Ouided Bouchamaoui, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate HARDtalk

Welcome to a special edition of HARDtalk from all slow with me,

Stephen Sackur. My guest is here to receive the Nobel Peace Prize.

Ouided Bouchamaoui is one of four recipients representing Tunisia's

national dialogue Quartet, a group of civil society organizations that

did much to rescue Tunisia from political chaos a couple of years

ago. The hope is that Tunisia's branded inclusive politics could be

a model for other Middle Eastern states but is that realistic?

Ouided Bouchamaoui, welcome to HARDtalk and many congratulations. I

have to start by asking you how much of a surprise it was when you heard

that your movement had won the Nobel Peace Prize? We were, all of us, in

the quartet, we are very proud because we did something which was

an exception. Something which was very exciting for us to have this

news, because Tunisia is a small country and an old country and we

will be a famous country. Do you see it as recognition of the importance

of Tunisia? Of course, yes. It is recognition because it is something

that was just done by Tunisia. We began the revolution. A safe and

soft revolution and we survived our democratic transition. It is quite

different. For us, we are proud to be Tunisians and we are proud to

have succeeded in this. Let's go back to the story of this national

dialogue quartet because it really came about in the summer of 2013

when Tunisia was facing a period of real political crisis. You had a

government which was dominated by an Islamist party, there were protests

on the street and a lot of unrest and political assassinations, did

you feel, at that time, that Tunisia was getting very close to civil

strife or maybe even civil war? If I may be frank speaking with you,

yes. Yes because there was confusion, we are not used to

terrorism or assassination in Tunisia. We are in open country and

we are tolerant people. So when the second assassination happened in

Tunisia, everyone within the street -- was in the street. For this

reason, we met together to avoid this disaster, this civil war in

Tunisia. And when you say we met together and decided to do something

about it, you are talking about you representing the business, the

industrial federation, we're talking about the trade union movement, we

are talking about the lawyers and human rights activists? Yes. There

are many different interests there so how did you all come together in

one movement? First we began with the union. It was in 2012 when we

had many strikes, many Citians in Tunisia. We said we had to be

together at the end of the day. After the second assassination, we

said we had to find a solution together. You know, we're the fourth

oldest organisation Tunisia and they depend on us. The point I am making

is, the head of the trade union federation and you, the head of the

bosses federation were traditional enemies, in a way. You would be

negotiating about wages, conditions, and often you were fighting each

other. Not enemies. Each one of us defend's one another. Now but you

had many disputes with the trade union in your time. In my time?

Never. We are together because I got this idea to call on him and I

invited him with his board member to come to our head office and it was

very successful. It was strange for everybody but we began and we

observe many problems. But now, if there is a difference between us,

each one has to defend its mantra. Know, we cannot have companies

without workers and we cannot have workers without bosses, so if we

need to export or invest or create jobs, we need both of them. So we

have to be together. I mean, our future is together. But of course, I

mean, we can't agree on all things, but... You have to trust each

other? Yes. And you have found a way to trust? We can do it, yes. What

fascinates me is when you can together, the workers, the

employers, the lawyers and human rights people, you all came together

and decided to intervene in politics. The government had a

mandate but you went to the leadership, including the Prime

Minister, and you said to him, Mr Prime Minister, you are going to

have to resign. You are going to have to allow interim government to

take over and negotiate with us on a transition to a new politics within

you Constitution. But we were not alone. Because when we fixed our

roadmap, we got the political parties with us, they signed this

roadmap. Together we decided to find the right way for Tunisia. We

listened to the opposition, we listened to the people who had the

power, and we did this in conference with them because as a civil society

organisation, we don't have the legitimacy to say to the Prime

Minister to resign. That is my point, in a way. It wasn't

extraordinary thing because, for all of your influence in Tunisia because

you represent the businesses and the employers and the same with the

trade unions and the lawyers, you didn't have a democratic mandate but

you felt you had a duty to intervene. We have the mandate of

Tunisians. We are a very old organisation and we did a lot for

our country. We got the support of parties and to the support of

media. We got the support of civil societies, the other civil society

organizations and the support of Tunisia and together... They pushed

us. Was there a parallel with Egypt? At the very same time that you were

doing your intervention, they had chaos in Egypt and the Army

interviewed and in what many people called a coup d'etat -- intervened

in, to take power away from the Muslim Brotherhood and I wonder if

you believe there can ever be a marriage between political Islam and

genuine democracy and freedom? Do you think the two can go together?

