tirsdag 10. oktober 2017

Visiting Tunisia: A story about a father and a daughter

For you, my American, Korean and perhaps Canadian or other international friends who have seen me put out several blogposts lately with foreign pictures, I’m on a trip to Tunisia. There I’m visiting an organization working for peace and reconciliation called Friends of Tunisia, and the activist and writer Lina Ben Mhenni, who visited Stavanger Culture House (where I work) in September. It’s been a ride so far, traveling by myself from one city to another in North Africa, facing some fears and prejudices on the way, and talking to different kinds of people, from men at the hotel and on the train, to film makers, authors, journalists and other people working with culture, that surround Lina wherever we go. 

Besides the bodyguard and the police following her, there are always people stopping her. But to be a friend of Lina’s it almost seems like you need to at least have published a few books or spent a couple of years in jail! Of the maybe 30 I’ve met non of them are what I consider ‘ordinary’. I haven’t met one who is just a student or works as a nurse or teacher. The most normal people I’ve met are journalists, but then of course they’re not just journalists, but film makers or poets with several published books. Is this really normal here? I wonder, though what we consider ‘normal jobs’ are few and they all struggle financially, even Lina. 

One of the first people I meet is her father, Sadok Ben Mhenni. He is publishing a book today about his six years as a political prisoner in jail, but when I ask him he doesn’t know how the book sale or reviews have been so far. “I’ve been too busy today!” he says, but clearly not too busy to follow Lina and me around Tunis city all day, and carrying the ever increasing numbers of bags I acquire. Through my days in Tunis he is never far away. “Saturday I will do the book signing and discussion of my book.” He moves on to tell me about the night he caught his daughter’s attempted murderer outside his home, by a lamp post. The man was outside waiting for her. Now he is in prison. Since then Sadok has been very careful about the police protecting Lina, needless to say, I can’t even imagine being a father of a girl with death treats hanging over her head, and as we speak one pending lawsuit against police men attacking her.

Visiting El Kef
 Yesterday we all traveled nearly four hours, getting up at 5.30 to get to an ancient city up North where it even snows in winter time. It is colder there and it’s a great historic site with old buildings dating back to Roman time. Here we were to take part of a film festival who is targeting areas where culture is not accessible, and focused on young people and children. “What do you think of our theater?” one of the leaders ask me, “we call it a pocket theater, it reaches schools and the center of town and the places where people are, with workshops, films and showings.” 

I meet many journalists, one famous actress and others involved in film and TV. It seems to be normal for people like that to be volunteering at cultural festivals and anything else for a good cause. While we sit around, introduce ourselves and talk, a master class for story telling and techniques for youth have started. We’re waiting for the permit to go into a prison to show films and debate the situation in Tunisia; unemployment and violence against women. For those of you who didn’t know it, Tunisia became the starting point for a revolution of the people back in 2011, where more than 400 000 people demonstrated on the streets and in the end caused the dictator to resign and democracy to be installed, as the first ever in the Arab world. Freedom of speech has won, and people can express themselves more; on TV, through music and in newspapers, but huge problems also followed the revolution. Lina says that the people have misunderstood freedom and use it as an excuse to be lazy and not work. Wherever we go the streets are filled with trash. Many Tunisians see throwing trash and parking wherever they like as part of freedom. Radical Islamic voices are also lurking in the background, freedom of speech also gave them a louder voice.

I feel a deep need to immerse myself in another culture while talking to these people, just like I did in Korea, to dive into it, to really know it, in a way not possible for a week’s stay. Something in me really wants to know these people, in their own language, to know who they are, where they’re coming from, their history, struggles and pain. 

A couple of hours later it’s clear that the prison permit has not gone through and won’t happen today. “Come back on Friday,” they say, “maybe then.” What? We just drove four hours! I can’t believe I seem to be the only one upset, but then again, I might be the only one not able to be here Friday, since my plane leaves early Wednesday. We then spend hours in the middle of the day under the hot blazing sun looking for a street acting group performing for children, which also fails, but again it seems like I’m the only one disappointed, for Lina and the others this seem normal, and just how things go.

Lina and her father
We then end up going for a sightseeing tour in El Kef. Lina’s father is with us, and can tell me everything about the ancient buildings, the Jewish, Islamic and Christian eras, and about the different architecture. He tells me about his work prior to retirement, where he among other things was a city planner and working on a project in this city to bring infrastructure to it. He is also an Arabic and French translator and has a background in archeology and English literature. “When you know everything, you know nothing!” he smiles when I marvel at all he has done. He reminds me about my father, and I tell him. Wherever we go he is telling me about the history and culture of the place, just overflowing of knowledge, not wondering whether I want to hear it or not. Just like my father. It’s obvious that Lina and him are close, the tone between them, all the little things that show me she respects him and that he loves her, and I look at them and think of my own Dad, and how lucky she is to still have him. 

He takes my hand walking down a steep hill, and I let him lead me. “He is still alive, you know!” he says silently. I’m unsure what he means. “When you’re talking about your Dad and telling us about him, he’s still here.” At that moment I really wish he could still be here, and that they could meet him too. I keep thinking about our time in Tunisia together, back in 2004. Were we in this exact city? Was he telling me about Roman buildings, like Lina’s father is doing now? I can’t remember. I miss him more than normal here. There are so many things I wish I could ask him now, so much knowledge that is lost, so many pictures I wish I would have taken and stories I wish I wrote down. Whenever I see daughters with their Dads I want to tell them not to take him and the relationship for granted.

Then we end up at a café in Medina, the old part of the city. A place where not many tourists, but more archeologists and historians come, and a coffee cost less than 50 cents! I ask Sadok what his thoughts about Tunisia are. He says he is not positive now, nor for the next 10-15 years. “I think it will get worse,” is his conclusion, “but I can see in the future something good. When I see how the youth are embracing culture, expressing themselves, and starting culture festivals like this it gives me more than hope. It gives me conviction that it can get better with time.”

So now that it’s almost time for me to finish my trip here, Lina and her father’s continued dedication to fight for Tunisia through prison, death treats and using culture in every way they can, are some of the memories I will take with me. Maybe all I can do for now is to give a voice for them to you who are reading it right now, and try not to forget about Tunisia when this trip soon will seem far away and long ago.

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