Stories of Change Beyond the ‘Arab Spring’
22 January 2011 – Algiers, Algeria AFP Photo
Demonstrators face riot police outside the opposition Rally for Culture and Democracy (RCD) party’s headquarters.
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28 February 2011– Benghazi, Libya Patrick Baz/AFP Photo
Anti-Gaddafi protesters wave their old national flag, while standing on an abandoned army tank, as world powers ramped up the pressure on Gaddafi’s regime.
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12 February 2011 – Algiers, Algeria Farouk Batiche/AFP Photo
People shout during a march called by the National Coordination for Change and Democracy.
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Stories of Change Beyond the ‘Arab Spring’
Table of Contents
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Petra Stienen
More Than One Season
17
Arslane Bestaoui
30
‘The Man of the House’
Roger Anis
Revolution Up, Tourism Down
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Mohammad Tolba
A Simple Salafi Dream
72
Mohamed Alalem
Shahd
82
Kenza Sefrioui
98
A Library in Each Village
Amine Boussoffara
Ghosts of the Revolution
106
Kacem El-Ghazzali 126
For a National Day of Sexual Freedom
Zara Samiry
My Taboo Child
134
Zied Ben Romdhane
Children of the Moon
156
Stories of Change
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Samir Toumi
Today, or Tomorrow Perhaps
176
Mahmoud Khaled
The Beautiful Lake
184
Nader ElGadi
The New Decision Makers
206
Mohamed Ali Eddin
230
Beard Phobia
Kaouther Adimi
246
Revolution for Dummies
Doura誰d Souissi
Fishermen of the Kerkennahs
254
Ahmed Hayman
Seeing Without Looking
276
300
310
Stories of Change, Reporting Change
298
Table of Contents
Map Timeline
26 February 2011 – Algiers, Algeria Farouk Batiche/AFP Photo
Supporters of President Abdelaziz Bouteflika stage a counter-protest against an opposition rally.
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February 2011 – Cairo, Egypt Jan Dago
Demonstrators kneel for evening prayers, beside a protective cordon of tanks placed by the Egyptian military around Tahrir Square.
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Stories of Change
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More Than One Season Petra Stienen At times I search on YouTube for that one video by a group of young Egyptians that reminds me of the optimism in the Arab world during those first months of the spring of 2011. We see people on Tahrir Square in Cairo singing along: ‘In every street of my country, the voice of freedom is calling.’ A father and his daughter, a potato seller, farmers, students, housewives, civil servants, businessmen, women’s activists, Egyptians of every walk of life used their voice of freedom. They gathered at that famous square to bring down the dictator in a spirit of collectivity and citizenship that ever since has seemed almost utopian. For many viewers in the West, these uprisings came as a surprise. Somehow the image had sunk in that there was an inherent complacency in North Africa with the status quo of poverty, inequality and oppression. Nothing was further from the truth. For months, every time one switched on the television, opened a newspaper or went on to internet, one could hear people singing not only in Cairo, but raising their voices in the streets of Casablanca, Algiers, Tunis or Tripoli. ‘Al-Shaab yurid isqaat annizaam’: the people want the fall of the regime. This sentence resonated almost everywhere and was inspired by the poem ‘The Will to Live’ by the Tunisian poet Abu al-Qasim al-Shabbi. He wrote this poem in 1933, as a protest against the French occupation. Many people in the Arab world know the first sentence of this poem by heart: ‘If one day the people want to live, then fate will answer their call’. Indeed, the power of the people seemed bigger than the people in power. And it is just this idea that springs from the photographs and the archive images in this book; it was the people of North Africa who took their fate into their own hands. After decades of living under dictatorships they were ready for a real change. They wanted justice, dignity and freedom. They stood up, More Than One Season
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spoke out, sometimes at great cost and personal sacrifice. The Egyptians had had enough of decades of President Mubarak, and of an inner circle that stood for corruption and abuse of power, and was the cause of great inequality throughout Egypt. The Libyans could no longer handle the cruel dictatorship of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi and his sons. The Tunisians were happy to see President Ben Ali flee to Saudi Arabia. Only in Algeria and Morocco was the mood a little different. There were demonstrations, but somehow the leaders of these countries managed to maintain their power, through compromise and promises. For the time being. Of course, each country has a different story to tell, and even within the five countries represented in this book, one will find different perceptions of the recent changes, depending on who you talk to. But one thing is certain, the uprisings changed the image of the region abruptly. No longer was it a region that meant only trouble for the West, due to illegal migration of thousands of youngsters and as a breeding ground of Islamic extremism. Everywhere, personal stories popped up in our media that gave a bigger picture: the new generation in the Arab world wanted real change. We could read about young people with degrees, not able to find jobs; about young women asking for the right to work outside the home—and also about young Muslim brothers who felt they had been excluded from any form of political participation. More and more, Western audiences realized that the largely youthful population in the Arab region (more than 50 percent are under 25) were mostly excluded from everything we take for granted in our lives—from health care to proper education, from proper jobs to a voice in the political