Nawaat addressed two questions to five foreign researchers who have written extensively about Tunisia’s politics and are familiar with the country’s particularities and complexities. It is a humble attempt by Nawaat to provide our readers with an outsider look that goes beyond Tunisia’s mainstream narrative, the polarized discourse and recurrent repression that accompanies every social movement.
Friday, January 12 marked just over a week since protests broke out against the increased prices introduced by Tunisia’s 2018 budget. Unlike previous periods of contestation since the 2011 revolution, demonstrations in at least 18 regions across the country over the past week have been characterized by heightened tension leading to confrontations between protesters and security forces. Friday’s demonstration in Tunis, strained but peaceful, coincided with the court date of Ahmed Sassi, one of many campaign activists who has been arrested since January 4.
Protests against the 2018 finance law, which began within parliament and media outlets long before hitting the streets, provoked tension around the approved increase in prices. Tunisians, already fed up with the repercussions of a prolonged economic crisis, have turned out into the streets. A new wave of protest movements began in January, and quickly turned into confronta-tions between protesters and security forces in 18 governorates. Clashes culminated on Monday night with the death of the first protester in Tebourba, just outside of the capital.
If many had hopes that 2017 might hold answers to the social and economic demands of the revolution, those hopes were short-lived. Tunisians faced an increasingly grim economic situation with an 8% drop in the value of the dinar and unemployment at 15.3%. The country’s long-awaited municipal elections, promising decentralized governance, are postponed until May 2018. Several months after the Prime Minister declared a « war against corruption », parliament passed the “reconciliation law” pardoning administrative officials implicated in economic crimes under the former regime. As much as resistance to changing old ways persists, protest movements represented a dynamic social force in 2017.
In November, Lawyers Without Borders (ASF) and the Tunisian Bar Association (ONAT) launched a campaign to speed up the implementation of legislation intended to protect the rights of detainees. It has been almost two years since parliament voted to reform Tunisia’s penal code through the adoption of Law n°5-2016, known more simply as Law 5. And yet statistics and testimonies indicate that misconduct by officials and human rights abuses committed in police stations and detention centers remain commonplace. What will it take for old practices to be replaced by the procedures set out in the new legislation?
This year’s Documentary Film Festival of Redeyef (RFDR) takes place December 20-24, in the town whose name is almost synonymous with Tunisia’s phosphate industry and its deleterious effects on the surrounding populations and environment. Although the mining basin revolt of 2008 is considered a precursor to the Tunisian revolution in 2011, in 2017 residents affirm without hesitation that here in Redeyef, « nothing has changed ». Now in its fourth year, the RFDR, funded by the Rosa Luxembourg Foundation, is pushing to establish a perennial film festival here, a so-called difficult terrain that is parched for sustainable cultural outlets.
How much will US Congress carve out for Tunisia in 2018? The jury is still out, and even though the fiscal year began October 1, Washington has yet to approve the new budget, including foreign funding amounts. An article* published earlier this month on The Hill urges senators to remember Tunisia while finalizing the budget for the coming year. « Tunisia is an American ‘soft power’ success story—let’s keep it that way », the author writes, arguing that with US foreign assistance « there is reason to believe that the rule of law and democratic institutions will prevail », whereas cuts in funding to the country would represent « a serious mistake ».
In Tunis, the decision announced by Donald Trump to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel has thrown a cog into machine, breaking the rhythm of daily life. If public outcry was foreseeable following such a declaration, it has not lessened the sense of indignation that has been expressed throughout Tunisia since Wednesday, December 6.
On December 1, Tunisians celebrated the birth of the prophet Muhammad with assidat zgougou, a pudding-like dessert garnished with nuts, dried fruits, and candies. For one day out of the year, families savor this uniquely Tunisian treat made from zgougou, seed of the Aleppo pine tree that grows abundantly throughout the Mediterranean. With some 360 thousand acres of Aleppo pine forest in Kasserine, Siliana, Kef and Bizerte, Tunisia is the only country where the tree’s black-grey seeds are harvested for human consumption.
