. The slow pace of
5618-412: The Middle East and North Africa have become a badge of sophistication and modernity and ... feigning, or asserting, weakness or lack of facility in Arabic is sometimes paraded as a sign of status, class, and perversely, even education through a mélange of code-switching practises." Arabic has been taught worldwide in many elementary and secondary schools, especially Muslim schools. Universities around
5724-402: The Quartet has been viewed as "taking control against the will of the people" through an elite-driven process. The UGTT had secured a number of key labor victories in the language of the new constitution. This was in stark contrast to the high degree of control the Ben Ali regime had exercised over civil society and the highly limited mobilization of union workers under the auspices of UGTT. In
5830-528: The Quartet is that it enabled further foreign investment, donor aid, and international economic support at a time when Tunisia was seeking wholesale independence. When the ANC had been suspended in September 2013 and protests were widespread, often centered around Bardo palace, the IMF decided to withhold a loan package of $ 1.7 billion. It was only following the accession of Jomaa leading the interim government that $ 500 million of
5936-445: The Quartet. Despite these initial political initiatives, a number of high-profile political assassinations threatened to collapse the foundation of the new regime. The murder of opposition leaders Chokri Belaid , leader of Watad , and Mohamed Brahmi , founder of the party Mouvement du Peuple , catalyzed a new wave of protests that threatened to halt the proceedings of the Constituent Assembly . In particular, Brahmi's assassination
6042-672: The Qur'an is referred to by linguists as "Quranic Arabic", as distinct from its codification soon thereafter into " Classical Arabic ". In late pre-Islamic times, a transdialectal and transcommunal variety of Arabic emerged in the Hejaz , which continued living its parallel life after literary Arabic had been institutionally standardized in the 2nd and 3rd century of the Hijra , most strongly in Judeo-Christian texts, keeping alive ancient features eliminated from
6148-561: The Romance languages. Also, while it is comprehensible to people from the Maghreb , a linguistically innovative variety such as Moroccan Arabic is essentially incomprehensible to Arabs from the Mashriq , much as French is incomprehensible to Spanish or Italian speakers but relatively easily learned by them. This suggests that the spoken varieties may linguistically be considered separate languages. With
6254-639: The Tunisian Union for Industry, or UTICA, was particularly key to the construction of the quartet as they had signed a "Social Contract" with UGTT on 14 January 2013. This contract evinced that UGTT was willing to work hand-in-hand with the historic representatives of Tunisian corporate interests — representing key employers and business interests across the state. Such unions are not without precedent in Tunisian civil society, as UTICA and UGTT had come together in 1956 in concert with Bourguiba's Neo Destour to create
6360-508: The Tunisian transition as "pacted." The polarization, continuation of protest during the Quartet's process, and continued threat of elite defection all pose definitional concerns in terming it a pacted transition per Karl's formulation. Arabic language Arabic (endonym: اَلْعَرَبِيَّةُ , romanized : al-ʿarabiyyah , pronounced [al ʕaraˈbijːa] , or عَرَبِيّ , ʿarabīy , pronounced [ˈʕarabiː] or [ʕaraˈbij] )
6466-445: The UGTT having been sparse and Islamist advocates having been silent during Tunisia's period of structural adjustment in the 1980s. The general strike leveraged by UGTT would have mobilized at least 500,000 unionists and thereby brought the Tunisian economy grounding to a halt. It then became apparent that Ennahda and CPR would require other civil society actors to be brought in should the "political initiative" launched by UGTT amount to
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#17328584995366572-451: The UGTT's institutional capacity to arbitrate a national political dispute on the highest stage. A major component of the 2014 constitution were provisions that ensured for transparency in future Tunisian governance, primarily achieved by way of Article 125 which established an anti-corruption government organ. In line with this normative shift, in June 2015 Prime Minister Habib Essid established
6678-476: The administration is discouraging investors. Foreign investors are not very motivated because they feel that existing laws are either not clear or not applied." In the Quartet's official speech given upon receiving the Nobel Peace Prize, they similarly made calls for foreign investment into the state. They recognized that while the Quartet was able to establish frameworks for governance and electoral pluralism,
