General Strike in Tunisia

UNEMPLOYED graduates attacked by riot police.

A general strike was called today in Tunisia in response to the still deteriorating economic situation, and government repression against the unemployed and rights protesters.

Significantly today's strike was called from Sidi Bouzid, the town which can claim to have started the "Arab Spring".

It was in Sidi Bouzid on December 17, 2010, that shocked and angry local people clashed with police, after a distressed young street vendor called Mohamed Bouazizi set fire to himself in protest at the authorities' seizure of his goods, after he'd refused to pay a bribe to officials, and sufffered police harassment and violence as a result. He died of his injuries on January 4, 2011.

In early January 2011, more clashes with the police in Sidi Bouzid led to at least 20 deaths. To make sure people elsewhere knew about this, protesters in Sidi Bouzid took pictures and video clips including police firing live rounds, and circulated these on the internet. The protests turned into a nationwide uprising which reached the capital, forcing President Ben Ali to flee the country on January 14, 2011.

The whole Arab world was shaken, and the movement has not stopped. Tunisia itself meanwhile acquired a new government whose leaders promise to blend Islamic values with liberal reform. But the continued dominance by capitalism means the problems that brought the people's uprising persist. Here's a report from a Tunisian friend:

Following protests and demonstrations in Tunisia over the bad economic situation, unemployed graduates from Sidi Bouzid marched to Tunis on foot and arrived last Sunday. But the police barred their way and stopped them holding any demonstration on the Grand Avenue Bourguiba, named after Tunisia's founding president and anticolonial leader.

Since March there has been a law banning all protests on Avenue Bourguiba, the site where mass marches ousted the dictator Ben Ali in January 2011. Following this new law the Minister of the Interior (Ali Laarayedh, a leader of the Ennahda islamist party and himself a former political prisoner and survivor of torture) has applied the law to all Tunisian citizens indiscriminately. His action has angered the people of Sid Bouzid who have now called a general strike for 11 April.

(Ironically Laarayedh has been committed to enhancing the party’s image through promoting its moderate and compliant values as appropriate for Tunisian society. Ennahda members’ years in prison have helped 'enlarge our views to encompass Western values,' he said before the election, as reported on the Tunisia Live website).

Here in Kasserine, the town which lost the largest number of people during the Tunisian revolution, there have been two big demonstrations , last night and today 10 April at noon. The atmosphere is one of anger, insecurity and protest. Its cause is the continuing unemployment, one year and four months after the uprising in which cost so many lives.

Nothing has changed in Kasserine: no development or rebuilding, no government infrastructure and no recruiting for jobs. Meanwhile, on the other side of our social landscape, there is bad treatment from the new local government authorities. Seriously injured people and the families of those who were killed have been told they are 'ineligible for assistance'.

The trial of Moncef Lajimi, and the other vile snipers and policemen accused of shooting on unarmed demonstrators last year, is always being adjourned and still has no clear outcome.

Moreover the cost of living has risen critically for ordinary people. The prices of food, vegetables, fruit and staples are sky high. All these things are leaving people worried, angry and sad. From that point protest becomes inevitable.

The two demonstrations in Kasserine have not been reported, and here we have not heard full details of what happened yesterday 9 April on the Avenue Bourguiba in Tunis. That was the Day of the Martyrs, the date commemorating those who died in the revolution.

Thanks to Amanda Sebastyen for translating above, and for this update:

The ban on demonstrations has now been contested by democratic opposition members of parliament with a peaceful protest march.
In an interview on national television, Tunisian Minister of the Interior Ali Laarayedh justified police assaults against civilians, activists, and journalists by saying that protesters had initiated the violence. Rachid Ghannouchi's self-justifying press conference is reported in the links below.

http://www.tunisia-live.net/2012/04/10/violent-crackdown-causes-outrage-in-tunisian-civil-and-political-society/">http://www.tunisia-live.net/2012/04/10/violent-crackdown-causes-outrage-in-tunisian-civil-and-political-society/

http://www.tunisia-live.net/2012/04/10/ennahdas-ghannouchi-we-are-not-for-the-closure-of-habib-bourguiba-for-good-we-are-for-dialogue

http://www.tunisia-live.net/2012/04/10/constituent-assembly-members-march-on-habib-bourguiba-avenue/

Real Voices of Tunisia

Here is another report by Amanda Sebestyen, who visited Tunisia and spoke to some of the young people at the heart of its revolution. Since it was written there have been reports of "security" concerns leading to suspension of the pilgrimage to a synagogue on Gherba island, and today came news of violence at a refugee camp. No social upheaval takes place without counter-currents, and these should not distract us from the courage and sincerity of those whom Amanda met.

