Robert Fisk
The Independent
February 21, 2012
Want to remember what Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali was like? Just walk down the Avenue Habib-Bourguiba – until a few weeks ago still cordoned off by armoured vehicles and barbed wire – and drop by your local bookshop for Z’s wonderful Révolution! Des années mauves à la fuite de Carthage. Z always painted Ben Ali’s sycophants purple; his cartoons were the joy of the revolution, Ben Ali’s bloated relatives flaunting their new shopping malls while the people – 96 per cent of whom were always said to be Ben Ali’s secret police – are beaten by thugs in black uniforms and shades. Ben Ali receives support even from his telephone, his lampshade and the national flag in his office until he does a bunk on his jet while flunkies load aboard chests of cash along with the ginger family cat. Even the press get a run for their money.
“The huge number of young people signing up for the Charter of Tunisian Youth demonstrates the support of young Tunisians for the reforming project of President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, their attachment and loyalty to their country and their willingness to contribute to the development of Tunisia…” A fictional editorial from 2009 – until you realise it really is a leader from the 29 March edition of La Presse.
Thank God for freedom, then. Saloua Rachdi’s tribute to the Tunisian writers who worked courageously under the dictatorship – Plumes de mon pays – sits in the bookshop window alongside French editions of Tariq Ramadan’s Islamic scholarship.
But then I’m driving in the suburbs with an old Tunisian journalist friend. “Don’t tell me about liberal writers, Robert,” he snaps at me. “Do you know that of all the books now published in Tunisia, 92 per cent are Islamist? Outside Tunis, the bookshops just sell school notebooks and these tracts. Don’t you think we should be worried?” I tell him about Egypt – there are no military rulers like Field Marshal Tantawi in Tunisia – and the violence of Bahrain and Syria. He’s a lucky guy.
The Emergency Election Sale is now live! Get 30% to 60% off our most popular products today!