only one page
salzari
TunisianWomen.pdf
N e w N a t i o n a l D i s c o u r s e s : T u n i s i a n W o m e n W r i t e t h e R e v o l u t i o n
D o u j a M a m e l o u k
I do not accept that Tunisia should develop into a massive prison surrounded by fallacies and Wahhabi religious thinking that threaten to destroy the accomplishments Tunisia has achieved during half a century as a modern Arab Muslim republic.
— Amel Mokhtar
Prior to the 2011 Revolution, Tunisian women’s texts—such as Amel Mokhtar’s1 novels, Fatma Ben Mahmoud’s2 poetry, or Messaouda Boubakr’s3 short stories—were nearly devoid of the topic of politics and, when mentioned, it was often a distant matter that took place far from home, such as the war in Iraq or the Israeli occupation of Palestine. For Amel Mokhtar to interfere in the midst of her novel Dukhan al-qasr (Smoke of the Palace, 2013) and make a political state ment with such vehemence as the one quoted above reflects her inten tion to participate in the formation of a new national and possibly nationalist post-revolutionary discourse. While Mokhtar glorifies the accomplishments of the past, she condemns the possibility of Tunisia developing not into a democracy, but a theocracy.4 Mokhtar inserts herself as a character in her own voice to give a personal account of the Tunisian Revolution that took place from December 2010 until Ben Ali’s sudden departure to Saudi Arabia on January 14,2011. Likewise, Tunisian authors Fatma Ben Mahmoud and Messaouda Boubakr set out to accomplish a similar endeavor by transforming their literary space into a political space. In exploring the way in which these formerly apo litical authors turn into politically hyperconscious authors by interven ing in their texts and creating patriotic nationalist male figures, I argue that they have shifted from political silence to political engagement and, by doing so, they appropriate the authority of writing the post-rev olutionary national discourse, henceforth establishing a new geography of gender in Tunisia. This post-revolutionary writing genre is unique to
100 A lif 35 (2015)
Tunisian women, especially in comparison with Egyptian and Libyan women who did not benefit from the coeval Revolutions in terms of civil liberties and gender equality. According to Mustafa Dikeç, it becomes important to think spatially about politics because “systems of domination impose orders of space [and time], and that space often appears as a means of control and domination” (671). Hence the post revolutionary novel mutates into an explicitly political space where new geographies of gender and politics are intertwined and mapped.
Under both Bourguiba’s and Ben A li’s post-independence regimes, intellectual conversations and scholarly studies focused on women and their emancipation in Tunisia, for Bourguiba believed that Tunisia could not develop if Tunisian women were not “modern.” Ben Ali followed Bourguiba’s national feminist propaganda, as it made Tunisia appeal to the W est’s agenda. In fact, the Tunisian government states the Personal Status Code (PSC) as one of Tunisia’s proofs of developmental success in the Arab world. The uniqueness of Tunisian women’s texts is rooted in the national educational system which affirms the history of Tunisian women’s emancipation and highlights the “feminist” achievements of Bourguiba and Ben Ali. An examina tion of the latest literary works of these three prominent Tunisian women writers, Ben Mahmoud, Mokhtar, and Boubakr, reflects a state of political hyperconsciousness that developed within the space of the novel or short story after the 2011 Revolution. The novel provides a space to explore freedoms, political action, social change, and estab lishes a new geography of gender connected to the political space in order to contribute to the new national discourse through a writing practice that has become activist. Dikeç mentions that “politics inau gurates space, and spatialisation is central to politics as a constitutive part of it” (670). Tunisian women’s post-revolutionary narratives mir ror Dikeç’s idea as politics penetrates the space of the novel as much as the novel infiltrates the political space. In other words, writing lit erature for Tunisian women is no longer a phenomenon that occurs independently from politics, but quite the contrary: The political aspect shifts to become at the center of the literary text.