'Every single moment of this revolution has been full of emotions. Sometimes glorious, other times complicated, sometimes full of sadness because you've lost someone shot in front of your eyes.' Ramy Sghayer is the one of one of Tunisia's youth organisers who always makes time for foreign visitors, explaining the successive waves of protest needed to dislodge not only the old dictator Zine Ben Ali but a whole structure of dictatorship and the systems that shored it up internationally.

'Our revolution overcomes the borders of Tunisia', he continues. 'It is a revolution for dignity and freedom in which every single human being is affected. We flew the Egyptian flag for Tahrir, and danced in the streets when Mubarak fell. We're waiting for Libya, watching Yemen and Syria. It's not only Tunisia's struggle but the struggle of the whole South under colonialism.

'I also joined a team at Ras Ajdir frontier camp, helping the refugees from Libya. I went with my friend Samir from Togo, we had the chance to serve food but sometimes felt it was even more important to listen and understand them. I'm co-ordinator of the youth commission for Amnesty, but I didn't go there officially but as a human rights defender and activist. '

I mentioned to Ramy my dismay at seeing bread and water sold at double the normal prices inside the refugee camps. He explained that the neighbouring border town Ben Guerdane had always lived by smuggling with Libya, and was now grabbing back some lost revenue. ' But many of my own friends are working here as volunteers without asking for a thing except somewhere to stay, living on a sandwich, just helping on principle'. On my own visit to the camp, UNHCR officials confirmed the unprecedented generosity not only of their 200 Tunisian volunteers , but the daily relief trips from ordinary people and the unusual co-operation in keeping the camp safe and running the hospital.

Two days later the people of Ben Guerdane taught us all a lesson by holding a demonstration of their own, demanding their right to be considered for jobs in the camp and to help the refugees themselves. Their offer is being accepted - one example of ways that the new wave of direct action includes entirely unexpected groups of people.

The safety of Jews and minorities inside Tunisia has become one touchstone for the democratic revolution. There have been suspicions that elements of the old regime's security forces were behind synagogue arson, and whoever was responsible the people I met were determined to prevent such attacks. As with the rights of women, the fight to end political impunity and prosecute those who killed unarmed demonstrators, the desperate need for employment, this issue too has sparked off multitudinous debates and a real sense that talking is a political good in itself.

When I visited in April, hosted by the General Union of Tunisian Workers and the Tunisian League of Human Rights, I and my fellow guest Rita Freire from Brazil's online news network Ciranda walked along the grand avenues of Tunis, moving from markets of crowded shoppers to equally crowded political discussions swirling into different small groups and coming together again. One of the Tunisians said to us then: ''We talk, we discuss things publicly for the first time in our lives, and in the end the bad gets driven out and the good comes to the top.'

Tunisians are massively enjoying the thrill of political discussion. 'Sixty percent of Tunisians have told a poll that they want to be involved in politics! Before, it was only football' said Fabio, an Italian who has lived in Tunisia for eight years and wants to start up a new kind of travel, not insulating visitors in zones touristiques but taking them to meet people and see 'the real Tunisia'.

That Tunisie profonde is the interior where the revolutions began.

The revolution in Tunisia is seen as bloodless, but not when you reach small towns where almost everyone knows someone who died, or was injured, or mentally traumatised. This was a war zone.

In Sidi Bouzid , Nejib Beyoui of the teacher's union told us how teachers, lawyers and doctors formed a Support Committee after Mohamed Bouazizi burned himself, at first just to get him to a proper hospital 'and to ask for work and dignity'. The trade unionists stood in the streets for 13 days being teargassed and beaten, while the town's young people stayed up all night and were shot with live ammunition. Then the uprising spread to nearby Kasserine, where a local factory owner posted snipers on the roof of his building: 52 people were killed and 600 wounded. Hunger strikes and self-immolation continue, alongside tremendous achievements in self-organisation. These towns feel they have been left alone.

