Even the officials and politicians who are supposed to tell people like me that all is well and that I do not know the whole story because I am only talking to the disgruntled few are themselves frustrated. I haven’t been here long enough to get beyond the impressions and anecdotes, but it is hard not to notice an undercurrent of disappointment, frustration, and cynicism. The quote is a simple and powerful rebuke to the oft-repeated phrase that Tunisia is “the one Arab Spring success story.” The country is not yet a success, but it also is not a failure. For those less familiar with Tunisian history, on November 7, 1987, Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali pushed the country’s founder, Habib Bourguiba, from power in a palace coup, and December 17, 2010, is the day when Mohammed al-Bouazizi set himself on fire in front of the governorate building in Sidi Bouzid-an act of desperation that began the Tunisian uprising that deposed Ben Ali almost a month later. They used to be November 7, now they are December 17.”Ī young Tunisian said this to me in Sidi Bouzid on Sunday. “The only things changed are the names of the streets.
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