Tunisian youth as drivers of socio-cultural and political changes: glocality and effacement of cultural memory?

ABSTRACT

The prediction that the nation of Tunisia would initiate a walk towards democracy was not on anyone’s mind. In the context of two draconian regimes and a colonial past, the 2010 Arab Spring brought significant changes to Tunisia, observable mainly in freedom of expression and association. This helped to create and shape a space wherein Tunisians’ daily lives reflect the cultural juxtaposition of an Islamic heritage with a secular propensity. This paper examines the content of Tunisian cultural memory from youths’ perspectives on the past, cultural icons, and nostalgia. It argues that Tunisian youths’ disenchantment with the socio-political life in Tunisia and its impact on their feeling of belonging hinges on a sense of fracture or discontinuity in the nation’s cultural memory, considered the blueprint of Tunisianité or national identity. The paper demonstrates that despite youths’ hybrid culture, influenced by ‘globalization’ and ‘glocalization,’ the majority of surveyed youth value, inter alia, family life, and identify with the Islamic culture and religion. Tunisia’s youth may know little of their pre-colonial and post-colonial history, but Tunisians should reengage with their young constituency through education and a cultural memory that binds generations. This will ensure that the Tunisian culture does not absorb western values and ideals in the name of progress.

Research Ethics and Conflict of Interest

I can confirm that I am the sole author of this paper, and that I have submitted this paper to the British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies alone. I can confirm that I have received ethics approval from Deakin University Human Research Ethics Committee (HAE-20-020) before carrying out this research. I can also confirm that I have no conflicts of interest, and that I have seen, read and understood the guidelines for copyright.

Notes

¹ Safwan M Masri, Tunisia: An Arab Anomaly (New York: Columbia University Press, 2017), 355.

² Cited in Derek Hopwood, Habib Bourguiba of Tunisia: The Tragedy of Longevity (New York: Palgrave, 1992), 142.

³ For a full discussion on the Tunisian dialect, see Lotfi Sayahi, Diglossia and Language Contact: Language Variation and Change in North Africa (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017); Salah Garmadi, ‘Quelques faits de contact linguistique franco-arabe en Tunisie’, Revue Tunisienne des Sciences Sociales 8 (1966): 23–56.

⁴ Karima Fadhlaoui-Zid et al., ‘Genetic Structure of Tunisian Ethnic Groups Revealed by Paternal Lineages’, American Journal of Physical Anthropology 146 (2011): 271–280.

⁵ Kenneth Perkins, A History of Modern Tunisia, 2nd ed. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 141.

⁶ Reem Sudi, ‘Nisbat uzūf tatajaawaz 75% … Chabāb yuqātiʿ al-intikhābat … wa yastaqīl min al-hayāt al-ama [Abandonment of Election Exceeds 75% … Youth boycotts the Elections..And Quits Public Life], Al-Sabah, 26 November 2014. http://www.assabah.com.tn/article/93199/نسبة-عزوف-تتجاوز-75-٪-شباب-يقاطع-الانتخابات-ويستقيل-من-الحياة-العامة

⁷ Abdelwahab ben Hafaiedh and I. William Zartman, ‘Tunisia: Beyond the Ideological Cleavage: Something Else’, in Arab Spring: Negotiating in the Shadow of the Intifadat, ed., I. William Zartman (Athens: the University of Georgia Press, 2015), 60.

⁸ Amal Al-Hilali, ‘jāʾū ʿala al-ʾaqdēm … Kais Saied yaftaḥu ʾabwāba Qartāj li-chabāba al-Jihāt al-muhammacha’ [They came on foot … Qais Saeed opened the doors of Carthage to the youth of marginalized parties], al-jazeera, November 18, 2019. https://www.aljazeera.net/news/politics/2019/11/18/تونس-قيس-سعيد-شباب-بطالة-قصر-قرطاج

⁹ Asharq Al-Awsat, ‘Saied Elected Tunisia President on Tide of Youth Vote’, October 15, 2019. https://aawsat.com/english/home/article/1946246/saied-elected-tunisia-president-tide-youth-vote

¹⁰ https://www.internetlivestats.com/internet-users/tunisia/ (accessed May 15, 2020).

¹¹ Roland Robertson, ‘Glocalization: Time-Space and Homogeneity-Heterogeneity’, in Global Modernities, eds., Mike Featherstone, Scott Lash and Roland Robertson (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1995), 25–44, 29.