We need to change that. Munira Thibia, a young homeless woman who became famous for her bravery in the uprising , asked us: 'Please let our stories be known'. They need twinning, solidarity actions, and keeping communications open. Nasri Charfeddine of the new unemployed graduates' organisation Elkarama wants to start up community radio so the region can speak for itself: email: achrafnasri@hotmail.fr Facebook: Nasricharfi@live.Fr

Wael Karaffi, who has lost a leg at only 19, spoke with the dignity which Tunisia expects from all its revolutionaries: 'Those who killed, one wants to see judged not killed. We sacrificed for this nation so we want our voices to be heard. If not, we will go back on the streets to remake the revolution. We don't want money, we want to be seen and heard. I've made a big sacrifice - I hope you won't forget my message.'

British soldiers returning wounded from wars of empire are getting the best surgery, prosthetics and rehab, but these who overthrew a dictator and 'fought only with their voices' are being left disabled and without redress against the police who killed their friends.

To join the appeal to bring specialist medical and legal help to the survivors and activists, contact: med.saha@gmail.com or amseb@blueyonder.co.uk

Coach Trip to the 'Arab Spring' (2) Democracy in a Tunisian town

PEOPLE are raising specific demands

AS Tunisians prepare for elections in July, here is the second of AMANDA SEBESTYEN' s reports:

We stopped seemingly in the middle of nowhere. High on a hill was a message in Arabic spelled out in white stones: ''WELCOME TO REGUEB, THE LAND OF FREE PEOPLE". Around the next corner we came to Regueb itself, a town of only 8,000 people.

Its tiny hall was filled with the spirit of early trade unionism. You could imagine Chartists and Jacobins speaking like this, as the speakers launched poetic internationalist visions under the linked-hands red-crescent logo of the UGTT, the General Union of Tunisian Workers which had brought us here.

Two young women and three young men were killed by police bullets in these streets."The tragic force of this uprising belongs to all humanity . That's why we gave our kids. Your visit shows that the revolution continues, it isn't just for Regueb and it doesn't stop there. In this little hall you see pictures of martyrs of 1952 , people from here who died in the anti-colonial struggle; then you see our hand-painted Palestinian banner. This small hall is part of our daily life, home for our activists whether from Palestine or Regueb.'

The trade unionists spoke beneath portraits of past labour heroes, while over the ceiling and walls were dotted far more recent images, CGI-inspired by the Palestinian intifada and increasingly the Tunisians' own. When young people left the meeting it was only to go outside and sing 'songs of the revolution'. We came out to find them under a magnificent photocollage of their lost friends, joined by Senegalese guest Cheikh Tidiane Dieye to perform a scurrilous number about the kleptocrats of the old regime.

As we walked out through Regueb an elderly woman in traditional dress came up, embraced me,and asked me to stay. She was speaking Arabic but we understood each other. So she saw that now - with a jolt - we all had to get on the bus again. It is my final memory of the unique political space in Regueb, 'the land of free people' where every single person seems to be finding a new voice.

It came as no surprise to hear that one week later Regueb's citizens came together and created a new town council to represent them in this dangerous gap between the fall of the old dictatorship in January and contested new elections in July. Nor to see pictures on You Tube of Regueb women from all ages and backgrounds filling their streets at the start of the Arab Spring,under banners spelling 'Je suis Femme, ne touche pas ma Liberte'.

But what could we do as solidarity visitors? All sorts of ideas and actions have already started and can be seen and joined through the links below. It took another guest from Dakar, Demba Moussa Dembele, to add 'We witnessed'. This is what the people we met are expecting from us: ' a proof that you care about the Tunisian revolution and the weaponless people who faced a criminal dictatorship, and sacrificed their lives and were injured, so that we can raise our voices today and say what we think should be said.'

These are the words of Mohamed Salah Abidi, whose son Shadi was at the heart of the 'internet revolution' in Regueb and was disabled by bullets from a police sniper.

Those of us who visited from Europe have another obligation, to keep the gates of the fortress open. Leading trade unionist Alessandra Mecozzi from the radical Italian union, FIOM told our hosts in Regueb: 'We thank you and have great, great trust in you. We'll push our governments to freeze bank accounts and repatriate the money stolen from you. We don't want a closed Europe - we're ashamed of our government saying it wants to deport young Tunisians. Europe must welcome all these people.'

