 أول قرارة كانت بسيطة، ونحن لا يوجد فرصة بالطبع، نحن نتحدث عن أشخاص جداً جداً يجب أن نتحدث عن أشخاص جداً جداً نريد أن نتحدث عن أشخاص جداً لتحدث عن أشخاص جداًupon and citizens.uded as one in the major themes that this report refers to, the collapse of the old social contractand as Gramsci said, the old social contracts have collapsed but there is nothing in their placeand that explains much of the vacuum we see in the arab world today.One exception though, for whatever reason, is tunisia. تونيسيا. تونيسيا قد تستطيع أن تستطيع أن تقرأ على مقاومة تونيسيا ليس فقط بين السيطة والسيطين، ولكن بين المختلفات التونيسية وحيث أنك لديك مختلفات تونيسيا بين التونيسيا والتونيسيا يجب أن تتواجه بالنسبة لتنظيم المتلقب المسجد أن تأتي بالنسبة لتحديد التكلمات المسجدية ومولداً، ترانزيز المتلقب المسجدية will prove to be a lot more difficult as we have seen in other parts of the Arab world تونيجا هو مدى على تنظيمه all secular and religious parties are remarkable in Tunisia look at the constitution today as the guiding principle as the guiding document not any religious, not the Quran, not any religious document when it comes to political affairs the constitution is the guiding framework and that is something that is unique in the Arab world not to mention other parts having to do with granting women full constitution and rights and upholding the principle of the peaceful alteration of power with us today we have a very prominent member not just of a party but also someone who has participated very actively in the writing of the new constitution member of parliament i hope will will guide us as to how do tunisians today despite all the economic and security problems that you might still be facing but how do tunisians regard this achievement this new social contract and whether you think it will hold whether you think it will be strong enough as a basis for a better future of tunisia بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم السلام عليكم حتى لو بركاته first of all i want to thank kamegi endowment for international peace for inviting شيخ راشد الغنوشي the president of NAHDA to contribute to this report and also for inviting me to this panel well as far as answering your question where is tunisia now tunisia now is to borrow the expression used by gramshi is striving to give birth to the new model after the collapse of the old model that is based on dictatorship on dependency of the civil society of the citizen to the state and of lack of trust between the state and the citizens i think now we are after having led successful political transition we are building the new model we are building the new model through first of all reforming reforming the law and it's really a tremendous task because each time that we open a file and we said it is priority we found another file that is also priority yet one of the main priorities is fighting corruption so we are on the legislative and institutional level we are working hardly to fight corruption the other priority is implementing institutions because we cannot speak of a new model without institutions we have voted the law and we are now we have a higher council of justice and we have voted the law of constitutional court and we have just yesterday voted the law for local elections indeed to give birth to this new model of democracy we need to make it as inclusive as possible and this inclusiveness concerns youth one of the main actors of this revolution how to include them how to make them share the power because they feel as if they have worked for others they said we we made this revolution revolution what is our share on the level of economy most of them are still jobless and on the level of political power so with the local elections we hope that a share of power is going to be given by the text of the constitution itself to youth and to women and to inner regions the marginalized regions those the region like kassrin sidi buzij and douba who triggered the revolution and they are still waiting for development this is i think what well where we are now and we are also still building and consolidating the consensus what what she called in his contribution the spirit of compromise and the spirit of dialogue and inclusiveness between different political families and not only political families political families and civil society this is why we are now we have we have a national unity government and of course one we are facing still facing one of the main let's say challenges insecurity and terrorism we are doing all this i think due to in spite of the difficulties due to this social contract or this constitution that we had we given our we have given ourselves enough time to draft it not only to draft it but to discuss each of its article to to share the this text and what is really i think positive in our experience is that you may ask any chinesian representing any let's say ideological political family or group of civil society they will tell you the constitution is mine i have contributed to it i have contributed for example the high level of liberties in it i have worked for example women organization will say we have pressured the constituent assembly to guarantee women's rights uh young people will tell we have pressured the constitutional assembly to guarantee youth rights uh to uh think about for example creating regulatory bodies to secure the rights of future generations so everyone or every group wants to appropriate this constitution indeed according to a statistic both in tunisia and outside of tunisia it seems that in spite of the economic difficulties uh tunisian there's tunisian majority saying that we no more want return to despotism that democracy diversity pluralism and peaceful alternation to power is definitely something that all tunisian said it's ours and we are not going to abandon it to give it up i think these are the main and the strongest point of the tunisian experience now yet we still have difficulties especially in economic level how to bring development to any regions how to rebuild a new infrastructure and how to reinforce the trust between uh citizen and the state and i hope again that through elections we can do it i i do not agree for example with the consultation with mr salam Fayad when he said don't do elections i will say even if it is difficult to do election do elections because it is the only way now to make our citizens uh feel that they are really in part in a participatory process what also is positive in our experience now is that we have reached um phase or stage that is which is important in the implementation of the transitional justice uh now