New elections are around the corner, and the monitoring of party financing has yet to catch up. Between political parties incapable of respecting the law and authorities that struggle to sanction them, the trust of a small segment of citizens still inclined to vote could be easily shaken.
As per the official request of prime minister Youssef Chahed, the name of Marouen Mabrouk was removed from the list of 48 Tunisians sanctioned by the European Union for misappropriation of state funds. Unlike other friends and relatives of deposed president Ben Ali who saw their money frozen by the EU, Mabrouk was able to find himself a new political shield to protect his wealth following the revolution that swept the country in 2011. With help from telecommunications company Orange France, he managed to get Tunisia’s prime minister to unfreeze over seven million euros in assets held in EU countries.
Having endured multiple scissions since coming to power at the end of 2014, Nidaa Tounes is all but in pieces. Today, the party is trying to mend its wounds by absorbing the Free Patriotic Union (UPL) and, seven years after its creation, organizing its first elective congress. To this end, a na-tional conference of regional coordinators was held in Mahdia over the weekend of December 21-23, 2018. The event is telling about the banalization of murky relations between the business world and Nidaa Tounes, whose own treasurer is playing the role of party financer.
Over the past month, Tunisia’s streets have provided the setting for a number of social movements marked by the new campaign slogan Basta (« enough »). The emergence of this campaign has raised a number of questions around the effectiveness of this form of struggle in achieving its demands and independence from political parties, especially in terms of its ability to preserve a horizontalist organization. Questions frequently raised in the context of youth protest campaigns that have been carried out in Tunisia over the past several years (Fech Nestannew, Manich Msameh, Tamarrod).
To write signs in Arabic… or not? It didn’t take long for the question to turn into a debate on identity. The story behind the ministerial circular which provided the basis for this decision shows how the political instrumentalization of language is nothing new in Tunisia.
On December 23, 2018, Falikou Coulibaly, president of the Association of Ivorians in Tunisia, was killed during a robbery in Soukra (Greater Tunis). As protests led by the Subsaharian community multiplied across the capital, Nawaat met Eric. Settled in Tunisia since March 2017, the 31 year old Ivorian—like hundreds of his compatriots, has found himself uncapable of regularizing his status. Forced to relinquish his studies, Eric got a job as a construction worker. Racist acts of aggression, a lack of medical care and an exploitative work situation are some of the challenges he faces on a daily basis.
Another hot summer in Tunisia gave way to teachers’ strikes in the fall, while winter follows suit with plans for a general strike on January 17. In this context, on December 10 the government adopted the Finance Law of 2019, a package of measures that perpetuate fiscal injustice, aiming to handle the country’s growing deficit by reaching into the pockets of those most impacted by economic crisis. Ahead of the 2019 elections, the new public budget was passed amidst a rejection rate of 30% in parliament, suscitating a new wave of popular and political rejection in the most recent test put to the government of prime minister Youssef Chahed.
Déclenchée par le limogeage du ministre de l’Energie et quatre responsables du même ministère, la polémique sur l’affaire Halq El Menzel a duré peu de temps avant de tomber dans l’oubli. Accusant la société TOPIC d’exploiter ce champ pétrolifère sans autorisation depuis 2009, le gouvernement a ensuite révisé sa copie et a fini par résumer l’affaire en une confusion dans l’interprétation des articles du Code des Hydrocarbures. Quant aux soupçons de corruption, ils ont été plus tard présentés comme une simple question de négligence administrative. Ces évolutions ont laissé la société accusée dans une situation ambiguë et le gouvernement dans une position suspecte.
Over the past month, NASA’s Parker Solar Probe has been breaking space records left and right. On October 29, PSP became the closest and fastest human-made object orbiting the Sun, while October 31 marked its first solar « encounter ». In light of these events, Nawaat speaks with the Project Scientist of the NASA mission to reach our solar system’s star, the Sun. Nour Raouafi, Tunisian solar physicist at John Hopkins University Applied Sciences Lab which built the PSP spacecraft, describes the early phase of this seven-year journey into the Sun’s outer atmosphere, or corona, and also talks about his own trajectory to working on this stellar mission.
