Voices of the Arab Spring: Personal Stories From the Arab Revolutions

The events of the Arab Spring started in Tunisia on December 17, 2010. A twenty-six-year-old Tunisian, Mohamed Bouazizi, set himself on fire in front of a municipal building in Sidi Bouzid, a rural town two hundred miles south of Tunis, the capital. His act was understood by many as a protest against the confiscation of his cart, which he used to sell fruits and vegetables, and the dismissal of his complaint. While the specific circumstances are unknown—how much humiliation and frustration he felt because of official harassment, before acting so desperately—many understood and felt his grievance and even identified with it. There also was speculation that a policewoman slapped him, although she denied doing so.

This young man’s death sparked an immediate response against the entire regime represented by President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, who came to power in 1987. Ben Ali’s rule started with a bloodless coup when, as prime minister, he forced the removal of Habib Bourguiba, alleging that he no longer was mentally fit and forcing him into internal exile until his death in 2000. Bourguiba had been crucial to obtaining Tunisia’s independence from France and often is credited for modernizing the country. He became its first president in 1957.

In solidarity with Mohamed Bouazizi, hundreds of youths began to protest, particularly in Sidi Bouzid. During the three days after December 17, the number of clashes between citizens and the security forces grew. In addition to protesting the treatment of Bouazizi, who remained in a coma until he died on January 4, 2011, the protesters’ demands were centered on the high rate of unemployment and marginalization, as well as the corruption associated with Ben Ali’s family and in-laws, the Trabelsis. These peaceful protests ended in the arrest of dozens of young men and the destruction of some public facilities. The spread of uprisings to other regions and cities in Tunisia prompted the regime to take action, particularly after the constant coverage of the protests by Al Jazeera and other international media, including videos and pictures of the demonstrations widely circulated on social media. Ben Ali’s visit to the dying Bouazizi had no effect on public opinion.

On December 27, Ben Ali delivered a televised address announcing that he would punish “rioters” and create more jobs, which is the pattern adopted by many other leaders in responding to political unrest. Despite claiming that the events were created by “a minority of extremists and mercenaries who resort to violence and disorder,” he initiated reforms, including a reshuffle of the government. Again, like most dictators, he denied that this was a popular uprising. Instead, on January 9, Ben Ali sent snipers to the western towns of Thala and Kasserine, where they killed more than ten Tunisians.

On January 13, as the demonstrations in the capital grew larger, the chief of staff of the Tunisian armed forces, Rachid Ammar, refused Ben Ali’s orders to use the army against the protesters, marking the first of several defections. The next day, Ben Ali fled to Saudi Arabia with his family. This was an unprecedented event in the Arab world: a united people could topple their dictator. The prime minister of Tunisia, Mohamed Ghannouchi, a long-standing official in the regime, assumed the duties of the president but soon was dismissed by the Tunisian people who demanded, and got, free elections in October 2011, which were won by the Islamist Ennahda Party. On Monday, December 12, Tunisia’s new assembly elected as president Moncef Marzouki, a former doctor and human rights activist. In the following year and a half, tensions between Salafi groups and antigovernment liberals played out in Tunisia’s media and political debates. Islamic extremists in Tunisia became an increasing threat to the moderate Islamist ruling party. In February 2013, the secular opposition leader, Chokri Belaid, was assassinated by two suspected Islamic radicals, and the prime minister, Hamadi Jebali, called the killing a crime against “the principles of the revolution and the values of tolerance and acceptance of the other.” In addition to minor clashes between the government and some hard-line Islamists, political debates regarding the efficiency of the new government and its ability to maintain the secular nature of the state continue.

The events in Tunisia were watched by the entire world, and other Arab dictators were watching even more intently. On January 14, 2011, the day after Ben Ali’s departure, the Libyan leader, Muammar al-Qaddafi, appeared on Libyan television to speak about the revolution in neighboring Tunisia. In his speech, Qaddafi expressed sadness for the events that had developed against Ben Ali, empathized with the Tunisian people, and praised himself and his regime as models for “leading people’s revolutions” across the world. But by the end of February 2011, Qaddafi also was struggling with an uprising against his own rule, and Libya’s neighbor to the east, Egypt, already was in revolt.

On December 17, 2010, the Tunisian people’s revolution began after flames engulfed the body of Mohammed Bouazizi, the young man who could not take any more of the injustice that President Ben Ali had sown throughout the country during the twenty-three years of his rule. Ben Ali was a dictator whose authoritarian regime was enforced with the help of a gang, which is his wife’s family. They transformed the country into private property, which they plundered and whose institutions they exploited for personal gain. Their wealth reached unimaginable amounts; it was obtained under the guise of electoral legitimacy and the complicity of Western leaders, who promoted the image of a bright and shining regime, despite knowing how false and ugly this image was.

We Tunisians realized that this regime violated all human rights, carried out torture and repression, and encouraged corruption that spread throughout all the state institutions, including the judicial system and the security forces. The latter became aggressive and was the striking hand of Ben Ali, whose regime oppressed all who stood against it or defended human rights and freedoms. We lost hope in reform and believed that any solution short of overthrowing the entire system would be futile, and we resolved that the regime should be toppled at any cost.

More than anybody else, I was personally familiar with these abuses through my work as a judge in Tunisia. Like most of my colleagues, I had been clinging to the principles of impartiality and independence, seeking to fulfill my duties perfectly. Yet I found myself working in a jurisdiction that was not independent and, in fact, was under the influence of the executive branch of the government—through laws that purportedly organized the profession but were in effect transforming the judiciary into merely an administrative body directed by the executive authority. Thus the judicial system was not operating as it was supposed to. Ben Ali’s regime took advantage of the system to suppress freedom and silence the voice of every freedom-seeking individual. The judiciary was forced to protect the authority of the “royal” family—the president’s in-laws and his entourage—through unfair mandates, which were subject to instructions from the regime. Even though this scenario involved (only) a small minority of judges, who sold their conscience to gain favors and promotions from the people in power, it contributed to the corruption of the entire system. Nevertheless, most of the judges wanted to work with autonomy and neutrality, but some of them paid a high price.

History must record the bravery of Judge al-Mokhtar Yahyaui, who sent a letter to Ben Ali decrying the situation of the Tunisian judiciary and the rampant corruption in its departments. As a result, he faced his death. Also historic was the strife of the Tunisian Judges Association and its unfailing efforts to defend the independence of the judicial system. The association suffered a blow to its legitimacy, and its members were punished with arbitrary work transfers (to other areas), salary deductions, and denials of promotion. Such honest judges as Mr. Ahmed al-Rahmouni, president of the Juridical Committee of the Tunisian Judges Association, and other members of the Executive Office and the Administrative Committee faced some of these consequences. Despite having been subjected to sanctions, these judges did not give up their struggle to defend the association’s independence. They kept fighting as if waiting for January 14, 2011. This date will not be erased from the memory of the Tunisian people or from history.

The events of this momentous day started with a public meeting at Mohammed Ali Square in Tunis at nine o’clock in the morning. This massive march headed toward Habib Bourguiba Avenue. There, other marchers joined in from all other places and began to sweep all the streets. We—men and women, elders and children, illiterate and educated people, judges, lawyers, doctors, and artists—all stood together, a single body, and moved directly to the headquarters of the Ministry of Interior. This place was the center of terrorism and laboratory-tested methods of torture, the cruelest and most ferocious types of torture, carried out against detainees in dark cells. Those who had been in this place and were later released often wished they had died rather than live with the psychological and physical pain that turned them into bodies without souls. In our demonstration, we blocked all the roads leading to the ministry, and our voices rose loud and strong: “Leave, Ben Ali,” forming a historic, epic melody played in front of shocked personnel and security force guards.

