[Some time later] I'm glad you contacted me Ahmed. Lesson #1: Don't trust random people on the internet. The secret police are everywhere. Now come with me down to the police station so we can get you booked and interrogated.
I didn't mean to make equivocations to any modern or historically violent regimes, though perhaps I was too flippant in using the term "secret police". I'm well aware that Tunisia (now and even years ago) has a much stronger civil society than most if not all of the Arab world, and in many respects comparable to Europe. It's no coincidence that it was the first (and arguably only) country to transition to democracy during the Arab Spring.
My point was just that if you're worried about the consequences of your country slipping back into authoritarianism, obviously you'll want to 1) be more prudent about what you say, and 2) be more rigorous in practicing trust & verify--both regarding the trustworthiness of the person purporting to speak with you, and that they're actually that person, much like if a bank or journalist contacted me. (I always try to verify both, with varying degrees of rigor depending on consequences. And I'll never provide personal information, confidential or otherwise, over an incoming phone call; I always ask for a callback number that I can verify.)
Suffice it to say, even in robust democracies you can be interrogated by police for making innocuous statements online. A couple Muslim friends experienced exactly that (repeatedly) in the aftermath of 9/11. That was wrong and harmful, but there was never any threat or perceived threat of physical harm. I didn't mean to denigrate Tunisia by suggesting it would be so quick to descend into a thoroughly repressive and violent dictatorship. The world is much more complex than as portrayed in Hollywood and pulp history.
To the extent my comment made a caricature of Tunisia, I apologize.
:) While this was good advice under the dictatorship, it is not anymore. He specifically said he's not concerned about his physical safety. Tunisia is not like saudi arabia or syria anymore. It's as safe as any western country. And he can easily check me out, I'm on HN since 2007.
You need to rely on the fact that I am able to maintain the security of my public accounts and that if one of my accounts was compromised I would have detected it and published a notice on another channel (twitter for example)
Tunisia's life expectancy is 76.7 years. The United States's is 78.7 years. A difference of two years compared to the most wealthy nation on the planet is minor.
In fact, your average person in Tunisia is likely to outlast your average person in many US States:
And in France it's 82.7 years, the wealth of the US doesn't directly translate to good life expectancy, especially when you've got so many inequalities. The highest life expectancy is at 85 years in Japan. The average life exepctancy in the world in 72.6 years, 79 in Europe, 82.5 in Western Europe. With all due respect to Tunisia, it's better than average but still lower than "any western country".
Countries also count deaths differently. Some will count a premature baby at 26 weeks that dies as a death (the US), while others just say “it was never viable” so not a death.
Don’t need to average very many “zeros” to bring down an average.
That sounds wrong. There’s a whole range of life expectancy metrics that are calculated carefully as they constitute a fundamental metric about a population in everything from the insurance industry to the health industry. Life expectancy metrics are heavily used for geographic and historic comparison as they have standard and specific definition. The starting age is always specified - e.g. life expectancy at 18 or 60 or whatever. When the age is not specified, the implied age is zero or “life expectancy at birth”. I’ve never heard of “life expectancy at conception” nor can think that one country would calculate it but use the value for “life expectancy at birth”.
There is huge variability in how deaths are reported for newborns.
“Many countries, however, including certain European states (e.g. France) and Japan, only count as live births cases where an infant breathes at birth, which makes their reported IMR numbers somewhat lower and increases their rates of perinatal mortality.[111] In the Czech Republic and Bulgaria, for instance, requirements for live birth are even higher.”
Read the “Methods of estimation” section where the standardization process is described. This would be a lot simpler is you could simply provide a reference to support the claim that the life expectancy at birth metric in the USA is calculated differently to that in other countries. Your claim seems to based on differences in calculation a different metric, infant mortality rate.
This is either erroneous thinking or intentionally misleading. Conflating "outlasting" with "safe" is problem number 1. Problem number two is they said "any western country" and you picked one pretty far down the list. Many western countries have a life expectancy well into the 80's so your citation only works against their argument.
it's clear that OP meant that there are no major differences in safety between Tunisia and a random western country. Meaning you don't have to worry about getting robbed or whatever more than you would in say, England.
People don't speak with exactitude, it would be weird.
The bad thing about Dictatorships is not the lack of freedom, it's the balancing act of resources and freedom. Wealthy dictatorships really are as chill as any rich democracy as long as you don't start poking the leadership with political ideas that don't benefit them.
However, a lack of resources in Democracy or dictatorship will 100% result in civil unrest.