For me, we have to separate between them. Islam is a tolerant religion,

what we see now, even the terrorism and extremism everywhere, that is

not Islam. We are aghast at all of this extremism. What do you call

extremism weighs do you call any party that calls for Sharia law, for

example, to be the law of the state, DU called that extremism? For

us as Tunisians, our Constitution has a separation and we cannot apply

Sharia in Tunisia. We respect Islam, the religion of Tunisia is Islam,

but we are a democratic and civil society. I think during the

negotiations of the Constitution, one party wanted to make it quite

clear that Islam was the driving force for the law and Tunisia and

you said no? Tunisia refused. So what does that tell us, looking not

just at the region, about the role of Islam in any democracy in the

Middle East? Are you saying to me that you don't believe that the

Muslim Brotherhood, for example, can ever be a genuinely democratic

movement? I don't think so. Because if we are not open-minded and don't

listen to each other, if we want to force people to practise something

that we don't like, we cannot assume it will not be difficult. For me, I

am proud to be Muslim but we can take the good things from Islam. Now

we are more open. We have to be more democratic than the other way

because, let's call it to the rogue way of Islam, not the good Islam,

often takes control. It is very interesting because in your national

dialogue quartet receiving this in your miss recognition of the Nobel

Peace Prize, -- enormous, one of your members said after winning the

prize said the lesson here is that everything can be solved I

dialogue. Yes. It seems to me that not everything can be solved by

dialogue because you still have depolarization in Tunisia. You have

Islamists, some would say you have extremists and jihadists, and your

form of dialogue will never reach them. You can't reach out to them.

There are not so many of those people, the extremists. The majority

of Tunisia are not like this, and when we succeed with the social

dialogue and political dialogue, we continue to find solutions for

extremism and terrorism, so I agree with him. The question is then if

dialogue doesn't work with the real extremists, and we have seen in

Tunisia in the last few months, in the last year, we have seen terrible

terror attacks of the Bardo Museum, the gunman on the beach at sixth, in

the last couple of weeks we have seen this suicide bombing of

presidential guards. How do you believe that Tunisia can control and

defeat the jihadists insider country? -- inside your country?

First, it doesn't happen just in Tunisia. We saw attacks in Paris, in

the United States, in Mali, everywhere. It is international and

everyone has to fight it. Second, Tunisia is not responsible for this.

We are suffering from this terrorism, but we are not

responsible, because what is happening in Libya, the situation in

Libya is a disaster for us. And the community in Tunisia should do

something for this. For us, even when we had the two assassinations,

or the attacks in the Bardo Museum or in Sousse, we have to continue to

do this. I hear what you say about this being

a product of regional instability, but Tunisia has a big problem. It is

said 4000 Tunisian fighters are now with Daesh, so-called Islamic State,

in Syria. Another 1500 Tunisian jihadists are in Libya. Tunisia does

have its own extremist problem. I wonder whether you would accept that

that's partly because there is deep economic inequality in Tunisia... Of

course, yes. I've been to Tunisia and a town where the uprising in

2011 began. I've talked to young people and they say there's no

chance of a job. The Tunisian elite does not listen to us. And you're a

member the Tunisian elite. Tunisia and said together in one voice, we

want jobs and we want freedom. We have freedom in Tunisia, but we

cannot get the dignity without jobs. Now they are waiting. I say we

are not responsible because those people are training in Libya. Maybe

they are training elsewhere but where does their anger come from?

They are waiting for hope, for a chance to get a job and they are

still waiting. We don't do for them and we didn't realise their dream,

how to get jobs. Because first of all we have big problems

economically in Tunisia. We have 54% of our economy coming from...

