12 years have passed since the outbreak of the Tunisian revolution, specifically on December 17, 2010, when a young man, Mohamed Bouazizi, from the Sidi Bouzid governorate, set himself on fire, in protest against difficult social conditions, and in rejection of an injustice that he considered unjustly oppressed.

The revolution is still a continuous event and an uninterrupted dynamic that frames the scene in Tunisia to this day, a scene that has not yet revealed its final directions, repercussions and results.

Tunisia lived and is living a continuous revolution, a revolution with all its successes and disappointments, with its victories and setbacks, progressing at times and faltering at times, but it does not seem to have stopped or reached its final stage, but rather it is a path in time and history. Did the July 25 coup really stop the path of the revolution and the democratic transition in Tunisia ?

It certainly doesn't seem capable or possessive of that.

The course of the revolution over the years has injected into the structure of the political and societal system a political culture and public awareness that no longer compromises or accepts the restriction or deprivation of public rights and freedoms.

In its annual report, the International "Al-Fikr" Foundation for Democracy and Democratic Support concluded that Tunisia, for the first time since the revolution, has left the club of democracy to the club of hybrid regimes, which is the category that exists on the margins of democracy and the margins of dictatorship.

There is no doubt that this retreat of Tunisia in the matter of democracy is due to what Tunisian President Qais Said did on July 25 in terms of undermining the elected institutions, seizing all powers and powers in his hands, and managing the country through decrees, in a precedent that has not happened in Tunisia since it obtained the law. Independence, and this political retreat is part of the stumbling blocks and setbacks experienced by the revolution, progress and retreat, ups and downs.

However, no one can deny today that the revolution in Tunisia continues, as civil society and the Tunisian elites valiantly fight for the gains of freedoms and human rights, and exercise the right to expression in all its forms and at its various levels, believing that these rights cannot be relinquished, and they are historical gains that have been extracted after Resistance to tyranny, confrontation with dictatorships, and sacrifices made by successive generations of militants and reformers from various intellectual and political currents.

It was neither surprising nor strange that since the first day of the coup against the elected institutions and until today, Tunisia has been witnessing, at the popular and political levels, a non-stop movement in the face of the de-facto authority in order to curb it, and just as the Saïd regime practices the de-facto policy by force, the political and societal forces exercise their right to expression, criticism and protest. Without fear or awe of the authority, its motto is "Exercise your rights and freedoms and do not demand them."

It is true that the coup aspired to expansion and swept the public space in order to control it, and the regime used in that operations to pursue the opponents of the coup, ranging from kidnappings and arbitrary detention to harassment (harassment) by raising charges and fabricating cases and investigating dozens of opponents of the coup under the headings of corruption files or conspiracies against National security, however, it is a wildness that recedes and recedes every time under the protests and counter-campaigns of the opponents and the gift of the human rights activists who have uttered many fabricated cases and fabricated files.

Lawyers have moved on many occasions to the fore, turning their pleadings in each case into a trial of the Said regime and condemning its practices. The course of the revolution over the years has injected into the structure of the political and societal system a political culture and public awareness that no longer compromises or accepts the restriction or denial of public rights and freedoms. And the position of large sectors of lawyers, judges, journalists, many human rights activists and trade unionists, as well as many political forces, made them the knights of the comprehensive battle against the coup, and the restoration of the spirit of the revolution, a rejection of tyranny and authoritarianism and a defense of rights and freedoms.

Hundreds of protests and gatherings have taken place, rejecting or criticizing the current authority. Opposition leaders, civil society forces, and many media outlets address public opinion directly and publicly, directing sharp criticisms of the de facto authority. Indeed, many of them consider, according to the reference of the 2014 Revolution Constitution, that the current authority is an orderly authority. Indeed, it is illegitimate, and that all its governmental and electoral paths are unconstitutional and unacceptable.

And if it seems that the current system today does not reflect the popular will, which can only be through elected institutions - and today it is merely an expression of the de facto authority overpowering it - then society today seems to be in a rupture with this system, as it seems that today's reality establishes a real rupture between Society and the state, the state is not the people's state, nor the people the state's people.

Despite everything that was hidden and not revealed about the merits of the July 25 coup and the controversy that followed, some considered it a coup and others saw it as a correction of course, all of this does not prevent it from being placed as an event despite its seriousness within the course of the revolution, progress at times and stumbling at times, and in this it is like the assassination of Shukri Belaid on February 6, 2013, or Muhammad al-Ibrahimi on July 25 of the same year, and thus it is an expression of the vibrations and bumps in the course of the revolution.