According to Bernard Westphal, the notion of space is multi faceted, and scholars have pondered the term in a variety of ways. Space is a fluid notion that is defined in accordance with specific needs. For example, in the literary texts of Tunisian women writers, the geographical space in their novels shifts from the village to the city, mirroring the reality of Tunisia’s rural exodus even today. In fact,
A lif 35 (2015) 101
this appears in Emna Abdel Qader’s novel Emna (1984), the first novel in Arabic published by a Tunisian woman.5 The city of Tunis is a cen tral and eventful space that is often chosen as the geographical context of their narratives. While the politicized dichotomy of the city versus the village was, and remains, an important topic in women’s texts, it is only after the 2011 Revolution that political themes surfaced in novels and short stories. A close look at Ben Mahmoud’s fictive memoir Im ra’a f i zaman al-thawra (A Woman at the Time of Revolution, 2011), Mokhtar’s novel Dukhan al-qasr, and Boubakr’s short story collection Azal ahki (My Storytelling Goes On, 2013) shows the newly found political space of these authors and their evolvement from polit ical silence to a political articulation as voiced in their latest works.
Homi Bhabha explores political space through his notion of “ambivalence” (Nation and Narration), which explains the cultural and literary narration of a nation shifting from a non-existent political conversation in Tunisian women’s literature to becoming the central theme. In his introduction, Bhabha explains how national space reflects the way a given society encompasses the dogmas of the newly (post-colonial) structured societies—applicable to post-1956 Tunisia, that is to independent Tunisia (2). Through Bhabha’s concept of ambivalence, one may comprehend the complex socio-political and historical networks of Tunisian society addressed in post-revolution ary women writers’ novels and short stories. Looking at these texts, the notion of cultural and socio-political ambivalence(s) comes through particularly when examining representations of masculinities within the new political space and the self-portrayal of the women authors in their texts. The example of Mokhtar’s authorial voice inter jecting in the space of her novel with a personal narrative comes to mind as she says: “I sense deep down that the current events taking place in the central and north eastern areas of Tunisia are overwhelm ing me to the point that I must abandon the characters of my novel” (56).6 Such passages reflect the author’s political engagement, which forces her to interrupt the narrative because she is overpowered by the socio-political changes occurring in December 2010. When she returns to writing her novel, she sets up a space that reflects the new post-revolutionary reality of Tunisia, whereby her characters perform a sit-in threatening to fire her as the creator of their lives.
During Ben Ali’s regime, the existence of political prisoners— from left and right—was common knowledge in Tunisian society. Yet, Tunisian writers (men and women alike) dared not to write about such
102 A lif 35 (2015)
topics. Self-censorship was indeed more effective than the censor at the Ministry of Interior. The historical moment of the January 14,2011 Revolution in Tunisia brought about a period of instability for a few weeks after Ben Ali’s departure. Eventually, security was restored to a degree. When the Islamist Party Ennahda won in the October 2011 elections with a majority in the National Constituent Assembly (NCA), the conversation about women was instigated again in social media. Suddenly, many Tunisian women (mostly secularists) grew anxious regarding the present and future status of women’s rights under Islamist rule, especially since Ennahda Party would dictate the drafting of the new constitution thanks to its electoral majority. Examples of such anxiety occurred when the Constituent Assembly proposed Article 28 stipulating that “women are complementary to men.” This caused an uproar in the streets of Tunis, as protesters rejected the idea of women not being “complete” citizens, calling for a clause stating that both men and women are equal before the law, as stated in the 1957 Constitution.
The challenge that presents itself when studying Tunisian women’s post-revolutionary texts under any scholarly lens is to find a paradigm that is appropriate to approaching such unique texts. Historically, women’s writing evolved from silence to articulation, although the topics were limited to social issues due to the politics of the Arab world. Today, in a country such as Tunisia, women authors find themselves compelled to narrate political life and state their opin ions incessantly. I propose that Geraldine Heng’s idea that “through out global history . . . women, the feminine, and figures of gender, have traditionally anchored the nationalist imaginary—that undis closed ideological matrix of nationalist culture” (31) frames Tunisian women’s post-revolutionary writing and their development from polit ical abstention to political awareness. In fact, their texts mirror the need to write the new Tunisian reality from their perspective in order to document the historical period of post-revolutionary Tunisia.
