TUNISIA’S PLAN FOR INHERITANCE EQUALITY DIVIDES THE COUNTRY
▶ Under President Essebsi’s proposed bill, any legacy will be divided equally between genders
Tunisia’s parliament will soon debate a bill to grant equal inheritance rights to men and women, a proposal that has already polarised the North African country.
Under the present system, men receive twice the share of any inheritance granted to women. President Beji Caid Essebsi announced on Monday that he was preparing to submit a bill to parliament for a new inheritance law that would grant men and women equal rights – unless otherwise stated by the giver.
For Tunisia, which has traditionally led the region in terms of women’s rights, the issue has proven a watershed moment. On Saturday, religious conservatives of both genders took to the streets in their thousands to oppose any bid to equalise the inheritance system.
Under heavy security, Tunisia’s conservative Muslims gathered outside parliament to vent their frustration over an issue rarely debated in the region. “I’m here to defend the word of God and oppose any projects that harm the Islamic identity of our people,” said Kamel Raissi, 65.
Then, two days later, women’s groups and civil society at large massed in their thousands to show support for equalising inheritance, as well as many of the recommendations contained in the report by the President’s Individual Freedoms and Equality Committee (Colibe).
“We cannot accept in the 21st century this discrimination in the law,” said Nabila Hamza, one of the organisers of Monday’s march and co-founder of women’s rights group, the Tunisian Association for Democratic Women.
“The inheritance law is a significant barrier for women. It reduces their economic autonomy. Only 12 per cent [of Tunisian women] own a house and only 14 per cent own land. This affects the access to women for property and credit,” she said.
Many question the president’s motivations, as well as the limits to the kind of topdown reform that was commonplace in Tunisia’s past.
Hamza Meddeb, a research fellow specialising in Tunisian affairs at the European University Institute in Florence, described it as a gambit designed to mobilise his own party’s support ahead of next year’s elections and neutralise the opposition – a need compounded by an especially poor showing in May’s municipal elections.
“A few years ago we had consensus on the issue of homosexuality. All the parties, including [the moderate Islamist] Ennahda agreed that it was a private matter and had nothing to do with the state,” he said.
For the president, preparing for an election that he has yet to rule himself out of but in which he is unable to claim political stability or economic success, the issue of identity could be critical in defining himself and his party, Nidaa Tounes.
It is a way of delineating them from the Islamists whose support has proven critical to their survival.
“He’s played the identity card,” Mr Meddeb said.
Although Ennahda has yet to formally oppose the reform, both past rallies against the Colibe report and the latest last Saturday served as ample reminder that the Islamists are not without a popular base.
For Tunisia, emerging after decades of autocracy and still acclimatising itself to rapid and unpredictable change, the shift from top-down reform to change from the streets is proving less than straightforward.
“This type of change reaches its peak in the transitional period between overthrowing the old regime and building the new order,” sociologist Tarek Mohamed told The National.
The rhetoric risks the new democracy and with it the “sacrifice of generations of Tunisians”, Mr Mohamed said.
But the issue speaks to the broader issue of identity and the public debate around it, said Mr Meddeb. “There’s this idea that the conversation about what Tunisia was and it ended with the passing of the 2014 Constitution. That wasn’t the end of the discussion, that should have been its start.”