since uh november uh we are having periodically um sessions of public audience of victims of torture of victims of repression and listening to these men and women from islam's family communist family trade unionist students uh telling what they have suffered due to the absence of liberty of independent injustice to uh uh despotism etc uh it revived the spirit of revolution in a very positive way think that whatever we think of this transition of its difficulties maybe we are more or less Disappointed of the delivery this this new democracy has not yet delivered as it shall be uh economic growth yet we know that we have uh together one something that is human dignity liberty democracy and living together uh again i referred to the article of شيخ رشل رنوشي when he said that uh coexistence he speaks of coexistence and including inclusiveness and i think this is one of the main also achievement of this experience of tenizm experience uh we worked closely or to the chaos especially in 2013 after the second political assassination and the split of the parliament maybe the the the the experience in tunisia the transition war was about to collapse and we uh were able to overcome this crisis due to a strong civil society uh and especially especially with new jtt the main trade union who at the moment said okay we are not concerned with the conflict we are going to be mediators but also and we shall recognize it in spite of all let's say our errors of politicians we have at least two visionary leader is the leader of the نهده or let's say the the group recognizing or referring to islam and democracy شيخ رشل رنوشي and the group of secularists referring to the burgibian uh experience and so to secularism um mr beji قيد سبس who is now the president of tunisia the elected president of tunisia uh during this that crisis each of them uh succeeded in mobilizing tunisia population industries and indeed observers were expecting them to lead the mother of the fight for all fights who is going to exclude the other and they surprised us they led the mother of reconciliation and they opened the way of coexistence we have to to reinforce this coexistence and now we are trying to transform this spirit of consensus into culture into practice um last week i was invited by um a group of journalists and they uh asked me okay two years ago um you seem you belonging to نهده etc that you cannot coexist you cannot even be present in the same space as someone from نيده the the now the the governing party which we are in a coalition how you come now to work together indeed in accepting this transition in our minds that we cannot split tunisia nobody can expel the other from tunisia how to work together and in working together due to the elections to the will of people who brought us together in the assembly we learned to know each other better to become more realistic and maybe to deconstruct the image we have of the other and be ready to reconstruct a common image of tunisia of ourselves and of our future well this is a process an ongoing process this is very well spoken thank you very much i think we in this room as well as the arab region is in dire need of this breath of fresh air that tunisia is providing and i think um uh missus العبيدي makes a very important point uh which is that pluralism and inclusion in itself might not lead to immediate you know economic recovery and and prosperity but it's definitely if necessary first step unless you take this first step you will not be able to at least lay the ground in my view for a better future i want to turn to george george is a dear friend he is uh somebody who has worked on economic issues but also on political issues for a very long time he was the ex-palestinian central bank governor he uh ex-imf person uh somebody who's very very well versed in uh social contracts both from a economic but also from a political point of view much has been said george about the collapse of the old social contracts the collapse of the economic part of that agreement while government still insisted on keeping the political part intact as the region struggles to construct new social contracts because obviously the old social contracts have collapsed but with again with the exception of tunisia not much has happened to reconstruct these new social contracts is it possible to talk about an economic recovery without addressing the other aspects of the contract the political aspects the voice aspects if you will is it possible to talk about new social contracts without giving citizens uh you know individual as well as collective uh rights uh how do you see uh the region going on forward and a question that i always ask myself without any answers if governments finally realize that the rentier system is over if government finally realize that the oil era is over and they need to transition out of it how can they do that when they themselves have become inefficient and bloated how do you ask the problem to be the solution in afterwards so good question thank you marwan and thanks to the carnage endowment for one for actually this pioneering report and marwan for your spearheading this effort i think it's very hard hitting very frank and along with you it will generate and has already generated uh my discussion uh it merits further discussion and i hope actually continue with this project to address uh the way forward because this is a diagnostic analytic uh report that i think brings out most of the minds those who are working in the public space in the Arab world let me uh get into the social contract question because we have i think more than one version of social contract in the middle east uh let me just preface the discussion on social contract with a couple of remarks on the oil because that colors what happens in large oil exporting countries and by that i mean Algeria Iraq and Saudi Arabia forget about the smaller ones i think they'll manage and they don't matter too much anyhow in the end but oil prices good good we don't have انباشر from these countries here they matter in their own way but i mean for the larger pictures i think we can put them to the side i agree i think one has to be careful okay but the bigger problems are actually with the larger populated countries that had that relied on oil for like 85 percent of the revenue of the budget 90 percent of their exports and now oil prices have less than have what do they do um and for for quite some time now oil prices will remain low as long as you have us shale industry and you have technology improving in the us and entrepreneurship and capital markets available