Tunisia: ‘We don’t care if they lock us up, we have nothing to lose.’

Published in MO* magazine.

‘We should revolt, start a revolution. We should burn and demolish. We don’t care if they lock us up, we have nothing to lose.’

These words, perhaps somewhat surprisingly, were uttered by a middle-aged working-class woman from Tbourba, a rural town west of the capital Tunis. I spoke with her a year ago, during research I conducted into the working conditions of rural women in Tunisia. She was not the only one who insisted on sharing her story.

Most women who work in the agricultural sector, young and old, share the same predicament: poverty, no right to social security, access to informal and heavy labour at best, guaranteed unemployment at worst. The desperation among these women is poignant, yet the government is taking hardly any action.

Internet, fuel and food

Fast forward to early 2018. A young man from the same town of Tbourba dies on January 8 after a police car hits him during a protest. He is the first fatal victim of a wave of protests that has raged across the country since January 3.

Most Tunisians are unhappy with the government’s January 1st launch of a new budget plan which has entailed a rise in VAT and consumption taxes and cuts in the public sector.

They fear that this legislation, which brings about price hikes for internet, fuel and food, will deteriorate the living conditions of Tunisian citizens. In a country in which a third of its youth is unemployed, these kind of governmental decisions are guaranteed to spark a backlash.

In the big cities of Tunis, Sousse and Sfax, a new social movement, Fech Nestannew (‘What are we waiting for?’), led the protest. The movement, principally headed by highly educated urban youth and leaders of the student union, saw fifty of its members being arrested in the first 48 hours of the protest.

Many others followed, with more than 800 arrests in total, in a wave of repression and intimidation that was reminiscent of the authoritarian pre-2011 era. Meanwhile, the political parties of the ruling coalition denounced the demonstrators as mere anarchists and looters.

Turbulent times

Following pressure from the streets, even though the government has announced a number of cosmetic adjustments to soften the effects of the budget plan for low-income families, politicians largely keep ignoring the legitimate root causes of the protest: unemployment, austerity policies, social justice.

The initiators of ‘Fech Nestannew’ have announced their refusal to give up the protest for as long as the budget plan has not been cancelled. A new march is scheduled on January 27, this time in front of the parliament.

Seven years after its revolution – the anniversary took place on January 14 – Tunisia is again facing turbulent times. The country has never fully stabilized after its popular revolution in 2011, having undergone recurring moments of socio-economic and political protest.

Although Tunisia is seen as a democratic success story and even received the Nobel Prize, the country faces many difficulties.

In addition to a series of terrorist attacks in 2015 that paralyzed the tourism sector, a silent return of authoritarian practices (e.g. the silencing of journalists, the marginalisation of parliament and opposition) and rampant corruption have emerged, all of which are to the detriment of an already struggling economy.

The severe economic crisis that has gripped the country for years now means that today the Tunisian dinar is at an all-time low. Where 1 TDN in 2012 still had a value of 0,5 euros, today, five years later, its value is less than 0,3 euros.

Well-known economic recipe

Under pressure from international institutions, the government therefore decided to implement austerity measures to cut the country’s deficit. It is a well-known recipe: international organisations such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) are prepared to grant a loan to a country in crisis, provided that this country commits to austerity measures. Jobs in the public sector are reduced, the economy is being deregulated and privatised, and government subsidies are being cut.

Tunisia has a history of receiving these loans, with the most recent one, which was agreed upon in 2016, now causing trouble. In order to meet the conditions of the loans, the state and public sector are gradually made redundant in favour of a private sector that is not yet established in Tunisia.

All this results in increasing formal unemployment, a growing informal economy and state capabilities, such as the ability to create new jobs, being eroded. This contrasts sharply with the social contracts that were characteristic of the region during the 1960s and 70s, when the state was providing jobs in the public sector.

Of course, the IMF loans also need to be repaid. In 2018, no less than 22 percent of the national budget will go to debt settlement. While the announced budget plan is intended to replenish the state treasury, it looks like the austerity measures will mainly affect the poorer sections of the population.

Bread riots

The response is therefore to be expected: anger and popular protest. It is not the first time that austerity policies have led to protest in Tunisia. In January 1984, in a very similar context as today, Tunisians took to the streets to denounce the announced price hikes on basic products such as bread.

The protests, which resulted in more than 100 fatalities in total, went down in history as the ‘Bread Riots’. The riots of 1984 did not fail to achieve their goal: former president Bourguiba cancelled the announced price increases. Today the demonstrators also hope that the budget plan will eventually be shelved.

The protests today raise questions about the role of the IMF and other international partners such as the EU and the US in Tunisia. Since the revolution, the country has received three loans from the IMF, yet the economic situation remains dire.

If the Tunisian Revolution of Dignity (‘Karama’ in Arabic) is to succeed seven years on, a new economic formula will be necessary, one that focuses on day-to-day concerns of the population, rather than neoliberal dogmas. According to experts, regional inequality, corruption and tax evasion should be structurally tackled instead of disproportionally transferring the costs of the economic crisis to the lower social classes, as is now happening with general austerity measures.

Back to ‘la Femme’

This brings us back to the rural women of Tbourba. As elsewhere in the world, the female half of lower social classes are generally most affected by austerity policies. Savings on public services (education, health care, childcare) often force women into traditional working patterns, taking up more unpaid work at home in order to avoid the extra costs caused by cuts.

In addition, women are also the ideal candidates for the part-time, flexible and underpaid work that the new neoliberal economy requires. This economic climate, in combination with a patriarchal culture, results in overworked Tunisian women who try to maintain their families at all costs, while unemployed Tunisian men spend their days whittling away time in cafés. The sometimes grim protests today, in Tbourba and elsewhere in the country, show that this situation is no longer tenable.