Peaceful as we were, we had no weapons except our throats, which did not fail us in loudly voicing our demands. Our cell-phone cameras and laptops were connected to the Internet so that video clips of the event would be circulated throughout the social media networks. Many websites showed the demonstration, even though the regime used spyware called “Ammar 404” to block the networks used to transfer vast amounts of pictures and clips. The spyware failed, and these images, showing the successive, rapid pace of events, were viewed by the entire world. Indeed, the January 14 marches were the culmination of a series of bloody confrontations that took place in the country’s inland areas, where those most affected by Ben Ali’s regime live marginalized and destitute. Families in these areas lost their sons for the sake of the freedom and dignity of the Tunisian people. They wrote, with their own blood, a new history of the country. I believe that it is our duty to perpetuate their memory by describing their martyrdom.

It all started in the city of Riqaab in Sidi Bouzid State where, since December 18, 2010, demonstrators had marched in support of the people of Sidi Bouzid. Clashes erupted between the security forces and demonstrators, reaching a peak on January 9, 2011. Security forces released tear gas, which infuriated the masses in the streets. Then, around 11:00 a.m., the security forces began to fire indiscriminately into the crowds to disperse the demonstrators. Their bullets struck Rauf al-Kaddosa, who was martyred while being transported to the hospital, leaving behind a one-year-old child. As his funeral procession was passing in front of a mosque in the city center, the security forces started shooting again to disperse the pedestrians, killing three—first Muhammad Jabli, then Muadth al-Khulaifi, and last Nizar al-Salimi—for a total of five martyrs killed that day.

On January 8, the city of Tala in al-Kassrain State erupted in demonstrations demanding an end to the security forces’ siege of Sidi Bouzid State, but they quickly turned into a demand for the overthrow of Ben Ali’s regime in the wake of the bloodshed by security forces. A young man, whose name was Marwan al-Jamali, participated in the demonstrations. He held a diploma in shipping but was unemployed, along with the rest of the region’s youth who held university degrees but no jobs. In the demonstrations Marwan called out, “We want employment, O gang of thieves” and “Jobs, freedom, dignity, and patriotism.” As his group reached the front of an elementary school, some security agents began shooting, with live ammunition, the protesters on Habib Bourguiba Avenue. Marwan looked for shelter to avoid the bullets, but he was hit and unable to move. One bullet hit him in the chest, passing through his lungs and left kidney. His friends went to him and took him to one of the neighborhoods. Monia Alaourwi, a well-known activist, followed them and drove Marwan to the hospital, but he died before reaching it. Marwan was a martyr, and that is why women did not show sadness but instead expressed their joy as they bid farewell to a young man who gave his own blood to the land and the proud city of Tala.

The city of al-Meknasi, in Sidi Bouzid State, was under siege on December 21, 2010, by countless security forces, but this did not prevent its residents from joining the demonstrations to demand better living standards and more jobs. They went to the main street, Habib Bourguiba Avenue, where security officers started shooting to disperse them. Forty-four-year-old Shawki Ben Hussein was shot and died on the way to hospital. Three days later, when a meeting was organized at the General Union of Tunisian Workers in Zaqzouq area, the union members joined the more than two thousand demonstrators. Confrontations broke out between the security forces and the demonstrators, resulting in the martyrdom of Mohammed al-Amari, who was killed with a bullet to the chest. He was twenty-five years old. The next day his funeral procession went to the cemetery accompanied by heavy security forces. Snipers on the rooftops in the city of al-Kassrain took their first victim, nineteen-year-old al-Habib al-Hussein, who was shot on the way home. Two days later, on January 10, 2011, Sheikh Ahmed Ben al-Azhar al-Jabari (sixty-five years old) also was shot by a stray bullet, which hit him in the chest. Over three days, more than fifty martyrs fell in al-Kassrain, the highest number of martyrs in a single Tunisian city who were sacrificed for the sake of freeing our homeland.

These events were bloody and painful, but they toppled a dictator and gave new life to the Tunisian people. They now feel the taste of freedom and inhale clean air infused with the scent of jasmine, which wafted through Arab countries, paving the way for the fall of other dictatorships. On January 18, 2011, the Juridical Committee of Tunisian Judges Association regained its headquarters, and the judges joined in supporting the revolution, raising the slogan, “Revolution is not complete without an independent judiciary.” Indeed, I feel today that the coming days in Tunisia will not be worse than the past, whether or not the revolution is successful, and whether the entire regime falls or does not fall. All I know is that I am free and that my words are free as well.

It would be impossible for me to fully describe, to accurately put into words, what happened in Tunisia and what I witnessed personally, on the fateful days of January 11, 12, and 13, 2011. It would be impossible, even if I were given unlimited time to do the task. And it would be unfair to summarize it in a few lines, because the uprisings I witnessed undoubtedly changed not only the history of the Arab nations but also the way the world perceived them. I personally consider the Tunisian revolution as an intifada, the justified uprising of an oppressed and heroic people, willing to sacrifice everything for the pursuit of freedom and dignity, the two sacred words that the entire Arab world aspires to yet are denied. Now the Arab nations and our Arab sisters and brothers have come to respect us for our strong will and determination, having seen the power of our popular revolution. Our determination was not overcome by the bullets of the deceitful policemen or the bombs of the army that, in the last moments, sided with the people.

For a long time, my people were a symbol of moral corruption and depravity in the eyes of the rest of the Arab world. We were judged as having abandoned our Arab and Muslim identity while embracing Western European culture, even without being aware of it. These great Tunisian people, my people—of whom I am indeed proud when I am both inside the country and abroad—taught not only Arabs but the whole world a lesson that might be unique in history. My nation demonstrated to the whole world that the greatness of a nation resides not just in economic, political, or demographic power but also in its strong will. As our great poet Abul-Qasim al-Shabbi said: “If the people want, one day, to live [in freedom], then fate will answer their call.”¹ Thus I say that if people want their freedom and dignity, presidents and leaders must surrender. This verse was adopted and chanted by the Egyptian masses demonstrating in Tahrir Square in their confrontation with the now deposed president Hosni Mubarak and his accomplices. It was echoed again across the rest of the Arab world from Libya to Yemen and to Syria.

Indeed, Tunisians erupted like a volcano after twenty-three years of seething and frustration, borne of twenty-three years of injustice, oppression, tyranny, spying, and police rule. The former president Ben Ali ruled the country with an iron fist. He maintained a tight grip over the three branches of power, to say nothing of the media, which were under his full control. During his rule, Tunisia had a shameful record, hiring one policeman for every three citizens. Moreover, an outbreak of the rampant corruption, marked by bribery and favoritism, went hand in hand with a punitive rise in unemployment. People’s money was stolen. Tunisia itself was a “precious treasure,” over which the ex-president’s wife and her brothers vied for the biggest share. During Ben Ali’s rule, civil, political, and religious freedoms were eliminated. His opponents were arrested and tortured, especially members of the Islamic movements, who often were labeled as “prisoners of conscience.” The former regime, adopting a policy of intimidation, threatened the educated class, particularly lawyers and students, who nonetheless always sought to express their disapproval and rejection of the president’s repressive policies: the media blackouts and cover-ups, the poor education policy, and the overall absence of effective, viable economic solutions.

Tunisians were not happy with Ben Ali, as he was a tough and cunning dictator, particularly because of his strategy to stifle any resistance against him. In 2009, my city, Soliman, played a special part in the story of their struggle against the former government. At the entrance to Soliman, which is situated in northeastern Tunisia, with a population of around thirty thousand, the antiterrorist police fired on citizens from my city, claiming that they were terrorists or members of the al-Qaeda organization. They targeted Tunisian citizens under the pretext that they were allegedly plotting a terrorist attack against Western interests in Tunisia. During those fateful days, I felt it was my duty to do something, no matter what or how, to protect my fellow Tunisians. Yet it was not easy for me, as a woman, to be openly active in the dissent movements because of restrictive (and, I believe, outdated) customs and traditions. My mother would repeatedly say to me that only men could handle these situations. Naturally, I don’t share her opinion, having reached a level of education and awareness of the imperative to be an active citizen, capable of defending myself and my country. How could patriotism be reserved for men alone? In which culture or tradition should submission to a ruthless dictatorship be allowed to exist?

