| 18 March 2012 | 14 Comments
 
 

The Star of David tag at the entrance of Fateh Mosque in downtown Tunis

On Friday,  two incidents involving the defamation of mosques in Tunis and the southern town of Ben Guerdane highlighted the increasing divide between Islamists and secularists in Tunisia.

The first incident took place after Friday prayer at the popular Fateh Mosque in downtown Tunis. A middle-aged man of nearly 50 years of age was seen by the congregation tagging the entrance of the mosque with a Star of David using a red spray can.

After tagging the mosque, he entered the mosque’s courtyard and prayed. Once he finished praying, people in the mosque surrounded him, according to an eyewitness, who declined to give his name.

When pressed by bystanders to explain his act of vandalism, he defiantly repeated to people surrounding him that he had his own reasons. “Some were angry to see this act committed,” the eyewitness said. “We felt that this act was a simple provocation and that he was looking for us to beat him up,” he added.
The incident angered almost every observer passing by the mosque, according to the eyewitness. “It is not only Salafists, who felt humiliated by that act but any Tunisian Muslim,” he stressed. “We thought it wise not to act violently towards this provocation.” The man was handed over to the police to be questioned over his act.

Fateh Mosque, Tunis

The eyewitness is a self-proclaimed Salafist in his twenties and sells Islamic books and natural products in front of the mosque. Another self described Salafist around him described the act of the man as a “fitna (discord in Arabic) to draw Tunisia into civil strife, and thank God we did not react violently. They want to divide us.” All agreed that they will sue the man over this act.

A middle-aged man, who sat opposite from the mosque in a small clinic, expressed his uneasiness with the presence of the Salafists in front of the mosque. “I don’t want to speak about what happened, but I have a problem with the Salafists, who are selling things in front of the mosque. They do not represent the majority of Tunisia.” He added that their stand was illegal but no one tells them to go away from the mosque. “They don’t have a permit to sell things in front of the mosque, they should go somewhere else to sell things,” he complained.

Two separate incidents of desecration took place in two separate mosques in the southeastern town of Ben Guerdane on Thursday night, in two mosques where one copy of the Quran was found in the mosque’s toilet and another copy was found ripped. Provocative anti-Islamic slogans using swear words were written on some of the town’s walls. An investigation is being carried out to find the person involved in this act. A march organized by locals in Ben Guerdane took place yesterday to denounce the provocative act that occurred in the mosques.


Comments (14)

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  1. chris says:
    20 March 2012 at 03:00

    Just because people do odd things does not mean they are mentally ill. Than man who took the flag of the roof did not get called mentally ill. If this man is a homosexual then perhaps he is fed up by the way he is treated in his own country. In Libya when that woman said publicly she was raped repeatedly she was then called a whore and they publicly called her a mental health case…which shows that the governments will do what they can to discredit a person

    Tunisians dont like homosexuals i dont know why. Yes it is haram in the Koran but widely practiced there. With tourists, each other in many ways. Of course they dont want to talk about it or bring it out in the open. Maybe this guy was just fed up with the hypocritical attitude and decided to do something that showed his disgust with the whole system or hatred towards him and his peers….That of course is if he is gay.

    Trust this we will not know and unless I see a video where he openly declares what and who he is I am happy to believe he was just sick and tired of what is going on there….with the stuff that does not make the news.

    As for the Salifast people I think they are more noticed now than when Ben Ali was in charge but that may be because they were mostly locked up and treated badly. However they are trying to raise their profile and they have been very aggressive and in some cases violet. They are a minority and should not be taken that seriously but they have and agenda that does not subscribe to sharing anything they do not compromise at all and they want what they want. They want the rules of the country to be informed by the Koran.

    The leftist seem to want things to remain as they were in regards to the religious situation in that country. They do not agree with the Salifast people at all. They dont believe that the religion and the government should affect or necessarily reflect each other.

    @ Greta I hope that helps your question

    Reply
  2. Kusaila says:
    20 March 2012 at 00:43

    the author maliciously omitted the fact that the mosque in question (El Fath that is) was a synagogue not too long ago.

    Reply
  3. Greta says:
    19 March 2012 at 20:26

    Yes, the secularists are organised. I don’t deny it. But my point was that they did not deface this mosque. Please someone explain to me the connection between defacing this mosque and the secularists.

    Reply
  4. Aqil says:
    19 March 2012 at 16:13

    @ Greta

    Who are you kidding really? What makes the Salafists an organized body that the two types of events are not seen the same? Because they organize demonstrations? Perhaps then you did not read that secularists are organizing a demonstration tomorrow against Shariah law in center Tunis. There have been many such demonstrations in the past as well. Perhaps you chose to ignore that there are a number of registered secular groups and parties in Tunisia (irrespective if their relative insignificance), what can be more organized than that? These secular groups have as much a plan for Tunisian society as the Salafists.

    Honestly I fail to see any justification for this blatant hypocrisy. You should call a spade a spade rather than closing your eyes when the shoe is on the other foot.

    Reply
  5. Greta says:
    19 March 2012 at 11:36

    Ok Martin perhaps you could explain to me what is ‘secular’ about this incident of defacing the mosque. I just do not understand the headline.

