Why mentionning Palestinian cause in the Tunisian Constitution is a misktake

The first drafts of the Tunisian Constitution are published these days. The preamble of the Constitution now mentions the Tunisian support for the Palestinian cause “above any other cause”. In my opinion, this is not appropriate at all, for the following reasons:

• the only countries that mention another country in their Constitution are colonies mentionning the “mother land”. And those countries had their colonizers in their constitution only because they were forced to. Besides this case, it’s a unique example of a free country listing another country’s cause as the cause “above any other”, meaning above national interests. Why is a Tunisian cause less important to Tunisia than a foreign cause?
• Tunisian first constitution ran for 98years, the second one for about 55years. Writing down support for Palestinian cause in the third constitution of the country means it is here to stay: indeed, what would be the point of Palestinian cause in our Constitution the day Palestine is liberated? In other words, Tunisian deputees put Palestine in the Constitution because they think that in the long term it will not be free; and if they think it, its simply because its not in their interest for it to be a free country. Simple: if Palestinian cause doesn’t exist anymore, how will demagocic governments of MENA region excite the feelings of their people and bring them away from their own problems? Arab dictatorships always used the rethorics of Palestinian cause while secretly helping Israel to root in the region: secret business deals, bad treatment of Palestinian refugees, etc. We made a revolution for our rulers to stop selling us metaphysical ideologies while working for our loss. At the very least, if Tunisia really wants to help Palestine they should start by believing there exists a solution for the crisis to end within the next few years.
• As much as I care for Palestinian cause, I can’t accept the fact that because it’s an “Arab” cause it is above any other. It would simply mean that support goes with ethnicity not with justice. In many  places in the world people experience situations at least as horrible as Palestinians, and sometimes much worse. Dying of hunger in Somalia or killed by a Taliban in Afghanistan or a Jenjaweed in Darfour is nor less important nor less painful. By favoring Palestinian cause, Tunisia would send the message that not all victims are equal.

Tunisia has a long History for supporting Palestine (Souha Arafat wife of the late leader Yasser Arafat has even obtained in the past a Tunisian citizenship!), it certainly does not need to write it down in its constitution for Tunisians to feel concerned by the fate of Palestinians.

Tunisia, a little country making History

Almost one year after the dramatic immolation of Mohammed Bouazizi, Tunisia makes once again History, by appointing Moncef Marzouki as president. Elected by the Constitutive Assembly to be the transitionnal leader of Tunisia, he is a doctor and life long human rights activist, intellectual (not less than 20 published books on medical ethics, public health, human rights and political analysis of the Arab world), exiled in France for the last 10 years; we couldn’t imagine a more suitable person for a president. He highly contrasts with the rest of Arab leaders, and represents the standards we will ask for not only for our nation but for the whole MENA region.

The first speech of President Marzouki was beautiful, and as a Tunisian I was touched to see my president crying when he mentionned the martyrs of the revolution and praying for the Libyans, Syrians, Yemenis and Palestinians. I was also happy to see him wearing a burnous, the traditionnal Tunisian cloak, symbolizing in a simple and beautiful way our North African identity.

Today, like many Tunisians I am optimistic for my country. I think we are going the right way. We still have a lot of hard work to do, especially regarding the economical and labour market reforms; may the future be bright and brighter  for Tunisia.

 

Elections results: New Assembly, New Tunisia

The results for the Tunisian elections are revealed, region after region. As expected, Rached Ghannouchi’s Ennahdha is granted about 35-40% of the votes, about 16-17% for Ettakatol and 15-16% for Moncef Marzouki’s CPR. The three main political forces of the country as thus one religious party and two secular parties, in a configuration where none of them can be a majority alone. Together, they will be in charge of writing the new Constitution of Tunisia.

The severe defeat of PDP and PDM parties, traditional secular left, can be understood by the fact that among all secular parties, Tunisians favored the ones that showed an interest for Tunisians daily life problems and a will to conciliate with islamists. Indeed, PDM and PDP main campaign effort was about ‘countering ennahdha’, thus giving to Tunisians the impression of them being nothing else than parties interested in he political game more than they are in the country’s future.