Thinking back to what happened during the days of the revolution of 2011, I should say that I had not been expecting it, nor had I been ready for it. All I wanted to do when it started was to join the crowds in the streets of the capital, to shout and cheer and to express my anger for the deteriorating and dire situation that my country faced. I have consistently participated in demonstrations and protests organized by the students of my university or those of other, neighboring universities, either to advocate for the Palestinian cause or to condemn the hostility against Iraq. But when I joined the demonstrations, I found myself, along with other peaceful demonstrators, surrounded and besieged by riot police. We were hit with nightsticks and batons, sprayed with boiling water, and mercilessly tear-gassed. I was shocked by the sheer might of the military arsenal let loose by the government against a peaceful student protest. But we were determined in opposing not only the government and its policies but particularly the corrupt ruling family itself.

During the last week of January, I tried many times to go to the capital, Tunis, but my family did their best to prevent me. My mother expressed her disapproval, threatening me with her anger if I went to the protests without her consent. On the appointed day, I just could not stop; ignoring her threats, I went to the place where the demonstrations were taking place. I went there because I could not prevent myself from participating in our self-rule, not Ben Ali’s. I saw it as my duty and the duty of every Tunisian citizen to stand up for the right of self-determination for our beloved country. I feel that the outside world cannot imagine how much we Tunisians love our country. Despite the hardships that we have gone through, every Tunisian has stood ready to sacrifice his life, and the lives of those dearest to him, for precious Tunisia, as the poet said: “My country even when it is unjust, is still beloved to me. My family, though they can be avaricious, they still are generous.”² I was extremely surprised by the bravery of my people. Even the Arab nations and many in the rest of the world admired our fearlessness and courage.

On January 13, I went to the streets because I felt that it was the right moment. It was the moment I had been waiting for, for such a long time; it was “now or never.” I had to act as a committed Tunisian citizen, choosing to be either a true Tunisian or not. I left the village of Cherifet, where I grew up. Cherifet is close to the city of Soliman, where the demonstrations against the regime began. We were accustomed to a sense of stability, so I did not expect that something would go wrong. I could not fathom that a Tunisian Arab and Muslim would be capable of murdering his Tunisian countrymen. It was inconceivable for me that a Tunisian like me would consider me an enemy, because in our consciousness as Tunisians it is commonly known that the enemy is an alien, someone from the outside. At that time I felt like the world had turned upside down, because every government backer turned out to be the enemy of every Tunisian citizen. The police and the National Guard considered us their targets, as if we were not their brothers and sisters!

When I reached the capital, I was stunned and scared because of the large number of soldiers posted on every street, especially in the public squares. The military presence was strong in Barcelona Square and also in the main street called Habib Bourguiba Avenue. This was ominously accompanied by a complete withdrawal of the policemen who usually handle security issues. I heard people whispering and insisting on the need to go back home out of fear of what might happen next. I was no longer afraid. Deep in my heart I saw my life to be no more valuable than the lives of my fellow Tunisians now filling the streets, which was my answer to my mother when she tried to dissuade me from joining the masses.

I asked the taxi driver about the suspicious withdrawal of the police, and he told me that it was done on purpose. We thought that the regime forces would react aggressively, even violently, this time. I gathered from him that patience from both sides was wearing thin after the events of the last two nights. He advised me to find a shelter or go back home, because rioting would soon start, ultimately spreading throughout Tunisia. He added that the unrest would be coming to my town, Soliman, and that I should be very careful because he had been given inside information saying that the government was going to use whatever means necessary, no matter how ruthless, to quell the demonstrations. I did not give much importance to what he said, and I continued roaming in the capital. It was eerily calm and quiet—the proverbial calm before the storm.

I tried to stay in the capital that day, January 13, but an undercover policeman, or perhaps a government supporter, threatened me, and I felt the need to go back home. Upon my return to Soliman, I was surprised by the huge gathering of young people, high school and university students. Most of them came from nearby villages much like my hometown, Cherifet. This huge gathering thronged the main streets of Soliman; they stood like an army ready to face the enemy. As I walked, I was mesmerized by this epic scene. I was told by one of the demonstrators that they were preparing for a peaceful protest in the main street of the town known as Bab Bhar, where they would speak out against the president and his corrupt government. The last two days had seen the horror of violence, and the endurance of demonstrators was being pushed to the limit.

Meanwhile, I met my eighteen-year-old cousin Wael, a high school student, who asked me not to participate in this protest, as he feared it would be more violent than the other demonstrations. I tried to assure him that things would be all right, advising him to be careful and to avoid confrontation with police. His answer was to laugh, saying, “I am a man, do not worry about me.” As I headed toward home, I opted instead to rush into an Internet cafe to watch the latest developments of the unprecedented events. Because of a media blackout, the TV channels were not covering the ongoing protests and violence. I browsed many sites, hunting for worthwhile news, but nothing came up. Finally, I had to settle on Facebook because I found some posted videos that had been excerpted and broadcast by the news outlets.

The Internet, especially the social networks, made it possible for activists to organize and mobilize with surprising speed. The activists were calling for general mobilization, a show of strength and defiance. Our banner was the Tunisian flag, but one with a black band and splatters of symbolic blood, which stood for the sacrificial blood of the nation’s newest martyrs. As I sat there, my eyes wearily followed the vivid photos and video footage from the heart of the conflict. The scenes became more and more atrocious and bloody. Almost instantaneously, my colleagues and I were able to share images not only with one another but also with websites of the biggest world media outlets. We added our own eyewitness comments and links to many videos, some showing unspeakable violence and brutality. To my shock and horror, I saw of a video of a bunch of policemen assaulting one of the protesters on Habib Bourguiba Avenue. They were attacking him in front of the Interior Ministry, the place that ought to symbolize protection, not brutality, by the police. Disguised in plain clothes, other policemen were dragging a protester by his leg, much like dragging an animal to slaughter. At this point, I had had enough of Facebook and the violence itself, wishing that it all would end.

Once I was back home, I heard that the clashes were escalating. I began to hear gunshots coming from different directions. Stepping onto the porch, I became aware of the first martyr in our neighborhood. He was a sixteen-year-old orphan named Omar Bouallag. I was shocked when I heard this news and utterly unprepared for what followed. Word of a second martyr left me devastated, for this was my dearest cousin, Wael Agrebi. I could not believe it! I ran out to the street, barefoot, crying and screaming. My dad stopped me and assured me that he was only shot in his leg and injured. Deep inside, I didn’t believe him. My suspicion was confirmed by the sight of Wael lying motionless on the ground, with a bullet in his chest. The terrible scene is one that I will never forget. At that moment, I felt as if my country had become another Palestine. Our countrymen were killing our brothers and sisters, which had been inconceivable for me and for every Tunisian. I am crying as I recall and write about this incident.

Later that week, another cousin, Samy, told me that his participation in the mass demonstrations on January 13, 2011, was a statement of opposition and defiance directed at the corrupt state and its supporters. It was what any truly free Tunisian citizen would proudly do out of love for his country. The death of my cousin did not stop us from continuing the peaceful fight for our cause. I am beyond words when I try to express my deep sadness at the loss of my cousin. He was like my little brother; more than this, he was my friend and my student. In spite of his tragic death, I am proud of him and of his courage. I believe it is a great honor that a member of my family sacrificed his life for the sake of our beloved homeland, so we can have a better life with dignity and freedom.

Every time I remember Wael, the innocent young man, I feel like I could have done more for our cause. At least this is what I feel because what I did is insignificant compared with the courage of my countrymen and the martyrs who sacrificed their lives. Many times I wished I could compensate for my failure to protect my own country. Today, I am writing these words as a humble attempt to atone for this shortcoming and to pay tribute to the martyrs of my village, Cherifet, in Soliman, including my lovely cousin.

I hope I have succeeded in communicating a faithful and realistic image that reflects my perception of the revolution of a people who suffered much from injustice at the hands of Ben Ali’s regime. We were under psychological pressure caused by a dictator and by our brothers and sisters in the Arab world who initially did not understand our revolution. They often believed the media propaganda, which distorted the bright image of Tunisian culture and civilization, especially that of women. They accused us of losing our identity and religion. We also were mistreated by the international community, which overlooked the atrocities committed by the Ben Ali regime, like arbitrary arrests, tortures, and killings, claiming that they do not interfere in the internal affairs of sovereign states. Well, we did our best for the sake of Tunisia and for the principles of freedom, dignity, and democracy.

