Interview with Tunisian secularist Sofiene Ben Hmida
10/06/2007
A new organisation was formed last month in Tunisia, to combat what is perceived to be an increased presence of religious rhetoric in the country’s public space. Sofiene Ben Hmida, founding member of the Association for the Defence of Secularism in Tunisia, spoke to Magharebia about the group’s creation and mission.
By Jamel Arfaoui for Magharebia in Tunis – 10/06/2007
 [Jamel Arfaoui] Ben Hmida |
Sofiene Ben Hmida, one of the founding members of the newly-announced Association for the Defence of Secularism in Tunisia, said in an interview with Magharebia that the goal of his association is to affirm that there are still people in Tunisia striving to move forward and to confront those striving to go backwards.
Magharebia: Can you tell us about your new project?
Sofiene Ben Hmida: Upon sensing the presence of an unforeseen danger to the project of modernisation in Tunisia, we decided to confront and counter it through the available democratic means. Today in Tunisia, there is much intermingling between the public and the private and between the religious and the secular, and we think it is a dangerous mix that will, over the near term, hurt Tunisian society and its development. We also believe it is imperative for rationality to be present within society and for it to express itself and not leave the domain to other expressions. Likewise, we will endeavour to break with the prevailing perception that erroneously suggests we [in Tunisian society] are moving backwards. We want to say clearly and loudly that there are still people in Tunisia who want to aspire and move forwards.
Magharebia: Why the announcement now about this association?
Ben Hmida: Why not now? We’ve been entertaining the idea for over a year, after we noticed confusion in understandings began to pervade Tunisian society, where ideas, beliefs and myths that threaten modernisation began to spread.
Magharebia: There are those who link your project to growth of the religious current in Tunisia.
Ben Hmida: We did not take action on the basis of reaction. Rather, our project is a societal and intellectual project that refuses to delve into political affairs. In any case, the rise of the religious current did not begin yesterday but rather goes back to the beginning of the 1990s, and this project’s founding group has had positions and opinions on the religious question since the sixties.
Magharebia: Do you think that the belief in the Arab region linking secularism to apostasy might hurt your project?
Ben Hmida: This confusion only exists in the minds of those who want to entrench this error and amplify it, to make people fear the idea of development and modernity, as secularism bears no relationship to apostasy. Apostasy is an ideological position towards religion, whereas secularism calls for separation between the ideological and the mundane, between public life and private life, [and] between religion and state.
Magharebia: How will you defend this idea on the ground?
Ben Hmida: We do not function as a political group but as an intellectual group, the goal of which is to raise issues and ideas in the social arena so the notion of progress and modernity stays continuously visible—that is my personal opinion. We will raise issues related to religion and we will insist on its separation from state, as it is unreasonable for the government to assume control of managing religious affairs. We will also call for implementation of the Parties Law in Tunisia in no uncertain terms, as our Parties Law unequivocally asserts establishing parties on the basis of religion is prohibited, and the state must apply this law with the rigour with which it applies financial law.
Magharebia: How did your project come into being?
Ben Hmida: It is actually an old notion some of us—men and women—took up over a year ago. After the idea ripened, we announced it on May 24th, and we are currently preparing the legal file for this association to submit to the relevant authority with the intention of obtaining a permit.