    Reply
  6. Mohamed says:
    18 March 2012 at 22:49

    @ Greta
    He is not Atheist, i think you are confusing two terms here. Secularist only opt for the separation between Religion and Politics, not necessarily personal religious belief. We have very few AtheistsSe in Tunisia, but many Secularists.

    But i still agree with, Tunisia Live is not really a news site. As i have said in the past, they are more like a blog! This has helped me lower my expectations and read this site with a little more ease.
    Most “Journalists” here are in their early 20s from what i have researched, some only studying/studied literature with no background in Politics, History, Law, … Just lower your expectations am afraid.

    As we say in Tunisia, Insha allah another news service will open up, or at least TunisiaLive might mature up in a couple of years ….

    Reply
    • Marwan says:
      19 March 2012 at 11:25

      I disagree. I think Tunisia live is doing a great job. They have a good blend of news reporting, feature stories and comments. It is one of the few reliable websites in english that covers Tunisia.

      Regarding this particular story I think Tunisia live did a decent job. There was a desecration of the mosque, one man is a suspect, some people got angry but did not resort to violence. We don’t know if everybody is telling the truth, or if someone is mentally ill, but it is a decent story in the light of the recent clashes between salafists and non-salafists in Tunisia.

      On the minus side, I think the Tunisia live website is a bit confusing. It’s not always easy to spot the top story. Sometimes great news articles are published in sub-categories only.

      Also, it would be great with more investigative journalism but that goes for all media in Tunisia – not only Tunisia live. (That goes for much of the European media as well, by the way).

      Reply
      • Greta says:
        19 March 2012 at 15:49

        I agree that the story is important that a mosque was desecrated and people did not react to this terrible act, except with intelligence treating it as the one off action of a disturbed individual. But why then headline this story as an example of a secular plot? The only reason is to say that people who believe in the separation of church and state are the same as vandals who desecrate holy places and insult Islam. Does that seem fair to you?

        I agree that the Salafists are not treated fairly in the press in general, however two wrongs do not make a right.

        Reply
        • Marwan says:
          19 March 2012 at 23:32

          I agree with you, Greta. The headline is weird. There is a problem with labeling different groups in Tunisia.

          I mean, who are the salafists? Are they wahhabists? And Hizb ut-Tahrir, are they salafists? Or are they something else?

          I don’t agree with you that the salafists have been treated unfairly in the media. They have harrassed and attacked a lot of people but it hasn’t really been reported until now.

          Reply
  7. Greta says:
    18 March 2012 at 20:23

    Why this headline? The man who did this was obviously disturbed. On what basis do you label him a secularist? He went to pray after doing the tag. Or perhaps you have evidence you are not sharing with us here. Please justify yourself Tunisia Live!

    I stopped reading this website for a while but came back when it seemed to becoming more measured, and less hysterical but I see you are up to your old tricks. Tunisia needs intelligent debate based on fresh journalistic research, not groundless polemics.

    Reply
    • Martin says:
      18 March 2012 at 23:12

      Dear Greta,
      I can not speak for Tunisialive. I can read the headline. It says: “Mosque Tagged with Red Star of David and Quran Desecration Highlights Islamist-Secularist Divide in Tunisia”
      Read it twice, and you’ll see that the person was not called secularist. I read the article twice and checked.

      I don’t know. The news on Tunisialive is ok. Some articles demand further research. But yet I’m happy that they present news on Tunisia in english.
      Especially the “who’s who” part is a good idea.

      I’m not a journalist myself. Never the less I thought about objectivity in writing. Subjectivty starts before typing the first letter of an article. The decision to write on this certain subject and no other is where subjectiviy starts.

      OK; I see I could go on and on writing about this subject. I for myself decided for myself that every word I write is totaly subjective. I express my opinion. It is not objective.

      When I read journalistic articles I know that I have to read them criticaly. I simply do not buy in to every word I read.

      But writing on this very matter is not an easy task. Emotions run high and the situation could escalate easily.

      I’m actually suprissed that our salafists friends reacted cool headed in this situation.

      I do not see polemics in the article as well. So, dear Greta: read and analyse the article and show evidence why this article is not well done.

      If the article is bad. Show me why. I frequent this site every now and then. I want to know what people dislike about it. But it has to happen on well grounded arguments.

      Mainly I’m happy that everybody involved in the situation reacted sober-minded. hamdoola ;)

      Reply
      • Greta says:
        19 March 2012 at 11:43

        Ok Martin perhaps you could explain to me what is ‘secular’ about this incident of defacing the mosque. I just do not understand the headline

        Reply
        • Aqil says:
          19 March 2012 at 15:07

          Why is it that when a bearded person does something stupid, everybody starts bashing Islamists left, right and centre. Yet when a secular person tries to create mischief people start to get their knickers in a twist?

          And just so you know, if you read the arabic and french Tunisian news websites, the person who desecrated the Quran in Ben Guerdane was a secularist. He was arrested and he admitted that he did those acts out of hate for the religion of Islam as he was a homosexual.

          Reply
          • Greta says:
            19 March 2012 at 15:31

            What is a ‘secular’ person? Please define it for me as I do not understand what this is.
            People do not see the two types of events as the same because the Salafists are an organised body of people with a plan for society, not individuals acting alone.

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