During the few days before January 14 I was extremely nervous—I felt the country was collapsing because of the instability. I remember people were saying on Facebook that they heard shooting outside or that somebody was shot during a demonstration. I questioned their honesty sometimes, and I thought that they just wanted to disseminate absurd ideas that would result in chaos. At the beginning, all I cared about was safety and security. When I gathered with my family to watch the news, we saw propaganda and perpetual lies. No Tunisian television channel mentioned the fact that some people were killed during the demonstrations. On the national news, we heard that “unrecognized” or “veiled” persons were destroying public property, and they labeled them as “veiled” in order to instill fear among Tunisians. Those who set fire in certain stores were ordinary people, and in some cases they were fanatics and extremists. I am absolutely against riots, but I do understand that these people had tried all means and that burning or destroying public property was their last shot at awakening the “silent majority” of the country.

I was among the majority of Tunisians who favored silence, and that was for a reason. The regime of the ousted president Ben Ali was ruthless and terrorized anyone taking part in any kind of protests. One would not only be tortured but also “evaporated.” The regime was very similar to the totalitarian regime of Big Brother in Orwell’s 1984. I remember in a course on George Orwell that I took at the University of Manouba in Tunis, that nobody felt comfortable or able to express himself during the discussions. We were afraid of one another and of the teacher, and we were afraid that we might mention something related to the regime and that someone would report it. When I used the Internet to read what critics and thinkers were saying about Ben Ali, I was always afraid, even though I used a proxy to open YouTube, which was censored during his regime. Ben Ali had recruited many brilliant computer engineers from across the country, whose task was to spy on people using the network.

Ironically, for many foreigners, Tunisia seemed to be a peaceful and calm country where everybody was free and liberated from ignorance, but actually it was the opposite. Obviously, we Tunisians are not ignorant but are among the best-educated Arabs, but we really regret that we wasted twenty-three years of our lives with Ben Ali. The country would have declined if there had not been a revolution. Our situation was quite miserable—people were controlled, manipulated, and oppressed. Nobody could speak up because he would have been killed by the president’s militias. The dictator Ben Ali also recruited people to pray in the mosques and report those who went to prayers regularly. The regime’s deeds led to his demise, and I am going to describe the dawn of the Tunisian revolution and how January 13, 2011, was marked by a huge protest.

On that date, I had planned to meet some of my classmates in a café to work together on a project. This café is located in the most famous place in the capital city, Habib Bourguiba Avenue. It is adjacent to the Municipal Theater of Tunis. I am from Bizerte, which is sixty kilometers north of Tunis. I went to the capital city by train, on which most of the passengers were as usual: sad, anxious, and silent. I was afraid that the situation in Tunis was going to be dangerous, especially if some of the protesters confronted the police. I met my friends at about 10:30 a.m., and we all started talking about the miserable situation in the country. We were not talking out loud, of course, because Ben Ali’s loyalists were scattered everywhere, especially in cafés and bars.

Back then, we thought that Bouazizi’s suicide would not change the country for the better. We thought this way in the beginning because we had not seen anything except chaos. We were so desperate because we knew how tyrannical the previous government had been, although later it turned out that no matter how tough a regime is, the people are able to bring about its end. Anyhow, while we were discussing our opinions and hopes, we heard a group of a dozen people or so shouting out loud, but the slogans weren’t clear, since it was in Tunis’s noisy downtown. The splendid chanting voices did not last long. I think the cops arrested them, and of course, there must have been all kinds of torture in the Ministry of the Interior, which was about two hundred meters away from where we were. That day was really special, since I have never in my life witnessed such unrest.

While we were still chatting in the café, some of my friends received calls from their families telling them to come home because the situation outside was not safe anymore. I was scared, and at the time I became sure there would be a change, although nothing was clear. I could not figure out where the country was headed. At about 4:00 p.m., we left the café and everybody returned home. I went to Barcelona Station where I usually catch the train to go back to Bizerte.

While I sat next to the window on the train, a man who looked very familiar sat next to me, with an old man in front of us. The man next to me was in his forties, and he worked in railroad administration. Right away he started talking about politics, which was so unusual, especially between complete strangers. We were allowed to talk only about foreign politics because Ben Ali saw himself as a semidivine figure in the country. The man next to me said, “Oh!! May God help us in this (hard) time,” I smiled slightly, and to show a sense of astonishment, I asked: “What happened?” He told me that he works in the financial branch of the railroad administration and on that morning went to Jendouba (in the northwest part of the country) to calculate how much the broken windows of a train would cost. I asked him, “Who broke the window?” He replied, “Poor people. Sick and tired of the autocratic regime, they resorted to throwing rocks and stones. They were saying slogans like ‘Bread and water only, but we will not accept Ben Ali anymore,’” meaning that they were ready to sacrifice and Ben Ali has to step down. He told me that there were many people cursing the president and his wife for stealing their land and farms. I did not want to comment on the man’s remarks (cautious, as usual), so I just listened. For a moment I thought that if the people reached that level, we would be capable of getting our voices heard, which would force the president to leave. The slogans those people were chanting were direct and honest, and it was really a reflection of what Tunisians wanted.

While I was still on the train, my father called me to say that the situation was really serious downtown and that I should come home right away without hanging out with my friends. He told me that there would be no school the next day for safety reasons. I remember he told me that Ben Ali was going to make a speech in the evening about the latest events. My father expected him to announce that he would resign that night or stop supporting up his wife’s brothers. My father’s expectations made me think that the situation was easy, which raised my optimism about the future of my country.

The train arrived at six o’clock sharp. I went to have a look at the main streets, just out of curiosity, and I wish I hadn’t done that. The situation was really disorderly; it was chaos. I saw broken supermarket windows, glass all over the streets, and a burned-out car. For a second I thought I was in Iraq or Afghanistan; I have never seen such things in my life and I never imagined that they could happen in my dear Tunisia. When I asked the people who live there what happened, they told me that groups of strangers came and destroyed as many things as possible. Even now I don’t understand people who would destroy their own country. At the top of the list is Ben Ali, whom many people trusted while he repaid us with evil and oppression. Not to mention his wife and her brothers who divided Tunisia as if it were their own farm. They ruined the country by stealing public land and taking over international projects.

Now Tunisia is healing: real democracy is being established, and all citizens have just one dream left: to bring Ben Ali, his wife, and the snipers—whom Ben Ali ordered to kill dozens of innocent Tunisians—to justice. We have faith in God and justice, and we will never stop claiming our rights.

I left Tunis on August 10, 2010, to go to the United States as a Fulbright student. During winter break, I hung out with my fellow Fulbrighters having fun, traveling from one city to another, exploring the East Coast from New York to Miami while my home country was burning. The Tunisian revolution started in December 2010 when Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire. I felt ashamed that I was out of the country. While my fellow Tunisian Fulbrighters and I were on our trip, we heard that Sidi Bouzid was on fire, but I did not think for a second that there would be any serious change. I did not have access to the Internet, but once I got on Facebook, I was shocked. I thought the regime would soon suppress the people’s protests and things would get back to normal within days. I was wrong. I was completely wrong.

I returned to Allegheny College in Pennsylvania at the beginning of January, and that’s when my story starts. I was connected to my computer twenty-four hours a day, as I did not want to miss any detail, and I was completely stressed out. I wanted to participate and I wanted to go back home, but I never did. I had a contract with Fulbright and I had to teach because the spring semester would be starting soon. I stayed and I still regret staying.

