The price of food, violence and violence in Tunis: The 12th anniversary of the Arab Spring when Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire
The Tunisian government is deeply indebted and chronically short of funds to pay for badly needed food and energy. Food prices have increased and there are shortages of essential items, including sugar, rice, milk, and even bottled water, which could lead to larger unrest.
Sugar, vegetable oil, rice and even bottled water periodically disappear from supermarkets and grocery stores. These food essentials have been subsidized for a long time and now are only available in short-term supplies. Many people cannot afford to purchase them when they appear on the shelves.
“I came to shop and found people fighting to buy and the prices were very high,” said shopper Amina Hamdi, 63, despairing at trying to buy basic goods.
Aicha said it was not possible to live without food while shopping at the fish and meat market in Tunisia. We need to eat but we can’t live without furniture. She only gave her first name for fear of persecution by police for speaking out.
The government has blamed speculators, black market hoarders and the war in Ukraine, but economic experts say the government’s own budget crisis, and its inability to negotiate a long-sought loan from the International Monetary Fund, have added to Tunisia’s troubles.
Fights sometimes break out at food market queues, and scattered protests and sporadic clashes with police over rising prices and shortages have occurred around the country. A young fruit vendor took his life after police seized the scales he used to weigh his wares.
The vote comes on the 12th anniversary of the event that sparked the Arab Spring — when a Tunisian fruit vendor, Mohamed Bouazizi, set himself on fire because of the dire economic situation under the long-time strongman rule of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. Bouazizi died after a few weeks. Protests that led to the dictator’s ousting, and similar ones around the Arab world, were a result of his desperation.
The night of the revolt in Tunisian Douar Hicher: protests against a political and economic power grab during the 2010-2011 revolution
The Ministry of Commerce promised last month that shortages would ease, announcing the import of 20,000 tons of sugar from India to be available in time for Mouled, the birthday of the Prophet Muhammad. But the night before the holiday, citizens formed long lines in front of supermarkets in the hope of getting a package of sugar, an essential food to prepare traditional dishes for the religious holiday.
In Douar Hicher, an impoverished suburb on the outskirts of Tunis considered a barometer of popular discontent, hundreds of people took to the streets at night last month to denounce the deterioration of their living conditions.
With cries of “work, freedom, dignity” — the flagship slogan of the 2010-2011 revolution — demonstrators blocked the town’s main artery by setting fire to tires, braving the police who sprayed tear gas to disperse them.
“Enough of speeches and promises, people are gripped by hunger and poverty,” read a banner erected by the demonstrators, their anger at the government and political elites palpable.
President Kas Saied has given himself more power over the past year after ousting the prime minister. He said the moves were necessary to save the country amid protracted political and economic crisis, and many Tunisians welcomed them, but critics and Western allies say the power grab jeopardizes Tunisia’s young democracy.
Saied attributes the scarcity of food products and the rise in prices to “speculators” and those who hold a monopoly on goods they store in illegal depots. He suggested that the party’s main political rivals had something to do with it.
In a statement, the Salvation Front, a coalition of five opposition parties and several independent groups said the demonstrations were a sign that the social and political order was collapsing.
The tragic events of 2022 as Tunisia struggles for democracy: Mohamed Bouazizi, the governor of Tunis, and the fate of the country
The government is currently negotiating a $2 billion to $4 billion loan with the IMF to cope with a budget deficit aggravated by the COVID-19 pandemic and the fallout from Russia’s war in Ukraine. A delegation from Tunisia went to Washington in the hope of reaching an agreement.
In return, Tunisia will have to commit to painful reforms, including shrinking the public administration sector — one of the world’s largest — which eats up about a third of the state budget. According to the World Bank figures, unemployment is already at 18% and that the privatization of state-owned enterprises would lead to massive layoffs.
Faced with bleak futures, the people of Tunisia choose to put their lives in danger to try to find a better life in Europe.
507 Tunisia migrants have died or gone missing while attempting the crossing of the Mediterranean Sea so far in the year 2022, according to the Forum for Economic and Social Rights.
According to National Guard spokesman Houssameddine Jebabli, the coast guard thwarted more than 1,500 attempts at illegal migration to Italy from January to September 2022, involving entire families including nearly 2,500 children.
A fruit vender, upset after being harassed by the police, set himself on fire in front of the governor’s office. Mohamed Bouazizi’s despair resonated and triggered a revolution that led to the overthrow of an autocrat. He wondered how he could make a living before he didused himself in gasoline.
He said that they cannot talk about democracy anymore after July 25th. He points out that the president took the powers for himself last year when the legislature was dissolved.
Born and Born in Sidi Bouzid, Tunisia: A Son of a Protester in the Era of Reconciliation. A Conversation with Jonathan Jday
Dressed in a T-shirt and black blazer, Jday walks through the middle class neighborhood where he grew up on the outskirts of Sidi Bouzid. He points out his childhood home-turned-kindergarten across the street from an unfinished building with a wedding dress shop on the bottom floor. He goes down the block to his sister’s house.
At 31, like the people he helps as the head of the local unemployment association, he can’t afford his own place. So he splits his time between his sister’s home and his parents’.
Jday doesn’t want to say that the situation was better before, but it’s been worse especially for the youth. “We lost hope. We didn’t expect things. There’s nothing on the horizon.”