Here are some of the voices of the Tunisian revolution. We must keep our ears open as well as our borders.

...AND NOW A MESSAGE FROM REGUEB

People from Regueb who know that you are doing a lot for their cause would like you to write something in one or several papers in London.

Here is the news:

On Tuesday morning a group of the representatives of the inhabitants of Regueb attended a meeting in the governorate of Sidi Bouzid. Several ministers supervised the meeting ( the Ministers of Regional Development, of Health, of Social Affairs, Higher Education...)

Given the fact that not one developmental project, or health or industrial project, is being brought to the town of Regueb, the representatives have called for a popular peaceful demonstration in the streets of the town followed by an information meeting .

The inhabitants decided that their town will be independent from the governorate of Sidi Bouzid till the government satisfies the urgent needs of the area:

- A regional hospital for the population of 7,3000;

- A local covered market square for the fruits and vegetables produced in Regueb;

- The removal from power of all the groups of people connected to the regime of Ben Ali.


You can read more of Amanda Sebestyen's dispatches from Tunisia in RED PEPPER magazine.
http://www.redpepper.org.uk/dispatches-from-tunisia/

Brent Trades Union Council has invited a speaker from Tunisia to its meeting tomorrow night, WEDNESDAY, May 25 at Willesden Trades and Labour Hall, 375 Willesden High Road, NW10 2JR. 7.30pm

Coach trip to the 'Arab Spring' :(1) In the Beginning

TUNISIANS remember those who died,
and demand justice for the living. April 27 demo.

WHILE a lot of people seem to be arguing the significance of the upheavals in the Arab world, AMANDA SEBESTYEN took a trip to Tunisia, where things started, to see for herself. Amanda, who went with a delegation from the World Social Forum,has been kind enough to let us take excerpts from her reports.

In Tunisia, the makers of the first Arab democratic revolution are organising for elections. It is not a passive process. Protests are called almost daily and have kept up momentum towards transforming a country rather than 'just' evicting a dictator who ruled for 23 years. On the sidelines, the old regime and its angry secret policeman are waiting; on the other side, well-financed religious parties will rise if the hopes of a generation are disappointed. Amanda found a country of dedicated organisers, heights of suffering and generosity, and a dangerous neglect of the deprived heartlands where the uprising was born. Here is the first of her reports:

AN OLD WOMAN in traditional country dress was sitting with her basket on the kerb of the grand Avenue Bourguiba in Tunis, offering me something I couldn't identify. It looked like a bunch of cotton buds, or maybe a rare form of miniature garlic.

'Qu'est-ce que c'est?', I asked in my school French.

'Meshmoum', she said, and again more urgently, 'meshmoum', offering the bunch to my nose.
Jasmine! Tunisians take the buds and fix them to dried grasses to make the scent last a long time. I was smelling the Tunisian revolution.

Next door the Interior Ministry - prime site for the mass movements of January - was ringed with razor wire. But the protest meetings had simply moved a few yards. On the steps of a Belle Epoque theatre, newly released political prisoners were addressing a crowd of men and women constantly breaking into small discussion circles. The chief demand was justice for those who had been killed in the uprising; an end to police impunity; arrest and trial not only for those who pulled the triggers but those who gave the orders. It was a demand I heard voiced with increasing desperation as we reached the heartlands of the interior.

Our solidarity tour - organised for the World Social Forum and hosted by the Tunisian League of Human Rights and the General Union of Tunisian Workers (UGTT) - arrived in Tunisia midway between Stephen Twigg and Angelina Jolie. The MP was travelling (tourist class, I was pleased to note) with a delegation from the Westminster Foundation for Democracy; the actor, with her entourage, went to the refugee camps on the Libyan border, of which the Tunisian people are immensely - and so justly - proud.

' We thought that the regime had eradicated every good quality we had', said student organiser Yousef Tlili. 'But when they had taken everything , we found there was one thing left - solidarity... When refugees from Libya arrived in the south of Tunisia there was such an immense burst of solidarity that there are still shortages of medicines and staple foods because people bought them to send south when they heard the refugees needed them. Each refugee that arrived - and there were 140,000 in the first week - was greeted by local people with a bottle of water, some bread and some coffee , giving them dignity. The International Red Cross said they had never seen anything like it.'