I tried to do what many people (albeit not the majority) in Tunisia did: stay connected on Facebook and share links on my wall so everybody could see. I had been sharing videos, posts—everything I could find opposing the regime. One of the benefits of Facebook is the ability to get the word out. People could locate the oppressors and those who were attacking houses and share the information with others. Everybody was connected, and everybody’s mission was sent via inbox messages to all their lists with important information and details that others needed to know. This method of communication also helped check information. For example, if I had a friend living in a given city, I could verify some piece of information with him or her, and then I could tell everyone whether it was right or wrong. This was a way to help spread the word, and I believe that social networking helped pioneer the revolution.

The first two weeks of January were the longest weeks ever. Rumors swirled everywhere. Some people were saying that Ben Ali had left; others said that change would occur soon, but I never had the chance to get the exact details. I have to say that the “intox” (brainwashing) can easily find its way to people, especially the Tunisians. This was psychologically painful, as people were living in fear. They would hear all kinds of stories, telling them, for example, that a group of people in a particular area had been attacked and now the attackers were moving to another location. This made people live in fear, and they never had the chance to go out and check because there was a curfew during that time. The problem was that everyone was telling a different story, but the question was which story to believe. This is when the reliability of social networking was questioned. It is true that it helped spread the word, but at the same time, people had been told inaccurate stories, and a lot of mistaken information found its way to millions. This is why I tried to verify information with individuals who were experiencing the events firsthand.

The night before January 14, I was in my room waiting for the news to come. Ben Ali delivered a speech. His infamous speech … I have never seen him so unconfident and disorganized. I knew that the end was near. It was the night that divided Tunisians into two groups: those who supported Ben Ali and those who thought that he had to leave. That is to say, some people were convinced by his speech and believed that he needed another chance to make change happen. But it was too late because people would not accept any more promises: they had been oppressed for twenty-three years.

The fourteenth of January, the change … I had received some information from my family and friends that a big demonstration would take place on Habib Bourguiba Avenue in Tunis. Masses of people went to downtown Tunis. What a feeling! There were innumerable people yet one goal: to get rid of the dictator. This was the best moment in the Tunisian revolution, showing the solidarity of the Tunisians … people gathered in front of the Ministry of the Interior, and in one voice they shouted the famous demand: “Dégage!” (Get out!). This showed the world that Tunisians were not satisfied with this dictator and a change had to be made immediately.

As a Tunisian who left the country for only a few months, I know that toppling Ben Ali did not change the entire regime. He left, but his cronies remained. This resulted in a mess. The country was in total chaos. Rumors were everywhere that people supporting Ben Ali were attacking citizens in their homes. What a feeling! I was scared to death; I was worried and stressed while away from my homeland for the first time. My family lives in Cité ibn Khaldoun, one of the famous neighborhoods in the capital city of Tunis; I was afraid that they were in danger. I stayed connected twenty-four hours a day. I tried to call them every single hour to make sure that the “anonymous” people who were believed to be sent out by the “old” ruling party did not come to my house. I had been getting information from my mother and brother via Skype, and the posts on my friends’ Facebook walls presented a clear picture of what exactly was going on.

What was impressive was that people in every neighborhood of the city formed groups at all the entries to protect their families and neighbors from the regime forces that were trying to terrorize citizens. This is what was said on TV. But fortunately nothing happened, at least where I lived. Hannibal television was later accused of spreading this kind of inaccurate information in order to terrorize people.

The period after the revolution was characterized by rumors and political instability. The situation was chaotic. I helped spread the word, trying to let people know about the revolution, its causes, and its “expected” future by posting on my Facebook page and by being a keynote speaker on different occasions. I think that it was a good way to present what was going on in this other part of the world, given that the Egyptian revolution had started during that time. I was interviewed by the Meadville Tribune, the local newspaper of Meadville, Pennsylvania. I delivered speeches at Allegheny College on several occasions, explaining the situation to my colleagues and the students. I believe that the revolution was all about media and that it was really important to make the world know what was going on in my home country.

Social networking was not always beneficial. Since the night between January 13 and 14, Facebook showed divisions of people into two major groups: those who did not believe in the change promised by the former president Ben Ali and those who said that Ben Ali had to stay in power. This resulted in virtual fights between people who were supposed to be “friends”! My brother and one of my best friends fought that night because they had different political views that emerged during the revolution. I cannot say that this was caused by their immaturity, but I would say that people were stressed enough by what was going on and it was very hard to communicate effectively and “peacefully” through written comments. Comments always lack tone and intonation, so they always are interpreted differently, depending on the mood of the reader. That was one limitation of social networking observed during the momentous events in Tunisia. Moreover, politicians found their way to Facebook after the revolution. Several parties were rich enough to pay the admins (the page owners) of some popular pages in order to spread information that fit their agendas. This unethical and damaging move resulted in total virtual chaos that had quite an impact on people’s lives.

A lot of Facebook pages also were sold to political parties. Pages that were considered to be sports pages, for instance, became political pages. This resulted in a total misuse of Facebook. People were also manipulated by posts on Facebook. Many pictures were used in order to reorient political and even social views of the Tunisian people. Politicians’ speeches were edited in order to fit certain circumstances. The huge number of posts, videos, pictures, and recordings that were uploaded every day made the whole political image unclear, and people got even more confused. This helped raise tensions, mainly because we Tunisians were not able to figure out what to believe and what to ignore. I think that this was not the social network’s fault but the fault of those who, unlike myself, were posting without checking the source of the information they wanted to circulate.

Now after eleven months of revolution, I feel that Tunisians have changed. Was it a revolution? I doubt it. People became selfish. Every politician tried to serve his own interests. The parties are fighting not for the development of the country but for getting power. Tunisians started attacking one another. The country is splintering. Some are saying, “If you did not elect the Islamic party, you are therefore not a Muslim.” People are being manipulated by money and by ambiguous language, which characterizes the speeches by Ennahda, the main Islamic party in Tunisia. This is the first experience that Tunisians have with democracy, and I think that “the Tunisians are having an overdose of democracy.” More than a hundred parties were formed, which made it very hard for people to choose. A lot of different stories are told to people, and of course, the most financially powerful parties, such as the Islamic party, were the ones to reach the majority of people—especially those who are believed to be uneducated and those who are part of the “forgotten class.”

I hope that these feelings of hatred arising between citizens of the same country will not result in a civil war. I hope that Tunisia will remain a land of peace and modernity where all people from different religions and origins have been able to coexist together for ages. If Tunisia loses its diversity, it will lose its charm…. But I am optimistic, and I hope that my country will move to a better stage of stability and harmony within the next few months.

Social networking was a pioneer of the Tunisian revolution, but even though it had inherent advantages, it also had some limitations. It was a medium used to spread information about events in the country, but it also spread mistaken information and provoked hatred among people with different points of view. The Tunisian revolution was the start of the Arab Spring, and as with any revolution, it will be called successful only after a few years. I hope that Tunisia will be safe and sound and that it will become a model of democracy that other Arabic countries can follow.

Before telling my story, I would like to say that my testimony is not a sufficient representation of the years and years of sacrifices and activism by many young people of my generation and the generations before. Even if some of my friends and family liked the militant side of my personality, I think I did not give to my country what many gave, what I should have given. I have always been interested in the political and social situation in my country. I think the reason was my father. He had many troubles in Bourguiba’s era as an opponent and in Ben Ali’s era as a unionist. But he always tried to protect me, hiding facts from me about what was happening in the country. So it was not easy to know what was happening exactly in Gafsa in 2008 when the workers of the mining area there rebelled: a few videos had been uploaded to Facebook but were quickly removed by the Internet police (what we used to call them). Tunisians were not really using the Internet that much at the time, and the media ignored Gafsa.

In April 2010, many blogs and websites were shut down. Things were different then. Tunisians were active on the Internet, and they started to notice that “Error 404 not found” was the message resulting from censorship. The ATI (Tunisian Agency of Internet) was randomly closing websites, blogs, and Facebook and Twitter profiles based on the use of certain words against the government. Some profiles were even hacked. The ATI kept closing blogs and websites, and it started to annoy people. Then the idea of a demonstration came up. We had chosen May 22, 2010, to demonstrate in front of the Ministry of Telecommunication. Everything had been organized on Facebook and Twitter. But the day before the demonstration, two of the organizers were arrested, kept in police custody, and told to cancel the event. It was not a surprise to anyone; we had a backup plan.