The state of the things might well be the best option for Tunisia, where an equilibrum between religious and secular forces would be the best guarantee of simultaneous stability and progress. After 60years of forced secularism, a full secular power would have had a taste of continuation and a full islamist would have been at odds with the tunisian society. Also, Tunisians have been ruled in the past only by governments originating from a unique party. Tunisia is thus experiencing multipartism for the first time of its History.

One point though remains unclear: the very high scores of Hechmi Hamdi in Sidi Bouzid, the place where the revolution was born. Hechmi Hamdi, director of the London-based TV channed Al Mustaqilah, close to Ben Ali in the past and who presents himself as a moderate islamist, gained up to 90% of the votes in some polling stations. The ISIE (who organized and managed the elections) should investigate on the possibility of violation of the elections code.

We can from now forsee the new constitution that’ll come out of this Assembly: Islam will  remain religion of State, although the primary source of law won’t be Islamic law. A strong focus on Human Rights, together with a presevation of freedom of speech and opinion will be granted. The state will be hopefully bound to a stronger social role towards citizens and a better protection of the weakest people in our country. The hardest part of the work will be certainly to rethink and reform justice.

These first elections were the first step towards our new Tunisia. They were successfully held and that was our first victory over tyranny: to have not fallen into chaos. Now, we are ready to work hard to make of the New Tunisia a successful common project.

Can #occupyWallStreet make a real difference?

As the Occupy Wall Street movement grows and enhances other occupy movements in the United States (occupy Boston, etc) and in the world (as far as in Japan, Taiwan), I was remembering a note I wrote on May 2011 called To all the Tahrir Squares in the World where I was saying that with the Spanish Indignados unrest movement inspired by the Tunisian/Egyptian revolutions, we are seeing the beginning of a global phenomenon spreading much beyond the Arab World. Everywhere, the same basic demand: asking for a fairer world.

As a citizen of the world, there is one thing I always admired in Americans: their talent in putting the right words on things. In french we would say they have le sens de la formule, meaning ‘the sense of the right formula/sentence’. I don’t know who said first ‘We are the 99%’ , but I think it sums it up perfectly.

The ‘occupy’ movements demands are noble, they are right. But can they make a real difference? After all, the spanish Indignados movement did not result in reforms or change in the state of the things in Spain. The Greek protests did not prevent the new rules of the game dictated by the CEB and IMF. Things just carry on like they were, except for the traffic jam caused by the protests. If it is true these movements have raised the awareness in the Western World on the unnatural financial order in the world that does not even benefit to population of the rich countries, they yet fail in having any concrete impact on decision-makers. The problem maybe of these movements in Europe was that although the demands were clear and fair, the protests did not challenge the establishment. In other words: because we all understood the unrest will never reach point of a real physical revolution even  if the demands are not fulfilled. In the worst case the young people will abstain at the next elections and that, the decision makers know it. Politicians are keen to do a lot of things to ensure people voting for them, dismantling a dysfunctioning system that feeds them is not one of them.

Same goes for the Occupy Wall Street movement: it can make a difference only if the 1% understand that the 99% will put their fight above everything else and anything else, including themselves. The crucial point for the Arab Spring is that governments are falling or shaking because they understood that people are ready to die for their ideas and that everytime somebody dies, the crowd does not diminish in size but augments. Because they know that from Friday to Friday, the rage of the protesters becomes more and more physically impossible  to contain for police/armed forces.

It is not about being violent during the protests, it is about making clear that even if a crowd is met by violence – and we are not talking about pepper spray, we are talking about another level of violence that can cost lives – the crowd will still continue and in the contrary they will glorify the sacrifice of every single life. The Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions succeeded because even if the protesters where peaceful and unarmed, the repressive forces were forced to give up, because they were totally out of control of the situation. Because they knew that they will be unable to stop the crowd marching towards the ministries or presidential palaces at the risk of their lives.