In return, when Tunisians travel to Europe (not fleeing their revolution but taking up one of its new freedoms, escaping the draconian restrictions imposed by Ben Ali and Ghaddafi in return for bribes from Fortress Europe), the response of the EU is to threaten repatriation.

The fabled hospitality and orderliness of the Tunisians - often mocked in the past by their more explosive North African neighbours, who now find themselves struggling to keep up - was much in evidence on our tour. Half the delegates were paid for by our hosts, who refused to take anything from us.

Saida Garrachi, of Tunisia's main feminist organisation, the Association of Democratic Women, told us: 'We are inventing ourselves from moment to moment. Unexpectedly, this is "the first revolution of the 21st century". If we succeed we will encourage the rest - if we fail, the opposite. Islamists are active in the regions that were disadvantaged by the old regime, banking on their advanced organisation for the coming elections. This is a very fragile process. We need your international connections and solidarity to stop us skidding off track'. A new Tunisian Party of Labour aims to build democracy without falling into neoliberalism or religious bigotry. Its dedication to legality is amazing .

As we approached Sidi Bou Zid, the town where the wave of revolution first gathered, I learned that the local union head had been so close to the regime that he'd called on police to arrest our host Fethi Ben Dbek of the UGTT as a dangerous agitator. Now the same man remains in office, though hopefully not in power; his members are waiting till the elections to get rid of him. His sidekick attempted to filibuster our meeting, but could not stand against the extraordinary intensity of feeling in the hall.

Nejib Beyoui of the teachers' union told us how the revolution began when Mohamed Bouazizi, an unemployed graduate, set fire to himself on 17 December. 'But this was not the first time a young Tunisian had immolated himself. It happened earlier in Monastir [a developed coastal resort], but did not have the same results. Sidi Bou Zid has a long history of oppression. For years there had been different trade union struggles, and peasant farmers also rose up when a promised road was never built by the governor.
'When Bouazizi burned, there was nowhere to treat his wounds properly. There's only one specialist burns unit, near Tunis. The next day we in the teachers', lawyers' and doctors' unions organised a Support Committee with demands for work and dignity, and for Bouazizi to be transferred to our nearest large hospital at Sfax .

'We approached the administration which refused to answer. It was market day, and the town was full of people. The police unleashed unbearable clouds of tear gas; the canisters we collected were labelled "Made in USA". For the first two days, we teachers, doctors and lawyers stood in the streets getting gassed and beaten. The Tunisian media were banned from reporting anything, so we contacted France 24 TV and Al-Arabiya.

'On the second night, young people initiated rolling protests though the different parts of town. A new tactic was to use mobile phones to call on their friends to make a distraction, and draw police away when they got too heavy in any one place. On the third day the governor fled. For 13 days the uprising was in Sidi Bou Zid alone, then it spread through the region via our union branches: Bouzeyen, Regueb, Jilma; and then over to the town of Kasserine.'

This raises the question of how this revolution actually started. Tunis-based youth activist Ramy Sghaier - one of the main organisers of the Kasbah sit-in which ousted the dictator's party and started to set up a new constitution - was definite on this point: ' I don't actually agree that the Internet was the heart of the revolution. The heart of the revolution was the willpower of all the Tunisian people, not just the young.'

In Kasserine, known as ' the capital of martyrs' , the square is festooned with desperate demands from unemployed graduates on hunger strike. As these - so often veterans of the uprising across the country - lie behind us with their PhDs, MAs and college diplomas laid out beside them, local lawyer Salma Abassi explains:

'Fifty-two people were killed in Kasserine, 13 in this square. A local factory owner hosted snipers on his roof. We chose non-violence; the government ordered the army to shoot on the young people.

'We invented the first political slogan of the Arab revolutions: "Ben Ali, degage!". There were no real parties here, the revolution was made by ordinary people and lawyers standing up. I took my three children on all the demonstrations, so they could get the political education I never had the chance to have at their age.
'But from January till April nothing has happened in Kasserine. The revolution has brought no benefits for us. The National Assembly finally sent us a local representative, but living in Tunis! I am very angry still. '

In the trade union hall of Kasserine - under pictures of past labour heroes Farhat Hached, assassinated by French settlers, and Habib Achour, twice imprisoned under Bourguiba's regime - a row of families and activists held up photos of young people who were killed. One family after another took the platform. ''The snipers who murdered my child are still not in prison'. 'We have had no compensation' . 'I don't want money, I want justice'. 'There is still no reply from the minister.' A mother, in tears: 'Every time I'm alone, every time I do the housework, I remember'.