to lend the shale industry will remain viable it will continue to produce about half of the supply from the us uh which totals around nine million barrels a day almost equivalent to Saudi Arabia half of that comes from shale that will continue for quite some time as long as prices are in the 50 to 60 dollar range now for the oil countries in the region and you can think of the larger ones again i think for Qatar for UAE they can manage with all prices small population they don't need all the people there they can send them home but Iraq and Algeria and Saudi Arabia for example has 22 million people about 10 million expatriates and about 12 million locals or nationals the labor force potential is about 67 million people so you have to find jobs for these people you cannot treat the Saudi Arabia the way you do UAE or Qatar let's say and for the oil exporting countries as long as their break even price for their budget which means they need a certain price to have a balanced budget otherwise they have to borrow because they have a deficit or they have to do something uh the expected uh the break even price for Saudi Arabia now is 82 so any price of oil below that that means they have a large deficit uh our forecast to 2020 let's say is about 70 to 2025 it's about 64 dollars now for the break even price now so the price now is actually 55 it could go to 664 so we need probably 10 years if you leave things as they are for Saudi Arabia to have enough oil revenue to cover its budget in the meantime they're running deficit now any country like Iraq or Saudi Arabia runs a deficit has two things to do with it either it finances it or it reduces the gap it can leave the gap as it is and finance it and Saudi Arabia has already done that let's say they can they draw down the reserves about 220 billion dollars already uh they borrow domestically from the banks they borrow internationally they have floated the bond as you know Saudi Arabia have billion uh they can privatize some of their assets like Iran was being proposed for privatization privatization has its limits borrowing has its limits reducing your reserves have their limits so at some point you have to address the issue of how do you bridge the gap bridging the gap require either you introduce some some form of taxation or some fees and charges or you begin to actually hit the pockets of the population which you hadn't done so far you've lived for 70 years and the contract what basic agreement was or the grand bargain was we will take care of the oil god has given us this great blessing we will take care of it we will manage it we will sell it we'll bring the money you don't have to worry about anything at all we will fund all your needs at the same time also you don't have to get involved you know there's no reason for you to get involved just go ahead and do what you like within religious limits and we will take care of everything else now as long as you're playing with the house's money you can tell them not to get involved but if you start hitting their pockets to balance the budget and you're still insisting on keeping things to yourself you can do that and it triggered therefore for the breakdown in the social contract in a country like Saudi Arabia or eventually in Algeria and Iraq when they face it is the requirement for greater transparency and for accountability once you introduce that element it will be introduced by force because people will begin participating in funding the expenses of the government so i want to know where the money goes before that there was no reason to ask that question you can apply it and i think this is the trigger that i think will bring about the change now can Saudi Arabia to do that of course they're talking about reforms about taxation the vat next year they raise the fees and charges they reduce the subsidies so in a way they're beginning to fill their way around through hitting the pockets of the citizen for the first time ever and then now you'll be citizens will begin asking questions i think one critical dimension of the social contract in Saudi Arabia is the religious establishment because part of the social contract early on and the founder of Saudi Arabia was an agreement with the religious establishment that they will have under their control the education and the mosques and religious process sizing and religious establishment and in exchange for that they will leave them alone the ruling family will leave them alone now depends on which side they will take now if they begin to actually stir on the side of the population protesting the taxation or whatever reform the Saudi Arabia wants to undertake then that becomes quite dicey i think it depends on exactly what happens and how far they go but this is basically the dilemma faced by an oil country like Saudi Arabia for example as well as the larger countries now this social contract for the other countries the Egypt Syria and the rest was a little different i think that especially Egypt Algeria Iraq to some extent is was colored from the origin by two important factors that didn't really exist in the Gulf and for the export for the oil exporting companies that one was the anti-colonial struggle remember you know in the 50s and 60s Algeria was still part of France there was a war in liberation and the 50s when NASA took over in Egypt there were British soldiers in the canal and in Iraq they had actually on the north side they had the British had also a base so there was a the the social contract that the military regimes made with the people was that we will liberate the countries from the colonialists or from the imperialism and also colored by a second factor that is the defeat in 1948 by Israel in Palestine that seared the conscience of the Arab peoples and the Arab leadership and actually that was probably the trigger for the military coup in Egypt if you go back to history and talk about the defective weapons that were used etc etc and then triggered additional coups in Iraq in Yemen and Libya and elsewhere so we had a series of military coups essentially they rode on the wave of almost acceptance by the population that we need to build a strong army because we were defeated we have to retrieve our honor we have to restore Palestine liberate Palestine whatever it is and expel the the colonialists and at the same time we also need to build the strong economy as well and the the fashion then in the 50s and 60s for strong economic development was to be led by the state therefore nationalization of all the industries and putting the state on top of all the economic machinery