Now, the Occupy Wall Street movement, if it really wants to change the world and impact on the financial world, should understand that nothing concrete will happen until the 1% really feel threatened from inside their ivory tower by the 99% that are ready to bring down the tower, and sit on everything that is in it. It is not about sending death threats to these people, it is about making their outrageous lifestyle and actions impossible to continue. In that country where a very few people managed to send thousands of young Americans to go get killed in Irak just for oil, it is already a fact the of Occupy Wall Street movement is opposing nothing else but people that really consider owning the lives of Americans and that will not hesitate to sacrifice all what it needs to maintain the system as it is.

To occupy wall street protesters, I know I am nobody to give my ‘advice’: if you really mean to change things, push for occupying Wall Street for real, and make understand that you are ready to physically sacrifice for it (not that events have to turn violent, but note that in front of you, you have a lot of people ready to do anything legal and illegal to satisfy their greed). Make understand that your intention is not only shouting against capitalism outside buildings in a park nearby, but that you will interrupt the financial activities inside. Only when the 1% inside the buildings of Wall Street will understand that the 99% outside have no upper limit in their determination to perturb the financial markets, they will consider reforms of the financial system. Occupy Wall Street can be a real difference, give yourself the means for it to happen.

October 6th 1981, the day “my” dictator was shot

I don’t remember that day; I wasn’t born. My mother remembers she was 8-months-and-something pregnant of me and my father remembers he was literally panicked the delivery could happen at any moment. I am their first child, it is as unexperienced parents-to-be they lived that particular October 6th 1981.

They lived far from their homelands, in Switzerland, and it is with this strange obsession specific to the expats they were following as much as they could what was happening in Tunisia (my mother’s country) and in Egypt (my father’s). In 2011, it is difficult to imagine what means ‘following news’ at a time when there was no Internet, no twitter, no mobile phones and hardly any landlines in our families back home, no satellite TV; in fact no TV at all at my parents’ place. A bit of radio, newspapers (in some places in Switzerland you could get a few arabic newspapers with 3days delay), and mostly news from other expats were coming  back from travel, that heard something from somebody, that has a personnal story to tell. I don’t know by which of these means they knew the Egyptian dictator Anouar Al-Sadat was shot during the traditional military parade of October 6th.

All I know for being told the story thousands of times by my parents, is that my father rushed to buy a TV immediately when he heard the news of Sadat’s death.  Years later, everytime I hear the name of the dictator I imagine a younger version of my father trying to get that new TV (that now would look like an antique) working and a younger version of my mother, pregnant on the couch trying to give suggestions on how to do. I was born 10 days after Sadat’s death, on October 16th. My father never forgets to mention that October 81 brought many changes in his life: a daughter and a TV.

The world remembers Sadat with nostalgy for his peace efforts with Israel, but Egyptians don’t. This hate of Egyptians for the dictator is nothing because of Israel, but because Sadat is the synonyme for corruption, poverty, jails, arbitrary detentions, torture, expensive bread. Sadly ironic to think that a man that was so injust was awarded with a Peace Nobel Prize.

My father migrated to Switzerland because his engineering studies, in the Sadat years Egypt, were not enough to find a job and grant a decent a living for him, his two parents and his 6 sisters. Hadn’t he migrated, he wouldn’t have met my mother and I would have never “been”. Sadat, “my” dictator in a way.

October 6th 2011, 30 years later, Egypt is trialing another dictator, Hosni Mubarak. Age of blood is over for our country and we will be firmly standing to avoid it to ba back.

Samir Feriani and Kamel Morjane remind us that the Tunisian Revolution is a continuous struggle

Samir Feriani is a policeman that got arrested after he published in a newspaper names of people holding key positions in the Interior Ministry involved in the shooting of peaceful protestors during the Tunisian revolution. After a trial, he was released last week. His release was seen by the optimists as a victory for the Revolution, the others say that his arrest, regardless of the result of the trial, was already a failure in itself for the justice of a country that aims to be democratic.

