Ghannouchi's willingness to compromise with secularists in Tunisia and his country's unique success in maintaining a democratic system following the Arab Spring has been credited by at least one observer (Robert Worth) to his background. Unlike many Islamists, Ghannouchi "lived abroad for decades, reading widely in three languages", including Western thinkers Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud and Jean-Paul Sartre. He admired the courage of leftists who protested in the streets against the dictatorship, were arrested and tortured in prison, and became willing to work with them. Watching the initial victory of the Algerian Islamists—while exiled in London—collapse into the slaughter, mayhem and defeat of the civil war, left a deep impact. According to Azzam S. Tamimi, he was influenced by Malik Bennabi and his treatise "Islam and Democracy", which laid "the foundations" for Ghannouchi's "masterpiece" "Al‐Hurriyat al‐'Ammah" ("Public Liberties").