Since he graduated with a degree in sports education 11 years ago, he’s been unemployed like more than 18% of people in his province. That number has been creeping up every year across the country.
Jday takes odd jobs in agriculture or construction. About half of Tunisia’s population works in the informal economy, mostly the young, without benefits or worker protections.
The country had seen ten major government changes since the revolution, dealt with one political crisis after the next as the government failed to reform an economic system built on corruption and cronyism. Then the pandemic came and deepened Tunisia’s economic crisis.
He said the new constitution was the biggest victory of the revolution. An elected assembly wrote it after years of public discussion to establish checks and balances and protect human rights. Earlier this year, Saied replaced it with a new constitution he put together and put to a referendum. It passed by a large amount of people.
Jday said there was a big deception. We understood when we were going into a dictatorship that we would have one man with all the power in this country. We have a fear of losing the liberty and freedom that was our only gain since 2011.”
I’ve asked if Jday had gotten the demands he made after he protested in the birth city of Tunisia’s revolution.
“I respect [my brother’s] point of view. I respect all the different point of views. “But I don’t agree with him.” “The 25th of July opened a new world for us and gave us hope.” We lose hope when we lose generations. We lose those who are now migrating illegally. We have people that are not employed who have been looking for work for a long time. We lose everything.
Source: https://www.npr.org/2022/12/17/1142517505/tunisians-are-voting-in-an-election-critics-say-could-cement-a-return-to-autocra
Why Tunisians are voting in an election-critics-say-could-cement-a-return-to-autocracy?
His portrait covers the building that houses the post office. A giant beige replica of the cart taken from him is now erected in the traffic circle called Martyr’s Square.
In big, black letters, graffiti spells out the date that Bouazizi set himself on fire: December 17, 2010. October 13th, is another date with the words “The People Want.”
Today he rules alone. Saied claims he’s fixing the course of the revolution. He’s said he’s trying to pull the country out of its economic crisis and has no aspirations of a dictator.
Selim Kharrat said he would ask the president or prime minister a question if he were in his place. There was no opposition for two years. There is only one thing you can do to take any kind of decision. You did a lot of steps. You changed a lot of laws. What are the results? What is going to happen?
“Tunisia is moving to autocracy,” he said. The president implemented the last steps of the process on his own.
Source: https://www.npr.org/2022/12/17/1142517505/tunisians-are-voting-in-an-election-critics-say-could-cement-a-return-to-autocra
The Tunisian Arab Spring protests ended in an election: a new parliament for the country’s younger generation to deal with the cost of living
The country is clear of a feeling of despondant among the young. People are giving up on the political process altogether because life just keeps getting harder.
The cradle of the Arab Spring protests a decade ago is going to get a new parliament, because Tunisia’s citizens voted on Saturday to take action to deal with a soaring cost of living.
The polls were boycotted by the opposition because they say the vote is part of Saied’s effort to consolidate power. The legislature is likely to become subservient to the president, due to the decision to boycott.
Farouk Bouaskar, president of Tunisia’s Election Authority, said Saturday night that the turnout was astonishingly low and stood at 8.8 percent. Of 9 million registered voters, only some 800,000 cast ballots, Bouaskar said.
“It’s really a stretch to call what occurred today an election,” said Saida Ounissi, a former member of the parliament that the president dissolved in March after years of political deadlock and economic stagnation.
Ounissi acknowledged that she was bitter at the political situation as the country was faced with an unprecedented financial crisis, and she was a member of the Ennahda party.
“People were very angry at the parliament because of the deteriorating economy that is due to various crisis, and the president capitalized on that anger to crush the parliament, stifle democracy and seize more power,” Ounissi said.
Parliament last met in July 2021. Saied, who won office in the current year and has the support of more than half of the electorate, has weakened parliament’s powers, as well as the independence of the judiciary.
The new law reduces the number of member of the lower house of parliament from 217 to 161, who are now to be elected directly instead of via a party list. If 10% of people in the constituency lodge a formal request, there can be a removal of lawmakers who do not fulfill their roles.
Critics say Saied is endangering the democratic process. Some people think that scrapping the party lists improves elected officials’ accountability and puts individuals ahead of political parties. They like the idea of a new parliament and see it as an opportunity to solve their economy’s problems.
Saied and his wife, Ichraf Chebil, cast their ballots in Ennasr, an upscale suburb north of Tunis on Saturday morning. He urged citizens to vote because they have rights to justice and freedom. He also warned against supporting those he claimed had abused power and “depleted the country of valuable resources after bribing people to elect them under the old electoral law.”
Tunisia emerged from the Arab Spring protests with a democratic government after a decade, and many believe the country’s 10 year-old democratic revolution has failed.
Source: https://www.npr.org/2022/12/18/1143928163/pressure-on-tunisian-president-saied-after-election-turnout-nine-percent
Setting an example for young people in developing countries: The case of the Tunisian private sector worker Hédia Sekhiri
Hédia Sekhiri, a retired private sector worker, said she came out to vote to set an example for young people. “My duty as a citizen is to build a better future for our country,” she said.
“My vote will contribute to the evolution of the country in the right direction and end a decade of disastrous leadership by successive governments since the revolution,” said the engineer who lives in Tunisia.