Focusing on Ben Mahmoud, Mokhtar, and Boubakr stems from the fact that they have shifted in their writings from avoiding the topic of politics, rarely representing men (or women) as political subjects in their novels prior to January 2011, to bringing forward their male char acters as political subjects and entities. Looking at their post-revolu tionary texts (short stories, novels, Facebook entries,7 or articles) one notices renewed discontent with Tunisian masculinity that is centered around politics. Rather than continuing to create masculine représenta
i t / ; / 35 (2015) 103
tions that are devoid of politics as they did under dictatorship, they con struct hyperconscious male political subjects in their texts, yet the dis content with the masculine figures mirrors the authors’ discontent with the current political scene, especially since their idea of gender equali ty under a real democracy remains an ideal. All three authors’ works share a focus on three periods surrounding the Tunisian Revolution. The first one is the “Days of Fear” —between December 17, 2010 and January 14, 2011—when Tunisians took to the streets to demonstrate, while the second period—after January 14 when Ben Ali fled —is a nationally ecstatic and hopeful period. “The Descent Toward Hell” occurs after the elections of October 23,2011 when hope and happiness vanish, and sadness and disenchantment haunt the characters. In mak ing use of their literary writing to bring these important historical peri ods forward, the authors—as Dikeç proposes—define “the objects of political struggles in broader, process-oriented terms rather than simply assigning an empirical given to them ” (673). Indeed, the objects of the political struggles for M okhtar, Ben M ahmoud, and Boubakr are the authors themselves, as they appear unwilling to dissociate themselves from the political spaces of their novels, and are either active partici pants in the plots or interfere directly through their authorial voices.
During an interview Messaouda Boubakr granted me, it was difficult for her to answer questions without an intense focus on politics. She declared:
I don’t write from a void. I am the product of this socie ty, and as an author, I live political and social events with intensity. Politics is the basis for everything. Our econo my depends upon our politicians’ policies, and our lives are shaped by economic decisions. The example of imported Turkish and Slovenian milk comes to my mind. At first, we could not find milk in grocery stores, and when there finally was milk, it was Turkish. Take our gasoline crisis as another example. How do you want all the strikes going on in this country for the past two years not to influence my writing? My writing has changed because I have more political consciousness than I have ever had in my life. (Personal interview)
Thus, pre-revolutionary self-censorship and disregard for politics and political issues in her literary texts give way to a focus on politics for Boubakr today. It appears that the new political spaces that were cre-
104 A l i f 35 (2015)
ated after the Revolution have induced Ben M ahmoud, M okhtar, and Boubakr to produce politically charged texts. M aking use of W estphal’s geocritical theory, I explore the textual instances of politi cal hyperconsciousness in the works produced by these three authors, which I use to interpret the space of the novel: Tunis as the microcosm and Tunisia (as well as the rest of the Arab Spring countries) as the macrocosm for post-revolutionary political dismay.
A Woman’s Testimony of Tunisia’s Revolution
Fatma Ben M ahmoud’s testimony of the January 2011 Revolution is entitled Im ra’a fi zaman al-thawra. It is the first autobiographical fic tion documenting the 2011 Tunisian Revolution. This text resembles a novel in its literary style although the author announces her intention to document the Revolution from a woman’s perspective. Ben Mahmoud chooses to reveal her gender as early as the title of her book and through out the entire work by insisting that her account of the Revolution is through a woman’s eyes. Is a wom an’s narration of the Revolution dif ferent from that of a man? As the narrator, Ben Mahmoud opens her per sonal account of the Revolution by exposing the effect of dictatorship and the lack of freedom on her psychological well being. She admits to her state of depression and need for medication. Her life changes when she reads on Facebook about the incident in which Mohamed Bouazizi immolates himself in front of the municipality of Sidi Bouzid to protest the confiscation of his wheelbarrow with the fruits he was selling, accord ing to Alcinda Honwana (2). In her autobiographical work, Ben Mahmoud explains that this event shocked the nation as Tunisians were not accustomed to protest under their dictatorial regime and were even less accustomed to this particular method of protest: self-immolation. What was even more surprising was Bouazizi’s life: a college graduate who could not find a job and was compelled to sell produce out of a wheelbarrow.8 He became the symbol of the masses of unemployed col lege-educated Tunisian youth. Describing the effect of Bouazizi’s self- immolation, Ben Mahmoud writes:
