Ten years after Tunisia’s revolution, a group of young activists set out to sea, on a route used for irregular migration. As they sail along they discuss some of the most important issues they have confronted over the past decade.
Tunisia 2027
Nawaat & Meshkal : New Reporting Partnership
We are delighted to announce a new reporting partnership between Meshkal & Nawaat.
Healing in Tunisia in a Time of Austerity
Suddenly my hands were red. Thick, glass shards—which moments earlier had been a smooth bowl—lay scattered across the tabletop. Small pools of blood followed me like shadows on the kitchen floor before my wife reached me with a towel and instructions to apply pressure. As she gathered car keys, my spinning head brought me to the floor. Seated there, queasy and cold, two strangers—architects my wife had been meeting—helped me wearshoes. They closed the door behind us as we sped to the hospital.
La Tunisie ciblée par une campagne de désinformation israélienne
La Tunisie n’est clairement plus épargnée par les campagnes massives de désinformation à l’ère du trollage et des fake news. Objectif : semer la division, défigurer l’espace public et influencer les électeurs potentiels via des campagnes clandestines menées sur les réseaux sociaux.
Interview with A. Guellali about children of Tunisian ISIS fighters in conflict areas
Human Rights Watch has recently criticized the inaction of Tunisian authorities in the attempt to bring home the children of Tunisian ISIS fighters. The NGO says that 200 Tunisian children are currently being held in prisons and camps in Libya, Syria and Iraq. In an interview with Amna Guellali, Human Rights Watch director for Tunisia, we touch on an HRW study concerning the situation of these children today.
شطحات كربوليّة في ” تَادْ إكسْ” البرلِينِيّة
أمام جمهور متعدّد الجنسيّات بدأت الوزيرة السّابقة تتحدّث عن وسائل و سبل النّجاح في عالم مركّب و متغيّر مستعرضة مجموعة من التّجارب لتصل إلى تجربتها في تونس و تتحوّل فجأة إلى ضحيّة عانت من التّهديدا التي وُجّهت لأبنائها.
Between Tunisia and Libya: a wall and duty-free zone for border and economic security
Informal commerce is not limited to one category of merchandise, one geographic region, one demographic; trafficked items include weapons, food products, and gasoline and circulate the country via markets in Ben Guerdane, Kasserine, Sfax, Tunis; smugglers range from merchants of little means to prominent businessmen who are comparatively economically resilient and more likely to withstand trade restrictions imposed at the borders. For many smugglers of lesser means, survival depends upon their ability to navigate a political vision and legal framework which serve neither to sustain nor protect them.
Presidential Elections and Political Theater – setting the stage for Tunisia’s new government
In Tunisia’s capital, days before the November 23 presidential elections, the three candidates whose faces appear most frequently across media outlets and whose names are mentioned most often in conversation are Beji Caid Essebsi, Moncef Marzouki, and Hamma Hammami.
Public opinion and personae non gratae in post-revolution Tunisia: pro-Israel, doublespeak, and fundamentalism unwelcome
Polemical public figures who provoke protests upon their arrival or an outpouring of public response to their ideologies and work are as telling of the values and issues precious to Tunisian public opinion as they are of the controversial figures themselves.
Strategic vote, non-vote, and the relative victor–Nidaa Tounes
Secularists defeated Islamists is the verdict most commonly reported in international news outlets; Victory and defeat are relative, Tunisian journalists estimate. The politicization of the secularist-Islamist conflict throughout the Ben Ali’s tenure and the increased occurrences of religious violence after the revolution reflect a true conflict that is by no means the defining feature of the country’s democratic transition nor the 2014 elections.