6784-567: The conversion of Semitic mimation to nunation in the singular. It is best reassessed as a separate language on the Central Semitic dialect continuum. It was also thought that Old Arabic coexisted alongside—and then gradually displaced— epigraphic Ancient North Arabian (ANA), which was theorized to have been the regional tongue for many centuries. ANA, despite its name, was considered a very distinct language, and mutually unintelligible, from "Arabic". Scholars named its variant dialects after
6890-505: The course of the National Dialogue: that of technocratic, apolitical governance to see Tunisia through the transition, and an immediate halt to all state violence and terror threats. Following the assassinations, parties were inclined to avert totalizing political crisis by agreeing to interim governance. In particular, Houcine Abassi , Secretary-General of UGTT, was able to move the process forward at critical junctures and willing to use
6996-632: The development of labor power in Tunisia. In recent years, the UGTT worked together with three other organizations (the Tunisian Human Rights League-LTDH , the Tunisian Confederation of Industry, Trade and Handicrafts-UTICA and the Tunisian Order of Lawyers ), collectively labelled the National Dialogue Quartet , to address the national discord following the Jasmine Revolution of 2011. The National Dialogue Quartet
7102-515: The dialogue structure. However, as accusations of Ennahda's potential involvement in Belaïd's assassination continued, UGTT refused to participate in the second forum convened by Interim President Moncef Marzouki . Following this blow, the second assassination of a prominent opposition figure, that of secular leader Mohamed Brahmi on 25 July 2013 seemed to preclude any further constitutional debate or national dialogue. UGTT seized on this moment by calling
7208-469: The elevated bargaining power of the now four-strong coalition to push political parties along the path to constitutional ratification. As reported in Helen Yousfi's work which collected various interviews from those involved in the Dialogue, Abassi was willing to "require representatives from political parties to stay in the room after the meeting if no decision had been made." UTICA and UGTT's insistence on
7314-412: The elite, technocratic transition bodies it constructed. Certain observers have drawn comparisons between the transition bodies erected in 2011 to oversee the national elections and the bodies created for the drafting of the 2014 constitution. Like the High Authority for Realization of the Objectives of the Revolution, Political Reform and Democratic Transition formed in 2011 to consolidate democratic gains,
7420-412: The emergence of Central Semitic languages, particularly in grammar. Innovations of the Central Semitic languages—all maintained in Arabic—include: There are several features which Classical Arabic, the modern Arabic varieties, as well as the Safaitic and Hismaic inscriptions share which are unattested in any other Central Semitic language variety, including the Dadanitic and Taymanitic languages of
7526-728: The eve of the conquests: Northern and Central (Al-Jallad 2009). The modern dialects emerged from a new contact situation produced following the conquests. Instead of the emergence of a single or multiple koines, the dialects contain several sedimentary layers of borrowed and areal features, which they absorbed at different points in their linguistic histories. According to Veersteegh and Bickerton, colloquial Arabic dialects arose from pidginized Arabic formed from contact between Arabs and conquered peoples. Pidginization and subsequent creolization among Arabs and arabized peoples could explain relative morphological and phonological simplicity of vernacular Arabic compared to Classical and MSA. In around
7632-593: The fact that they participate in the innovations common to all forms of Arabic. The earliest attestation of continuous Arabic text in an ancestor of the modern Arabic script are three lines of poetry by a man named Garm(')allāhe found in En Avdat, Israel , and dated to around 125 CE. This is followed by the Namara inscription , an epitaph of the Lakhmid king Imru' al-Qays bar 'Amro, dating to 328 CE, found at Namaraa, Syria. From
7738-453: The following organizations in Tunisian civil society : Following the self-immolation of Mohamed Bouazizi in Sidi Bouzid in mid-December 2010, Tunisia was beset by proliferating protest movements . The movement was initially catalyzed by rural middle-class workers and youths in the region of Sidi Bouzid, from where Bouazizi hailed, but grew to include diverse swaths of the population. It
7844-501: The fourth most useful language for business, after English, Mandarin Chinese , and French. Arabic is written with the Arabic alphabet , an abjad script that is written from right to left . Arabic is usually classified as a Central Semitic language . Linguists still differ as to the best classification of Semitic language sub-groups. The Semitic languages changed between Proto-Semitic and
7950-508: The government to " irhal " or "leave" in Arabic, similar to calls made during the Egyptian uprising. Ansar Sharia, an Islamist group operating primarily in Libya, was seen as responsible for the assassination of Brahmi , and the Troika correspondingly seen as not taking any retaliatory measures. The Tamarod Movement in Egypt, formed of disparate civil society and political opposition groups, seemed