We decided not to go to the ministry; instead, everyone would just wear a white T-shirt. Some wrote on theirs “Sayeb Salah” (Leave Salah), a Tunisian expression that means “Leave me alone.” The police reaction was brutal. They insulted us, molested us, and arrested some of us just because we were wearing white and having a cup of coffee on Habib Bourguiba Avenue. Since then, things have changed for me. I have met new people on the Internet, and I no longer am afraid. The closing down of blogs encouraged new people to start their own blogs to talk about everything. People used Facebook and Twitter to talk, to discuss, to share, to tell the truth, to show facts. The Internet became our weapon.

At the same time, the social situation in the country was getting worse: unemployment, poverty, rising prices. Even the families considered wealthy (like mine) could not make it to the end of the month. Yet still, because I lived with my family in Tunis, the capital, our situation was better than others. I could always find a little job during vacation or part-time jobs along with my studies to help cover family expenses. But the rest of my family in Kasserine (where we are from) struggled a lot. Each summer when I visited my grandparents and uncles there, horrible stories—of murder, suicide, illegal immigration, and robbery—made me realize how awful their situation was and the total indifference of the rest of the country to their condition. Kasserine is one of those regions in Tunisia known after the revolution as “the forgotten ones.” Gafsa, Sidi Bouzid, Kasserine, Tozeur, Kebili … was where every thing started.

For many years, most Tunisians were struggling every day to survive while the president’s family (especially his wife’s family), their friends, and their clan and anyone having close contact with the presidential family or their entourage were getting richer. Here was the situation: poor people getting poorer, rich people getting richer, no jobs, and not even the possibility of expressing ourselves or criticizing government policy or the president’s wife or family. People were fed up with the social injustice. Bouazizi was not the first one who immolated himself, but he was the first one everybody heard about at a time when people could no longer be silent. The country was waiting and ready for a Bouazizi to set himself on fire.

On December 17, when I first posted the video from Sidi Bouzid after Bouazizi burned himself, showing the crowd on the site and people talking about poverty and unemployment, I never imagined the crowds would grow. But I guess everyone recognized himself in that young man, and that is how they mobilized themselves against the regime. During that period, I had just found a job to help with family expenses while finishing my studies. I remember we needed that job so much that I preferred missing some classes to accommodate the training for the job, because if I missed one day, I could get fired. So when Bouazizi burned himself, independently of how or why, I understood him; I could imagine his situation. And there I was, working all day and surfing the net all night looking for news in the country, talking with people about the situation, explaining that young man’s act…. I cannot remember how many sleepless nights I had. And he was not the only one struggling to live a decent life.

People started to gather each day, in different places, each telling his story, talking about his suffering, shouting slogans against Ben Ali and the Trabelsi family (his wife’s family): “Work is a right, you thieves!” The situation got worse when the first martyrs died in Kasserine, on January 8 and 9. I could not believe that some people were still talking about the soccer match that day and not even mentioning the unknown number of young people who had died in their country. I guess some were still afraid and others thought it would be the same as Gafsa in 2008, but it was not. On Monday, January 10, 2011, events accelerated: more demonstrations throughout the country, more arrests, more people talking about it, and more videos on the Internet showing the unrest. The more the government censored them, the more videos there were and the more people were encouraged to demonstrate. Some protesters started attacking police stations. No more fear. The army came to some cities and was welcomed by the people. It protected the people, and we feared fighting between the army and the police of Ben Ali.

Some of my friends started advising me to stop posting videos and antigovernment information because people had been arrested. But I did not stop because I thought (and still think) what I was doing was nothing compared with those who were outside and being killed. If the risk was a policeman knocking on our door, then it was really worth it.

On January 13, Ben Ali gave his last speech. I was so happy, I even cried, and everybody was saying “We did it!” He was finally giving the speech we had been waiting for since the beginning, but it was too late; nothing could repair what had happened that month and those years before. The next day, Ben Ali ran away. The days that followed his departure were both tough and wonderful. Tunisians were working together, hand in hand, to protect one another and their private property and to help the police and the army catch outlaws and Ben Ali’s militia. Those days were synonyms of confusion, insecurity, happiness, hope, strength, and an unknown future, which is still unknown; yet we made it till now.

After Ben Ali left, we had three presidents, four governments, daily demonstrations and sit-ins of all kinds, violence, more unemployed people, an insecure climate, multiple curfews, and total doubt in everyone: police, government, any political personality, even the army at some point. It was obvious that we needed a new constitution. The main idea was a national assembly that would write it, and we wanted to elect this assembly. The first date was fixed, July 24, 2011. A panel of experts and some of the country’s political parties created the High Committee to Protect the Revolution, or Instance supérieure pour la réalisation des objectifs de la révolution (ISROR), to prepare for the elections and the voting process. Then the date was changed because it was too soon and we were not prepared enough. Finally, it was set for October 23. Another authority was elected by the ISROR to prepare the elections.

I decided to seriously participate in helping make these elections successful, so I joined an observers’ network. We had to be at the poll before 6:30 a.m., so I was at my poll in Mourouj near Tunis where I live, at 5:45 a.m. The night before, I barely slept, and as expected, some people were already waiting for the opening at 7:00 a.m. On that day, I saw a great Tunisian people. It was hot and so sunny, and yet they were there, standing for hours, determined to vote, to make a change! We finished counting at 3:00 a.m.

Independent of the result and all that has been said, the day was a wonderful experience for me and a tremendous success. It made me believe more and more in Tunisians. People from different political parties or associations were working together. We all left with respect, confidence, and, above all, faith in the belief that we took part in writing history. We had ensured the smooth conduct of the elections; we did a good job. For me, the revolution resulted in these elections, carried out by a united people who put aside their differences and looked forward to a great future for the country.

Today we have a new government, and the security situation is much better. However, the real problems, the revolution’s raisons d’être, are still here: unemployment and poverty. Even though freedom of expression is way better now, we still have a lot to learn. This is why I cannot say that the revolution has succeeded or failed. The revolution is still going on. The basic goals have not been realized yet. People need jobs, money, a decent life, justice, freedom. People want to live, not just survive. This revolution needs time. Some have said that there was external intervention, but I am not sure. I strongly believe that regardless of the political abuses of the past, these people, at a historical moment, decided to take their destiny in hand and make real change. This revolution, before being political, was for social justice.

More than one year has passed since the outbreak of the Tunisian revolution. Tunisia, the country that started what we now call the “Arab Spring,” actually marked a shift in the history of the Arab world. As a Tunisian citizen, both a witness and a participant, I really want to record my experience so that readers know more about what happened. Officially, the Tunisian revolution started in December 2010, but in fact, the seeds for the people’s revolt were there before that. Tunisian people lived for more than twenty years under the control of a president who governed with an iron fist. Corruption, exploitation, a high cost of living, and the absence of any kind of freedom of expression were at the root of the outbreak. When people took to the street to express their anger and dissatisfaction after the self-immolation of Mohamed Bouazizi, their single demand was “dignity.”

Like all Tunisians, I lived the Tunisian revolution moment by moment, either in the street or at home in front of my computer screen. Luckily, I was in the capital, Tunis, when the revolution began (my parents’ house is in another city very far from the capital). I was living with my two sisters, my brother, and two other girls in the same house. When the revolution started, the parents of the two other girls came to live with us, together with their brother and their cousin. I am revealing these details because we spent around ten days living in hunger. Due to the lack of security, the curfew, and the unrest, all the stores were either closed or had run out of supplies. People were buying large quantities of food at once to protect themselves against an unknown future. Together we sat watching the news on television all day. Al Jazeera and Facebook were our main sources of information about what was taking place in my country.

