Voices of the Arab Spring

Personal Stories from the Arab Revolutions

Asaad Al-Saleh

• Publisher: Columbia University Press
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9780231538589
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Democracy
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Narrated by dozens of activists and everyday individuals, this book documents the unprecedented events that led to the collapse of dictatorial regimes in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and Yemen. Beginning in 2011, these stories offer unique access to the message that inspired citizens to act, their experiences during revolt, and the lessons they learned from some of the most dramatic changes and appalling events to occur in the history of the Arab world. The riveting, revealing, and sometimes heartbreaking stories in this volume also include voices from Syria.

Featuring participants from a variety of social and educational backgrounds and political commitments, these personal stories of action represent the Arab Spring's united and broad social movements, collective identities, and youthful character. For years, the volume's participants lived under regimes that brutally suppressed free expression and protest. Their testimony speaks to the multifaceted emotional, psychological, and cultural factors that motivated citizens to join together to struggle against their oppressors.

1. Tunisia

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.

TUNISIAN REVOLUTION: GAINING OUR FREEDOM AND DIGNITY

Abes Hamid

Judge, male, 36, Monastir

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.

THE DEATH OF MY COUSIN AND THE BIRTH OF A NEW TUNISIA

Ahlem Yazidi

Student of linguistics and literature, female, Cherifet

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...