Goddammit, I know I'm late but I honestly didn't have the mind, nor time, not even the access to post in here. To sum it up riots started around a young merchant who burned himself out of protest.
He was a well educated young man, with a university degree. He studied informatics, but was forced to sell vegetables and fruits to keep his family alive. He somehow got into conflict with the police, his belongings were destroyed and to top it off, they beat the shit out of him. The Police in Tunisia is quite different than what American or European users may have experienced in their respective countries. I think only South Americans and South East Asians may feel me on this one, but authorities are the fucking most horrible thing ever. They can do whatever the fuck they want to do with you. Try to complain, seriously try, go to the police station. They will point at you and laugh, tell you to not waste their time at best. You get humiliated and can't fight back.
But what mostly plays into this is the frustration of the well educated young people. Despite having an university degree you can't get a job wihout bribing the right people or having the right connections. That's how it started, resistance against this situation. Nobody wanted to get rid of the president at that point. But when the government tried to surpress everything with violence instead of listening, priorities changed and there was a backlash of full rage directed to the government and the president's clan. You have to know the president and his family SHAMELESSLY and greedily abused their postion for themselves. The president lived in a freaking president castle (no really) and he has a tight grip on the economy of the whole country. His wife owns her own fucking airline, for fucks sake!
What provoked everyone even more is was the extreme violence (at parts in the south of the country they used Machine Pistols, 14 deaths in one day), and the shameless lying in national TV. Everyone knew it was a riot, with our own people dying. What do you see in the television? Masked terrorists from abroad are trying to infiltrate our country!
FUCK YOU.
Slowly shit got out of control, the only way to get reliable information, was calling relatives and watching foreign news channels via satellite.
Sometimes Euronews but mostly Aljazeera were on 24/7 (Imagine this, they even tried to forbid this by destroying TVs in public cafes who had this channel on). I kept in contact with people I study with across the country. Normally university should have started last wednesday, then it was postponed, now cancelled completely together with any other educationaly institution. Don't know when they will re-open. Three days ago they cut of the electricity for one day in my town, I don't know if it was part of some weird govern-mental bullshit or if the riots reached the local power stations. The Post office was on fire, burning cars and all that armageddon stuff you see in movies, all there. The universities were filled with rioting students, a guy I study with sent me a video from Bizerte, where we study, showing how they police would beat the shit out every single one with sticks and use tear gas. THANK GOD nobody I now was seriously hurt except for a broken arm.
Yesterday they rolled up the military and enforced a curfew. They said that it was to our own security, but inofficially it was know that they'd shoot whoever violated it. Thank god nobody gave a fuck. Yesterday at this time the now ex president Ben Ali also held another little speech in national TV. I have to say I was astonished. He actually admitted his wrongdoings, agreed that there was a problem. This is some MASSIVE thing for a factual dictator. But…too little, too late! Now it's really time for some celebrations.
I have to admit I was really really goddamn scared at times. Especially with family members living in areas where it was known they'd used gunfire. I'm honest, I didn't see this happening. We are normally very peaceful and enduring people, on top of that any feeling of political fire was a good as gone. I was born and lived almost 20 years under the very same president. I was hoping in my dreams for something like this, but honestly, I thought this would go down just like it did in Iran. Nothing but hot air, resistance that would reach it's peak and then would come to nothing. Damn, I've never been so happy about not being right. The state is left in chaos, I know, but I'm way too happy to give a fuck at this moment, maybe tomorrow, when everyone has calmed down, we can give this some serious thinking. They are singing the national anthem outside, I'm off to celebrate in the city soon!