Which is interesting because people always adapt to whatever situation they are in. I recall this lady being interviewed on Al Jezeera near the bombardment zone in the Gaza strip a few months ago. She was frustrated about little things like kids not going to school, a bus route being destroyed and what not. Nowhere in her statement did she mention that she and her family just had missles landing a few hundred meters away in the dead of night.
"Wealthy dictatorships really are as chill as any rich democracy as long as you don't start poking the leadership with political ideas that don't benefit them."
Unless of course you are in the way of some of the powerclique and they decide to take over your buisness or land without compensation.
Or the spoiled son the of the dictator (or the dictator himself) wants to bang your daughter or your wife. And maybe kills her while doing so. And anyone witnessing or complaining. That means officially also in a dictatorship no one does that. People just go missing or have accidents. Or found guilty of some other "crime".
Exaggerating? Well, I just read a book about Trujillo, the former dictator of the dominican republic, it is quite interesting. But he did not invented power abuse. Anywhere where there is unchecked power, those things happen.
And to your mind Bolivia is a thriving economic hub to warrant being a weathy dictatorship?
Whatever the case may be, bad apples abound. Thats just human nature. Just because democratic leaders dont do things publicly, I think you should disabuse yourself of the notion that they are incapable of depraved acts of violence. Sexual or otherwise. Amd while they might not inflict such violence on their constituents - people from poorer countries have no such luck.
I can recommend it, very well written and structured, but note, that it is a work of fiction based on historic events. (and some historic events gets changed)
Nobody said Tunisia is anything like the West. He claimed that it is "as safe as any Western Country". If we go by homicide rate, Tunisia's is lower than the US.
It seems incorrect to use US homicide rate as an argument when talking about being "as safe as any Western Country". US is an outlier in that regard [0].
Really depends which metric you're looking at when measuring safety to be honnest. Granted US have some of the richest and safest places in the world, they also have plenty of other places straight from a 3rd world country. The US approach to health is terrible compared to many other countries. Homicide rate is much higher. If you think USA is politically safe, January 6th would like a word with you.
great! it's 1:30 am here and I'm up for a flame war. So I will argue that Tunisia is safer than USA because 1) guns are illegal 2) police is not racist. BTW I traveled to USA, did you travel to Tunisia ?
I know nothing about Tunisia, but worth noting that safety in the USA is extremely varied, depending on where you live, what color your skin is. We have some of the most dangerous places in the world in the USA, and some of the safest. It's a big, weird country.
Sure they are. You are likely to get away without a ticket, an accident or even an arrest if you correlate with the guys. It just happens that the police has a bunch from everywhere. Let's not pretend that Tunisia's police is not as corrupt as it can be.
You're assuming causation, but a careful look makes the situation much more muddied. In Australia, for instance, violent crime was on the downwards trend (like in the developed world generally) before strict gun laws. It continued on that trend after implementation.
It's corrupt, maybe sometimes regionalist (which I'm not sure I agree with) but not racist. Like someone is not treated differently because his skin is dark for example. They are generally not polite with anybody regardless of their "race".
Well yes, a police being unfriendly to anyone is probably better than a police being unfriendly only to certain skin colors or status. I remember travelling in Morocco (and also western sahara), where the police was very friendly with me. But I was a western tourist and the police was ordered by the king to be very friendly to tourists. From the locals I heard different stories.
Same in Tunisia, and honestly I'm quite for it. In the Philippines, the police doesn't care about the tourists. The locals sees that and as a result tourists get mugged a "lot". I had my phone stolen and the police seemed to "enjoy it".
A tourist is very unlikely to be mugged in Tunisia (comparing to a Tunisian person) because the police is more reactive when it comes to tourists.
As a result you have a country of 11.5 million and 9.5 million tourists in 2019 despite all the crap that the country is going through.
My experience of living in the south after growing up elsewhere was absolutely a feeling of being sidelined from the full opportunity previously known to me. Its a bit like being in a hole. Everything is cheaper, including wages. Meaning its harder to leave than to enter.
I think the bigger problem is people just not taking you or natives there seriously. I could write a book on all the shenanigans faculty try to pull on people who they think haven't been to "real" R1 universities elsewhere, for example, and think they can get away with.
NB: I live in Louisiana and my brother works for an international NGO but had based himself in Tunisia. He was supposed to fly back there Monday but delayed his flight a week. My friend was supposed to visit Yassine Ayari and she ended up arriving at his house right after he was arrested.
Though popular fodder for the media because they are profitable, killings by cops are extremely rare. I believe there are about 1000 murders-by-cop in the U.S. (a nation of 330,000,000 people) in a year, and in the vast, vast majority it is not at all ambiguous whether or not the cops acted in good faith. Picture someone running around stabbing people: the cops killing that person isn't something most people would find questionable.
