Les mobilisations contre le rapport sur les libertés individuelles et l’égalité (COLIBE) : vers une spécialisation du parti Ennahdha dans l’action partisane?

Abstract

Through the analysis of the different forms of mobilization against the report of the Commission on Individual Liberties and Equality (COLIBE) organized by networks linked to the Islamic movement, this article proposes to question the process of specialization/separation between partisan activities and preaching activities, endorsed by Harakat Ennahdha at its 10th Congress in May 2016. Presented by the party as a major reform, this process of specialisation would lead to the transformation of Ennahdha into a modern civil party. Adopting a relational and inter-actionist perspective, the article examines, in light of the mobilizations against the COLIBE report, how the reorganization of relations between the party and the networks of associations with a religious referent takes place within the framework of the specialization process and how the links and borders between politics and religion are renegotiated. The analysis reveals a dynamic of reconfiguration from below of a network with an Islamic referent that distances itself formally from the Ennahdha party. In fact, it tends to recreate a unity at the bottom of the Islamic movement, in coordination with the Ennahdha specialization process, and in a logic that is similar to a division of competences. Rather than an effective separation of the two spheres of action, the process of specialization seems to contribute to a blurring of the boundaries between politics and religion.