A young man called Nizar Ferchichi read a Manifesto for the unemployed graduates, ending: 'C'est l'agonie, le desespoir, Nous voulons l'espoir, la dignite.
This is agony and despair - we want hope and dignity.
Our symbol is solidarity. The revolution will continue, right to the end.'

Munira Thibia, a small young woman from the poorest quarter, now famous for her bravery:, said: ' Guests, please take our stories and make them be seen all over the world'. Nizar's friend Nasri Charfeddine wants to start a local radio here , so that at last Kasserine can speak for itself instead of only being spoken about.

Someone looking like an El Greco painting, tall and thin with huge eyes, makes his way with grace on crutches to the stage. His leg has been lost....Why are British soldiers being given the best prosthetics and medical help , when these nonviolent heroes - of a democracy we all claim to support - are being left to cope on their own? At our next meeting, I find myself standing up and promising to help. Either to bring a medical team here or to bring the injured to good hospitals in England.

In the week after our visit , Ministers visited both Sidi Bou Zid and Kasserine for the first time. (Flattering to imagine that our witnessing might have had any influence). Importantly, 80% of development funds for this year are now to be allocated to the long-forgotten interior regions. Unfortunately at Kasserine the ministers stayed for only three hours, spending part of their time with officials from the former regime. Nasri is facing eviction, as rents rise and promised jobs don't arrive in time or in numbers.

Meanwhile at Sidi Bou Zid, the unpopular Interior Minister was shouted down by striking policemen, demanding that the few officers arrested for implication in the killings should be released. Police have been have been in a menacing sulk for much of the time since Ben Ali left.

At the seaside resort of Hammamet, policemen have virtually disappeared since local people stopped paying bribes. Yet I walked around many times at night and the town was utterly safe; a taxi driver explained how everyone looks out for everyone else. People are more philosophical here. 'The new policemen we can trust are still in the barracks being trained, and it takes time to track down the bad old ones and put them in prison.'

I enjoyed the glorious beaches almost alone, many holiday companies having foolishly cancelled. A local bather taught me the words of Tunisia's republican Hymne Nationale, the stirring Risorgimento march I'd heard so often in buses and halls the length of the country.

When the people want life,
Destiny must surely respond - (a sentiment disliked by the fundamentalist 'integristes', some of whom are even shopkeepers in this most unlikely of towns) -
The night must end,
And the chains be broken!
On my last day, the Tunisians slowly came out to play. Elderly women in white scarves, boys turning handstands, men selling melons and prickly pears, a female couple walking hand in hand along the sands; they came politely, in dozens rather than hundreds, and we're mad if we don't come back and join them soon.

This was what Yousef Tlili meant, then , when he concluded his speech on the first day : 'In the course of this revolution I've discovered my country. I've travelled from the mountains to the desert, I've seen parts of my own home town Tunis which I never knew existed....We're discovering our culture; we're discovering the picturesque beaches and extraordinary landscapes which were reserved either for tourists or for "a certain person"....'

That certain person. Ben Ali's old estate at Hammamet is so huge that you can't even see the palace from the gateway. Now it belongs to the army - or officially to the people. After the elections on July 24 we'll see who really is in charge.

To help bring community radio to Kasserine:
achrafnasri@hotmail.fr or dsenghor@panos-ao.org
To help bring medical help to Tunisians wounded and disabled in the revolution: med.saha@gmail.com or amseb@blueyonder.co.uk

To see international accounts and images of the WSF 'Tour of solidarity with the Tunisian revolution': www.worldsocialforum.info www.ciranda.net/mot/tunisia
www.globalproject.info www.youtube.com/wsf2011 www.mouvements.info giuseppecaruso.wordpress.com www.flickr.com/photos/61710489@N03

Thanks to Amanda Sebestyen for giving permision to use this material. You can also read her article in Tribune magazine:
http://www.tribunemagazine.co.uk/2011/05/the-sights-sounds-and-smells-of-the-arab-spring/