Social Justice Claims and Power Violence in Tunisia. the Cases of 2008 and 2011 Uprisings

To the question to which extent can the Sate exercise power using violence without paying attention to justice as social demand, one can provide different answers from a sociologist point of view. The Tunisian 2008 uprising in the southern west mining area known as the mining basin; then the 2010 continuous uprising until the fall of Ben Ali on January 14th, 2011, seem very appropriate in the attempt to provide an answer to the above-mentioned question. In both cases, social justice was the very central knot in the relationship between a power less and less able to meet the expectations of the sweeping majority of the impoverished middle and lower social classes and a more and more battle-hardened social movement that learned how to enter into social clashes. By putting again in the social justice claims from outside the customary traditional political unionist and associative means and practices in the agenda, the social movement has given another alternative to the usually failing protests and contests under the violent power practices. Comparative analysis of the failure of 2008 uprising in becoming a substantive threat to the established power with the success of the Tunisian 2011 Revolution in beheading Ben Ali’s rule in the first hand, and with other Maghrebian (North African) social movements can provide insights into the issue of the relationship between Power, Violence and Justice.