You can read the history of a place in its landscape. I’d spent three days at a conference in a hotel on the tourist beaches to the east of Tunis and was driving back to the airport in a taxi, not even having had time to see the ancient site of Carthage close by. Along the ten mile route between the hotel strip and the city were half finished buildings close to the road, the tarmac cutting through the land straight as a die, crumbling away at the edges to a parallel unmade track and a line of scrubby bushes dotted with plastic rubbish. As we bowled along in the pale morning sunlight of mid-November, the buildings alternated with patches of undeveloped land, the repository for piles of construction rubble. But beyond all these signs of faltering development flashing by, some scenes from an older culture played out. There in the near distance was an olive grove and in the still air, a faint mist disappearing as the temperature rose, a solitary man was spreading cloths round the base of a tree. He would be absorbed all day in the harvest. Further on, down a track off the road, three men with a chestnut horse congregated round a small hut. A thin line of smoke rose from a stuttering fire, and the field beyond, enclosed by cypresses, was green with crops. They too were preparing for a day on the land.
Closer to the city we left the last of countryside behind and joined a motorway, entering the ubiquitous landscape of urban sprawl with parades of shuttered shops, deserted offices and advertising hoardings. Then came a surprise. I found myself rolling alongside an extensive grove of mature eucalyptus trees, sun-dappled now as the sun rose higher, stretching far from the hard shoulder, an archetypical mythic wood, mysterious, beguiling, wonderful. There were no apples there but it seemed very old, pristine – Adam and Eve could have been strolling through, oblivious to the roaring traffic. Then, as we reached the trees’ boundary further along the motorway, there was a huge billboard declaring that a new sports stadium was to be built. We left it behind and I wondered if the eucalyptus forest would survive what is to come in Tunisia.
The sports stadium itself probably opens another chapter for Tunisia, one where attention urgently needs to be given to the future of the country’s young people. I hadn’t seen many of them on my trip. I’d been to the African Media Leaders Forum, a conference for the private media owners of the continent that had attracted 350 people from 48 countries. Apart from cleaners, who everywhere in the world are mostly women, all the Tunisians I’d seen had been middle-aged, or older, men – the taxi drivers at the airport rank, the hotel and restaurant waiters, the drivers in the cars on the motorway. Yet, 70% of the population of Africa is under 25. In Tunisia, 60% of the population is under 30. It was the self-immolation on December 17 last year of 26 year old vegetable seller Mohamed Bouazizi, the sole earner in his family of 8, that sparked the uprising leading to revolution in January when dictator Zine El Adidine Ben Ali was forced to flee the country.
The man with the job now of figuring out what to do in Tunisia following the Jasmine Revolution and elections last month came to talk to us at the conference on the first morning. Prime Minister Beji Caid el Sebsi is an 84 year old lawyer who has experience of government that predates the dictatorship. His presence was electrifying, not least because, Tunisia’s revolution having kicked off the Arab spring with extraordinary consequences, the eyes of the world are on this small country’s project to become a democracy and tackle the causes of the revolution: poverty, unemployment, corruption, high food prices and lack of freedom.
El Sebsi spoke eloquently, fully aware of the huge challenges and expectations they face. ‘The youth of Tunisia were in despair before the revolution,’ he said. ‘We have 700,000 people unemployed out of an active population of 3.5 million and 200,000 graduates who are not adapted to the needs of the market. We have very poor areas that need the basic infrastructure required for development. But we are doing our best in Tunisia to ensure that our revolution leads to democratic governance.’
We heard from others during the conference about media reforms specifically. A new body has been set up to move broadcasting regulation towards the UK’s Ofcom model, the Independent Body for the Reform of Communications and Media (INRIC). One of its members, Kamel Labidi, pointed out that despite the prominence of social media in discussions about the Arab spring, the 40% literacy rate in Tunisia means that the traditional media of radio and television continue to play an important role, and during the elections last month it was traditional media that mattered most. Ridha Kefi, another INRIC member, spoke about the additional challenge of reforming media education and training in order to equip journalists with the skills they need to operate within a democratic framework. ‘Journalists were used to implementing orders from the top,’ he said. ‘We need to reform the whole thing.’
International support appears to be welcome. The British Embassy in Tunisia are doing what they can to help the transformation of Tunisia’s media with projects underway to offer guidance on turning state tv into a public service model, reforming legislation to improve media freedoms, and the creation of an impartiality code for coverage of elections and politics generally.
Before I left Tunis I met the country director of the British Council, the UK’s international cultural relations body. Eunice Crook told me they have several initiatives with Tunisia’s vast population of young people. Freedom of expression and the use of media and communications are central. ‘We are helping the youth find their voice and get it over’, said Mrs Crook. They are building young people’s debating skills and training them in advocacy through setting up websites and blogs. A particularly interesting project was initiated by the Tunisian film producer Dora Bouchoucha who has won British Council support for the production of 8 documentaries about the revolution by young filmmakers. And they aim to help boost the profile of vocational training and employment skills through a grass roots version of The Apprentice.
I flew out thinking there was an atmosphere of urgency in Tunisia, even though Rome, let alone Carthage, was not built in a day. I just hope they don’t sacrifice the eucalyptus grove to build the sports stadium.
