Bin `Ali's new Information Minister

One of the most eccentric dictators in the Middle East is Tunisia's Zayn Al-`Abidin bin `Ali. I was asking a Tunisian fellow about his secrecy and isolation. The man does not leave his country: he told me that he does not even leave his presidential compound. He is so fearful of a coup. He told me that the reason while his hair seems to always be elaborately coiffed is that his wife is a former hair stylist. So this dictator (who succeeds in labeling every dissident, including leftists and secularists and feminists as Islamist terrorists) yesterday sacked his Minister of Information and appointed a new one. The new Minister of Information is Usamah Ramdani. I knew him from his days (and my days) in Washington, DC. How sad: this is a case of a typical Arab intellectual who was co-opted by a lousy Arab regime. Ramdani was a progressive activist who felt strongly about the Palestinian cause and was opposed to the Tunisian regime. I last saw Usamah when I spent a year in DC in 1992-93 when he worked at the Tunisian embassy, and I invited me twice to dinner at his house (Tunisian sweets are delicious by the way). I expressed my opinion about the lousy regime and we argued: he gave me that line about "working from within" and such. A Minister of Information for the Tunisian dictator is as dignified a job as the adviser on leisure affairs for Prince `Abdul-`Aziz bin Fahd.