Since October 3, Saudi planes have launched into Tunisian skies, where joint military exercises are underway with Tunisian air forces. A statement issued by the Kingdom’s defense ministry describes the exercises as « highlighting the capabilities, professionalism and readiness of the Saudi airforce ». Such capabilities, which the Saudi regime seeks to « refine » with the help of Tunisia, were demonstrated on August 9 of this year when it targeted a school bus in Sana’a, Yemen, killing 29 children. With Saudi-Tunisian joint military exercises underway, Tunisia has provided Saudi Arabia with the airspace it needs to sharpen its knives before shedding more blood in Yemen.
Beginning in October, farmers in Tunisia’s northwest, particularly Beja, Jendouba, Zaghouan, will begin planting cereal crops like wheat and barley and leguminous crops including chickpea, lentil and faba which will both feed soil and stock pantries. A select few farmers in the region will also plant canola, an industrial oilseed supplied by French agribusiness giant Groupe AVRIL who is partnering with the Tunisian Ministry of Agriculture to develop a canola sector that is « 100% Tunisian ». The project is in fact part of a decades-long push to introduce canola as a « locally grown » alternative to imported grains and oils.
3ich Tounsi has been the subject of lots of talk over the past months, suscitating a number of questions in its overexposure. Mega-events with ambiguous objectives, copiously-sponsored television and internet ads, opaque funding sources—such characteristics render 3ich Tounsi a veritable extra-terrestrial to the non-profit world, especially when it comes to the association’s discourse which has become more and more openly political.
Rouhanyet Mystic Fest is celebrating Season of Peace, its third edition which takes place from September 5-9 in Tunis’ postcardesque Sidi Bou Saïd. Organized by actor Hichem Rostom and wife Sana Ezzine, the event claims to be a « spiritual gathering based on mystic arts, sufism, sacred musics and all expressions of spirituality », offering festival-goers a smattering of yoga sessions, crystal healing and nightly musical concerts with the likes of Yuma and Labess. But amidst festival slogans of « peace, love, tolerance and fraternity », several artists from the previous edition are calling, quite simply, to be paid for their work.
Deterioration of the economic situation, soaring rent prices and feeble government intervention—all factors that contribute to an increase in the number of homeless individuals in the streets of Tunis, estimated at 3,000 in 2014. Ever more present on the streets, around transit stations, outside building entrances, in public gardens and elsewhere, they are a symptom of rampant social misery and marginalizing conservatism.
In June 2017, Tunisia’s Ministry of Civil Society and Human Rights pledged to reform the legal framework regulating associations, an attempt to « harmonize » the sector with the fight against terrorism and money laundering. The government’s proposal to amend Decree 88 of 2011, widely regarded as an important gain of the revolution for freedom of association, was perceived as a significant threat to this constitutional right. But while Tunisian and international civil society organizations had their gaze fixed on protecting Decree 88, the threat materialized in a far less obvious form: draft law 30/2018 on the National Registry of Enterprises, precipitously passed into law by parliament on July 27, 2018.
On the heels of Korea’s joint agreement with the African Development Bank including a $5 billion assistance commitment to Africa, Tunisia’s Ministry of Development has landed a piece of the deal. The Korea Africa Economic Cooperation (KOAPEC) fund has carved out a million-dollar grant towards a project that will deliver Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV), more commonly known as drones, for data collection in Tunisia’s agricultural sector. Until now, drone use in Tunisia has been largely restricted under ministerial law of 6 April 1995. Will South Korea’s experiment influence lawmakers to devise new regulations and open Tunisia’s skies to a wider application of this technology?
After ongoing negotiations that began on July 15, 40 irregular migrants in territorial waters were brought to the commercial port of Zarzis after being intercepted on their way from Libya to Europe. On Wednesday, August 1, the migrants accepted landing in Tunisia as their legal status is settled to determine whether they will be deported or granted asylum. Their arrival on Tunisian soil marked the end of 18 perilous days at sea after the migrants were refused entry into European ports.
Le dendri est une boisson servie aux mausolées en Tunisie. Elle se compose de sorgho, lait fermenté, eau et sucre. Un breuvage atypique tout comme le projet musical qui porte son nom. Présenté en concert mercredi 27 juin à la salle de la Bourse du Travail dans le cadre de la 5ème édition du festival « Jaou Tunis », Dendri propose une fusion entre instruments traditionnels afro-berbères comme le guembri et la gombra et instruments occidentaux tels que la batterie et la guitare. Une manière de défier l’espace et le temps en sortant ce genre de musique soufi de son cadre classique et en lui donnant un coup de jeune permettant aux nouvelles générations de se l’approprier.