and that and they said this will actually also offer the population rapid economic development so we will provide you with security we will liberate Palestine and in fact retrieve our honor we've already kicked out the the imperialist and number three we will provide you with prosperity and growth based on this industrialization nationalization model but in the meantime because we are in a battle with Israel you have to keep quiet there's no reason for you to to form parties or express yourself and so on and so forth and that went for a long time the problem is in the 80s 90s maybe things began to fray because we these these governments stayed in place too long they never provided prosperity they never liberated Palestine in fact every time they fought Israel they were defeated so the emperor immediately began to show that he has no growth so in the 80s and 90s we get distracted by the Iran-Iraq war by the first null 4 by the rise of anti-terrorism and everything else so we didn't actually address the the social contract until 2011 when things really went awfully awfully far now the the trigger 2011 by the way recall although now you look at the region looks very سكتري and you know she eyes on this and that and the fractures that the report talks about the trigger was the demand by mostly the young people for liberty and for dignity that is they began to see that these governments in fact have failed and all in on their side of the bargain and we have to hold them accountable and this notion of accountability began to rise مدرسة تحريس كوير and elsewhere and in fact the was ease in Tunisia the what triggered the rage by the Tunisian by the Arabs as a whole was how could we sacrifice a human being to burn himself to protest so the human being this individual became important and the individuals who went out in تحريس كوير also they were looking they were looking at the world and seeing that other individuals are able to to grow to develop to choose the lifestyle they want and we are suppressed we have sold our souls to the devil for the last 40 years and i think this is the probably the beginning of definitely the as marwan's wrote in his book the second arab awakening but i think it is an arab awakening it's an important point in our history we missed it and i think the panel this morning went over that and marizia i think gave us an example of how you can capitalize on that i think we need from here on to discuss how we can actually recapture that moment and on what basis do we begin to build the new society we want and to begin build the new social social contract and i think this is where i hope we can talk perhaps later i don't want to get it too far into this maybe there will be another opportunity to see what point where is the seed that we can plan that can grow the green shoots that can eventually develop into a new social contract i'll leave that to later discuss thank you george half is uh half tiraki half uh egyptian with a british passport she is under 30 years old well you know i'm being uh i'm being nice half she lives in egypt she's a lawyer and she worked with civil society for the last few years we uh meant in the report to include voices like half because we did not just want to sort of re-jergerate you know all the old policy prescriptions without really listening also to the new generation which is becoming you know increasing the important in the middle east anywhere between 60 to 70 percent of arabes are under 30 years of age so they halfsah represents them represents arabes a lot more than we do and the question i have for you halfsah is is what we are talking chinese to you do um i like the introduction thank you i like the question uh thank you dr marwan and and carry and the kind of the endowment for for inviting me um it's that it's a wonderful report to to read and to answer your question and i think to bridge a bit what we heard in the previous panel from um this question of or this attempt to box a generation into labels or titles not in a a sort of a bad way but in an attempt to try and simplify things for us so we can understand it a bit better um who are the people i still get you know i still have discussions with the very experienced journalists and analysts in kairos who come and they say who was in the square on january 25th who were these people i still don't know who they were what they represent we and um it was mentioned and and and just this question about where did we go wrong in things it's not that you're talking chinese i think it's that things like this you're not matter to people who are not alive during that era we talk a lot about nationalism and and and the state and and i think it's unfair particularly if you look at egypt to تفكير بشكل كبير بين سبيلين والمال will support or trust in the military institution with a particular nationalist fervor that comes from a belief in the events of 1967 or 1956 73 or or concurrent things because what we see in civil society and what we see in in in younger populations and in their discussions is that they're not talking about the military so much and and it isn't a lie there are a lot of people in the square in June 30th who supported that particular transfer of power there was a lot of people who were unhappy with the state of affairs in 2012 2013 that led to the events of June 30th and July 3rd but the question of identity politics and why we need to have that discussion is because a lot of young people do not have never had that discussion they were born under the mubarak era they were raised in a certain climate the same goes for libya under qaddafi and and other countries and the problem we have is that we have to balance the need for this discussion about governance and democracy to be able to give people their access to justice their the transparency and accountability they do want so that they can make their own choices with the fact that they also need the space to discuss amongst themselves who they want to be and what they want to be and how they want to be represented and it's something that we didn't do well enough in 2011 to 2013 because the task is enormous the demand was for immediate change and we all underestimated the entrenchment of institutions in a country as old but what we also underestimated I think and that's what I see now in particularly in Egypt is how deep the revolutionary demands if that's what we're going to call them went for people in terms of what they want and what they desire for themselves and these activities these discussions are very far removed from the politics that we see and one of the most