The International Comics Festival of Tazarka incarnates the adage dynamite comes in small packages. For the past twenty years, the small seaside town of Tazarka has hosted Tunisia’s oldest comics festival. August 20-28, artists, children, and the members of the Association Mahmoud Messadi for Creation animated the workshops, discussions, and kite-flying of this year’s event.
In spite of its important publications, events, and initiatives over the past fifty years, Tunisia has never numbered among the world’s prolific comic producers. But did the country’s revolution mark the opening of a new chapter for the “ninth art” in Tunisia?
Under the slogan “a festival for all,” Ezzahra Festival management, including Sadok Ben Mhenni, had organized a concert performed by prisoners. Scheduled for Friday, August 5, the event, which would have been the first of its kind, was canceled by the Interior Ministry for security reasons. Recap of an all but forgotten struggle.
With a distinctively global, historical view of revolutionary and democratic processes, two recent collections of essays by Sada-Carnegie and POMEPS indicate that it is yet early to draw conclusions about the successes and failures of Arab uprisings. For Tunisia, these reflections are particularly resonant as the country’s leadership decides the constituents of a new “unity government” proposed by President Essebsi in June.
For one full week, Kelibia’s youth center and its environs were the setting for back-to-back film screenings, discussions, workshops, and musical performances. On Saturday, August 13, the 31st International Amateur Film Festival of Kelibia (FIFAK) came to a close.
While opposition parties have denounced the appointment of Youssef Chahed as partial and contrary to the idea of a coalition government, some decry the designation as a relapse to the old “all in the family” way of politics. Few, however, have paid much attention to Chahed’s singular professional trajectory prior to his swift ascension to Prime Minister.
For its 52nd annual production, the Carthage International Festival diverged from its regular programming and held an “Urban Session” at L’Agora in La Marsa. In a country where the freedom of speech and self-expression was suppressed for so long, Urban Session’s performances were not lacking subversive undertones. However, the social acceptability of hip hop and urban art by the general public is far from being considered “mainstream”. One swallow doesn’t make a summer.
Ennahdha’s shift towards post-Islamism in the context of the post-revolutionary Tunisia reveals two truths and a lie.
In a letter to Barack Obama on July 27, 121 American analysts and former diplomats called upon the President to make an official visit to Tunisia before the end of his term in January. While some openly request official support for Tunisia, the possible appointment of Youssef Chahed, former employee of the American embassy in Tunis, raises questions around the less overt forms of US engagement with its unique North African partner.
The 31st International Amateur Film Festival of Kelibia (FIFAK) will take place next month, August 7-13. Yesterday morning at the Rio movie theater in Tunis, the Tunisian Federation of Amateur Filmmakers (FTCA), held a press conference to present this year’s edition. Created in 1964, the FIFAK is the continent’s oldest film festival.
Over the long weekend of July 22-25, the campaign Manich Msamah, [I will not pardon] against the economic and financial reconciliation draft law occupied the streets of eleven cities throughout the country. Marches and sit-ins throughout the month of July have multiplied as ARP deputies resume discussions concerning the measure originally submitted to parliament in July 2015.
At roundtable events in the presence of EU funders and Tunisians who work in art and culture, the Ministry of Culture affirms that it has moved beyond words and is in the phase of action. With European Union’s recent designation of four million euros to the sector, the question remains whether or not such support will accompany the implementation of new policies, and specifically a framework ensuring the social and economic security of artists in Tunisia.
Announcing a new maritime operation in the Mediterranean and intelligence center in Tunisia, NATO has asserted that it intends to intensify its role and partnerships “to support the Global Coalition to Counter ISIL.” While some compare NATO’s declarations following the July 9 Warsaw Summit to the EU’s maritime military strategy, calling it the “militarization of misery,” others have highlighted the intent to establish an enduring presence in the south of the Mediterranean, and Tunisia in particular.
As ally countries and financial institutions have obliged government requests for continued support with new lending agreements, Tunisia concedes to loan upon loan to pay back its debts.
“We Arabs, we are behind” we have sighed to ourselves for more than a century. Streams of powerless tears flood our newspaper columns. A veritable fountain of tears spewing from our tear ducts. And we ask Europe, who quietly laughs at us, to give us a hand. “We Arabs, we are behind. Let’s be modern!” We’re spending our time running to catch a train that is behind us. Europe is not our future; it is our past.
Since June 14th, the portal “Open Data” offers to the public contracts that link ETAP and the State to Tunisian and foreign hydrocarbon operators. Other equally vital actors in the energy and mining sector however are absent or nearly so.
On June 18th nearly 50 Tunisian hip hop artists came together for the country’s first multi-talent event, “War Zone”.
On June 3rd, Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Network (Euro-Med) hosted a conference entitled “Forms of Violence Against Women and Girls” to discuss the Tunisian Personal Status Code and Penal Code – both of which are long overdue for reform. Critical yet optimistic, the proposed goals for legal reform are found in a study entitled “Violences à L’égard des femmes: Les lois du genre” written by Sana Ben Achour, a law professor and former president of ATFD.
