As I waited this morning on news of a rumored coup in Tunisia, I thought I’d re-read Kamel Riahi, who says of his stories that they reflect “the lives of the poor [in Tunisia], the homeless, the shoe polishers, الشطّار, young criminals, prostitutes, crushed employees, sailors and street peddlers.”
Yes, I realize that you can’t understand the goings-on of the “real” world by reading fiction. Nonetheless, the “untameable Tunisian volcano,” as Riahi is described in the preface to Emerging Arab Voices, has a fresh and interesting literary voice. And what else am I to do? I’m sure my political analysis would be dreadful.
Both Riahi’s novels, The Scalpel and The Gorilla, deal with social unrest sparked by an individual’s actions. In The Scalpel, a motorcyclist is slashing women’s backs. Two marginalized characters who are investigating the case—a black man and a white man—disappear on the same day in the city.
The English-language excerpt of The Scalpel published in Beirut39: New Writing from the Arab World is most interesting for its absurd newspaper reports and counter-reports, sheikhs claiming that the slashed women must’ve been loose, protests in solidarity held in Mexico, statements from the World Health Organization, and for a public argument on the matter between two academics.
Riahi’s newest novel, The Gorilla (translated by Peter Clark), begins:
Revolt
About one o’clock in the afternoon. The wind is busy rolling along some beer-can that has been drained of its contents in the deserted street. A massive silence links the arch of the Sea Gate with the enormous clock-tower where Muhammad V Street crosses Avenue Habib Bourguiba. The tranquility of the deserted capital city is shattered by its well-known nutter: a suspicious man is circling the tower for the last time, before detaching him from people, warning them of the poison of the hands of passing time above.
(Ignore, if you will, the slight pronoun/actor confusion in the English, the hyphenation of beer can, and so on.)
Soon, ambulances and police cars sound. People come out into the street. Something is happening at the clock tower:
A small remote figure, apparently no bigger than a finger, is climbing the clock-tower with the speed of a cockroach.
This sets off a chain reaction:
Nervous police surround the crowds. Auxiliary police run in all directions talking into their radio sets. Gesturing nervously they ask the man up there to come down from up there; it is out of bounds.
The suggestive, allegorical nature of it—the characters of The Leader, the gorilla—and the back and forth between the “gorilla’s” past as a bastard child of the Leader and his present atop the clock tower make for compelling, if sometimes jagged reading. Riahi also has some excellent descriptive moments:
A broadcaster with a prominent forehead wears a spotted black tie. He opens his eyes wide open.* He allows a period of silence during which those viewers who have known this man’s distinctive style hold their breaths. He then speaks in sombre tones,…
*Don’t blame Riahi for the repetition of “open,” which is not suggested by the Arabic.
More about Riahi:
An interview with him conducted by Sousan Hammad.
A somewhat awkwardly footnoted story of Riahi’s, “Youssef,” published in the Arab Washingtonian. Translation by Cécile Gault.
And Tunisian literature (in English):
Banipal’s Take on Tunisian Literature Disappoints
Focus on Literature from Tunisia at the Frankfurt Book Fair 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/19/opinion/19riahi.html
January 18, 2011
A Night in Tunisia
By KAMEL RIAHI
Tunis
IT is Friday, Jan. 14, in downtown Tunis. In the streets, we shout “No!” — a million tongues together against the dictatorial, 23-year-long government of President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali. Tear gas, bullets and death fly above us. We are ambushed at the Barcelona metro station, one of the city’s main transit hubs, and attacked with tear gas. I cover myself with a black scarf as I run toward Bourguiba Avenue, which tourists call the Tunisian Champs-Élysées. There, we are met with sticks and rifles.
Counting our every breath, we dodge bullets for many more blocks until we run into a wall of police officers in civilian clothing. They order us brusquely into a nearby metro station, pile us into trains and take up positions at each end.
An old man near me who had left his home to buy bread and got caught up in the demonstration is gasping. I tear my scarf in two and give him half. I would love to ask him what he thinks of the protests against the government, but everyone is struggling against the tear gas.