Kamel Morjane is the former Minister of Foreign Affairs, currently involved in the scandal of the 3 years diplomatic passeports issued to Ben Ali and his family on January 16th, two days after they fled to Saudi Arabia. He held a press conference where he explained that in his point of view, he just followed the law. The passeports were cancelled since, but the exact extent of Kamel Morjane is still unclear.  He runs with his party ‘Al Mobadara’ for the coming elections, although he was a member of the Ben Ali government.Many disapprove the fact that a former Ben Ali minister, although apparently not involved in criminal affairs during or before the Revolution, can still participate to the political life of Tunisia.

Samir Feriani and Kamel Morjane represent well this strange transitional period in Tunisia; they remind us Revolution is a continuous struggle. The remnants of the old regime still have a strong hold on the affairs of the state, strong enough to interfere with justice in particular. Not that the Revolution ‘failed’, like we hear sometimes; cleaning a rusty machine takes time, and the improvements are already beyond the reasonable predictions that were made at the beginning of the transitional period. But still a lot has to be done that can’t be delayed anymore. In particular, justice has to be reminded to its primary function. In the country dozens of the former regime heads like Morjane are moving freely, unworried, while thousands of simple citizens like Feriani are still under the threat of trials, harrassment or other means of pressure when they use their right to disagree.

To push reforms forward, let’s use our deadliest weapons: our pens and our voting cards.

Talking about 9/11… as a Muslim

I remember that 9/11 was a Tuesday. I remember coming back home after spending the morning studying at the library. I remember my two parents on the couch, watching TV, my father turning his head to me and telling me “Look, look! Planes crashed into the two big buildings, you know the ones in New York, and they collapsed!“. I laughed; I was thinking it was one of those jokes of my dad, that he was trying to convince me that this Hollywood movie he was watching was real news. But common’, you can’t destroy iron and concrete buildings just like this, can you? “No, Look, look! Wallah it’s true news!“. I sat with them. It was true; the Twin Towers had collapsed.

Thinking back of this moment, I don’t think I realized then the event would become a turning point in the world History. Not that I was not ‘impressed’ by the death toll, the horror of the images or the amount of testimonies of the apocalyptical hours, but to be honest when you’re a 80′s kid, when you grew up watching on TV thousands of Bosniacs, Rwandese, Iraqis, Somalians, Palestinians, etc dying, you just end up believing blood is the new world currency countries give and take from each other. New deaths, old business.

Maybe it is horrible to say so, but if I was completely surprised and horrified by the method of the attacks, I was not shocked by the target (the United States). Yes, that particular event was unexpected, but all in all, we knew some attack will happen, sooner or later.We knew it; as well as alas we knew too the reponse of the United States: a blood bath that would make tens of thousands more victims than the 9/11.

This is not relativism. I feel really sorry for the human lives lost, for the 3000 victims, for the tragedy of the families. I admire the firemen that saved lives by losing theirs. I hope they rest in peace. But when among all the testimonies I heard hundreds of ‘We will never forget‘ and ‘Never again‘, I was thinking ‘Of course… but this does not apply only to you, it applies to us too. Don’t you understand we couldn’t forget?‘. Yes, 9/11 was barbary, but in a word ruled by a barbaric imperialism, violent responses sometimes hit back. In particular, the Arab and Muslim World, in the post-WWII and post-cold war period, paid the highest price for American appetite for conquest. Muslims, Arabs and non-Arabs, tried peace, tried indifference, tried diplomacy, tried cooperation, tried NGO’s, tried UN, tried it all. It was only a matter of time until some of them will try violence, whether they were right or wrong in taking that option in consideration.

Who are really Al-Qaeda and what do they really fight for? I don’t know, all I know is that what comes before and after Al-Qaeda did not start nor end with it; however, undoubtlessely, the only scar in the face of the American hegemonic Empire, at that time of History, only Al-Qaeda could do it, and for the world to evolve into a multipolar, fairest world, this first scar was a terrible mandatory step. A fairest world is probably not the ultimate goal of Al-Qaeda, sure, but here we are, one decade later, on our way into a multipolar fairest world.

