The gulf separating the demands and aspirations of the Middle Eastern working class from the results of these struggles so far was tragically symbolized by the recent self-immolation of Ammar Gharsallah, a 42-year old father of three, in Gafsa. After staging a sit-in to protest unemployment outside government offices in Gafsa, he set himself on fire on January 5. He died three days later.[A year later, people are still setting themselves on fire!]
The number of unemployed Tunisians has surged from 600,000 to 850,000. The economy is stagnant, with tourism collapsing and—in one of the clearest indications of the sharpness of class antagonisms in an epoch of globalized capitalism—some 120 international firms in Tunisia responded to strikes and calls for wage increases by simply closing down their operations in the country.
While Tunisia has witnessed repeated waves of strikes and protests over the last year, the social and political problems facing the working class are posed even more sharply than at the beginning of the revolution. In neighboring Libya, the US and NATO have installed a puppet Islamist regime through a war that cost at least 50,000 lives, while Washington and its allies are stoking confrontations with Syria and Iran that threaten a regional or global war. In Tunisia itself, the bourgeois “left” is supporting a right-wing regime based on the Islamist Ennadha party and funded by Persian Gulf sheikhdoms.
Under these conditions, despite overwhelming popular support for the revolution, official celebrations organized by government agencies, companies and associations in cities across the country rang hollow. A march in Tunis gathered delegations of members of the Ennadha party, the Salafist (far-right Islamist) Hizb al-Tahrir, and the Maoist Tunisian Communist Workers Party (PCOT)......
Police broke up a protest in Tunis directed against visiting Qatari emir Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani. At another march called for “work and dignity,” protesters shouted slogans such as “You hypocrites, a job is a social right,” “Tunisians, remain standing” and “We are true to the blood of the martyrs.”.....
The central problem facing the working class in Tunisia is one of political perspective and leadership.[Self-serving diagnosis. Of course, WSWS is more than willing to offer itself as "correct leadership." The rest of the article is little more than self-promo]