It's time to reorder thoughts after the trip to Tunisia. I will try to assemble travel notes and impressions. I met a lot of people, making almost always the same questions and I received different answers. Strange place Tunisia, at the moment. There's a lot of smoke in the eyes and the changing is slow, so slow. There's a starting gun ready to shoot but it seems the start will not come by now. Much work must be done first, I fear that only once those who are the alleged winners will be sure of the victory, the starting gun will shoot. And at the moment, people are still too much convinced to be those who made the changing possible and this is too dangerous for those instead who planned everything and now must start cashing.
These are some travel notes collected during my underground conversations:
<<The people's demands are legitimate, but this is not a revolution. Blood in Tunisia has always been paid and has never changed anything. I wonder why today there is a change. I fear the answer is in geopolitical plans that do not belong to Tunisia. Colonialism was in need of new foundations>>.
<<Those who drove the fall of Ben Ali are people of the establishment that wikileaks proved to be linked to CIA. And they are still in power. That's why I was surprised when i saw him falling down. I asked myself: were we who made this? We were just the strength they needed to push him down, but this way we put ourselves back in the cage>>.
<<Before Ben Ali's fall, whenever we went out at night to paint a wall in secret, in the morning we found it cleaned up. By the police? Not at all. By neighbors who feared being blamed by the police. Now people do not bother to clean the walls. But the police arrests us as before>>.
<<Political parties exist only to find job for friends' friends. After 23 years of dictatorship, now we don't need parties and politicians. People are the parliament. We can vote laws once a week directly from our pc staying at home. Maybe not now, but in 10 years, after a cyber alphabetization, this can be possible>>.
<<Tunisians can't accept that police kills people, we are not syrians. That's why we made a revolution. My idols? Egyptian bloggers, they are the best. All I learnt about blogging is thanks them. 6th april movement? Yes, many of my egyptian friends are members>>.
<<We must move on from Orientalism to Internationalism. In practice, get to know each other directly. This would be enough to solve all other issues: colonialism and immigration. So, forget English and French. From today we speak only Italian and Arabic>>.
<<Elective democracy is a temporary dictatorship. People choose their own dictator and let him rule for a while. Now in tunisia we have a parliamentary dictatorship and people in the parliament were not elected either>>.
<<In the last months every kind of delegations came from Europe to Tunisia: anarchists, syndicalists, communists, socialists, students, journalists. Everybody to know about revolution. And we told them what they wanted to be told. We know what is the truth, who was behind. but tell me: who does anything for nothing?>>.
I don't know whether you can get the variety of the debate on the social scene. I collected these statements (whispering) in different contexts and from different backgrounds.
Certainly, the fall of Ben Ali opened a space where everybody has put all his dreams, utopias and beliefs. And until people can talk (almost freely), this is a good thing.
But I have a question for the western readers: did you really believe that people in North Africa were only dumb and silent subjects of their dictatorships? Not at all. Debate was always fervent and pungent in these countries, perhaps in secret places covertly, but it was only a matter of go and find it. So I am not surprised by all the interesting people I met there, I was sure about that, but this doesn't mean that the revolution is on the wave and will win.
I enjoyed my travel to Tunisia with "L'homme révolté" by Albert Camus in my pocket. A french citizen born in Algeria, which inspired me a lot.
I found there a quotation by Proudhon:
These are some travel notes collected during my underground conversations:
<<The people's demands are legitimate, but this is not a revolution. Blood in Tunisia has always been paid and has never changed anything. I wonder why today there is a change. I fear the answer is in geopolitical plans that do not belong to Tunisia. Colonialism was in need of new foundations>>.
<<Those who drove the fall of Ben Ali are people of the establishment that wikileaks proved to be linked to CIA. And they are still in power. That's why I was surprised when i saw him falling down. I asked myself: were we who made this? We were just the strength they needed to push him down, but this way we put ourselves back in the cage>>.
<<Before Ben Ali's fall, whenever we went out at night to paint a wall in secret, in the morning we found it cleaned up. By the police? Not at all. By neighbors who feared being blamed by the police. Now people do not bother to clean the walls. But the police arrests us as before>>.
<<Political parties exist only to find job for friends' friends. After 23 years of dictatorship, now we don't need parties and politicians. People are the parliament. We can vote laws once a week directly from our pc staying at home. Maybe not now, but in 10 years, after a cyber alphabetization, this can be possible>>.
<<Tunisians can't accept that police kills people, we are not syrians. That's why we made a revolution. My idols? Egyptian bloggers, they are the best. All I learnt about blogging is thanks them. 6th april movement? Yes, many of my egyptian friends are members>>.
<<We must move on from Orientalism to Internationalism. In practice, get to know each other directly. This would be enough to solve all other issues: colonialism and immigration. So, forget English and French. From today we speak only Italian and Arabic>>.
<<Elective democracy is a temporary dictatorship. People choose their own dictator and let him rule for a while. Now in tunisia we have a parliamentary dictatorship and people in the parliament were not elected either>>.
