A dictatorship defaults

    Among the Middle East’s authoritarian leaders, there’s a mantra: economic development takes precedence over civil freedoms and human rights. Things such as free speech, assembly, association and competitive elections — these will only lead to instability, which will damage the people’s principal concern, namely their wallets. Human rights just get in the way. Tunisia was a poster child for such thinking. Growth stood between 5 and 6 percent in recent years, homeownership stood at 80 percent according to government statistics, and the poverty rate was about 2.5 percent. The latest World Economic Forum Global Competitiveness report ranks Tunisia 31st, far ahead of most of its Arab neighbors. The country presented itself as a successful Western-looking nation, minus the liberties, of course. Those would come later, maybe. The long rule of Zineel-Abidine Ben Ali supposedly proved that aforementioned mantra that stability comes not from democracy, but from prosperity. Never