Tunisia's Hopeful Youth

In January 2011, Tunisian president Ben Ali was ousted in the Tunisian Revolution, the first uprising of the so-called "Arab Spring".  Despite the country achieving an average GDP growth of 5%, citizens endured poor living conditions, high unemployment, food inflation and lacked of freedom of speech, leading to the mass protests.  Later that same year, Tunisia held its first fully democratic elections.

We visited Tunisia shortly after the elections had taken place, and we found the country still very tense.  (The fact that we were unknowingly staying in the same street as the former president's palace probably didn't help matters.)  There was still a state of emergency declared, a curfew imposed and police checkpoints every few hundred yards.  There was a fatal shooting very close to where we stayed, and we relied on correspondence from the Foreign Office to keep up to date with the situation.  And yet, I couldn't help but fall in love with this country and its people.

Earlier this month, we returned to Tunisia and found something different - hope.

Some tensions still remain (there was a shooting at a border crossing earlier this week), however the country has returned to a relatively peaceful and stable situation.  The police checkpoints remain, but aren't as regular or as threatening as before.  The country still suffers great poverty, which is particularly evident amongst the elderly and in the bidonvilles, or shanty towns.  The main industry in the Sahel region is olive farming, and agriculture still relies largely on horses and mules rather than mechanisation.  However, the young people of Tunisia tell a different story.

From the  way they talk about their country through to their acute sense of fashion, the young people of Tunisia show a confidence in their own future.  Doubtless there is an aspect of Western-style consumerism tied up in this, but largely it shows that they are enjoying the freedom that they now have, and have a firm belief that the future is theirs for the making.  They place a high value on education, and on equal rights for men and women, two things that were fought for by the founder of the Republic of Tunisia Habib Bourguiba. 

They radiate a valuable message for us all - there is hope.