¹² Ibid., 29

¹³ Adriana Grigorescu and Alexandra Zaif, ‘The concept of glocalization and its incorporation in global brands’ marketing strategies’, International Journal of Business and Management Invention 6, no. 1 (2017): 70–74, 70.

¹⁴ Roland Robertson, ‘Glocalization: Time-Space and Homogeneity-Heterogeneity’.

¹⁵ Ibid.

¹⁶ Ibid., 29.

¹⁷ Ibid., 30.

¹⁸ Ulf Hannerz, ‘Cosmopolitans and locals in world culture’, Theory, Culture & Society 7 (2–3) (1990), 237–251, 236.

¹⁹ Roland Robertson, ‘Glocalization: Time-Space and Homogeneity-Heterogeneity’.

²⁰ Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1990), 64.

²¹ Roland Robertson, Globalization (London and New York: Sage, 1992), 8.

²² Mike Featherstone, ed., Global Culture: Nationalism, Globalization, and Modernity (London and Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 1994).

²³ Anthony D Smith, ‘Towards a global culture?’, Theory, Culture & Society 7 (1990): 171–191, 177.

²⁴ Marwan M Kraidy, Hybridity, or the Cultural Logic of Globalization (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2005), 39.

²⁵ Suzanne Maloney, ‘The Economic Dimension: The Price of Freedom’, in The Arab Awakening: America and the Transformation of the Middle East, ed., Kenneth M. Pollack (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2012), 66–75; Margaret Bohlander, ‘The Youth Unemployment Crisis in Tunisia’, Centre for International Private Enterprise, weblog post; http://www.cipe.org/blog/2013/11/18/the-youth-unemployment-crisis-in-tunisia/; Emma Murphy, ‘Problematizing Arab Youth: Generational Narratives of Systemic Failure’, Mediterranean Politics 17, no. 1 (2012): 5–22; 11; Mongi Boughzala, ‘Youth Employment and Economic Transition in Tunisia’, Global Working Papers 51, no. 79 (2013): 1–28. http://www.brookings.edu/research/papers/2013/01/youth-employment-tunisia-boughzala.

²⁶ See Zouhir Gabsi, 'Tunisia's Youth: Awakened Identity and Challenges post-Arab Spring,' British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 4, no. 4(2017): 1-20; Zouhir Gabsi, 'The Language of Hip-Hop and Rap in Tunisia: Socio-Cultural Mirror, Authenticity Tool, and Herald of Change,' The Journal of North African Studies25, no.4(2019): 545-571; Zouhir Gabsi, 'Rap and Mizoued Music: Claiming a Space for Dissent and Protest in Post-Arab Spring Tunisia,' Sociological Research Online, February (2020): 1-18, doi: 10.1177/1360780419898494; Nouri Gana, The Making of the Tunisian Revolution (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2013); Marwan Muasher, The Arab Centre: The Promise of Moderation (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2008); Kaouther Souissi, ‘L’identité sociale des jeunes musulmans tunisiens et les strategies identitaires de changement: cas d’étudiants garçons et filles, pratiquants et non pratiquants’ (PhD diss., L’Université Paul Valéry Montpellier II and L’Université de Tunis, 2015).

²⁷ Asef Bayat, ‘The Post-Islamist Revolutions: What the Revolts in the Arab World Mean’, Foreign Affairs, 26 April 2011, http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/67812/asef-bayat/the-post-islamist-revolutions; Navej Dhillon and Tarik Yousef, eds., Generation in Waiting: The Unfulfilled Promise of Young People in The Middle East (Washington: Brookings Institutions Press); Jordi Estivill, Concepts and Strategies for Combating Social Exclusion: An Overview (Geneva: International Labour Organization, 2003); Joe Grixti, ‘“Glocalised” Youth Culture as Linguistic Performance: Media Globalisation and the Construction of Hybrid Identities’, Noves SL. Revista de Sociolinguistica (2008), http://www.gencat.cat/llengua/noves/noves/hm08hivern/docs/grixti.pdf.

²⁸ Dhillon and Yousef, Generation in Waiting: The Unfulfilled Promise of Young People in the Middle East.

²⁹ World Bank, ‘Tunisia—Breaking the barriers to youth inclusion (English)’, Washington, DC: World Bank Group, 2014. http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/753151468312307987/Tunisia-Breaking-the-barriers-to-youth-inclusion.

