In memory of the martyrs
The news struck like lightening. When everybody thought the protests which started one month ago to be an ephemeral wave, we witness nowadays how wrong were we by underestimating Tunisian people’s will.
Tunisia maybe has seen the birth of a new political and social era where the power cannot be considered outside the cadre of people’s interest. What started with a suicide attempt by the now famous torch man has developed to unprecedented events burning not only Tunisia, but the neighboring countries as well.
From Algeria to Jordan, passing through Egypt, restless people are protesting everyday against the long established and deeply rooted corruption which has infiltrated highly ranked officials’ brains, making from them ruthless beasts tearing people’s salaries apart and drowning the small remaining glimpse of hope of an entire nation in the dark seas of poverty.
Zin El Abidin Ben Ali, after decades in power, governing in Tunisia like Pharaoh did in ancient Egypt times, has never anticipated such a reverse situation where, after torturing his opponents, stealing his citizen’s work efforts and crushing rebellious youths with his scary military machine, he escaped like dog from his own empire, finding nowhere to hide, no country to welcome him and all his former supporters turning their backs to what turned to be a failed investment in western directed dictatorship.
If Tunisian should teach something to the next generation, it would certainly be this great historical breakthrough, this new insight in what we commonly call ‘by and for the people’. If Martin Luther King had a dream, North Africans have now a bigger conception, not only a dream, of a totally challenging yet practical concept of democracy, a pure state of the Marxism idealism, a reachable utopia where people govern themselves by themselves in a divine sense of brotherhood.
Personally, this revolution thought me an unforgettable lesson:
No matter who you are, how powerful or weak you seem or to which level you’ve completed your education, everyone without exception is capable and able to make a difference and to be a change maker. Belief and motivation can lead anyone to print with his blood or with his words a whole chapter in the great History book and to insert with huge characters his name in order to not be forgotten.
Tunisians have written today’s paragraph in the hope we will continue this unbelievable story. Are we ready to do so?
Last but not least, here is a video with the national anthem of Tunisia in memory of the martyrs who fell in the battle field, struggling to build a better future for their sons and maybe for their compatriots all over the world.
Mohamed Amine Belarbi
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