A proposal by the Tunisian minster of religious affairs to organise a Quran teaching course for pupils during the summer holidays triggered a new round of tensions and media polarisation among Tunisians. Secularists took to media outlets denouncing another attempt, they believed, by Ennahdha to undermine Tunisia’s modernist model. Besides, feminist figures such as Nayla Selliti fiercely criticised the minister of religious affairs, Dr. Mohamed Khalil. The minister of education Neji Jelloul was not spared either the secularists’ media campaign who accused him of collusion with Ennahdha and giving in to Islamists, in an attempt to gain popularity for the sake of his political career. The minister of education took to the airwaves and explained that he is a member of Nidaa Tounes, and that as a secularist and modernist he defends the proposal. Jelloul explained that the proposal was the result of brainstorming at a mini-cabinet meeting aimed at offering pupils of inland towns and villages more access to summer camps organised usually in the facilities of schools in coastal towns. The activities usually included sports, singing, drawing, and other entertainment offerings.
The whole affair coincided with the holding in Sousse of an international conference on peace and dialogue. Prime Minister Habib Essid seized the opportunity to remind all that Tunisia strives to remain an oasis of moderation promoting generations solidly anchored in their history and heritage while open to other cultures. The conference concluded by the signature of a joint agreement between the ministries of education and religious affairs to coordinate the use of schools during summer schools for the teaching of the Quran by school teachers only. Beyond the media row a number of non-Islamist intellectuals and public opinion figures felt the need to warn extremist secularists against the dangers of combating elements of Tunisian identity in the name of modernism. They called for a distinction between Islam and Islamism. Others commented that even under Bourguiba’s and Ben Ali’s years of repression a minimum space for religion in the public sphere was allowed, especially the teaching of the Quran on which there is consensus among Muslim Tunisians. Such positions by some extremist secularists feed the narrative developed by violent religious extremists to justify their violent actions and mobilise youth who do not identify with the modernist model promoted by some secularists in Tunisia and beyond.
Links for more information:
http://arabi21.com/story/904009
http://assafir.tn/%D8%AA%D8%AD%D9%81%D9%8A%D8%B8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3wg6Bv6ekA (Minister Neji Jelloul defending his position)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKVWxNZ0fXs
