By The local
To start, I’m a declared revolutionary since the 14th of January and that date is not a secret from anybody, it’s infecting every bit of my actual days: during my morning coffee, on the way to the café with my neighbor or brother, at home with my 5 years old nephew chanting “Khobz ou ma, w Ben Ali la”… I wasn’t on sit-ins or gun fights, just a common Tunisian from the suburbs.
By this time, I should been more busy, my phone should consumed more “dinars” taking care for all services our tourists requested!! I was good, and that profession made me as patriotic as I could been… to be franc, I didn’t engage or been “snatched” to do that civil duty (the army), I didn’t mind our national football team losing and they did it often, the sight of the “flag” for me is just another masquerade prepared from our “mostly hated” rulers, as for our police, I avoided all possible encounters with them and maybe I’ve should have been more active.
I see people suffer, regular people those making in this ever shrinking season from tourists what they spend for the whole year and desperately waiting for each April to get their kick from what their country offered and it wasn’t that great to start with… “my” people were used and left to use others by the same rulers they paid salaries to create such an obscure sector and leave the glamour of our country to the hands of a few, who cried for help and usually made the poor barman, driver or machmoum dealer… pay for their extravagances. All the owners (mostly parasites to the sector) were small Ben Alis; they couldn’t “assassinate” yet or didn’t have the opportunity but they surely gave the least to their employees, just enough to keep them quiet, mostly without any social coverage… it was rotten, but with seven million guests, it was still manageable.
It was routine, a bad one but I accepted it and a lot of others did… now, I got my ninety nine political party and they all confuse the hell out of me… now that I’m free due to this major cause, I can’t spell DEMOCRACY anymore, how many politically correct souls could evolve from fifty five years of successive dictatorships… I lose the conversations as soon as they start commending the doings of Bourguiba, sure he died poor, the country wasn’t any richer when he left it… his follower ZABA, was an excellent beggar, a great credit snatcher, we didn’t leave any UN or Europeans bodies or single countries not to spill on us some change and some doctor title for him but his real kick was that he lives like a king and his harem, sure his siblings liked it too. He was a hungry man, counseled by a younger cougar, a man-eater and a hair dresser diploma to top that, He won’t be missed.
Where my interest goes down on conversations also is when they call me paranoid of the non-harmful Nahdha, I’m against it but really scared of them consuming the virgin political brains of my countrymen… they will never let the beer flow in our hotels, no white skin will be laid on our beaches, it will be interesting to watch our hotels re-design to have 2 separate pools and from where we’ll get 32 million hotel nights? Mr. Trabelsi and his neighbors from La Ghriba should start packing? They thrill me with the Turkish slogan they’re using, I still want the tanks and old Hammers back to their base camps and surely no generals pulling strings behind scenes.
And here comes my hope, the common talking BCE, I can only have respect for the man only considering his age! we need things speeded up and nature dictates the speed on his age… what about some space for the more active, the young, the motivated. Counsel them! give them your wisdom, take a salary, I don’t care it’s not much from what we’re losing every day. I know it wasn’t easy for an honorable man like you to go beg for that money! In a way, your advisors aren’t idiots, cash will do magic, but you got to consider that it will destroy the mentality! Let us earn it! Sure it’s not a big help with all these 99 parties scratching your back or all these facebookers who want “anything” but you! Get over details, deal with your ministers and your few thousand employees, make Ghandi proud! Don’t give them a “fish”! I want to fish! watch the eight o’clock news: they’re ripping each other out for handouts and with all my respect: you have a big hand in all that!!
Conspiracies are common on such times and it’s accepted if served with moderation, we have our policemen everywhere now, army vehicles are still rolling around. The tourist won’t stroll on the pavement of Bourguiba avenue because of the barbwire, our tourist buses won’t cross Metlaoui because of the uprising (just to be correct!) to spend some euros with our countrymen in Nefta, Chebika or Matmata… Mr. Houas, get your jeans on, take the minister’s car and driver on our expenses, feel the dusty road to Ksar Ghilane, drive at night over the speed limit on the bumpy road to Tataouine, have a coffee in Mahres and a hot tea in Sidi Bou Said, take a jeep to Tamerza and help the camels in Douz by paying for a ride… then, when saying “I love Tunisia” they’ll believe you… humor works but it’s never a match to fear… you may be very mad when they play that Al Qaeda propaganda on us, you have a mission and their not helping you, get yourself a facebook account, get common! Hear Pulp! Don’t take sh** from the bureaucrats, move out of the scapegoat spot! ministers are made for that. Don’t bet on Algerians, we’ve been neighbors for a while by now, if Europeans will come sure they’ll visit us and it’s only a “one way” formula…
It’s time to get tough on these blood sucking hoteliers, our stars aren’t a scale anymore because of them… lets honor what we print in our brochures and leeflets. Ideologies didn’t change, but we have fewer then our needs right now and it never helps a hundred fifty rooms hotel with 11 clients in June for 10 € a night. Chaos doesn’t do us any good, I want my 7 million tourists back, I just “want to live like common people” then I’ll promise I’ll vote.
No single country ex french colony got ou of undervelopment. This must have something to do with what I call “franalphebetism”. I mean following blindly the french system inherited from colonism = continuous intellectual colonism.
