Universities become ideological battlegrounds

Several high-profile violent incidents last week at Tunisian universities have highlighted concerns about security in the country’s institutions of higher education.

Clashes broke out March 4 between representatives of the leftist and Islamist student unions at the Institute of Humanities of Ibn Charaf, leading to a two-day suspension of classes as well as a number of damaged classrooms and injured students. A couple of days later, the Preparatory School for Literary Studies of Tunis witnessed violent fighting between the same two student unions.

“This is not acceptable in the post-revolution period,” said Dalanda Larguech, historian and director of Tunisia’s Center for Research, Study, and Documentation of Information on Women. “We condemn such violence that makes universities deviate from their original purpose, which is to educate the youth. This violence is fabricated and is a continuation of the violence society experiences today.”

Violence is not a new phenomenon on Tunisian university campuses; bloody conflicts took place throughout the 1980s. Yet clashes have seemed to escalate recently as ideological conflicts between the leftist student union UGET and its Islamist rival UGTE have intensified. In a widely-reported incident last year, Salafists took over the campus of Manouba University.

While the UGET remained active during the rule of former president Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali and continued its resistance of the RCD-endorsed student union, the UGTE was suspended after being accused in 1991 of stockpiling weapons. It was reactivated after the revolution.

Rached Kahlani, spokesperson for UGTE, blames the leftist UGET for the rise in violence in universities. According to Kahlani, student unions should reject any ideological or political affiliations.

“The UGET does not function properly anymore,” he said. “It hasn’t held its annual congress or organized its elections. They don’t respect democracy and have become political groups that seek to establish obsolete ideologies.”

Sahbi Ibrahim, a leading member of UGET, condemns the recent violent attacks, and believes they are intended to incite chaos in universities. The Minister of Higher Education announced that elections of the scientific board, a committee that represents students in the ministry and administration, will be held this week. The announcement was abrupt and did not give much time to candidates to work on their campaigns, Ibrahim said.

“Perhaps these groups want to spread chaos to manipulate the results of these student elections,” he added.

“Universities should be places that honor student unions and accept differences,” Ibrahim said. “Yet there are groups that … only have violence to enforce their presence. This results in violence. These groups, which are composed mainly of religious groups, do not understand the foundations of a civil state. The battle now is an ideological one.”