common things i've seen in all the work i've done across north africa across the middle east is this isn't our game that's what young civil society actors underground overground overtly privately will say the politics that's happening whether it's at or this when we don't have a role to play so they are finding or attempting to find a space however small however unsafe or safe they can to be able to try and keep that alive and keep that discussion alive and keep it going and it's one of the things i struggle with when i travel to europe or to the united states or other places this idea that or these comparisons people like to say with we're back in 2010 this is very similar to 2010 the apathy for example which doesn't exist on a broad popular level it's not just young people under 30 or um you know populations at large are not apathetic they're incredibly engaged the discourse and the discussion has changed and it's been diverted and it has been influenced in different ways in different manners in the last few years but people replace photo apathy with political apathy and we don't have young people going to the polls and i think where we don't have that transition is civil society moving to political representation or a desire for political representation but young people don't berate it a few people for using that term um you know let's say you know people of my age um don't it goes back to the mistrust that dr hamzawi was talking about but there's no longer um a belief that change can come from the people that are in these institutions and the way they manage them so civil society is that driver it's that space for them to engage on discussions that to be frank i think our parents and this goes to my parents well um our surprise that we're having whether we're talking about gender equality in a very different manner lgbt rights transgender issues and we meet people in the region who identify in that manner aid religious and and i think you know we we have hipsters just like there are hipsters in new yorkan and washington and they're pretty vocal in their own spaces so there is a very vibrant changing growing discussion it's religious it's a religious it's political it's apolitical they haven't nobody's figured out who they want to be and what they want to be and how they want to be represented and they've decided after the events of the last six years and how quickly things have happened that whether it's civil war that their countries are facing or a return to old structures that aren't working that's not their game and they're not willing to play it so they're finding private quarters to still stay active thank you have sub i think have sub points out to a phenomenon which i think is widespread in the arab world which is that the maybe young generation in in particular but people in general have no trust in state institutions anymore i call it the trust gap the trust gap is very wide in arab society today and that makes things a bit difficult because who is going to lead the change i think this idea that change is going to come or can't come from the top from from state institutions themselves is being totally sort of dismissed by by by by the young generation and they are forming themselves into civil society organizations and trying to do things their own way and not waiting basically for the state anymore to tell them how things should be like let me open it up i think we have maybe about 20 25 minutes so i'm going to try to make it short and i'm going to give the priority to women because we didn't see many women asking questions before so oh wait wait wait let's see what tony please 20 mic please very much so i'm interested in the nexus of policy and politics and i think your observations are spot on so the question on the table is what's the roadmap for integrating um what you've just laid out this deficit of trust with um what is absolutely critical and that's informing the next generation to become engaged a way that's going to transform change sustainable change marwan's absolutely right so if there's this lack of um acceptance that the top down isn't going to work we have to merge it's a hybrid you have to word merge the top down with the bottom up and i am in historically and continue to be um sort of quick to affect change so can you share with us a little bit um both your اعشان plan tethered with the timeline i'm very interested in how we now with all due humility especially now more than ever what is the role that we can play help build that toolbox okay i can't see uh yes please yes hi um i'd like to ask the panel about the role of um islam and kind of sort of the role of islam in like the political system more in just sort of shaping the um the sort of political climate um i know in egypt there's a bit more of like a just sort of clear distinction between like you know secular and then not secular um and wondering just sort of what your your opinions were on um on that role desica desica matthews karnagy endowment um marwan where you ended and hafsa's comments seems to me to be directly at odds with your conclusion in the report that puts national identity at the very center of what needs to change in the region um and and so i wonder whether you can grapple with uh with the question of of um if civil society is where trust can be where trust now reposes um how does that connect to um an overwhelming national identity on which you build and from which we heard in tunisia clearly has been central on which you build a new society and a related question which is um is there any example of where you essentially govern through civil society in a modern economy i don't think there is so how do you bridge that how do you recreate trust in states let's start with there's another question there is another question please let's take that hold it closer all right thank you so um you're at my book from yeah i don't know how much closer it can get but all right um two very quick questions one to madame labidi um i think tunisia has been inspirational through the transition but we're not out of the woods yet perhaps you could um outline the the challenges that tunisia is going to face to get to the other side safely the immediate challenges that you think are in place and the other one is very quickly the house if we say that there is a um a trust deficit between people in the state then what outlets do you perceive for people to affect change all right um i'm going to answer the question about the you can pick a choice from yeah one of our questions in the interest of time in this relation islam and secularism and