Sometimes I could get out and see the events. My sister worked as a journalist for a German channel, so I went with her a couple of times to film the protests in the street. When she felt that the situation was becoming more and more unsafe and insecure, she did not want to take me with her anymore. I begged to go with her, but she totally refused. I quarreled with my younger brother over who should accompany her, but she said no to both of us. We lived fairly far from the city center where the demonstration took place. We could not join the protesters because of the difficulty of transportation, the enforcement of the curfew, and the fact that my sister and my friends’ parents did not allow us to go out. (The exception was to go to the bakery to get some bread, where we used to line up in a very long queue for two hours to get one or two baguettes to feed nine people.)

During those days, we often skipped our breakfast because we could not find milk and bread. We had a very tiny lunch and sometimes no dinner. Although they were the most difficult days of my life, each time I think back on them, I feel incredibly proud. I also remember the nights when we used to sleep to the continuous echo of gunfire, waking up in the morning with the news that a police station had been burned or hearing that the police had arrested an armed gang that was trying to burn a big supermarket. There were so many other stories!

My house was actually next to the biggest military barrack in Bouchoucha, a neighborhood a little way from the city center where the protests were taking place. From my balcony I could see many military cars going in and out of the barracks, dozens of them every day. I was very worried about my sister, and I called her every now and then to make sure that she was all right and to get more news from her. Meanwhile, I was glued to my computer all day watching and sharing terrible videos of the police killing people, posting Facebook status updates, and expressing my anger against the oppressive regime. We were depressed and scared about what our future would be. After 5:00 p.m., for a week before Ben Ali’s flight, the street and all the roads were empty of people and cars because of the curfew—except for the police cars. The ex-president had decided that there would be no school during those days because of the unrest, but actually it was just his way of avoiding more popular uprisings against him. I had to comply, angrily, and stopped going to the institute where I used to teach.

My mother and father were very worried about us. They called us several times every day just to make sure that we were at home and safe. All of us were very worried about my journalist sister and were always waiting for her to come home before the curfew. Sometimes she would spend the night in her friend’s office to work on her reports with other journalists. Life during those days almost stopped: no school and not enough food, and people did not go to work because of the difficulty of public transportation. We went through hard times. During the day, protesters were resisting the regime’s police force. At night, armed gangs were stealing things and burning public buildings, hospitals, and supermarkets. They were doing exactly what the regime wanted: frightening people and making them believe that the protesters were terrorists and that we should calm down to regain our security. But after the death of many innocent people, nothing could stop those Tunisians, whose growing outrage could be appeased only by Ben Ali’s resignation.

On January 11, 2011, I received two sad calls. The first one was my mother telling me that my cousin’s brother-in-law had been killed by a sniper in Sidi Bouzid, the same city where Mohamed Bouazizi was from. My cousin’s brother-in-law was a religious man about thirty years old. He had a beard, and he was going home when he got shot. He was not with the protesters, but obviously the sniper thought that a bearded person was a target, even if he was a nonthreatening human being. It was a heartbreaking experience to know that he had been shot and bled to death. But all I could do was to call his brother (my cousin’s husband) to express my sympathy and to wish that God would bless his soul.

The other sad call I got was from an unknown number. The zone code indicated that it was from the city, Sfax, in the south-central region of Tunisia, where my other younger brother studied and lived with my aunt. I had been calling my brother all that day, but he did not answer my calls. I felt that something bad happened to him. When I got the call, I heard an angry voice asking me, “Are you Yesmina Khedhir?” I said, “Yes, who is calling?” The man did not answer. Then, he asked me another question: “Do you have a brother named Najeh?” At that moment, I could not hold the phone anymore; I was too scared. I nevertheless answered him, “Yes, is he OK? Who is this?” The man hung up without saying another word. I was shivering when I tried to call back my brother to check on him. After a while—around ten minutes that I felt was ten hours—my brother picked up his phone and answered me by saying that he had been arrested with other protesters and that they all had been beaten, including a very old man. He said that they insulted them and that his leg was swollen because they all had been whipped. They were kept in detention for the entire day. The only reason they released him was because his identification card showed that he was only seventeen years old.

I started crying when he told me that his leg was badly hurt and that he could not walk back home. Our dilemma intensified because of other factors: he did not recognize the place where they took him; it was already 4.30 p.m. when they released him; the curfew would start in thirty minutes; and he did not have any money left. He told me that the person who called me was from the police station, and the reason for his call was that he suspected that my brother had stolen the phone from someone else. I recharged my brother’s phone from my own account, and fortunately, he called my cousin and described the place to pick him up. Even though I knew that my cousin had dropped him off at my aunt’s house, I could not breathe properly until I called her and made sure that my brother was safely at their home and that his swollen leg was properly treated.

My sad experiences during the Tunisian revolution did not prevent me from laughing when I heard Ben Ali’s last speech on January 13. He sounded pathetic and weak, asking people to give him another chance to correct his faults and promising them a better future. After he delivered his speech, some of my friends on Facebook started to sympathize with him and believed his rhetoric. I remember I wrote on my profile, “It would be a great betrayal for the blood of the hundreds of martyrs to forgive that killer.” A friend of mine had a car, and we made plans to join the protesters on Habib Bourguiba Avenue (the street where the Interior Ministry was) the following day. She came around 11:00 a.m., and despite my sister’s and brother’s insistence that I stay at home, I went with my friend in her car. Unfortunately, we could not reach the protesters because the police were everywhere and had blocked all the streets leading to our destination. My friend wanted to go back home because she was afraid that they would destroy her car. That same evening, we heard on the national channel that the president had fled to Saudi Arabia, leaving the country in a situation of total chaos and disorder. The streets were still dangerous, and the militias of the toppled regime were still there, frightening and killing more people and burning public property.

Yet the demonstrations went on because the former prime minister appointed himself as the new president. The Tunisians, of course, would not trust a man who had worked for years in Ben Ali’s regime. I used to go frequently with my friends to Kasbah Square in downtown Tunis to protest against the new government and share food with the protesters who came from faraway cities to say no, “Degagé!” to the new president, the former prime minister.

My sister asked me to help a German journalist who wanted to interview some politicians, but everyone who had worked under Ben Ali refused to cooperate. So I helped him with translation when he finally could get some political and religious prisoners to talk to him. They told us about all the torture and humiliation they suffered at the Interior Ministry, just because they expressed their discontent with the situation or criticized the president.

Now, when all those images come to my mind, I feel sad about the blood spilled of more than three hundred people and for the injuries to more than seven hundred people. I feel sad for a country that lost much of its wealth because of a dictator surrounded by a bunch of thieves. But I still feel proud that I am Tunisian, that my people were the spark that illuminated the road for other Arab nations to democracy and freedom. Now the Arab world is witnessing radical changes that will shape its future. I do not know how optimistic we should be about our own future, but in my opinion, a nation that uprooted twenty-three years of dictatorship in just one month would never mistake its path. Indeed, the social and political experience in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Yemen, and Syria has taught us that the power of the people is mightier than any dictatorship. I would like to conclude with the verses that we learned from our great poet Abul-Qasim al-Shabbi:

January 14, 2012, one year after Ben Ali fled the country. What is left? While browsing on Facebook, I noticed a picture shared by a current opposition personality. It was a screenshot of live streaming on the national television channel: Alwatanyia 1. This was the official ceremony to commemorate the Tunisian revolution. I asked myself, “What does the January 14 revolution remind me of? How do I relate to it after one year?” Young people, men and women, intellectuals, uneducated, and unemployed citizens together all took to the streets to protest against repression, unemployment, and corruption. But there are two pictures that embody the revolution, at least for me: the great number of people demonstrating in Habib Bourguiba Avenue, with some young men holding a Tunisian female on their shoulders. She is wearing a chachia (a traditional Tunisian hat), and she is demanding, with amazing energy, that Ben Ali go. I also still vividly remember the other picture, which I saw on the front page of the French newspaper Libération, of a Tunisian woman wearing a green scarf and holding a sign that reads “Ben Ali dégage!” (Ben Ali, get out!).

I am not trying to reduce the whole revolution to a symbol or an achievement made only by women, but it remains one of their accomplishments, reflecting women’s significant political and social roles in our modern society. Tunisian woman played this role in the revolution because they are politically active and progressive. They have secured an influential position in society, not the one that is being promoted by Salafi, or conservative, discourses, which say that they should stay at home, look after their children, and satisfy their husbands. Now in Tunisia, Salafi groups are active in universities and in the public sphere, and the government turns a blind eye (or in one way or another supports them).