³⁰ World Bank, ‘Tunisia-Breaking the Barriers to Youth Inclusion (English)’, 17.

³¹ Carolina Viviana Zuccotti et al., ‘Rural Migration in Tunisia: Drivers and Patterns of Rural Youth Migration and Its Impact on Food Security and Rural Livelihoods in Tunisia’, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FOA), 2018, 26.

³² Ibid., 26.

³³ Halbwachs, Maurice. La mémoire collective (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1950).

³⁴ Astrid Erll, ‘Cultural Memory Studies: An Introduction’, in Cultural Memory Studies

An International and Interdisciplinary Handbook, eds., Astrid Erll and Ansgar Nünning (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2008), 1–19.

³⁵ Ibid.

³⁶ Ibid., 2.

³⁷ Ibid., 2.

³⁸ Richard A. Posner, ‘What is Culture? Toward a Semiotic Explication of Anthropological Concepts’, in The Nature of Culture, ed., W. A. Koch (Bochum: Brockmeyer, 1989), 240–95.

³⁹ Astrid et al., ‘Cultural Memory Studies: An Introduction’, 4.

⁴⁰ Jan Assmann, Cultural Memory and Early Civilizations: Writing, Remembrance, and Political Imagination (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011).

⁴¹ Ibid., 18.

⁴² https://genius.com/Dc26-im-not-a-businessman-im-a-business-man-annotated

⁴³ John Gray, ‘The Global Delusion. Globalization and Its Enemies’, The New York Review of Books, April 27, 2006, https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2006/04/27/the-global-delusion/

⁴⁴ Ibid.

⁴⁵ Manfred B. Steger and Ravi K. Roy, Neoliberalism: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 12.

⁴⁶ See Abdeljelil Temimi, ‘Symposium on Youth of the Revolution of Dignity and Democracy’, trans. R. A. Judy, Boundary 2, 39, no.1 (2012): 114–35; Fadhel Kaboub, ‘The End of Neoliberalism? An Institutional Analysis of the Arab Uprisings’, Journal of Economic Issues XLVII, no. 2 (2013): 533–44; Elif Kalaycioglu, Emel Akcali and Halit Mustafa Tagma, “Taming’ Arab Social Movements. Exporting Neoliberal Governmentality’, Security Dialogue 44, no. 5–6 (2013): 375–92.

⁴⁷ Christopher Hitchens, ‘At the Desert’s edge’, VanityFair.com, July 2007, https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2007/07/hitchens200707

⁴⁸ Safwan M. Masri, Tunisia: An Arab Anomaly (New York: Columbia University Press, 2017), 35.

⁴⁹ Waleed Hazbun, ‘Images of Openness, Spaces of Control: The Politics of Tourism Development in Tunisia’, The Arab Studies Journal, 15/16, No. 2/1 (Fall 2007/Spring 2008): 10–35, 10.

⁵⁰ Lewis R. Beltran, ‘TV Etchings in the Minds of Latin Americans: Conservatism, Materialism,

and Conformism’, Gazette 24 (1978): 61–85, 84.

⁵¹ John Tomlinson, Cultural Imperialism (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins, 1991).

⁵² Herbert I. Schiller, ed., The Ideology of International Communication (New York: Institute for Media Analysis, 1992), 1.

⁵³ Armand Mattelart, Mutinational Corporations and the Control of Culture: The Ideological

Apparatuses of Imperialism (Newark, N.J.: Harvester Press, 1979).

⁵⁴ Tomlinson, Cultural Imperialism.

⁵⁵ Roland Robertson, Globalization (London and Newbury Park, Calif: Sage, 1992), 8.

⁵⁶ Kraidy, ‘From Imperialism to Glocalization: A Theoretical Framework for the Information Age’, 32.

⁵⁷ Ibid., 32.

⁵⁸ Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity (Cambridge, Mass.: Polity Press, 1990), 64.

⁵⁹ Thomas L. Friedman, The World is Flat: The Globalized World in the Twenty-First Century (London: Penguin Books, 2006).

⁶⁰ Ibid., 482.

⁶¹ Ibid., 478.

⁶² Ibid., 482.

⁶³ Grixti, ‘Glocalised’ Youth Culture as Linguistic Performance: Media Globalization and the

Construction of Hybrid Identities’.