Economy, because there's no state in Libya, so goods, arms and everything

can enter a Tunisia the wrong way. Of course, when we don't have a big

capacity financially, we cannot do by ourselves. For this I say we need

the support of the international community to help us to ensure

security and for investment. With respect, you do have support from

the IMF, support on security issues... Not so much. That's

concrete actions. Not so much. Really? Because we are not

responsible for what has happened in Libya. But some people would say all

of your answers of wheat on key issue. That is... I mean, you are

from an elite family, that runs big businesses in Tunisia. You have to

accept that there is endemic corruption in your country. The

economic elite is accused by the World Bank amongst others of crony

capitalism. "The regulatory system that allowed the corruption remains

largely in place. It perpetuates the social exclusion, it generates deep,

social injustice". The revolution was in 2011. Why is that World Bank

report being written in 2014? Cause we are still in a transition period.

-- because. We got our democratic transition, but now we don't have

the economic transition. We are now waiting to do some reforms, to

invest more, to have security. So, even the corruption I think if we

succeed on this, and we are on the way... With respect, it is as bad

today as it was under Ben Ali. Tunisia has dropped down the index

of countries that are perceived to be corrupt. Why is that? As I said,

we are in a transitional period. We are now building together all the

institutions. When we have freedom, we will have better governance,

better transparency and freedom in the media. So we will find a

solution, but we cannot find a solution now for all our past

problems. But it is urgent, isn't it? Got these young people in the

rule areas, the poorest of the poor, they are still very angry. -- rural

areas. Not because there is corruption, they are angry because

they don't have jobs. They are angry about both things, surely. They are

pretty angry when they see the -- the elite doing so well in Tunis.

Yes. They are still waiting. Even for our government, now the

government focused all of its efforts to the security powers. We

don't invest more in those areas and really it's a big problem. For this

we say that we need to get an economic dialogue together, to

have... To push reforms. To have a social climate in Tunisia and an

investment climate. A fair investment climate. We need to

sacrifice. Talking of the investment climate, how damaging were the

attacks on the beach and the museum? How damaging have they been on

Tunisia's ability to attract foreign investment and tourists? It has a

big, really big, effect. Just for tourism. I think it was 10% of your

GDP. 7%. Tourism is very important for us. We have 300 sunny days every

year. Now we are suffering, some areas are suffering. The reason,

hotels, and all other areas, handicrafts. Now really we have a

big problem. But what we can say to all people, I mean, terrorism is

everywhere. Problems are everywhere. So you have to trust us. We are

doing our best to find a solution. Let me ask you about Tunisia's role

in the region. You were the birthplace of the uprisings in a

sense, in 2011. You believe that this recognition with the Nobel

Peace Prize carries with it some sort of message for neighbouring

states in the Middle East and Arab region? -- do you believe. Do you

think things can be learnt from your civil society experiment in

Tunisia? I don't know, I can't say it will give lessons to others. But

it will be a good experience and we can learn from these experiences,

because we succeeded because we listened to each other. One lesson

involves gender politics as well. Here you sit with me, the head of

Tunisia's business and industrial federation. I have heard that you

were even asked if he would like to be Prime Minister at one point. Is

that true? Twice. Twice? What did you say? Once when we were in

dialogue, because there was confusion and we didn't find a

solution and we didn't find a candidate. So most of them asked me

to be Prime Minister. I said no, I could not accept. The second when we

elected Alp president -- our president. He called me and said he

was elected by 1 million Tunisian women. So I suggest you be the Prime

Minister. You could speak for all Tunisian women. Yes. It would have

been a heck of an opportunity. Why didn't you say yes? First, I said to

him that I could not take the post because I have to choose ministers

between four parties. Second, I have the governance of my colleagues. So,

to be in this organisation... It is too early for me to do that. To put

it bluntly, do you think Tunisia, maybe this is a question for the

wider Arab world as well, do you think your country is ready to be

led by a woman? And to be really accepting of gender in quality at

all levels? Of course, guess. Of course, yes. Women are half the

population. We have all the rights and all the duties. And people

accept women. The first judge is from Tunisia. The first doctor. We

are already the first ones to accept it. Really. We will have to end

there. But I am delighted to say that you will also have to accept

the Nobel Peace Prize. Congratulations on more time, Ouided

Bouchamaoui, and thank you very much for being on HARDtalk. Thank you.

Well, there has been further rainfall in Cumbria but the rain has

been clearing through in recent hours and it's heading southwards.

In fact, over the next few days, including today, most

of the rain will be across southern parts of the UK for a change.