1. inadequate education system that fabricates future unemployed. Some problems:
– “grande école” = feudal mafia-like club, starting with this f… “ecole polytechnique” which has nothing to do with technology, merely unuseful theoretical maths. These so called “engineers” are merely abstractionists. “grande école ” is merely a title of nobility, compared to what was going on back to Louis VXI time …
– pharmacist at bac + 6 years repeating like a pappagallo ar like a recorder scientific matters without understanding them !!!, for a simple shop tenant ( épicier ), while in Germany, UK USA it’s just Bac + 3 with smart learning !!!
– in Germany, no such “grandes ecoles”. Universal university system for all. And it works far better than France, for Germany is Nr 1 expoter: Made in Germany.
– in Sweden, Finland .. they don’t use french or german. They use their own mother tongue, resp. swedish, finnish + english . And they do have some industrial giants eg. SKF, Ericsson, Volvo, Nokia, Kone …
I suggest to use our mother language , not french, in Tunisia.
2. french justice system = feudal, stupid, slow, bureaucratic. the so called “Hakem Tahqiq” ( juge d’instruction ) is a huuuge nonsense. Compare with neighboring Malta that uses british system based on Common Law.
3. business law ( droit commercial) = complicated bureacracy and lot of paper work for nothing. Compare again with Malta, or the US, where you can set up a company by merely filing a single application form.
IN SHORT: forget about France and her french language and french system. Francophony gone by the 19th century. Our century is anglophony. Use your mother language in school + english.
it is time to move out from the frogs language,away from the french
and get on with the rest of the world by using english.
I’m not impressed by the french attitudes,nor by any other measure
that comes from them.
their behaviour,impolitness,arrogance,bad manner and attitude to
other people. they shouldn’t be rewarded and made feel grand.
tunisians will be better off switching to an anglophone camp to gain
a bigger picture of the world and let the french fry like potatoes
and shrink like snails,and sink in te sweat of their arrogance..
thanks local for your output and it comes with all the flavours
of a local output….well received and appreciated.
the free will have to use their mother tongue or master the tongues of those that scued them over and over again.
Arabic witch is not mastered by the tunisians is a thousend times richer than any other language on the globe .
those that tend to prefer french are merely incapable to express themselves in arabic and when they do it’s a dialect of the region they come from let alone the french they use, especially the generation of ben ali ” iqlab ittanjara 3ala fomha , il bnayya titla3 lomha”
even abroad and after being there for years the vast majority is still uneducated and therefore abused by their hosts wich might be french, italian etc…
mark my words ” illi stanis billou9ma lbarda wallah ma t9oumilou 9aima”
It’s true that the country lost revenue from the tourism industry and a lot of people are suffering right now. I will say this situation is not going to stay forever and soon tourists will come back because of the beauty of the country and the hospitality of its people ( Not because Tunisian official beg for tourists).
About having good relationship and open borders with Algeria, this is crucial for both economies. Just ask the Algerian living at the border with Morocco and they will tell you about the consequences.
For the democratie… You have to be used to it. I know it’s hard to adjust to it because you spent all your life under one man one rule.
Thank you for your article.
the vast majority of those calling themselves EDUCATED are like hens with their feet in the shit and they scream glory
they don’t even know how to manufacture safety pins, yet when u point that out to them they certainly think you are jalous of them.
the hard working class is mainly excluded and considered as backward, their french is often worse tthan arabic .
it is a bunch of nutwits that claim inventing football, modernisme and what ever else you might be thinking off.
the freedom they suddently claim will defenitely distance itself from them for the simple raison : they don’t F…. deserve it!
tourisme will bounce back but it may not be soon as some would expect or hope for.
at the moment tourisme need to have a hard look at itself.
the return versus investment is pathetic and can’t be sustained.
less then two billion dollars for over seven millions plus touriste
isn’t much of a reward.
the practices has to change,these packages with an all inclusif
is a very short sighted practice by the part of tourisme management.
we need a very big think and a course change.
there wil be a boom in future on condition that we become open,
reorient our methods,be true to ourselves and turn the field to
our advantage.
yes we have a nice natural assets,a very warm friendlyand welcoming
manners but we don’t control other people perception of us.
we have to earn it by creating a pleasant impression on their minds.
we got to win their hearts and from that their wallets.
we have to be worth visiting and stand out from a competitif market?. and I think we can…..yes we can. we can triple the 7 millions visitors.
If aunty had balls she will be my uncle all in theory.
what we need is a just open democratic society and system.
the rest will fall into place mean time a hard period will have
to be overcome and let the forces of open creativity come to
the forefront.
ghallitou 3lina ilkhobz bistupidite mta3kom
1. the french are not only arrogant, feel-superior … well known for their “folie des grandeurs” ( hence “grande ecole”) … they HATE arabs, muslims esp. north africans, including tunisians.
2. Finland ( 10 m inhabitants like Tunisia ). They use their own mother language + english. The result: NOKIA ( cell phones ) KONE ( escalators, elevators ) … exported to France, without using french !!! same goes for Sweden: in France, the Metro, TGV, Rafale … all using swedish SKF bearings, yet they use their own language, swedish not french.
I would be delighted the day I see industrial products made in Tunisia, written in arabic, and exported to France. Just to show them that we can bypass their f… language.
getting rid of hizb Ben Ali is not easy. Getting rid of Hizb Fransa — the french system inherited from colonianism — is another story.
Franalphabetism ( see my post above ) is a major plague in Tunisia. Franalphabetism led to the “regime presidentiel fort” … to Ben Ali.
In neighbouring tiny Malta, no such a president. A prliamentary democracy headed by a prime minister.
Malta is just 100 miles off Tunisia, and their language, the maltese is a … tunisian dialect !!!
Wake up !!!