9/11 impacted on the life of every Muslim, directly or indirectly. For us for example, Muslims in Europe, we had to face one decade of growing racism and islamophobia, partly due to 9/11. All of us, all, we had endlessly to justify ourselves for being Muslims, we had to ‘explain’ that violence was not implicit part of the religion, that extremism was not representative of all we are, that 9/11 and other attacks were not a religious phenomenon but merely a geopolitical phenomenon. As if we were all put on trial after 9/11. And even one decade later, we still have every couple of days a new person popping out of nowhere that knew nothing on Islam, on Muslims or on Muslim World, but confident enough to lecture us about what we are and what we should be.

In the words of those we had to confront, there was more than a naive fear of the unknown, there was too often a belief of being superior, civilized and in charge of civilizing. At the end we all got tired of explaining again and again and again; tired answering the same questions from the same people who knew our answers for having already heard them, but who chose to be deaf to them. Always the same topics, more or less in the same order: djihad, shariaa, burqa/niqab, excision. But for some reason, if we ended up hating the questions we didn’t hate the questioners, nor the very reason of them to question us: were they aware of the fact that it is because the Ummah is more than a vague theoretical concept they instinctively felt that world Muslims were an informal global community sharing the outcome of the good and bad experiences of its members?

One decade later, the world has changed: the bloody wars against terrorism, the global economical crisis, the Arab revolutions, the Oslo blast, Wikileaks. In all these, there is enough evidence for who is not blind to aknowledge the threat does not come from Islam and Muslims but from imperialism, materialism, greed, fierce capitalism and nihilistic hate. My own cure against the dark sides of my soul, I found it in the Quran. And  I don’t care if you find it in the Bible, in the Torah, in art or in the eyes of your child or if you are still looking for it, as long as you understood that life is about bringing light into the night, you are my brother (or sister!) in Humanity.

Tel-Aviv is not Tahrir

People say Tahrir Square inspired the world. Revolutionnaries from everywhere will use this template for carrying revolts and ask for dignity, freedom and rights. So when a social unrest movement started in Israel in July 14th, many commentors wanted to see in it one of the many waves generated by the ‘Arab Spring’. The Israelis are gathering in Tel-Aviv in increasing numbers since three weeks (when a young activist settled a tent on Rotschild street) to protest against high rents in Israel. The number of participants have reached 300’000 people.

Even Israelis sometimes say themselves they were inspired by Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions. A famous picture shows a protestor carrying a sign saying “Walk like an Egyptian“, and sometimes signs are written in hebrew and in arabic.

But alas, Tel-Aviv is not Tahrir. It is not sufficient to claim making an arab-like revolution for it to be truly one. Our Arab revolutions were, before to be about costs of living (even if it’s true they were too about it), about justice and freedom, end of violence and torture. One of the famous Tunisian mottos even was “Bread and Salt, but not Ben Ali” (“bread and salt” is a Tunisian expression meaning eating very poorly); many Libyans droped out the oil income Gaddafi was giving them and the privileges Arabs had among Berbers in Libya, because they know the Libyan people freedom knows no price high enough to be sold; Bahraini were among the first to rise in February although they are certainly not the poorest in the Arab World, because they don’t want to live in a golden cage.

The problem with the Israeli protests is that they are claiming against Netanyehou government for the very wrong reasons. They complain about high rents but without firmly condemning the aspects of the housing policy that discriminates Palestinians, excludes them out of towns, encourages settlements and land expropriation. By silenting on these issues, they just say they will buy it, if only a little more discount is made. Paying too much taxes is an issue for the Israeli citizen, but nor apartheid, nor the crimes of Tsahal are. The fact that a war criminal like Tzipi Livni endorses the unrest demands proves that the rights of Palestinians are totally out of interest for the July 14th movement.

Many activists say they don’t mention the Palestinian issue in the protests demands because they want the movement to keep “apolitical”. Way of pushing aside the embarrassing questions: indeed, unjustice and human rights violations are beyond ‘politics’ in real democracies, while it is political only in phantom democracies. For the huge majority of the people in the streets in Tel-Aviv, if a little effort is made by the government to lower rents or find solutions to build a new campus for Israeli students, they will easily leave the streets, and carry on with their lives, satisfied with themselves as revolutionnaries with this revolution on the cheap.