how we tackle this issue in the within the tunisian experience well um one of the legacy of the despotism not only in tunisia but in many arab-muslim countries is the lack of spaces of dialogue between different ideological and political families and when there is no dialogue there is prejudice prejudice preconceived idea and the other to be islamist or to be by the way i refuse the east and since many years the east is an assigned forced identity i'm not islamist i am muslim and democrat this is how i define myself and thank god this has been also adopted by my my political part so and how to be secularist how to be we have lots of preconceived ideas on each others but at the same time many political families from secular side and uh let's say muslim democrat side led the same battle against despotism in tunisia and elsewhere but let me concentrate in tunisia we had a wonderful opportunity in october the 18th in 2025 2005 when it started from a hunger strike against the the human rights transgression and torture in tunisia and this in this hunger strike met many leaders from opposition from the leftist parties till the naha party and more than a strike they developed a charter from i think 10 points telling okay now we agreed to combat and to fight despotism and then after despotism what is the project of tunisia and there was very serious discussion between them especially in france and in uk also where uh not to be the leader of my party was exiled and among these points uh respect of human rights peaceful alternation on power uh considering women's rights and the human rights at tunisia society also strong points where we have to agree and democracy etc etc and respect of human dignity and this offered us a platform to know each others better and to develop a coexistence or a project of coexistence just after the revolution unfortunately due to political fight again there was bipolarization as if tunisia can only be secularist or muslimist then through the dialogue on the constitution and due also to efforts of civil society not only the quartet but but different civil society organization and i had to pay tribute to your organization mr brother really said uh رضوان مسمودي cs id it was one of the uh civil tunisia's and civil society organization that offered us a common space to discuss it as politician and belonging to different families so we found let's say a common ground this common ground was found when uh from the side of nahda we declared that we are not going to vote uh to mention sharia in the constitution and from the secularist part uh they declared we are not going to vote or to ask to impose a laïque state rejecting religion from let's say the public sphere and we started to gather speaking of a civil state based on citizenship supremacy of the law and sovereignty of the people we have found a common ground this common ground we built on it our social contract but it needed to be developed and it is really on daily basis it is enlarged or sometimes it is it become narrow this is uh the story of meeting with secularist and islamist in tunisia and i think this leads me to answer the second the other question about national identity well we are inheritors again of from the period of despotism is that we have to be either tunisian or not tunisian muslim or not muslim uh modern or not modern and this is very dangerous as if to be to have one identity means to have to fight the other identity and in fighting the other identity means to fight a part of ourselves and through again the dialogue on the constitution and especially article number six about freedom of religion freedom of conscious and prohibition of takfir we had a very strong and tense and rich discussion who we are as tunisian and shall we choose between freedom of conscious or respect of religious practices and finally we said okay we can reconcile between the two sides so reconciling our identity our national identity and uh reconciling not only ourselves with our history but with our present with human rights with uh human heritage and democracy it's also was very important for us and it is also an ongoing process now we have to uh uh implement these values in the reform of our educational system and well uh what are our immediate challenge certainly economic challenge economic challenge growth development because we still have one third of our youth unemployed we still have our regions like from south to north west etc with no adequate infrastructure no adequate health care so it's certainly bringing after bringing liberty bringing dignity to everyone this is our immediate challenge the challenge of security and facing terrorism and here it's really a very sophisticated and complicated challenge there is a positive side in tunisian experience is that all tunisians the majority of tunisian are rejecting violence and terrorism yet we have a problem how can terrorist networks and um violent extremists attract our youth have attracted our youth and they transform them into foreign fighters in syria iraq and libya and elsewhere so how to understand this dichotomy how to understand and develop a comprehensive answer a response to the roots of extremism of violence of terrorism and how to find um let's say a national strategy we are starting now we have a project of national strategy of countering terrorism and while doing this facing terrorism how can we preserve a good level of respect of human rights thank you these are our challenge good thank you yeah um i think the the question is definitely focus on the issues i would discuss but actually take the the issue one step further i think just uh listening uh tunisian there is one thing that i think she mentioned that is absolutely crucial that is a tool 2005 experience one in fact in order to go back to basics you kind of begin to think of what is the most fundamental human right that you can act with state and i think there are in any social contract there will be fundamental rights and there will be derivative rights your right to dignity and respect as a human being your but for lack of of of another expression life liberty and the pursuit of happiness that's embedded in the declaration of independence that recognizes that man or human being not man has natural rights which came out of the european enlightenment concept of john lock that there are natural rights and jefferson called them in alienable rights and they were embedded in the declaration of independence and in the constitution and later actually through jefferson's influence in the french revolution in the declaration of the rights of man