The situation has changed now. The once small society is no longer small. It has metamorphosed into a larger society that circulates events thanks to Facebook. People are no longer small groups of families but instead they are the Tunisian nation that no longer accepts to see its youth humiliated. (17)
A lif 35 (2015) 105
The author believes that social media, especially Facebook, have transformed Tunisian society. As she narrates the Revolution and youth’s resistance, the geo-spacial dimensions of Tunis/Tunisia alter and Tunisian society, instead of being divided, suddenly unites to fight police violence. From a gender perspective, the author/narrator declares that she is a woman narrating the Revolution, yet she acknowledges that Tunisian men led the outburst of the Revolution. She writes: “We are all Mohamed Bouazizi! The entire city turned into one man’s heart beat” (26). Ben Mahmoud expresses the unity of the population using masculine terms reflecting a patriarchal attitude. Is the Revolution masculine? Did Tunisian men make the Tunisian Revolution? According to the narrator, Bouazizi ignited the flame of the Revolution through self-immolation, then women and men alike followed suit. The images of protest against the police and the violence inflicted upon the protesters on Facebook stir her reaction to narrate the events in a text that mixes poetry with prose, as she romanticizes the Revolution rendering it an act of rujula (masculini ty). Though the author starts her work describing her mental state of depression, she quickly shifts to describing the altered feelings that the Revolution causes her, such as fear, hope, and joy, until reaching the death of Bouazizi, which upsets her and marks what she considers the end of Ben Ali. The Revolution, in Ben Mahmoud’s work, marks the beginning of the author’s healing from dictatorship-related maladies.9
Describing the Revolution, Ben Mahmoud writes: “Have you ever seen a weak human being, alone with no arms, catch a lion? I haven’t. Yet, I saw a weak and helpless nation with no weapons rid themselves of their unjust president.” (59). The author depicts the polit ical space of the Revolution as a battle between a helpless and weak man and a powerful lion. Furthermore, Ben Mahmoud places herself as a wit ness of the Revolution, and assigns herself political activism. Heng attributes such attitudes to female emancipation, which she describes as “a powerful political symbol describing at once a separation from the past, the aspirations of an activist present, and the utopia of imagined national future” (31). Heng views this “female emancipation” as the supplier of “a mechanism of self-description and self-projection of incalculably more than pragmatic value in the self-fashioning of nations and nationalisms” (31). Ben M ahmoud’s text reflects H eng’s connection between wom en’s emancipation and its role in the present and future of nation building. In fact, Heng’s argument could explain the passionate account of the Revolution that Ben Mahmoud writes. The historical moment affects writers, poets, and anyone who attempts to document it
106 A lif 35 (2015)
in an emotional or poetic manner, which explains the fluctuations in Ben Mahmoud’s moods and feelings depicted in Im ra’a fi zaman al-thawra. The political hyperconsciousness of Ben Mahmoud starts with the event of Bouazizi’s self-immolation and develops throughout her narrative. Although she depicts herself as an emotionally reactive observer to the early political events of the Revolution, she trains herself in politics through her readings, but especially through the violent confrontations she witnesses on her screen. Facebook and television become her polit ical educator and her observing gaze grows into a revolutionary gaze.
It was unusual for Tunisians to see the military surveilling the streets of Tunisia according to Ben Mahmoud (64). The political space changed rapidly—compared to Egypt, Yemen, or Libya—as the mili tary in Tunisia were kept on their bases and only called in emergency situations. From a geocritical perspective, reading Ben Mahmoud’s Revolution mirrors a radical change in human relations in a geograph ically delineated space (Tunisia). In fact, Ben Mahmoud’s text is her personal interpretation of images: She attempts to mimic the reality of the days of Revolution and yet produces a narrative where reality, fic tion, and poetry intertwine. This reminds us of Westphal’s remarks on space and geography as he asserts: “Historically, space has always been subject to symbolic readings. The concrete details of geography often relate to a spiritual hermeneutic rather than to immediate obser vation.” (1). On the one hand, Ben Mahmoud’s account of the Revolution stands as a symbolic reading of the events and her reac tions to them. On the other hand, the geography of Tunisia changes as the author reflects the spiritual effect of the Revolution upon herself, which in turn causes a new geography of gender to emerge. Consequently, Ben Mahmoud finds herself in a new political sphere, demonstrating for democracy, and especially protesting for Tunisian women’s rights, equality, and political representation.
