The following video is a news report about a demonstration in Tunis against proposed reform to religious laws in Tunisia.
Many thanks to Ava Lon for the translation, and to Vlad Tepes for the subtitling:
Video transcript:
| 00:00 | “With our blood we’ll defend Islam” — That was one of the chants used | |
| 00:04 | on the Place du Bardo in Tunis this Saturday. Essentially the university | |
| 00:08 | professors and religious leaders rallied to say “NO” to a series of social reforms | |
| 00:12 | proposed by the Commission for Individual Freedom and Equality. | |
| 00:16 | It’s a body formed a year ago by President Essebsi. | |
| 00:21 | Lilia Blaise and Hamdi Tlily [journalists]: | |
| 00:25 | “The people are Muslim and we won’t let go!” | |
| 00:29 | Some take Qurans in their hands to say it straight, and they are there | |
| 00:33 | to counter those who want to reform the laws inspired by Islamic scriptures. [Banner: Quranic text trumps any other text] |
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| 00:37 | There are thousands who came from the all over Tunisia for the rally. | |
| 00:41 | All people here invoke the instructions from the Quran, the Sunna, for everyday life. | |
| 00:46 | We are here to support the values of Islam in the Quran | |
| 00:50 | and the principles of the Prophet, no matter whether the intentions of the others | |
| 00:54 | are to make country deviate from those values. | |
| 00:58 | The main controversy from this report of freedom and equality: | |
| 01:02 | the proposition to give equality in inheritance between man and woman and | |
| 01:06 | to decriminalize homosexuality. Projects advancing | |
| 01:11 | in a still-fragile society. | |
| 01:15 | This reform of the law will divide us. Women | |
| 01:19 | in Tunisia aren’t oppressed. Very much the opposite. And there | |
| 01:23 | they want to make sure that women will be stronger than men, and this | |
| 01:27 | won’t make the Tunisian people evolve. It’ll have the opposite effect. | |
| 01:36 | I don’t want homosexuality. I don’t want man marrying a man and | |
| 01:40 | a woman marrying a woman. I don’t want those liberties. Those aren’t liberties: it’s destructive. | |
| 01:44 | This rally being held two days before the one on August 13, | |
| 01:48 | which will celebrate the rights of the Tunisian Woman. The President of the Republic | |
| 01:52 | will be speaking in public. A speech very much expected in this context | |
| 01:56 | of social tension. |
I’m no fan of Islam, but the reforms proposed by the Tunisian government are incredibly tone-deaf and out of touch with their people.
They are so out of touch I have to wonder if they were originally conceived on the desk of a Democrat functionary in Dulles, VA. Perhaps they are trying to kick off a second Arab Spring?
Are you people covering the much bigger protest that took place the very next day in support of women rights and freedoms or does that protest not support the kind of coverage viennagates like?
We clearly have a face off here between islam and leftism. Interesting.
Tunisians are escaping in droves and risking drowning in the Mediterranian, to import their islamic values. They shoulda stayed home.
I disagree as to their motive. Tunisians are desperate for better economic circumstances. Men have always been willing to risk death in hope of bettering themselves.
Remember the Tunisian man who stayed home and tried to make a go of it?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohamed_Bouazizi
His despairing suicide in the face of government corruption & petty bureaucracy is claimed to have ignited the so-called “Arab Spring”.
I make no case for Islam; it’s a destructive juridical supremacist ideology posing as a religion. The basic problem for the rest of us is that individual Muslims flee their corrupt countries where the idea of public or private charity is unknown – unless it’s money for jihad.
However, life for the average stall-holder who wants to make enough to get by, to marry, is pitiable indeed. Unless Western governments find ways to support these people in their own territory, they will risk life and limb to get out of the hell-holes in which they live and invade where we live. And they won’t be nice about it. No one in a Muslim-majority country succeeds by being “nice”. That’s for Quakers.