Thus, the current Israeli unrest is the negation of Justice, it is the negation of the Tahrir spirit.

Mubarak’s Trial: that special moment in History of Egypt

One year ago, if told that Hosni Mubarak, his sons and the feared Minister of Interior Habib al-Adly were to face charges of corruption, murder conspiracy against unarmed protestors, any Egyptian would have bitterly laughed. We would have believed seeing one day the Nile getting dry or the desert getting green rather than this trial. This morning, when the trial of the ex-dictator opened, I first had this feeling of something truly unreal happening.

I couldn’t believe my eyes – I was watching the trial through the Egyptian TV live stream -  seeing this weak old man lying in his bed, a man that once  held a whole nation under state of emergency for three decades, that stole the country’s wealth and traded so many lives with his personnal power and his clan’s. He was dressed in white, like his two sons Alaa and Gamal. A stupid thought crossed my mind at this moment: “Not in blue?“. I was taking it from all the Egyptian movies where defendants in trials were always wearing blue suits.

The court first went about technicalities for ages, the lawyers were all talking at the same time, the mess was complete.One of the lawyers even asked to the court to proceed to a DNA test on Hosni Mubarak to prove it is the real Hosni Mubarak and not a lookalike, his theory being that the ‘real’ Mubarak was dead since 2004 and the ‘false’ Mubarak being an agent of the American-Zionist conspiracy. At this point I really thought the trial was going to be nothing more than a big joke.

From time to time, the camera was framing this cage where seven men were held, including Hosni Mubarak in his bed and Alaa Mubarak holding a Quran behind his back. Somehow, as a human being I could a bit feel sorry for the humiliating situation: a cage where a sick man was lying. But this feeling was very soon muted by that other voice in me “reminding” me that after all, a man who has ordered mass killings of peaceful protestors, caused the poverty, the misery, the sad destiny of so many men and women I’ll never see on a TV screen, this kind of man, if not ashamed of his records, is certainly beyond feeling ashamed just for a cage or a bed.

The strongest moment of the trial was when the prosecutor read the charges against the defandants. He listed the facts, about the January 25th revolution protestors killings, but also about all the protestors killings since 2000, about the corruption of the regime, about the millions and billions of Egyptian Pounds, about the scandalous gas deal with Israel, about the legitim demands of the people wanting to live better, to live dignifully, met with guns, with torture. I found myself in tears hearing all our country went through because of this man, and I know many Egyptians like me were in tears too. But I was also in tears because I was proud: proud to be part of a country that at the end chose the right side. And thankful: thankful to God to have allowed me to live long enough to see this historical moment of a nation asking for justice. Thankful also to all the martyrs of the Revolution who gave their lives for this New Egypt to exist, this New Egypt where Egyptians say they don’t want anymore to be silent.

After the prosecutors intervention, Hosni Mubarak and his sons announced they were pleading non-guilty. Just hearing Mubarak saying to the president of the court “Efendim” (a honorific denomination in Arabic), was like a… delight. After all, he was now refering to the president of the court with the same denomination that any defendant or person present in the trial had: he was no more above all of us, he was no more above justice.

At the end of this first session of the Mubarak Trial I thought of course of the Arab Spring martyrs, let it be in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Bahrain, but also to the Iraqis and the Yougoslavians: I remembered the mascarade of a trial they had for Saddam Hussein and also the incredible slowness of Slobodan Milosevic trial that could never even really start before he died. All this waste: its maybe once or twice in History of a country a tyrant is put in front of his deeds and below the justice; for example, in Egypt, we had Pharaoh swallowen by the Red Sea and we have now Mubarak crushed by the will of a whole people asking for its dignity. These very rare occasions act like a massive psychanalysis for the populations. And this opportunity was stolen from Iraqis and from Serbs and Bosniacs. ‘Justice’ can help ‘History’ to take such a ridiculous turn sometimes.

Why Tunisians don’t want to vote?