In her representation of herself as a woman, Ben Mahmoud nar rates the processes she goes through when she attempts to change her real Facebook name to a pseudonym that would defy the censors. This causes her an internal dispute over the loss of her real identity. It appears that in revolutionary times, mixing reality with fiction may cause damage. She writes:
I failed to communicate on my borrowed Facebook page. I felt that it was not mine, and that this woman (Fatma Aziz instead of Fatma Ben Mahmoud) was not I. She became a
A lif 35 (2015) 107
stranger to me as if she were another woman I did not know. When I entered my borrowed Facebook page, I felt like I was spying on another w o m a n .. . . How difficult it is to be forced to conceal yourself behind a mask in your country when all you want to say is how much you love your nation and that your heart bleeds for it! (73)
Ben M ahmoud relates her identity as a Tunisian woman to Fatma Ben M ahmoud and rejects her pseudonym on Facebook even though she creates it. The imposition o f her masked self clashes with her desire to express love for her nation. This is an example of how individuality clashes with the imposed concept of the pre-revolutionary nation, where freedoms are restricted and masks are sought as an attempt at self-expression along with self-protection. Once again, in this passage, the author reveals her political hyperconsciousness as she connects her identity to the political space restricting her. The author emphasizes her gender as an im ra'a (woman): She is not just Tunisian; she is a Tunisian w om an, and this is how she identifies herself.
On another level, Ben Mahmoud employs the image of flowers throughout her account that resembles a poetic memoir of the Revolution. Although fear of the unknown surrounds her stories, hope overcomes it until the last two chapters of her book in which she describes her anxiety and disappointment with the post-revolutionary political scene. Her ques tion: “Tunisia is Muslim so why do they want to make it Islamist?” (146) summarizes her political stance and unease with the new regime. She states: “Where have these new so-called revolutionaries come from? They surround themselves with narrow ideologies that call for polygamy, banning visiting graves, harassing artists and accusing them of heresy, and threatening to run the ink out of writers’ pens.” (146). The end of Ben M ahmoud’s account of the Revolution reflects her dismay with the out come of the protests and resistance that caused her fear while attempting to remain hopeful for a better tomorrow.
Looking at the poetic tone Ben M ahmoud employs throughout the text, her reader would not expect to see such a change in the polit ical geography of Tunisia within the brief temporal space of her book. The intellectual shock that she suffers in her last two chapters reflects the effect of temporality on Ben M ahm oud’s mimetic relations between the real and the fictive. Through her text, the author conveys her aston ishment at Tunisia’s new socio-political transformations that seem to her to be more fictive than real. There are no real parameters in Im ra ’a
108 A lif 35 (2015)
f i zaman al-thawra that govern referentiality; instead, an unbalanced mixture of reality and fiction occurs. The men who were heroes throughout the Revolution suddenly become a threat to Ben Mahmoud’s freedom as a woman. Although not the same men who enacted the Revolution, the “men” who won the elections are those who lived in exile and concealed their political beliefs under Bourguiba and Ben Ali. She states: “I am terrified of the new/old comer. It is unthink able that I give up the civil rights of my country, my rights as a woman, and my rights as a writer.” (147). Once again, Ben Mahmoud frames herself as a member of a nation, and defines herself as a woman and as an author. It becomes obvious that she must face a new geography of gender in post-revolutionary Tunisia that she is inclined to resist, a geography of gender in which Tunisian women’s civil rights do not achieve new grounds but instead are consistently threatened by the political and media-based debates. In fact, Heng indicates that there is no feminism in the Third World that is “secure from the intervention of the state, nor from the power of any who are able to wield the discourse of nationalism with unchallenged authority” (45).
Documenting the Tunisian Revolution in Fiction
Amel Mokhtar documents the Tunisian Revolution in her novel Dukhan al-qasr, which she started before the Revolution, narrating life in Ben Ali’s palace. When the Revolution occurred in 2010-2011, Mokhtar stopped writing for several months.10 Despite being a novel, Mokhtar interferes in the fictive text once she returns to it and decides to write her personal account of the Revolution. Although her previous writing techniques are present in her latest work—such as altering the narrator with every new chapter and consistently narrating in the first person—she reminds the reader of her desire to mold fiction into a document for Tunisians resistance during and after the Revolution. This novel highlights Noor al-Katib as the only female narrator among five male narrators who belong to various socio-economic classes and adopt different lifestyles. Consequently, their Tunisian Revolution tales differ from one another.
