Mohammed Ali Latifi - Sidi Bouzid
The development train has stopped for decades, and the promises of operation have not left the government records. This poor city has not changed its features despite the passage of eight years since the revolution broke out. All that is done is the tears of the mothers of the martyrs and the spread of poverty. And blood.
Protests and hot confrontations have not ended since the beginning of December 2010, and sit-in camps are everywhere, so that the eighth anniversary of the events of December 17 has seemed faint in the hearts of the people, although the city bride wore all her jewelry to celebrate, Development demand is pending indefinite notice.
| Bilal Al Gharbi from the youth of the revolution in front of a model of the car of Bouazizi (Al Jazeera Net) |
Absence of development
Bilal al-Gharbi, one of the youth of the revolution, sits in the corner with one of his friends, unemployed, who used to kill their time in this cafe or other cafes that filled the city.
He says to Al Jazeera Net that they stole the revolution from us, just as they stole our dreams, here all the bodies still hold the sulfur matchsticks to ignite the revolution again, in a way that might repeat an incident. Ihram Mohammed al-Bouazizi.
The West is watching the pale faces of passersby, which are absent from the smile and replaced by anxiety and depression. It evokes the events that Sidi Bouzid experienced during the revolution and, with despair, adds to Al-Jazeera Net that the demands for which the Tunisians revolted are still elusive. Today's youth prefer to eat sea fish To stay in Tunisia.
| Giant image of Mohamed Bouazizi symbol of the Tunisian revolution (Al Jazeera Net) |
The people of this town do not feel a radical change in their lives, and they all agree that they have become free in this poor city that toppled the regime of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and inspired a number of Arab countries to revolt against Repression and dictatorship.
Zuhair Ghunaimi is watching the vehicle of Mohamed Bouazizi, a young Tunisian who set fire to his body in front of the governorate's headquarters on December 17, 2010, in protest at the confiscation of his source of livelihood, a small vehicle for selling vegetables and fruits.
Al-Ghunaimi told Al-Jazeera Net that Sidi Bouzid province has achieved many achievements after the revolution, perhaps the most important of which is the gain of freedom of expression, but the winds of economic conditions did not come as the citizens desire to improve living conditions and provide job opportunities for the unemployed. Achievements.
At a distance of tens of meters, the playwright roams Bouazizi Square. He realizes that the spark of revolution that he embodied in one of his documentaries is still going on, and the demands of development are a dream for future generations.
| Asad al-Bouazizi: Popular demands have not been achieved despite the passage of 8 years of revolution (Al Jazeera Net) |
Development and justice
On the occasion of the calls for development spread on the wall of the entrance to the city several writings, the line of young Sidi Bouzid sad, carried many slogans calling for work and positive discrimination between regions, and successive governments since the revolution bear responsibility because it did not succeed in achieving the demands of their revolution.
According to political activist Mahmoud al-Ghazlani in a statement to Al-Jazeera Net that the collapse of the value of the dinar, which led to high prices and high cost of living, created concern in low-income groups, in light of the increase of monopoly and smuggling, causing a severe economic and social crisis, especially in light of declining rates of economic growth and high unemployment rates .
Al-Ghazlani stressed the necessity of establishing and activating a number of principles after these years, namely the right to employment, positive discrimination, reducing the differences between the parties and giving Sidi Bouzid the right to fair development.
Asad al-Bouazizi, activist in the revolutionary movement after his release from the prisons of Ben Ali, confirms to Al-Jazeera Net that popular demands have not been achieved despite the passage of eight years of the revolution, which called for freedom, employment and social justice, which generated disappointment in the poor areas where unemployment and marginalization have increased.
According to the latest statistics issued by the National Institute of Statistics, the unemployment rate in Tunisia was 15.5%, or 639 thousand of the total active population, while the number of cafes to the limit of 25 thousand cafes, according to data from the National Institute for Statistics.