process. This passion for change was contagious and created a great sense of optimism. Pundits, observers and journalists in the West were quick to name these uprisings the ‘Jasmine Revolution’, the ‘Arab Spring’, or the ‘Arab Awakening’. Others were thrilled by the so-called Facebook, Twitter or Youth Revolution. For many people in North Africa, these terms did not do justice to what was happening. They denied the years of protest and opposition before 2011, and implied a quick-fix-solution in one-season-only, after decades of dictatorship, corruption and poverty. Quite soon after the first euphoria, it became clear that there is nothing romantic about a revolution. As a political commentator, I called at the time for a sense of realism. I compared the situation to that of newlyweds after they return from a honeymoon. However great the love is, someone has to earn an income, do the groceries, and put out the garbage. After the first year of the Arab revolutions, the results of decades of bad governance were evident to everybody. The revolutions themselves had not yet brought the much-needed economic growth, new jobs, justice, or smoothly functioning democracy. Many people were mourning the deaths of loved ones who had died in the protests. Real change definitely does not occur in one season only. Over the next few years we will see a number of parallel revolutions taking place. In the political arena, the fight is about what kind of state will be shaped after the revolution: a military, Islamic or civilian state? The question is how people can become citizens of the state, instead of subjects of a dictator or a monarch. In the meantime, we see considerable economic hardship throughout the region, with a high percentage of youth unemployment. According to calculations by the UNDP, at least 50 million jobs will be needed by 2020 to absorb newcomers to the labor market. In addition, the impact of modernization, of social and other modern media, and of globalization is evident in a sociocultural revolution. The question of who we are, and of what is acceptable and what is not, will become more and more pressing. This is especially evident in discussion about women’s and sexual rights. In the meantime, a counterrevolution by elements of old regimes is regaining ground to the extent that some people argue that things are worse now than before. It is indeed obvious that the powers-thatStories of Change
were do not let go easily, and will be capable in years to come—via military, security or economic connections—of regaining previously held influence. For Western readers and viewers, it is still a challenge to look beyond first impressions, even more so since the joyful mood of the first months of the spring in 2011 has faded. But if we are willing to look beyond the headlines of violence, unrest and despair, we still can find images that tell a different story. This is precisely the importance of Stories of Change, Beyond the ‘Arab Spring’: the book brings us views and voices from countries in North Africa that we don’t often encounter in the Western media. This collection of work by photographers from the region is clearly not trying to tell the conclusive story, but the eleven photo-stories and five written articles in the book give an intimate look into the lives of real people. We get an impression of how the revolutions have affected people’s lives, their dreams and their future. The power of the collection is the power of the diversity of the region. The stories give different answers to the question: What did change bring about in these countries? A fisherman in Tunisia will give a different answer from a Moroccan activist for sexual rights. A working mother in Algiers will see a different future from a manager in an oil company in Libya. The owner of a tourist shop near the Giza Pyramids might see a bleaker future than a single mother from Casablanca with a newly acquired diploma. Whatever happens in future years in North Africa, it will certainly take more than a season, and most likely a generation or two, before we can make a final assessment of the impact of the revolutions and changes of the spring of 2011. In the meantime, the photographs and stories in this book can remind us that beyond the headlines of political developments, people in North Africa are trying to find a way to determine their own futures, hoping for a life with dignity and humanity.
Petra Stienen Petra Stienen is an author and independent advisor. She worked as a human rights diplomat at the Dutch Embassies in Egypt and Syria from 1995 to 2004. After she left the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 2009, she established her own business as an independent advisor in the fields of democracy, diversity and diplomacy for various clients, including government, NGOs and commercial companies. She is a leading thinker in the Netherlands on European relations with the Arab world. Stienen is an established public speaker. In February 2012, she More Than One Season
won the Women in the Media Award 2011 for her work on the Arab revolutions, on TV and radio in the Netherlands. Her second book (in Dutch) Other Arab Voices—Towards a New Future in the Middle East? was published in September 2012. Her first book Dreaming of an Arab Spring—A Dutch Diplomat in the Middle East was published in April 2008. In addition to her books, Stienen contributes regularly to newspapers, magazines and websites. She is board member of various organizations such as CARE Netherlands and Masterpeace. Stienen studied Arabic and Middle Eastern studies at the universities of Leiden, Cairo and London.
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14 January 2011 – Tunis, Tunisia Fethi Belaid/AFP Photo
Smoke rises from fire that remains following clashes between security forces and demonstrators, after Tunisian president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali had dismissed the government and called early elections.
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