8056-467: The height of this repressive period, the Tunisian Human Rights League had been the lone advocacy NGO formally acknowledged. According to the 2011 Arab Barometer Survey, only three percent of the sample claimed union participation in contrast to Egypt, which had 10 percent of the protesting population holding union affiliation. Despite this, UGTT's reach had been such during the Ben Ali regime that membership exceeded 800,000 with 150 field offices across
8162-579: The inclusion of new words into their published standard dictionaries. They also publish old and historical Arabic manuscripts. In 1997, a bureau of Arabization standardization was added to the Educational, Cultural, and Scientific Organization of the Arab League . These academies and organizations have worked toward the Arabization of the sciences, creating terms in Arabic to describe new concepts, toward
8268-608: The language. Software and books with tapes are an important part of Arabic learning, as many of Arabic learners may live in places where there are no academic or Arabic language school classes available. Radio series of Arabic language classes are also provided from some radio stations. A number of websites on the Internet provide online classes for all levels as a means of distance education; most teach Modern Standard Arabic, but some teach regional varieties from numerous countries. The tradition of Arabic lexicography extended for about
8374-599: The late 6th century AD, a relatively uniform intertribal "poetic koine" distinct from the spoken vernaculars developed based on the Bedouin dialects of Najd , probably in connection with the court of al-Ḥīra . During the first Islamic century, the majority of Arabic poets and Arabic-writing persons spoke Arabic as their mother tongue. Their texts, although mainly preserved in far later manuscripts, contain traces of non-standardized Classical Arabic elements in morphology and syntax. Abu al-Aswad al-Du'ali ( c. 603 –689)
8480-420: The latter is taught in formal education settings. However, there have been studies reporting some degree of comprehension of stories told in the standard variety among preschool-aged children. The relation between Modern Standard Arabic and these dialects is sometimes compared to that of Classical Latin and Vulgar Latin vernaculars (which became Romance languages ) in medieval and early modern Europe. MSA
8586-458: The loan package was provided. IMF involvement has been viewed by Tunisians as enabling foreign, technocratic control at a moment when Tunisian agency had just been achieved. Moreover, various Tunisians viewed the National Dialogue's insistence on imposing technocrats beholden to various party officials as betraying the desires of the Tunisian populace for agency in determining state governance. The IMF and World Bank have continued to herald Tunisia as
8692-883: The many national or regional varieties which constitute the everyday spoken language. Colloquial Arabic has many regional variants; geographically distant varieties usually differ enough to be mutually unintelligible , and some linguists consider them distinct languages. However, research indicates a high degree of mutual intelligibility between closely related Arabic variants for native speakers listening to words, sentences, and texts; and between more distantly related dialects in interactional situations. The varieties are typically unwritten. They are often used in informal spoken media, such as soap operas and talk shows , as well as occasionally in certain forms of written media such as poetry and printed advertising. Hassaniya Arabic , Maltese , and Cypriot Arabic are only varieties of modern Arabic to have acquired official recognition. Hassaniya
8798-409: The missed opportunity of 2008, UGTT had leveraged its institutional position and historical proximity to the Ben Ali regime to its advantage. The UGTT had assumed a vanguard position for the protest movement and would be a key player in any negotiations to follow. Despite Ben Ali's departure, the ruling Troika led by Islamist party Ennahda proved unable to strike a lasting constitutional settlement in
8904-768: The need for a lexical injection in Arabic, to suit concepts of the industrial and post-industrial age (such as sayyārah سَيَّارَة 'automobile' or bākhirah باخِرة 'steamship'). In response, a number of Arabic academies modeled after the Académie française were established with the aim of developing standardized additions to the Arabic lexicon to suit these transformations, first in Damascus (1919), then in Cairo (1932), Baghdad (1948), Rabat (1960), Amman (1977), Khartum [ ar ] (1993), and Tunis (1993). They review language development, monitor new words and approve
9010-401: The official religion of the state. Ennahda had also made clear that women were to be placed in a "complementary" legal position, and not deserving of formal equality. Secularists feared that this legal language would have enabled a path to the future incorporation of sharia law. As early as 18 June 2012, UGTT had been calling for Ennahda , Nidaa Tounes , and other relevant parties to come to
