Taking action at differing times and through a variety of avenues, the participants did not all have the same social background or the same relationship to authority. Following the repression of the rally on February 25, in Government Square, protest actions were increasingly pushed to the sidelines. This does not imply that they were on the wane, since they retained substantial scope.
The second pitfall consists of assuming mass spontaneity. It is important to document and analyze the practices that emerge during events and to note the contingencies and the seemingly insignificant details that may drive social agents to rebel and take part in an uprising. But, this cannot be achieved without exploring the trajectories of these agents.
The protests around the U. These elitist organizations had very little influence due to their limited audience in such a tightly controlled public space. For fifty-five years, alternatives to the hegemonic party had extremely limited scope. Opposition parties and organizations were tiny groups with only shallow roots in society.
The UGTT was a docile organization dispensing patronage; its more militant members were muzzled. Drastic repression had deprived the Islamist movement of any real presence on the domestic political stage Camau and Geisser The multi-sector mobilizations in the winter of were powerful precisely because they had no leader, central command, or coordinating structure Dobry Powerful protest movements broke out in impoverished areas like the Gafsa mining basin in the southwest in , Ben Guerdane in the southeast in August , and the Sidi Bouzid farming region and in Kasserine and Thala in the center-west of the country in December Behind these protests were an unorganized underclass and youth with no social and political capital.
Anger over nepotistic hiring practices at CPG brought together a large number of unemployed workers university graduates and others and their families. Phosphate mining is the primary activity in Gafsa, an arid region whose farming sector has been devastated by a combination of insufficient rainfall and heavy use of water at CPG washing plants. According to official statistics, the Gafsa governorate has one of the highest unemployment rates in Tunisia — nearly twice the national average; there is considerable poverty particularly in the eastern villages and the mining towns.