Second: This coup did not turn the page on the revolution and did not end it. Rather, his narrative today is based on the claim that what he is doing is correcting the path of the revolution, claiming that he is proud of it and has saved it. Therefore, Qais Saeed, who rules today with de facto authority, found no alternative but to attribute himself. For the revolution, and falls rightly or wrongly in its context, and contrary to what Abdel Fattah El-Sisi repeats in Egypt that the January 25 revolution was the cause of ruin and destruction in Egypt. Qais Saeed celebrates the revolution, and even celebrates its outbreak as an annual national holiday.

Twelve years after the Tunisian revolution, with all its achievements and disappointments, Tunisians are clinging more than ever to their rights to expression and protest. They exercise them in spite of power instead of claiming them. The requirements of the deep societal revolution.

This state, with its philosophy, logic, and rationality, is still inhabited by the pre-revolution and is dependent on it through a traditional bureaucracy whose interests are entrenched and its internal and external connections intertwined. It is a tight system that is not subject to transformations, and is not digesting changes. It is a state that has worked to absorb and contain the momentum of the revolution for more than a decade, deceitful, but It does not seem, until now, to be able to harmonize with its entitlements and requirements.

And the state today, the more it thickens in the revolution, the more it thickens in itself, especially with the popular and societal insistence on change and crossing Tunisia into a new phase in which the state is renewed with a political structure, government institutions, and a social contract in which the institution of governance is linked to the people, a contract that does not prevail.

Tunisia, with its revolution, achieved a qualitative transformation in the political culture of society, citizen awareness and saturation with freedoms and human rights, and a democratic culture that established coexistence between the different, and excluded and rejected the culture of violence, at a time when violence was the dominant theme in many other countries.

As much as it is permissible in Tunisia to talk about the “deep state” in referring to a controlling system whose lever is the deep bureaucracy, and its tools are influence, some of which are hidden and some of which are obvious, it is equally permissible to talk about a deep democratic political culture and a society that always possesses the factors of resistance and steadfastness, and these factors today represent impregnable fortresses In the face of total tyranny and complete control of power.

The dynamic of change triggered by the spark of the Arab Spring more than 10 years ago is still the most important actor and driver, directly and indirectly, of the political meeting in Tunisia and in all countries of the region.

These societal fortresses in the face of tyranny and control may seem fragile and weak, but they soon regain their vitality and organize various forms of resistance, and they did so during the eras of Bourguiba and Ben Ali, and we think that today they are more solid and immune and more ready for resistance.

And while Zine El Abidine Ben Ali succeeded, after his coup in 1987, in controlling the scene and controlling it for 23 years, the July 25 coup dissipated its momentum within weeks, consumed its balance, and disappointed its bets. His isolation deepens whenever he tries to legitimize his path. The forces that were deceived by the deception of Ben Ali's regime when he rose cannot be reassured today unless they witness Qais Saeed's coup at its wreckage.

Many become frustrated to the point of despair from the miserable scene that Tunisia appears to be, especially as it is an impression governed by the moment, unaware of history and its coercion. All of us are facing profound transformations in which there is absolutely no stability for the ruling regimes, which are dominant, overpowering and domineering.

The dynamic of change unleashed by the spark of the Arab Spring more than 10 years ago is still the most important actor and driver, directly and indirectly, of the political meeting in Tunisia and in all countries of the region. The failure of his bets returned to the January 2011 revolution, cursing it and blaming it for all the misfortunes of Egypt, certain that that "moment he returns to curse every time" has become the framing of everything that followed it.

12 years after the Tunisian revolution, societal forces continue to defend change and curb the system of government for authoritarianism and control, and the deviation of July 25 is nothing but a bump from the many bumps that preceded it and others that may follow it in the course of the Tunisian revolution, the Tunisian revolution with which it was liberated and its flame lit strong pillars Darkness in the Arab region, a region whose people yearn for freedom and rational and rational regimes, a revolution that launched a continuous dynamic of liberation and change that did not stop despite the claims of victory declared by the counter-revolutions.

The entire Maghreb region is agitating and leaping insistently on change, as well as the bloody East that is experiencing restless labor from Egypt, Sudan and Yemen to Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Iran. Some have described it as new waves of uprisings and revolutions, and it is, in conclusion, a continuous revolution that feeds on the flames of the Arab Spring that broke out 12 years ago. And Tunisia had the honor of slandering him, and she had the honor of keeping his flame raging, it is the revolution that has been going on for 12 years.