•
That night, the militias come out. In my apartment building, we hear bullets ringing overhead. My wife is shaking. Word of raids and rapes has begun to be broadcast on the radio and on the streets. She asks me, as she looks at our 18-month-old son, Haroun, playing and laughing to himself: “What will we do if they attack us? Please don’t defend me; take care of Haroun.”
I reply, “Be quiet, please, just be quiet.”
She says, “I don’t want Haroun to live if we’re dead.”
I go out to see if our neighbors and I can take shifts standing guard outside our building. I take a small kitchen knife and a metal rod. I ring my neighbors’ bell. No answer; either they’re not at home or they are panicked. I shout from the bottom of the building’s staircase, “Neighbors, get down and let us prepare ourselves!” No answer.
I know that the building is half-empty and that its front gate is unlocked. Worse, on the top floor lives a man who I suspect is a member of a militia loyal to President Ben Ali’s ruling party.
I return to our apartment. My wife says, “No one’s there, of course.” I try to calm her down, but Haroun is a rambunctious child and we can’t explain a state of emergency to him. My brother, who is in the Tunisian Army, phones and asks me how we are doing, telling me that his wife is also besieged in the area where he is posted. My brother fails to reassure us.
Tunisian television is making me nervous. Another politician is announcing, slowly, that he is taking power, and he interrupts himself, saying, “By God Almighty, protect yourselves.” A civilized nation is announcing its independence from keeping the peace.
I can’t stay here and keep looking my wife in the eye; I’m panicking too. I once lived in violent Algeria, and decide to rely on my experience there. So I grab an ax, and kiss my wife on her forehead. I take my place on the building’s steps, intoning, “Either kill or be killed.” The night plods along, heavy, murderous.
I hear that the militias are driving around in requisitioned ambulances. They are transforming the vehicles from carriers of mercy to carriers of death. The country has suddenly become the setting for a Hollywood gangster movie, its peaceful, enlightened people the extras.
Shots ring out, and I hide behind a wall. The sounds of an army helicopter come from far away. I slip back into my apartment to see my wife’s petrified, questioning face. Haroun is dancing joyfully.
I try to reassure her, telling her that I am all right and that the army is protecting us with its helicopters. Haroun comes up to me and shows me his toy, a small police car. He shocks me by saying, “Sheriff?” — referring to a character from the animated movie “Cars.” I say, “Yes, yes, my son,” and kiss him absentmindedly on his head. I wonder, is the era of the sheriff over?
I go back out to my sentry post and decide to take refuge in the Koran. But I forget the opening section, the Fatiha, with its prayers for God’s guidance; I stumble over the lines, jumbling their order. I think of writing, and feel for my pencil in my coat pocket. I don’t have any paper other than my address book, so I open it in the dark, wanting to write down anything.
Suddenly, bullets ricochet all around me. I flatten myself on the ground. I wait to hear the helicopter again before I return inside to reassure my family and recharge my energy with Haroun’s enthusiasm. I think of myself as the protagonist of Paul Auster’s “Man in the Dark,” who describes his situation in this way: “I am alone in the dark, turning the world around in my head.” I grab the iron rod to defend my home and my dream.
•
On Saturday morning we venture into the street to find our neighborhood filled with unfamiliar faces. The shopping center near my home has been looted. I go with my wife and son to a relative’s house to coordinate our neighborhood security. With sticks and stones, we take control of the neighborhood. We spend that night shooing away strangers and strange cars. In the morning we roam the city looking for bread and milk for our children. There is no milk to be found. Gradually, city residents become used to the state of emergency and the curfew, and begin to enjoy the free time they now have, especially since they are able to speak freely, able to openly curse and ridicule Mr. Ben Ali and his corrupt family.
On Monday we are told that a new “unity” government has formed. When Tunisians see that some members of the old regime have been named to cabinet posts, there is a new wave of disturbances, and people start saying that the revolution has been stolen from them.