⁶⁴ Joshua Meyrowitz and John Maguire, ‘Media, place, and multiculturalism’, Society 30, no. 5 (1993): 41–

48, 48.

⁶⁵ Yassine Nabli, ‘ʾazmat al-Taʿlīm fi Tūnis: Hal ʾintahā ʿasr al-madrasah al-ʿumūmiyyah?’ [The Education Crisis in Tunisia: Has the Era of Public School Ended?], Nawaat, 7 September 2018. https://nawaat.org/portail/2018/09/07/أزمة-التعليم-في-تونس-هل-انتهى-عصر-المدر/

⁶⁶ Ibid., para. 1.

⁶⁷ Angela H. Gutchess and Maya Siegel, ‘Memory Specificity across Cultures’, in Memory and Political Change, ed., Aleida Assmann and Linda Shortt (New York, Palgrave, 2012), 2011–2015, 204.

⁶⁸ Jay Winter, ‘Foreword: Remembrance as a Human Right’, in Memory and Political Change, ed., Aleida Assmann and Linda Shortt (New York, Palgrave, 2012), vii–xi.

⁶⁹ Ibid.

⁷⁰ Gutchess and Siegel, ‘Memory Specificity Across Cultures’.

⁷¹ Kmar Bendana, ‘Ideologies of the Nation in Tunisian Cinema’, The Journal of North African Studies 8, no. 1 (2003), 35–42. halshs-00607315.

⁷² Ibid., 36.

⁷³ HAICA, ‘The President of the Commission Decides to Stop the “Tunisia is for all of Us” Program on Channel 9 and Present its File to the Council’, https://haica.tn/2020/03/رئيس-الهيئة-يقرر-إيقاف-برنامج-لكلنا-تو/#

⁷⁴ Maher Chaabane, ‘Épouse ton violeur ! L’émission « Andi ma nqollek » suspendue pendant 3 mois’ [Marry your Rapist! The program ‘Andi ma nqollek suspended for 3 months], http://www.webdo.tn/2016/10/19/epouse-violeur-lemission-andi-nqollek-suspendue-pendant-3-mois/

⁷⁵ Hedia Al-Chahed and Ibtisem Jamal, ‘Al-ʿailāt w al-chabāb min dhaḥayāha: Musalsalāt Ramadan … Fasād wa Ifsād [Families and Youth are its Victims: Ramadan Series … Corruption and to Corrupt], Al-Shurūq, June 3, 2017. http://archive.alchourouk.com/252568/567/1/العائلات-والشباب-من-ضحاياها:مسلسلات-رمضان- … -فساد-وإفساد?fbclid = IwAR1YvssxAEvE0NxIl9TMlH_g90MvDpu9XbbuygpJz1XtC0p7diW1jnsspww

⁷⁶ Author (2019).

⁷⁷ Ibid.

⁷⁸ Kevin McDonald, ‘Social Movements’, in Social self, Global Culture; An Introduction to Sociological Ideas, ed. Peter Beilharz and Trevor Hogan, 2nd edition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 257–267.

⁷⁹ Dennis Loo, interview by Rob Kall, August 18, 2011, The Rob Kall Bottom Up Radio Show Podcast. https://www.opednews.com/Podcast/Dennis-Loo-Globalization-by-Rob-Kall-110817-987.html

⁸⁰ Ibid.

⁸¹ Yadh Ben Achour, Tunisie: Une révolution en pays d’islam [A Revolution in an Islamic Country] (Tunis: Cérès, 2016), 128.

⁸² Ibid.

⁸³ Thomas L. Friedman, The Lexus and the Olive tree: Understanding Globalization (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1999), 221.

⁸⁴ Robert J. Lieber and Ruth E. Weisberg, ‘Globalization, Culture, and Identities in Crisis’, International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society 16 no. 2(2002):273–296, 275.

⁸⁵ Mahmoud M. Al-Nujairi, Al-ʾAmn al-Thaqāfī Al-ʿArabī: al-Taḥaddiyāt wa ʾāfāq al-Mustqabal [Arab Cultural Security: Challenges and Future Prospects], (Riyadh: Dar al-Nashr, 1991).

⁸⁶ Ibid., 19.

⁸⁷ Ibid.

⁸⁸ Lieber and Weisberg, ‘Globalization, Culture, and Identities in Crisis’, 285.

⁸⁹ Ibid., 292.

⁹⁰ Edward Said, Orientalism (London: Penguins, 2003).