I'm George Galloway, member of
parliament, anti-war leader, and this
broadcast is being made by Malaka Media.
But you could feed back at me on what
I've got to say on Twitter, George
Galloway, on Facebook. The page is
called George Galloway MP. I've just
come back from Tunisia. I was only there
a couple of days, so I can't claim to
have seen everything or everybody. But I
saw and heard and learned enough to know
that Tunisia is the flower of the Arab
Revolution, the only flower that has
grown and is still growing in the Arab
Spring. The credit for that goes to a
lot of people. First of all, it goes to
the Tunisian people as a whole who
conducted their revolution with
exemplary discipline and determination.
It also goes to the political leadership
of that revolution. I was for many years
here in London, a comrade of Sheikh
Rashid Ganushi who was an exile here and
who had no reason to imagine that he
would ever go home. But he patiently
developed an ideological stance here in
Britain and a strategic sense of the
need for people like him to unify broad
forces in their country in order to
bring about a transformation from
dictatorship to democracy. I'm very
proud of my friendship with Sheikh
Rashid Ganushi. He when he returned led
his party Ina to a very substantial
electoral victory. But they gave up
office when it became clear that things
were rocky in the garden of the Tunisian
revolution and that in order to preserve
unity and stability, a step back by him
and the Nda was necessary. And so I take
my hat off to Sheikh Rashid Ganushi for
the current situation in Tunisia which
is just for those who don't know a
bustling revolutionary
society where people can speak and
assemble freely where a proliferation of
newspapers, radio stations, television
stations are literally the uh the
expression
of chairman Ma Tong's famous phrase that
a revolution is one in which a thousand
flowers must grow and that a thousand
schools of thought must contend. It
wasn't entirely lived up to in
revolutionary China but so far at least
it is being lived up to in Tunisia.
There is a political space there, a
civic society there, a freedom there
that doesn't exist anywhere else in the
Arab world with the possible exception
of Lebanon, which is as always a bit of
a special case. But I'm not here to talk
about Lebanon. I'm here to talk about
Tunisia. There are other political
forces of course who have played their
role. The interim president, Marzuki,
who is currently one of the last two
candidates running to be the elected
president of the republic, also must
take a lot of the credit. He has helped
to create this island of stability
whilst still going through a
revolutionary process in Tunisia. and
Sepsi, the one who leads the coalition
which includes people on the left,
people amongst nationalist uh uh uh
schools of thought and I'm sorry to say
people from the old regime, the old
dictatorship uh of uh Ben Ali, the
president who was overthrown in the
first of the Arab revolutions. Sebi won
the elections not by a vast amount but
clearly he leads the leading party in
the state in the parliament. He could
have if he was like some other Arab
leaders he could have said that he was
going to rule alone. But he has learned
from Shehikh Rashid Ganushi that leading
alone unless you have absolutely
enormous hegammonic support in a country
is not going to work. So he has declared
that he is ready to work with the
opposition and include them in the
politics of the state. I have never met
Marzuki or Sebi. I have no personal acts
to grind against any of them or any
particular preference for either of
them. Though I must say that Marzuki's
views on many things, including Syria,
are not my own. But nonetheless, I'm
hoping that Marzuki wins the
presidential runoff which is taking
place in just a couple of weeks time.
I'm hoping that he will win because I
think that he more authentically
represents the revolutionary spirit of
the people of Tunisia. I think that
Sebi, a figure from the old regime, from
the old dictatorship, is not really the
man who can best lead Tunisia into the
postrevolutionary
future. There are too many dangers in,
as we've seen in Egypt, an old regime
coming back. In Egypt, we have the
frankly absurd situation since my last
broadcast that the old dictator Mubarak
has been cleared of all charges whilst
the actual president of Egypt, President
Morsi, is on trial for his life and
being held in dark and dank conditions.
I'm not comparing Sebi with the new
regime in Egypt. I've already said I
think that Sebi has displayed a deafness
and a sophistication in his political
approach that's quite different from
that which exists elsewhere in the Arab
world. Nonetheless, I think that a
figure from the old regime of Ben Ali
cannot possibly be the best of the two
candidates running in this election.
Neither of these two candidates of
course is an Islamist. Neither of them
are supporters of Sheikh Rashid Ganushi.
So this is not about an Islamist versus
a secularist. They are both secularists.
They are both people who accept the
verdict of the Tunisian people and their
revolution. So I'm aiming this broadcast
at the many people in Tunisia by the
grace of God who listen to me. Tunisia
is the second biggest country in the
whole world amongst my followers of
almost 1 million people on social media.
Tunis is after London the second biggest
city of my followers on social media.
And I'm aiming this message at them. I'm
aing it I'm aiming it at men of the left
like me. I'm aiming it of supporters of
the idea of Arab national unity like
myself and to them I say that Marzuki
has to be the better of the two
candidates. Neither of them is bad.
Neither of them is overwhelmingly good.
But you have a choice between candidate
A and candidate B. And I'm here to say
to you that if like me you are a
progressive in politics, if like me you
are a leftist in politics, if like me
you support the idea of Arab
nationalism, then the man best able to
lead Tunisia in a way which will
preserve the space not just for those
schools of thought but respect the other
schools of thought all of whom must be
allowed to contend.
If the goals of the Tunisian revolution
are to be maintained, you should vote
for Marzuki. So there's anybody in
Tunisia in want of my advice, my advice
is clear that though neither of these
candidates would be any kind of disaster
for Tunisia, Marzuki is definitely the
better of the two candidates. So, in the
runoff for the Tunisian presidency, if
you listen to me, you'll vote for
Marzuki.