On Tuesday, young people again take to the streets, demanding the dissolution of Mr. Ben Ali’s party, the Democratic Constitutional Rally party, which has ruled Tunisia since independence in 1956. Others argue that this risks being a repeat of the purges of members of Saddam Hussein’s Baath party in Iraq, which contributed to the insurgency there. While I agree that it may be impossible to dissolve the party without sending the country into chaos, I think we have no choice but to try.
There are also demonstrations at the offices of the largest opposition group over its complicity with the old regime in the new government. By the end of the day at least five ministers have stepped down, and nobody knows what will come next.
As for myself, I feel an overwhelming happiness that I will now be able to write freely. A year and a half ago, one of my novels, which describes life under oppression, was performed as a play at a cultural center here. Those of us involved were monitored constantly by the police; none of the journalists in attendance wrote reviews.
That is why I support the revolution and, like so many of the young people, worry that it will be stolen from us by the traitors, thieves and killers who have ruled us for far too long.
Kamel Riahi is a novelist. This article was translated by Ghenwa Hayek from the Arabic. Maureen Dowd is off today. Thomas L. Friedman is on book leave.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/19/opinion/19riahi.html
scrittore e giornalista culturale Forse un giorno le rivolte in corso contro i regimi verranno ricordate come “La guerra della Tunisia”. I popoli arabi non hanno mai vissuto una vera rivoluzione: quelle definite “rivoluzioni” son…o stati piuttosto colpi di stato militari.
La gioventù che ha guidato la rivoluzione tunisina su Internet e in piazza è illuminata e istruita: ragazzi di destra e di sinistra, laici e religiosi, che rifiutano gli slogan e non credono né nelle ideologie né nelle personalità carismatiche, ma solo nelle competenze reali dei leader,delusi dalla dinamica politica ma anche dai partiti religiosi.
Anche se a volte diamo l’impressione di essere emotivi, in realtà, siamo un popolo di razionalisti.
Il fondatore della Tunisia moderna Habib Bourguiba diceva che non bisogna credere alle lacrime né ai ricatti sentimentali dei politici.
I giovani di Tunisi, nipoti del bourguibismo, sono assetati di libertà e non vogliono certo consegnarla all’Islam. Guardate le foto delle manifestazioni: nessuna immagine di Che Guevara o di Mao Tse-tung, nessun Gandhi o Khomeini. Sono scesi in piazza per reclamare uno stato laico retto dalla tolleranza, dalla legalità e dalla libertà.
(Ha collaborato Francesco Leggio)
هذا رأيي فيما يجري في تونس لجريدة شمس 24 ساعة الايطالية
http://www.ilsole24ore.com/art/cultura/2011-02-27/ridateci-futuro-082012.shtml?uuid=AakbF1BD&fromSearch
http://kamelriahi.maktoobblog.com/
مدونة كمال الرياحي الرسمية
http://kamelriahi.maktoobblog.com/1528113/1528113/
ميرسي يا كامل، انشاء الله كل كويس في تونس.
أنا مش فاهمة إيطالي ، لكن الحمد لله في جوجل.
The Internet has long had a means of resistance, but resistance was elitist, made by some journalists or bloggers. During the revolution, however, the network has become the battlefield. A battle parallel to what happened on the ground: it was the rising transmission, distribution and information analysis, and the motor of the drive to reorganize each time. We “Facebook”, for example, we were divided on several fronts: there were those in the field in the first few days, filming or taking pictures with mobile phones and sent us the material, and us, even from distant places would put the material in network, wrote the lyrics and identify times and places of events. The “Facebook” is not a simple array of news, as it may be a war correspondent, but at the same instant in which the recorded image and send it created a new fact. It was like a fire that spreads: the images on the Internet created new reactions and new images. Ben Ali was deposed from the images. And from these images, his own. Every time he appeared on television did it with great fear upon him, has placed itself before him deponessimo us. If there had been a network or Tunisian or Egyptian revolution could continue, at least initially. Then his role has waned. But the network was able to break the wall of fear and to push the masses to take sides, to organize and down the street. It was the alternative means of information regime