9116-424: The one whose sound is heard but whose person remains unseen. Now the term al-hatif is used for a telephone. Therefore, the process of tawleed can express the needs of modern civilization in a manner that would appear to be originally Arabic. In the case of Arabic, educated Arabs of any nationality can be assumed to speak both their school-taught Standard Arabic as well as their native dialects, which depending on
9222-549: The overhaul of Arabic grammar first proposed by Al-Jahiz 200 years prior. The Maghrebi lexicographer Ibn Manzur compiled Lisān al-ʿArab ( لسان العرب , "Tongue of Arabs"), a major reference dictionary of Arabic, in 1290. Charles Ferguson 's koine theory claims that the modern Arabic dialects collectively descend from a single military koine that sprang up during the Islamic conquests; this view has been challenged in recent times. Ahmad al-Jallad proposes that there were at least two considerably distinct types of Arabic on
9328-498: The paradigmatic example. While such transitions are contingent on regime type, role of the military, and pre-existing institutions, Tunisia's elite-centered Dialogue has been thought to meet the definition. Gary A. Stradiotto and Sujian Guo define constituent pacts as "a negotiating unit, comprised of incumbent and opposition groups, attempting to bargain the transition away from authoritarian rule to democracy." The National Dialogue process fits this description as both opposition parties,
9434-479: The process was widely hailed by international observers and non-governmental organizations, the actual National Dialogue was decried by more fervent unionists as betraying elements of the Tunisian working poor. In particular, the inclusion of UTICA, at a juncture when Tunisians were embattled in a fight for wage increases, seemed to certain union activists and working class as reneging on its duty to its membership. Another critique that has often been put forth regarding
9540-744: The quartet was awarded the 2015 Nobel Peace Prize "for its decisive contribution to the building of a pluralistic democracy in Tunisia in the wake of the Jasmine Revolution of 2011". Kaci Kullmann Five , chairwoman of the Nobel Committee remarked of the Quartet: "It established an alternative peaceful political process at a time when the country was on the brink of civil war." The Nobel Committee indicated its hope that Tunisia will serve as an example for other countries experiencing moments of political transition. The international community widely supported
9646-410: The region may be mutually unintelligible. Some of these dialects can be considered to constitute separate languages which may have "sub-dialects" of their own. When educated Arabs of different dialects engage in conversation (for example, a Moroccan speaking with a Lebanese), many speakers code-switch back and forth between the dialectal and standard varieties of the language, sometimes even within
9752-454: The ruling Troika, and civil society mediators intervened to construct a common path. Certain scholars, however, have noted stark differences with traditional conceptions of pacted transitions and the Tunisian case. A. A. Holmes and K. Koehler argue that unlike Terry Karl's traditional formulation, continued protests and the high polarization that met Ennahda's governance is evidence that the ruling Troika did not demobilize public unrest. This
9858-458: The same sentence. The issue of whether Arabic is one language or many languages is politically charged, in the same way it is for the varieties of Chinese , Hindi and Urdu , Serbian and Croatian , Scots and English, etc. In contrast to speakers of Hindi and Urdu who claim they cannot understand each other even when they can, speakers of the varieties of Arabic will claim they can all understand each other even when they cannot. While there
9964-458: The sole example of Medieval linguist Abu Hayyan al-Gharnati – who, while a scholar of the Arabic language, was not ethnically Arab – Medieval scholars of the Arabic language made no efforts at studying comparative linguistics, considering all other languages inferior. In modern times, the educated upper classes in the Arab world have taken a nearly opposite view. Yasir Suleiman wrote in 2011 that "studying and knowing English or French in most of
10070-556: The standardization of these new terms throughout the Arabic-speaking world, and toward the development of Arabic as a world language . This gave rise to what Western scholars call Modern Standard Arabic. From the 1950s, Arabization became a postcolonial nationalist policy in countries such as Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, and Sudan. Arabic usually refers to Standard Arabic, which Western linguists divide into Classical Arabic and Modern Standard Arabic. It could also refer to any of
