The dinner took place in a luxurious palace on the shores of the Mediterranean, decorated with sculptures and ancient frescoes. The water that filled the pool came from a faucet in the shape of a lion's head. From his cage we were accompanied by the host's favorite tiger, "Pasha", who was fed four chickens a day. Twelve dishes were served, each one more succulent. And dessert was flown in from the French Riviera". Thus recounted the U.S. ambassador to Tunisia an evening with President Ben Ali's son-in-law in July 2009. "The excesses of the Ben Ali family are on the rise," were the last words of his summary, as can be read on Wikileaks. In a 2008 dispatch he had described the Ben Ali family as a "quasi mafia". The economic magazine Forbes estimates the fortune accumulated by the president's clique, which controls a large part of the national Economics , at five billion dollars.

The Wikileaks revelations were the trigger. The good level educational of the Tunisian population - in this it is clearly different from its Maghrebi neighbors - prompted the young demonstrators to mobilize through the Internet. The magazine Foreing Policy already speaks of the first revolution triggered by Wikileaks.

What did the demonstrators want? The B of the popular uprising in Tunisia has been its spontaneous, unplanned character, and the absence of ideological inspiration: neither Islamism, nor nationalism, nor militarism. The most repeated slogan was: "Freedom, work, dignity". The people wanted only the enjoyment of the most elementary rights and freedoms. "We want to live like you", the demonstrators repeated to the European journalists.

As history teaches when a people rise up against a tyrant, the "easiest" thing to do is to overthrow the corrupt regime. Now comes the complicated task of organizing the new order. Someone as authoritative as Lenin said that "a revolution is not made, it is organized". But, in the meantime, we have witnessed a moving status like few others: ordinary people taking to the streets to conquer their freedom.

The crossroads at which Tunisia finds itself -and which hopefully will also arise in Egypt and in more countries, in the wake of a possible domino effect-, updates the old discussion on the compatibility between Islam and democracy. For example, for Samuel Huntington, Harvard professor, although in theory Islam and democracy are compatible, in the internship they have not marched together. On the other hand, the Lebanese writer Amin Maalouf wants to see this compatibility proven in the significant democratic experiences of some Muslim countries in the first decades of the 20th century.

For years we have been hearing Islamic leaders emphasize that the Western pretension of exporting human rights and democracy means going back to the most rancid imperialism. In the Islamic world there is another culture, another tradition, another idea of the family, the role of women, freedom or the political regime, they say (by the way, a similar speech is heard from the leaders of the "Asian tigers": China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore). In view of the street demonstrations, one has to ask oneself: Who do - or did - these leaders represent? Certainly not their people. requirements Tunisians and Egyptians want the same as we do: freedom, respect for their dignity, the rule of law, the fairness of true justice, work and a minimum of welfare.

Political scientist Lahouari Addi, based in Lyon, sample , says that Tunisia fulfills almost all the requirements for a stable democracy and that he cannot explain why it has not yet been established. Hopefully this brave Tunisian people will get it now, because they deserve it. No doubt about it.