and the citizen and later in the declaration of human rights in 1948 that has become kind of a basic concept that are in alienable irreducible rights that every human being is born with nobody gives them to you they are not given by the constitution in fact the constitution is secondary to the fundamental rights that human beings have i think this concept in the arab world we have not really uh we have not yet uh founded this it's like a sort of a little pearl inside a shell that we haven't got to yet we're still talking about secularism nationalism pluralism this is fine but all these إزم's actually cover or at least sidestep the issue of fundamental human rights of the individual so the importance of the individual it's again is a concept that's deeply embedded in western culture beginning with the renaissance and later with the enlightenment that the human being is unique and uh and has basic value and dignity first and then you build on that social system social contract as it says in the declaration of independence of the us that the life the pursuit of life liberty and the pursuit of happiness and it says it is for to secure these rights that governments are instituted among men so it's not that the government is there first and it grants rights to the individual the basic rights of the individual are there they're natural and it is to secure these rights that governments are established so i think we need to kind of begin to think outside the box upside down to think of the individual because one additional thing about the beginning with the individual is that you can challenge then a lot of other things in society other than politics the very repressive patriarchy in the family the repressive tribalism that kind of brings you in to sort of around the the the the the chariots and kind of defend the tribe or defend the nation it kind of puts you as an individual inside a large group and you're undefined you have to challenge these concepts patriarchy tribalism homophobia everything else because you you give each individual a value and you have to start with that so a certain bill of rights perhaps or basic fundamental rights derived from the global culture from the UN human declaration of rights would be fine to begin with that and then you build the constitution to embed those rights in the constitution that's one way to approach the additional question i think that needs to be raised is where do we start where is the seed that we plant what are the shoots and who's going to carry the torch you know everybody all the mice are on the cat but who which mouse is going to go and and hang the bell on the cat's neck what who's going to do that i think there are a number of possibilities they're hinted at and they're actually they're discussed in the report not extensively but they are in the report and i think uh fadi ambour for example mentions the technology the power of technology he takes saudi arabia for example he says that in saudi's actually spend a lot of time on the internet and the interact with the rest of the world and with each other on the internet totally beside whatever the government is controlling you know saudi's download 90 million youtube videos every day so they're watching the world so that's kind of a the seed that you can build on the so the technology the youth the digital media i think it's very very important here i think mentioned some outlets some possibilities the labor unions were mentioned this morning by amr the students in the universities i think the question was asked where was give me an example where actually the government was set up by civil society there aren't too many but the check republic was one of them when the back lab had an actor who was running a theater essentially established a civil society that eventually led to a democratic government in check for vacations not too many but these are the seeds they never actually carry the torch all the way to the end they never build institutions that at least they begin with the message so my bottom line is we have to get back to the individual to the value the uniqueness and dignity of the individual build recognize everybody should recognize basic fundamental rights from those rights then we can have derivative rights and build constitutions and arrangements for the groups and for the whole to create a new social contract that i think will do us well in the in the coming period so the the old world is dying the new world but we still haven't found the key my my own mother's suggestion is to go in that direction thank you thank you have some thank you for the questions they were excellent i will attempt to i don't generally do religious things so i will avoid the islam question but to go to the other questions about civil society and first to to your question i've been in the international development world um have been previously for about four or five years and what i see happening when i look at the region civil society policy support is that we currently are undergoing a mass indictment of the rights based approach there is an argument that it has failed we are looking at shift towards economic based policy approaches or an idea or an argument shall we say that stability security comes first and that includes economic security and democracy and governance comes second i'm pretty sure everybody here is likeminded that they are one in the same what we have seen as a result in practical application if we're looking at development support and policy towards civil society is that support is being in my opinion directed to the wrong vehicles out of an attempt to say that we continue to support but really there is a mass removal of responsibility in terms of strengthening engaging and in society it is um maybe not popular um in in a room like this uh for me to say that i certainly acknowledge if you're looking at egypt if you're looking at libya those groups whether they are journalists who are reporting human rights organizations that document violations um they are the most under threat across the region there is no there's no question um and the the uh the threat is well documented however they continue to receive this staunchest support on a policy level political level and assistance level i do not necessarily question that in 10 15 20 years time that group of people injected with new vigor other characters other personalities will not still be there what we have lost in in the mire of of the political fallout that's happened with regime changes with a very fast paste but calendar events since 2011 is other aspects of civil