Mokhtar’s novel reflects an interaction between the new, post revolutionary real world of Tunisian society and the fictional world she sets up through her characters and their interactions. Each chapter contains the term “anxiety” in its title, as if Mokhtar were narrating the anxieties of the new Tunisia. While the characters Noor, La‘ursi,
A l i f 35 (2015) 109
Lahbib, and Farid recount their personal problems, Mokhtar interrupts the stories with her personal account of the 2010-2011 Revolution. Since the author disrupts her novel, the characters decide to perform a sit-in (ïtiscim) to be brought back to the space of the novel. The idea in itself expresses the new political scene in Tunisia that has been dominated by a culture of political protest embodied by sit-ins and demonstrations. Indeed, Mokhtar responds positively to her characters under the pressure of their political protest. Their dialogues reflect the new socio-political scene and divides based upon various people’s political orientations. Most characters express their dismay with the new Tunisia dominated by the Islamists. What was thought of at one point in the narrative as a hopeful future and the scene where the “Arab Spring” began turns into the possibility that the Tunisian Revolution was nothing but an American-Israeli plot to direct terrorism away from the West and toward the Arab world.11
The only female character in Mokhtar’s novel, Noor al-Katib, narrates the chapter “Anxiety of Motherhood” (29-37) in which she describes the violence her husband Abbas directs toward her, both ver bally and physically. When Noor’s health is restored, she seeks revenge from her abusive husband after preparing his favorite meal, putting a sleeping pill in his drink, and tying him up with a rope. Noor says:
I mixed my glass of vodka with ice to drink to the health of my husband—the slave of my moodiness—to whom I was going to do as I pleased. My dear husband allows himself what he forbids me. I became a happy woman . . . actually I became the happiest woman in the universe. I started feeling a victorious pleasure, as intelligence tri umphed over strength. (32)
As Abbas overpowers Noor with his physical strength, she subdues him with what she calls her feminine intelligence within the private space of their home. The domestic abuse scenes—the first coming from Abbas and the second plotted by Noor—are but an introduction to her state ment reminding him of the history and strength of Tunisian women as she says to him: “I am a free woman and the daughter of a free woman. I am the descendent of the highest epics and you dare to treat me like a slave as you beat me, humiliate me, and call me by all the names of whores” (33). Although there is no overt political statement in the “Anxiety of Motherhood” chapter, gender conflict occurs and the female
11 0 A lif 35 (2015)
narrator finds herself contriving to restore herself as a woman. Noor must avenge herself as a wife, a Tunisian woman, and a human being through a well-thought out plan that ensures her triumph. On the other hand, this chapter foregrounds the politics of gender within Tunisian society. As Noor is transported to the hospital after she passes out as a result of Abbas’s violence, she blames her wounds upon an accident rather than admitting the truth to her brother. While she is willing to lie to save Abbas’s face, she has secretly decided that justice is her person al affair and not that of the state or the law. After the doctor announces to her that she is well enough to be discharged from the hospital, he con cludes his diagnosis with the happy news of her pregnancy.12
The politically charged events that follow the Revolution in Mokhtar’s novel are thus introduced by gender politics. For example, Noor plays a representative role for Tunisian women who succumb to domestic abuse (mostly by men: husbands, fathers, brothers, etc.) and yet resist through their own means. Her declaration reminding Abbas of the free-willed individual she represents extends beyond the imme diate space of her home. Noor al-Katib overthrows the traditional pol itics of gender by making use of her intelligence to defeat the physical strength of her husband. Thus, Mokhtar blends the reality of domestic abuse against women with the fictional Scheherazadian ruse of the female narrator creating a particular space that evolves from Noor’s home to the cafés, streets, and hotels of Tunis.