In my mind, the images of men commemorating the revolution are tired and old, among which is that of the Gulf delegation; this and other images make me fear for the future of our revolution. There also are shocking images, to me anyway, of men from the Gulf—including those from Qatar—who are in line to make sure they benefit from our revolution. Did those people make the revolution? Did they at least support it? Obviously not. The majority of Tunisians are suspicious of the Qataris’ interference in the reconstruction of the country. There were a series of investment agreements in electricity and banking, but we usually joke that less Qatari money was invested in Tunisia than the money stolen by Sakhr el-Materi and Nesrine Ben Ali, the influential family members of Ben Ali who fled with him to Qatar. We also are uncomfortable because the first country that Rashid al-Ghannouchi (founder of the Ennahda movement and party) visited after the elections was Qatar. One part of Tunisian society believes that Qatar is giving money to Ennahda, which is unfair to the other parties. That is why, they assume, Ennahda is so powerful and well organized, because it is supported financially by the Gulf states including Qatar.

This latter scenario troubles me as I reflect on our revolution and see who wants to claim credit for it, including, strangely, those from the outside. That is why I sometimes wonder, Where is the energy that allowed a people to topple an oppressive government? Are they still in the streets demonstrating again and again or sitting behind their computers sharing information and circulating their critique and disappointment, as I usually do? Maybe to be revolutionary is always to be suspicious, critical, and provoking, particularly when the government that came after Ali does not represent the majority of Tunisians.

It is needless to emphasize the facts about the revolution, as some of them have become legendary. But it is crucial to pay tribute to Mohamed Bouazizi and so many other martyrs who sacrificed their lives for freedom and dignity. It also is necessary to pay tribute to those who bravely faced dangerous situations as the target of bullets, beatings, humiliation, and so many other tools that the regime used to make people submissive. Was Hamadi Jebali, the current prime minister of Tunisia and the secretary-general of the Ennahda movement, along with his movement’s major members, part of the thousands of protesters who exposed their lives to danger a year ago? No.

Were all the demonstrators and opponents motivated by the same feelings as Mohamed Bouazizi was? Yes and no. The economic situation was obviously tough for everybody. Middle-class citizens were struggling to make ends meet. Nevertheless, Tunisian society enjoyed some comforts and a good standard of living, which indirectly enabled it to turn a blind eye to corruption, such as the elections—whose results were 99 percent in favor of the regime—and some malfunctioning of the government. People could easily enjoy or afford apartments, PCs, cars, Internet, alcohol, and parties. Some individual freedoms, such as consuming alcohol, wearing short skirts, and having private parties made Tunisians feel free in their daily lives. But does that mean that they supported Ben Ali only for these individual freedoms? For some of them, the answer is yes, particularly those who used to take advantage of the regime party’s benefits. The answer for others is no, particularly those who had intellectual objections to the regime. Though personal freedoms were allowed, not much space was given for intellectual liberties. The main discourse in the Tunisian media was controlled by and favored the regime.

We could blame lots of things on the former government, but we should acknowledge that even though intellectual freedom was controlled, the Tunisian educational system was good, but job opportunities were declining. Mohamed Bouazizi himself could not find a job. Tunisians arrived at a situation in which lots of young graduates faced a stagnating employment market. We can see that the new government, particularly Ennahda, is now focusing on education, because it is known that an educated population is hard to control. In fact, the educational level of our people helped overthrow Ben Ali, because if all Tunisians were illiterate, with no ability to analyze, no revolution could have taken place.

Some of those intellectuals fled to Europe, where they wrote and criticized the government. But this contribution may not be seen as directly linked to the revolution. In this regard, some would dispute my legitimacy to comment on the Tunisian revolution, since I was living abroad when it took place. No, I was not in Tunisia when the grassroots demonstrators filled the streets, and I do not claim to be a revolutionary, as some people did after Ben Ali was toppled, but it may be interesting to look at how this (my) part of the population lived and felt about the revolution. I find myself representing this portion of the Tunisian population. I belong to the group of those living abroad whose action was limited to a couple of demonstrations and to cyberdissidence. I remember the month of January 2011, the toughest month in my student life. Like most of the students in France, I had exams in January, and the period before exams was usually spent preparing for them. Nevertheless, it was difficult to study with all the shaking up going on in Tunisia. Instead of focusing on our studies, we followed all the events—and there were a lot of them, both interesting and unprecedented. Surprisingly, and for the record, French television did not cover the events immediately.

December looked pretty calm on French screens. That is when Al Jazeera became more visible in its coverage of the events as they were unfolding. With the censorship of Tunisian television and the lack of information from the Western media, Al Jazeera became the only official source of information besides Facebook, which was the informal source of information and the space for dissidence (and manipulation). The French media paid more attention to the Tunisian uprising after Michèle Alliot-Marie, then France’s foreign minister, was shown in a session of the French parliament offering to lend France’s “savoir faire” to help fix the “security” issues in Tunisia. A dramatic controversy erupted, and therefore the French government had to choose whom to support: the unwanted president Ben Ali or the demonstrators seeking freedom and dignity. It is obvious that before this development, the French government could neither officially support the dictator nor endorse the demonstrators, because of considerations related to the benefits and advantageous commercial relationships that were established with Ben Ali’s regime. At the time, I felt that the West was hesitant to support the Tunisian revolution because its support was useless and would damage some of their strategic positions. They never thought that our people would force him to leave.

I was living in Nantes, where Tunisian students organized a demonstration to support Tunisians living in Tunisia and to show encouragement for their actions and bravery. For logistical reasons—such as having it on the weekend rather than on a weekday so that more people could attend (on Saturday morning, many Arab people go to the local market) and making sure that the local authorities knew about it—we planned the demonstration for January 15, 2011, and when it took place, some non-Tunisians participated. There was a Tunisian association with which we had some difficulties organizing the demonstration, but eventually they came on the fifteenth. Because Ben Ali had fled the day before, everybody was taken by surprise, and the earlier designed banners and slogans of some demonstrators no longer applied. The speeches focused on Ben Ali and his wrongdoings instead of starting to think about the rebuilding process, which was wrong. The moment Ben Ali left, all we Tunisians had to start thinking about how to rebuild our country. It is worthless mourning the past, but what will be useful to Tunisia is critical, in order to not let any other force take over the revolution. We need to focus on rebuilding a country in crisis, in which unemployment is record breaking and corruption is everywhere. We need to restructure and reform institutions (and minds) for the people who have never had “transparency” and “democracy” in their vocabulary. For some, reconstruction is synonymous with regression, democracy with theocracy, and liberty with a unilateral policy (or the deviation of the Tunisian identity). This is wrong.

I also mentioned cyberdissidence, and I should state that Facebook played a remarkable role in this revolution. I think that the videos and photos shared through social networking supported the revolution in two ways. First, it showed Tunisian individuals that they were not alone—that other people cared about their revolution and supported it. These postings included people criticizing the government and its policies. Other people were sharing thoughts and comments about what was occurring during the revolution. The impression of unity given by this virtual space strengthened the unity in the streets. Then the emotion of these violent and bloody videos and pictures ignited repressed feelings and actions. Nevertheless, it was not by hitting “like” that the revolution was made. I guess some of the Tunisians living abroad tried to play a role in controlling what was shared on Facebook by asking users to reveal their sources, to add the date and the place, and to explain the context. We Tunisians living aboard accepted a huge amount of the news and videos shared as true, yet we quickly felt the need to check their authenticity. Since we could not be there, we focused our energy on sharing and checking information to participate in our revolution, even from a distance.

A year after the revolution, almost three months after the elections, we still are waiting for the constitution (or at least the impression that the government is working on it instead of committing itself to restricting individual freedoms). Indeed, waiting is not sufficient, I thought, and that is why I went to vote. It seems like an old story is being replayed. The revolution is still on. The game is not over.