society that we do need to continue to support and provide uh structure to and we have to avoid the trap of strengthening or having targets that strengthen civil society through channeling funds or support or capacity support through organizations and creating a chain where we implement there are groups in the region that have built themselves they are ready they are engaged they have the culture the language the access there is no top down it will only be bottom up these regional groups who have the access they are your interlocutors it's not your ingo it's not your big groups it's not even a un it's these groups that can reach out to these parts of every country you talk about regional answers and regional solutions but every country is so unique in its problems in its approach that you need those civil society for the buy-in the major massive problem we have regionally is the lack of trust in civil society because there is no buy-in from the people from the collective community they are serving that what they're doing is helping it comes from a trust deficit even in civil society itself it comes from civil society's inability to not acknowledge its own failures in the last five years as well in its own rejectionist nature in its exclusionary nature it comes from the idea that we simply haven't had a discussion on what it means what is civil engagement you know people don't realize that when they cause a map the mass uproar in Egypt over comments from a justice minister which leads to his sacking they don't necessarily understand the concept that that is civil engagement that is civil society the people were engaged and they were able to remove a minister for comments that were made the you know discriminatory in any nature and it goes back to the and it goes to the other questions about what are the outlets and can civil society lead and what are the examples i don't think we're looking for civil society to lead one of the things or one of the ways that i interpret this report is a real in your face sort of you know no fluffing around that the region is bleeding but civil society is a vehicle to grieve civil society is a vehicle to express and if we continue to ignore how important that aspect is whether you're young you're old woman child whatever the subject matter that fits into whatever issue we're discussing people need the opportunity to grieve the last five six years whether it is civil war whether it is regime change whether it is maybe for some people a feeling or a sense of loss of their identity or a loss of who they are because they're now struggling to find a new identity we have to continue to have that space in my opinion that answer is an arts and culture and there are fantastic organizations who work with everybody from syrian refugees syrians inside سيريا who are under siege two groups in egypt under threat geordan palestine in غزة and these groups it's an outlet of freedom of expression you know and i'll end on this example one of the most impressive and inspirational woman i've ever met in egypt is a young woman called sondra shebe who runs a project called busi and it started after after 2011 and certain issues and it's it's mainly focused about gender gender equality gender misviolence and it's simply a vehicle of storytelling it is women and men who are engaged and charged to share their stories in workshops and then engage in theater performances and share their stories whether it is harassment whether it is forced marriage whether it is fgm whatever the issue is and it has expanded it's gone all over the country they've gone into parts of the country where people would assume you can't ever have that kind of discussion in communities very conservative communities she's a young woman who took that on and she did it herself and it's a hugely important organization in egypt it has become a vehicle for many young women so many young men and women i meet who are in civil society have at some point been volunteers or engaged or performed for busi that tiny aspect is an example of how we can engage in a broader freedom of expression argument that in my opinion kind of covers all basis so keeping that in mind thank you thank you i will i will very briefly before i end because i know we are a bit over time but respond to jessica's question uh i certainly did not mean for civil society to govern uh how do you do that uh but what i meant is that if we are looking for agents of change in the arab world today they're not going to come from governments they will come from civil society if we're looking at the new leaders of tomorrow they're not being groomed in government institutions today they're going they're being groomed in civil society what does that mean that means it's a very long process okay it's not a process that's going to unfold in few years when we talk about national identities we need to look at educational systems in the arab world governments are not looking at educational systems in the arab world with it with a view of changing them civil society is in fact you know in my own country there's a very lively debate all coming from civil society saying we are not going to accept the old educational systems in the country uh such moves are only starting to happen and will take a very long time but i mean i don't know any shortcuts to democracy we have to go through this process this this is in my view the the strength of this report okay it's a very very sober report very sober but it's not meant to be a defeatist report it's not meant to be a report saying all is lost in the arab world what it is meant to do is to provide a very very honest and candid assessment of why the arab world is where it is today an assessment by arabs who name names who name and shame who uh have shy shyed away who have uh avoided nice cities okay so that we don't anger a particular government or a particular force this has no nice cities in it and that is why it was launched in arab you know this is the arabic report we launched it in beru two weeks ago and we meant to do that two weeks before we launched it in washington to make the point that this is primarily targeted at an arab audience that this is primarily targeted at the arab world done by arabs for arab that are at least trying to be honest about the problems as a first step towards building better future but not as a sort of loom and doom document that says okay we're you know we're we're we're lowering the curtain and all is lost and on that note i want to thank everyone for a very rich discussion and we'll see you when we publish the next report thank you