Tunisians united to oust a dictator: because a whole people wanted their freedom; they wanted to have their right to speak and chose their rulers, the right to live decently and the right to not live with constant fear. So was the Jasmine Revolution of January 14. It is then with much enthusiasm that hundreds of political parties, syndicates and associations were created. It is for building the new country, with a constitution shaped just like its population, that were announced the elections for the constitutive assembly. Many times postponed, due to the difficulties encountered by the transitionnal government to solve the slightest issue regarding to the reforms to lead, and due to the new political game involving the members of the former system, the historical opponents of the regime and the protestors and newcomer in politics afraid to see the revolution fail to fulfil its goal. Finally, the elections are to be hold on October 23rd.

The ISIE (Instance Supérieure Indépendante pour les Elections), managed by Kamel Jendoubi, is monitoring the elections to ensure a fair and transparent process, for the first ever free elections taking place in the History of Tunisia. The ISIE launched a few weeks ago a massive campaign to encourage Tunisians to get registred for the elections. Indeed, until now in Tunisia, the citizens were automatically receiving their voter’s card. The new system asks for potential electors to register in town halls and embassies in a period of time going from July 11th to August 2nd.

The ISIE were providing continuously estimates of the number of registration. Since the very first days, Tunisians did not seem to rush to get registres; the number were low. Less than 2% of Tunisian potential electors registred after the first week, about 25% at the end of the registration period. The ISIE decided to extend for two more weeks the registration period. Disappointing: Tunisians do not seem at all interested in voting.

How come a people that mobilized to topple a regime is indifferent to voting, one of the basic rights they asked for and fought for? Many explanations were given:

• the lack of a “democratic culture”: full generations of Tunisians were never part of their own political system; they never were but spectators to this comedy the old regime was calling “democracy”, knowing what horrible truth lies behind the words. The idea of voting with effective result might be too new to most of the people to take the initiative to register and to chose a candidate. They might actually have made a choice but not dare to make it, fearing the reaction of the rulers, or maybe they do not get that their voice really make a difference.
• the confusion with the old system: the old system did not require registering, thus a large part of Tunisians are not aware that registration is a necessery step.
• the contradictory ISIE guidelines: dates change following you consult one source or the other, required documents to bring change, unclear specifications, etc. Tunisians, whose a great part never voted in their entire life, whose a substantial part is illetrate or two poor to be wired 24/7 for new updates may feel totally lost.
• the contestation: the political game opposing the parties (PDP, enNahdha, etc), where every political leader tries to make coalitions to bring down others, where attacks and rumors hit every side, gives maybe the feeling to the Tunisian population that politicians do not have the interest of the people set as a priority, therefore incitating them to “boycott” the elections. The brutality with which the police breaks sit-ins and protests and the extent of the emergency state might well also contribute in unsecuring the citizen: why would they vote for building a new authoritarian state? Indeed, many of Tunisians often say that since the revolution “nothing has changed“.

Like in most complex situations, the answer is certainly made of all these different explanations. But there is still a last one has – sadly – to consider: maybe, Tunisians do not register, simply because they do not care about voting. The idea in itself seems a bit odd: why did they do a revolution in the first place if they did not care? Well, first, it does not take more than some part (say, 10 or 20%) of a population to carry on a  revolution.This does not mean that the rest of the population do not agree with the idea of a revolution, but that they are not active in the process: they follow it, but from far. Then, given the fact that an authoritarian state cannot survive for 23years without not only by scaring the population, but also by growing in them the uninterest for political matters, a good proportion of the Tunisian population was always very indifferent to politics.

The propaganda is more than convincing about some one-sided truth, it is also about telling “take care of your own business, and we take care of our own“. In such a case, the whole background of the mediatic culture, of the society, of the teaching in schools can evolve into directing people to get interested and focused on secondary matters: consumerism, for example. People died to bring us the right to vote, but what can you do, voting is definetly not as funny as going to shopping, gossiping or watching sports on TV. From my personnal experience, sadly, I have to say that many of our compatriots fall in that category of citizens that have closed their sight to the very idea of participative citizenship. I think that getting rid of this mentality is the biggest challenge of the Revolution: and it will certainly not be achieved by the upcoming elections. If half of the generation of our children are educated to participative citizenship, it will already be an outstanding victory for Tunisia.