Mohamed Aziz Khlifi, 16 years old, is from the delegation of Bir Lahfay in Sidi Bouzid. Walid Lahmar, 27 years old, is from Bir Ali Ben Khelifa in Sfax. Mohamed Ali Ferjani, 32 years old, is originally from Chneni, Gabes. The three of them were on board a boat to cross illegally from the coast of Kerkennah to Italy on October 8, 2017. These are three survivors of the collision with a Tunisian military ship. After the “Skadra” incident, they have returned to the reality they had set out to escape.
A buxom young woman steps lightly from the water, carrying a jug at her hip and holding her sefsari above her head. Hooped earrings hanging down to her throat, bangles on her wrists, gold coins across her chest. She emerges, barefoot onto a muddy shore strewn with—red bottle caps, a packet of Camel blue cigarettes, empty plastic bottles. A fare 18th century maiden in a most unlikely environment. The scene is one of many diffused via Zabaltuna, a digital campaign that denounces Tunisia’s waste management problem, an increasingly noxious environmental and public health issue especially since 2011.
On November 15, after nearly two weeks of fervent critique and promises of public demonstration, the Interior Ministry stepped in to stay a polarized debate around a bill concerning the repression of abuses against armed forces. In an attempt to appease security unions backing the measure and civil society groups opposing it, Interior Minister Lotfi Brahem insisted before parliament’s General Legislation Commission on Wednesday that the Ministry is taking the concerns of all sides into consideration. Brahem proposed the creation of a joint committee to draft a new law that will protect security agents and their families « with consideration for human rights principles and in respect of constitutional provisions ». For now, the current controversial text remains in parliament for further examination.
Two weeks ago, minister of the Interior Lotfi Brahem received Italian ambassador to Tunisia Raimondo De Cardona to strengthen cooperation on fighting crime and tackling illegal immigration. On the same day, October 18, 25 years old, Ahmed, from Redeyef reached Lampedusa illegally, on a boat carrying Tunisian youth mainly from the same small mining town in the mid-western governorate of Gafsa.
Over the next year, Tunisian cartoonists will take turns drawing and debating with students and prisoners throughout the country. « Dessinons la paix et la démocratie » [Let’s draw peace and democracy], is a collaborative project of Cartooning for Peace, the Arab Institute for Human Rights (IADH) and the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT). A two-day training which took place September 6-7 at the IADH in Tunis marked a first exchange between after-school educators, prison staff and six cartoonists.
It was in “Antigone”, a tiny bookshop in Milan, where I met “Islam in Love” and “Allah Loves Equality”. The first is a novel, the second is a social media campaign. As you may tell from both titles, they have a lot in common.
Moustached, tatoo-clad characters, toothy creatures with large heads and tiny wings, speech bubbles containing gangly Arabic script invade whatever empty space Jawher Soudani gets his hands on. Vacant walls and buildings in Sfax, Kef, Sousse, Hammamet, Beja, Djerba and Gabes—the artist’s birthplace—have provided an outdoor canvas for Soudani, more commonly known by passers-by as Va-Jo. This September marks a first: a solo exposition at Atelier Y in La Marsa, Tunis.
September 7-10, the International Feminist Art Festival of Tunis, Chouftouhonna, took place at the National Theater in the capital’s old neighborhood of Halfaouine. The former palace of Grand Vizier Khaznadar, rarely open to the public, was transformed for the event into a living museum: for four full days, every corner of the palace, its renovated theater, gallery rooms, courtyard, dim hallways and bright stairwells were occupied by art installations, performances, workshops and debates animated by women. Since the first edition in 2015, the festival has grown three-fold, drawing not only new participants, but artists and activists from near and far who affirm that they are in it for the long-run.
A year has now passed since Youssef Chahed’s government received a majority of parliamentary votes: 167 for, 22 against and 5 abstained. In his inauguration speech on 16 August 2016, Chahed announced that his government «places the fight against corruption as second priority after the war on terrorism, and is committed to supporting government control mechanisms and organisms specialized in the domain ». The Prime Minister also pledged to undertake the preparation of texts relating to fighting corruption. But in the year following these declarations, the Assembly’s performance has not been up to par with political propaganda for the fight against corruption.
