As a Tunisian citizen and political science researcher, I have worked in particular on the political demonstrations that took place in the mining valley of Gafsa in the Tunisian south-west in 2008. The importance of the social movement that has been taking place since mid-December, and my interest in understanding the political processes and the authoritarian regime in Tunisia, impelled me to return to Tunis in the middle of last month.

Ben Ali, the ruling dictator of 23 years, to whom many credited the stability of the regime, was forced to leave the country by a peaceful uprising of its citizens. In spite of this, not all the thugs have left, and the dictatorship is not over.

Tunisia is young country and it is the youth of the poorest regions, the suburbs, and the urban centers that have, with their courage, forced the dictator to flee. Their initiative, their marches, their creativity on the internet proved critical. The new government must take them into account.

I have been back in Tunis since January 13th specifically to witness the incredible, democratic fervor of the citizenry. A recap of five days of the revolution:

Thursday, January 13th:

I arrive in Tunis. From the airport exit on, the army has been deployed in the main streets since the previous evening. A quiet atmosphere, saturated with anxiety, reigns in Tunis and the suburbs. All schools have been closed since eleven. Few city dwellers have gone to work today. People hurry to get back to their homes; the curfew begins at eight p.m. Everyone awaits the President’s speech, endlessly announced and delayed late into the evening.

With the first sentence uttered by president Ben Ali, the small group of friends around me bursts into nervous laughter. With his uncertain dialectic, his habitual rhetoric, tense—and, at times– strangely funny, the resident of Carthage gives the impression he’s pleading to be allowed to continue his presidential term until 2014. He takes on tones reminiscent of Bourguiba, even of de Gaulle, but they are always clumsy: “I understand you”, “No more censorship”, “No more gunfire”, “I was misled”… The dictator appears harangued, frightened.

At the end of the speech, a few ruling party militants express their “joy for the changes announced by the president” with a concert of car horns. Only they can risk breaking curfew, not us. The police have ordered us to stay in. Millions of tn.bloggers, tn.tweeples, etc… fight back vigorously all night on the web so that “our dash to victory will not be amputated”.

Friday, January 14th:

Some 3,000 people, the most “politicized”, gather in the Mohamed Ali square in front of the Central Union headquarters. The administration office of the Union itself is overflowing with the union leaders of opposing federations. We leave at 9:30 for the Ministry of the Interior and are joined by a constantly swelling crowd. Masses of young people. The protesters, many more than 100,000, stand packed before the Ministry of the Interior and chant hostile slogans for three hours: “Ben Ali, get out!”, “Bread, Water, Ben Ali-No!”… The ruling party’s attempts to retaliate, or to recover lost ground, are few and futile.

Suddenly, after seeming to have been totally dispersed, the police return in a full-on stampede, sending tear gas canisters flying into the scattering crowd.

Returning, we learn that the government has collapsed. The army is in the streets without power. The police shoot live rounds; there are deaths…

At five o’clock, rumors circulate: the president is trying to flee.

At eight, an official announcement from the prime minister, flanked by the presidents of both chambers: the president has indeed fled. The prime minister will manage the interim.

Saturday, January 15th:

I had to seek refuge at a friend’s house because shooting began again in the Bab Jazira neighborhood, in the center of Tunis.

The dictator is gone, but there is a nasty atmosphere today. The army is everywhere and nowhere at once, and plundering gangs of old-regime thugs start looting. Helicopters fly over the city constantly. The television announces a return to normalcy with the re-opening of the airport, etc… But calm has not returned here. In all the neighborhoods residents organize themselves into “security committees”.

Driving through city neighborhoods and suburbs this afternoon, it’s clear that the pillaging and looting everyone is talking about were highly targeted aimed almost exclusively at supermarkets belonging to the family and in-laws of the deposed president, which prospered during his presidency. A few police stations have also been torched, but mostly it’s the offices of the ruling party. In the end, there is little destruction of the infrastructure, and no lynchings.

The army defends the main streets, stopping thieves and hired cars. The soldiers maintain the flow of traffic. Militant members of Ben Ali’s party, the RCD, are arrested, as are corrupt police officers. The people maintain control of their streets, and members of the RCD keep a low profile; it’s still a state of emergency.

The risk of party militants using blackmail against the security forces seems slim.

A funny slogan is going around today today: “The people demand a presidential seat made of Teflon so the next president won’t stick!”

In the evening they hold the street in Bab Jdid, another neighborhood in the medina.

“Citizen groups,” made up of young neighborhood men (not members of the RCD, at least not here), are posted at each street corner armed with batons to “secure” the area. They also fly a white flag, as a signal to the army helicopters constantly flying overhead.

It’s a learning experience, a new responsibility for these men. Of course, contrary to appearances, the women are not far away, and they also maintain control of the street. People peacefully discuss politics: “Never again, we won’t ever be led on like that again ”, “We chased him out, he fled, but he will come to justice”…

A wave of excitement rises whenever a car approaches or when emissaries make a show of exchanging gunshots. An incredible scene: a police car drives by, is stopped, identity cards are demanded–and the plain-clothes policemen obey.

Gunfire resounds in the distance. From time to time the noise of flying bullets gets nearer. Meanwhile, in Carthage, negotiations with the legal opposition parties aim to elect a national union government to organize presidential elections within sixty days, as the constitution requires.

Most importantly: it has been a peaceful movement of citizens that has blown away the authoritarian regime.

Sunday, January 16th:

Gunshots still echo in Tunis, but return to normalcy is the word of the day, and it begins to become reality. Little by little, the cafés re-open in the city center.

People are full of hope. In the streets, people talk until they lose their voices, miraculously free of taboos. At the forefront of everyone’s thought are fundamental questions: the conditions of Islamist political expression so long repressed, yet rarely visible during the days of demonstrations; the methods of judgment for the wrongs of the old regime;what place the new generation, who fought the demonstration battles, will occupy; the end to the state of emergency and the withdrawal of the army; the coming elections…

Monday, January 17th:

I spent the morning in the southern suburbs of Tunis, the working-class suburbs.

As is happening elsewhere in the capital, calm is slowly returning. Stores have re-opened, but in the grocery stores and the market place, the beginnings of a shortage can be felt. In spite of this, customers wait patiently in front of the bakeries, as though resigned.

This morning Tunisians returned to work, though most people went home in the early afternoon to turn on their satellite televisions. Everyone is starved for news. The wildest rumors continue to circulate about lingering gangs of mobsters allied with Ben Ali; the sound of sniper fire in some corners of the capital…

Still, no one surrenders to panic.

Translated from the French by Eliza Squibb and Laila Pedro

Chronicle of a Revolutionary Moment

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