<<In the last months every kind of delegations came from Europe to Tunisia: anarchists, syndicalists, communists, socialists, students, journalists. Everybody to know about revolution. And we told them what they wanted to be told. We know what is the truth, who was behind. but tell me: who does anything for nothing?>>.
I don't know whether you can get the variety of the debate on the social scene. I collected these statements (whispering) in different contexts and from different backgrounds.
Certainly, the fall of Ben Ali opened a space where everybody has put all his dreams, utopias and beliefs. And until people can talk (almost freely), this is a good thing.
But I have a question for the western readers: did you really believe that people in North Africa were only dumb and silent subjects of their dictatorships? Not at all. Debate was always fervent and pungent in these countries, perhaps in secret places covertly, but it was only a matter of go and find it. So I am not surprised by all the interesting people I met there, I was sure about that, but this doesn't mean that the revolution is on the wave and will win.
I enjoyed my travel to Tunisia with "L'homme révolté" by Albert Camus in my pocket. A french citizen born in Algeria, which inspired me a lot.
I found there a quotation by Proudhon:
<<It implies a contradiction that a government could ever be revolutionary, for the very simple reason that it is the government>>.
And that's amazing how anytime a revolution is supposed to take place, the first thing that is done is to establish a new government. And that's exactly what happened in Tunisia, with the aggravating circumstance that this government is even not elected and it is renegotiating all the contracts between the State and the western powers. What's that? What need for? People what say? People seeks for normality. A dictator fell, that's enough.
Camus himself says in the essay:
Camus himself says in the essay:
<<Except in the Paris of the Commune, which was the last refuge of rebel revolution, the proletariat has had no other historical mission but to be betrayed>>.
I will add that this time in Tunisia was not betrayed, was fooled since the very beginning.
And again:
And again:
<<The revolution will have its professional army as well as the masses, which can be conscripted when needed. These corps of agitators must be organized before the mass is organized. A network of agents (...). He (Lenin) denies the spontaneity of the masses. Socialist doctrine supposes a scientific basis that only intellectuals can give it (...). ... it is possible not to be proletarian and know better than the proletariat what its interests are>>.
Well, all of these principles are on the ground in Tunisia, according to my view. But it's not Lenin who guides masses in Tunisia. Rather is the bourgeoisie, which as well supposes what really are the interests of the proletariat. That's what pushes me to think that was the bourgeoisie which made the "revolution" (or call it as you like) in Tunisia, under the conduction of the army. Surely, normal people, the proletariat, as always, shed blood in the streets, that's clear. Normal people were used as stunts of the real actors. Understand? Not enough to start a new rebellion?
But read the following lines, please. I found them written by the columnist of Jeune Afrique, a quite bourgeois magazine. Bechir Ben Yahmed writes:
Well, all of these principles are on the ground in Tunisia, according to my view. But it's not Lenin who guides masses in Tunisia. Rather is the bourgeoisie, which as well supposes what really are the interests of the proletariat. That's what pushes me to think that was the bourgeoisie which made the "revolution" (or call it as you like) in Tunisia, under the conduction of the army. Surely, normal people, the proletariat, as always, shed blood in the streets, that's clear. Normal people were used as stunts of the real actors. Understand? Not enough to start a new rebellion?
But read the following lines, please. I found them written by the columnist of Jeune Afrique, a quite bourgeois magazine. Bechir Ben Yahmed writes:
<<I know very well that the Euro-Americans colonized us strongly and knowingly. (...) I didn't forget that they used Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden before liquidating them, who were kind to Gaddafi for his money (...) and who were friendly to Mubarak, Ben Ali and Assad (...). But at the beginning of this year, lately, they understood that it was better for them to change policy. The evolution of our democracies seemed to them a good chance on which to bet. They started supporting and promising their aid. Militarily and economically. (..) It's not for their criticizable past that we have to complain now. They changed: let's assume this and let them continue on this path they chose to walk through. On the contrary, Russians and the Chinese still act like the "arab spring" never happened. We must say to them, amicably but frankly, that they must stop smiling to our dictators.. (...)>>.
Is it clear? Democracy in the arab world is the outgo chosen by Americans to overcome the situation of weak competitiveness on the ground facing the chinese expansion. It's an historical change, nothing to say. When you are not able to dominate you try to buy your alleys. That's it. So welcome, tunisian friends, in the european standards, you'll face social democracy and representative democracy, which is another form of dictatorship, you'll discover soon. Franco died in 1975, Spain took 36 years to get where it is now. Have a good trip.
By now, open your pockets, a few crumbs of the $ 40 billion will fall even for you, eventually.
Is it clear? Democracy in the arab world is the outgo chosen by Americans to overcome the situation of weak competitiveness on the ground facing the chinese expansion. It's an historical change, nothing to say. When you are not able to dominate you try to buy your alleys. That's it. So welcome, tunisian friends, in the european standards, you'll face social democracy and representative democracy, which is another form of dictatorship, you'll discover soon. Franco died in 1975, Spain took 36 years to get where it is now. Have a good trip.
By now, open your pockets, a few crumbs of the $ 40 billion will fall even for you, eventually.
