(The first part of this article was published in the Thursday issue)

THE second round of Algeria’s elections were cancelled by the military after the Islamists won the first, provoking a civil war — throughout most of the 1990s — of almost unsurpassed ferocity and torture, leaving 250,000 Algerians dead. Quite a warning, then, for the Salafists of Tunisia. And perhaps for Tunisia itself.“I was trying to make them understand and aware that they should not underestimate those who stood against them, even if they be few in number. Because when they [the Salafis] go out in demonstrations in large numbers, they think there is nothing more powerful than them. They forget there are other kinds of power in the country. The political equation in the country is not just based on numbers but on other factors as well — so in contrast to the warning about me that people tried to present in the video, there was nothing against democracy or the commitment to human rights, equality of the sexes and so on.”

But then there was the little matter of the assault on the US embassy and the American school in Tunis on Sept 14, at which many demonstrators appeared to be in the standard Salafi costume of beards, long white gowns and sandals. Four Tunisians were killed, 70 wounded and 140 arrested. “There are two groups accused of perpetrating what happened,” Mr Ghannouchi said. “There were violent Salafi groups and groups of criminals. There is footage of people looting the contents of the US school and the embassy, including the canteen that sells alcohol in the embassy, and many of the attackers helped themselves to the alcohol. I don’t think these were Salafis. Some people want to beat us with a Salafist stick; they want us to crack down on them, to fight back.…”

Mr Ghannouchi insisted that the Salafis are not flocking to Ennahda’s banner. “It’s not Islamic enough for them,” he said, although there are many in Tunisia who would disagree with this. He added that there are now a number of Islamic parties as well as his own. Then came an unexpected aside from a man who is often portrayed — the French press are good at this — as a dangerous Islamist only waiting for the moment to turn his country into an Islamic republic.

“We understand democracy not just as a tool of government but also of education. I was in Paris in ’68 and these were revolutionary times. But one of its leaders, Cohn-Bendit is now in the European parliament.… There were examples of so-called extremists in Europe, the Red Army and Action Directe and through democracy they were able to be tamed and re-educated. So why can’t we imagine that we also can tame our violent actors. Through democracy, they will be slowly part of this democracy, rather than destroying it. I always tell some of our friends in Europe that through democracy they were able to tame the beasts — so why don’t you give us time to do the same with ours?

“This doesn’t mean that we don’t want to be firm with them. We must be firm with those who break the law…but some of our opponents, they want us to adopt the same methods as Ben Ali, opening prison camps, arresting thousands of people and using torture and kangaroo courts just because they belong to this group. We say that the law looks at people as individuals, not just as groups. If a driver doesn’t stop at a red light, he should not be asked what his ideology is, but told he has broken the law.”

Mr Ghannouchi’s historical argument is a bit flawed but he does recall being in London on that infamous July 7. “I was in the UK during the attacks when more than 50 people were killed on the same day. I was impressed by the police — that there were no mass arrests, even though there was a lot of pressure on them to do so — yes, some people were arrested and when their guilt was proven they went to jail. And if nothing was found against them, they were released.”

The Ennahda leader doesn’t think the Arab revolutions will ever move into reverse — though he did talk in a rather gloomy fashion about those who would like to have a counter-revolution in Tunisia — and, after calling Syria “a tragedy”, reminded me pointedly that Europeans didn’t acquire their own freedoms overnight.

“There were revolutions in Europe and people made sacrifices so that they could be free,” he said. “In Europe, a number of kings lost their heads didn’t they?” Too true.

ConcludedBy arrangement with The Independent