10176-497: The state continues to face challenges regarding youth unemployment and vocational prospects: "...we have to create the conditions that ensure the return of the Tunisian economy to its normal state, and improve the overall climate for investment, and embark on approving the necessary repairs, with extensive consultation between the Government and the economic and social players, to preserve the interests of all groups and factions." While
10282-412: The state; identification with the union was often seen as synonymous with party opposition. Protest participation steadily increased leading up to December 2010. In 2006 and 2007 alone, 100,000 Tunisians went on strike when Prime Minister Nazif reduced all state worker pay, whereas from 1996 to 2004, no more than 50,000 protested each year. UGTT , responding to perceived failure to mobilize workers during
10388-430: The table for a convention centered around the constitution and electoral regulations. At this stage in the transition, UGTT was still largely viewed as being beholden to partisan interests, particularly opposition parties decrying Ennahda-led Islamist reform. To this end, UGTT deputy secretary Samir Cheffi had gone on national television on 30 May to assert that the organization would remain in its impartial role in seeking
10494-501: The towns where the inscriptions were discovered (Dadanitic, Taymanitic, Hismaic, Safaitic). However, most arguments for a single ANA language or language family were based on the shape of the definite article, a prefixed h-. It has been argued that the h- is an archaism and not a shared innovation, and thus unsuitable for language classification, rendering the hypothesis of an ANA language family untenable. Safaitic and Hismaic, previously considered ANA, should be considered Old Arabic due to
10600-504: The transition process in Tunisia and provided economic aid through various channels. In particular, the United States and European Union provided impetus for the completion of the Dialogue process by intervening at critical junctures to ensure Ennahda's compliance by way of leveraging economic support. It became clear that IMF and World Bank support for the regime would only come by way of the Troika's resignation and further cooperation with
10706-498: The unrest and historic regime change of the 2011 Jasmine Revolution . The quartet was formed in the summer of 2013 following a political crisis that halted the constitutional process. As a result of the Quartet's success in bringing the Ennahda -led government to see negotiations through and producing a historic constitution, on 9 October 2015, the quartet was awarded the 2015 Nobel Peace Prize . The National Dialogue Quartet comprises
10812-451: The world have classes that teach Arabic as part of their foreign languages , Middle Eastern studies , and religious studies courses. Arabic language schools exist to assist students to learn Arabic outside the academic world. There are many Arabic language schools in the Arab world and other Muslim countries. Because the Quran is written in Arabic and all Islamic terms are in Arabic, millions of Muslims (both Arab and non-Arab) study
10918-421: Was afterward announced as the laureate of the 2015 Nobel Peace Prize "for its decisive contribution to the building of a pluralistic democracy in Tunisia". Scholar Joel Beinin has previously stated that the UGTT is "the single most important reason that Tunisia is a democracy today" (however, this statement was made prior to the coup of 2021 ). Safwan Masri contrasts the status of the union in Tunisia with
11024-646: Was built. At the outset, the UGTT-led coalition made clear that they sought an apolitical government divorced from the extremism they viewed Ennahda as supplying to Tunisian national politics. In this vein, of the 24 parties invited to the National Dialogue in October 2013, 21 signed a "roadmap" outlining the general aims of the convention. They sought: As argued by Hèla Yousfi in Trade Unions and Arab Revolutions: The Tunisian Case of UGTT two "guiding principles" emerged to steer
11130-617: Was never obvious that Tunisian unions would bolster protest efforts. Since independence, the Tunisian General Labor Union (UGTT) had been politically active, notably in protesting IMF -imposed cuts to subsidies, but had increasingly been repressed by the Ben Ali regime. Events such as the 1978 "Black Thursday" protest in response to consumer price hikes and wage stagnation and the 1985 protests due to further IMF cuts to subsidies and skyrocketing cost of living seemed unlikely to be replicated in Ben Ali's more repressive climate. At
11236-633: Was viewed as a blow to the constitutional process as a number of opposition parties withdrew from the Constituent Assembly altogether. As an immediate result of Brahmi's murder, a secular opposition coalition, the National Salvation Front , organized a month-long series of protests in July 2013, culminating in calls for Ennahda to step down. A particular locus of the movement was the Bardo National Museum , where protesters gathered and broadcast calls for government resignation. Calls were made for
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