South to North and the Sea in Between: Politics of Migration in the Mediterannean
At the beginning of the month, Journalist Farhat Othman criticized the Italian Interior Minister’s visit to Tunisia, observing that an offering of patrol boats, in the guise of support against terrorism and contraband, could only be intended for support against clandestine immigration since it consists of «patrol vessels mandanted by the cooperation agreement linking Tunisia and Italy since 2011 after the massive wave of Tunisians to Italy.» As if to provide a caricature of European politicans obsessed by preserving EU security, Nicolas Sarkozy addressed a cheering crowd of supporters in Nice earlier this week, calling for the «refounding» of the Schengen Area and «a real immigration policy to put an end to social tourism in our country.»
Continued – International Observation Delegations for Tunisia’s 2014 Elections
Without taking for granted the various advantages that international attention can certainly bring to this particularly precarious period in Tunisia’s history, one must nonetheless remain avidly critical and discerning of foreign actors and interests. It would appear vital not only to do a bit of background and historical research relating to institutions such as NDI, IRI, The Carter Center, the European Union, etc. etc., but also to engage with delegations to ask questions, to understand objectives and to notice what-is-being-said in correlation/contrast with what-is-being-done.
American IRI and NDI Observation Delegations for Tunisia’s 2014 Elections
In Tunisia, public opinion has often questioned the authenticity of foreign initiatives to facilitate the country’s transition to democracy, based largely on skepticism of, for instance, the US’ silence/complicity in (a lack of truly democratic) political processes that kept Ben Ali in power for over two decades. Shortly after the President’s fled the country in January 2011, questions posed during a press conference at the US Embassy in Tunis on 21 February expressed as much; one Tunisian journalist explicitly asked, «How can we trust you?»
Why has Ennahdha signed on with controversial American PR firm Burson-Marsteller?
Ennahdha’s lack of transparency around its agreement with Burson-Mersteller gives rise to inevitable suspicion that the transaction, contrary to encouraging «free and fair elections in Tunisia» might in fact undermine them. Ambiguity around the financial aspect of the deal (“Fees and expenses to be determined at a later date,” reads the official registration document) is a particular concern after political parties’ financial mismanagement in past elections.
A Story of Water in Kairouan
A Google Web search on «l’eau + Kairouan» produces a disconcerting variety of reports on the magnificent Aghlabid basins, the conqueror Okba’s recovery of a lost golden cup («When picking the cup up, water sprang from the ground») and the stoppage of running water to the Haffouz delegation of Kairouan, so that one is left confusedly marveling at the graceful aesthetic and functional design of the region’s ancient water source and wondering how residents of such parched lands have survived the summer months without the potable running water to which they are accustomed.
A Tiger Cannot Be Raised By Sheep – Economic Recovery and Party Politics in Tunisia
In this newest publication, World Bank economists Antonio Nucifora and Bob Rijkers reiterate this background of corruption, characterized by «limited competition and active state intervention» and of which enduring vestiges are manifest in «three dualisms, namely the onshore-offshore division, the dichotomy between the coast and the interior, and the segmentation of the labor market»– to explain the present economic crisis that is its legacy.
Reporting Through the Grapevine: Western and Tunisian Media on “Foreign Fighters” in Syria
Even if it is for the lack of up-to-date and relevant data produced and diffused by Tunisian government institutions, that Tunisian media draws from foreign mainstream reports without questioning the validity of the data, analysis, or sources used–reporting through the grapevine, as it were–is a practice that diminishes rather than enhances the quality of dialogue on current issues. Noteworthy, for example, is the number of news agencies that have referenced the recent CNN International study and imprecisely or incorrectly attributed it to the Washington-based non-profit Pew Research Center.
Circumventing Political Exclusion – RCD After the Revolution and in the Coming Elections
What Euchi demonstrates in The Disappointment of the Revolution is the falling short of an effective transitional justice process, a degredation of standards since 2011 that has witnessed the successive criminalization of former regime officials to their pardoning, to the concession of their right to engage in politics. Those who were initially seen as “enemies” of the state have gradually come to be recognized as political equals, now rivals now allies as per the momentary needs of political parties vying for electoral ground.