The constant movement between reality and fiction means that referentiality can be established, but not a referent. Making use of geo criticism as a critical tool allows the unraveling not only of the gender politics and the politics of gender in Mokhtar’s novel but also of the oscillation that occurs throughout her novel, between characters, geo graphical spaces, and political events. Furthermore, I would argue that a geocritical look at Mokhtar’s post-revolutionary novel enables an understanding of the real space of Tunis through the fictional space the author creates. Note, for example, Noor’s following words:
I walk sadly on Habib Bourguiba Avenue with its faded colors, its dusty sidewalks, its silenced birds while piles of trash are spread throughout. Sadness covers the cafés as well as people’s faces, as they advance with a frown. . . . I almost do not recognize this avenue where I have spent more than half of my life. (154)
A lif 35 (2015) 111
This mirrors Mokhtar’s political hyperconsciousness as the real space of Tunis is transformed into a political space throughout the events of the narrative and in the dialogues of the characters. Through literature, Mokhtar creates a mimetic connection between the city of Tunis (specifically its main street, Habib Bourguiba Avenue, named after Tunisia’s first president) and the characters of the novel, especially after the January 2011 Revolution.
Before the Revolution, Mokhtar chooses the sea as the space where Si Lamjad, one of the protagonists, and others learn courage and performance. They drink to overcome the difficulties of the ocean and find the bravery to resist and surmount fear (40). Yet resisting the harsh life on a boat at sea allows for the narrator to discuss the issue of al-harga (a colloquial term meaning illegal immigration by boat) which has taken the lives of many. In other words, the space of the sea brings the Tunisian sailors’ masculinity and masculine prowess into question. When Mokhtar delves into the political space of the Revolution in the second part of her novel, she intervenes in a chapter titled “The Anxiety of Revolution” (61-77) and writes her personal response to the Revolution. She declares her infinite and passionate love for Tunisia which she discovered only during the days of the Revolution. Vast is the space of the novel as it allows its writer not only to narrate a storyline, but also to interfere in it in order to recount the political and historical events that changed Tunisia. The political hyperconsciousness of Mokhtar transcends the notions of nationalism and patriotism and Tunisia becomes the recipient of an avid and fiery love. Heng believes that “nationalism is so powerful a force in the Third World” (34) that states would associate feminism with Western imperialism in Arab countries so as to dismantle the nationalism of feminists in a given country. Mokhtar writes:
The day I returned from my trip I discovered that my soul was claiming the land of Tunisia. I realized that I love Tunisia. I love this country with no changes and no corrections, just as it is, to the point that I knelt to kiss the land as I was crying while descending from the plane. When the Revolution occurred, I was overjoyed and considered it the beginning of a new truly free, developed and democratic Tunisia. I understood that I loved Tunisia madly, adored it and could never live away from it. (63)
112 A lif 35 (2015)
This passage translates the vivid and strong emotions of Mokhtar vis- à-vis the space/place that she writes about. The politically charged events allow her to realize her notion of patriotism for Tunisia, where she grew up and lives today. Perhaps it is her attachment to the local space that compelled her to produce a text that focuses on the socio political events following the Revolution mainly through her male characters Farid, La‘rusi, Abd al-Majid, Lahbib, and Mahdi. While her previous works, such as al-Kursi al-hazzaz (The Rocking Chair, 2009), bring the sexual taboos of Tunisia to the surface, her post-rev olutionary novel displays her political and social awareness of the new Tunisia. The political void in her literature to date has been compen sated for with a detailed account of the new political scene and the way it has divided Tunisians according to party allegiances.
Westphal notes that “there is no bright line between the real and the fictional” (4) and, therefore, the reader of Dukhan al-qasr becomes aware of the lack of homogeneity and harmony between the various male narrators, while united in the small space of Tunis. As the author affirms the political dissatisfaction of most of her characters and the hypocrisy of the new regime, she renders friendship contingent upon the oneness of political space, while giving voice to her discontented characters. For instance, L a‘rusi takes the risk of losing his friendship with Farid over their political past. He says:
[M]y good friend Farid insinuated that I am one of the remnants of Ben A li’s regime. He attributed my success ful career to my previous political allegiance. The jerk! How dare he accuse me! He who proudly worked with the corrupt Trabelsis before the Revolution is now pre tending he was pushed to do so. What a hypocrite and a liar! Today he feigns honesty while defending religion sellers. Perhaps he has secretly joined them. If I discover that he has, I will end my relationship with him immedi ately. I despise hypocrites! (84-85)
This passage presents a political divide in post-revolutionary Tunisia where those who paid allegiance to the one-state party during Bourguiba and especially Ben Ali’s terms have become eschewed and rejected by the new democrats. However, La‘rusi displays his bitterness toward his friend Farid who used previous political allegiances as a weapon against his friend. As La‘msi wishes to retaliate against Farid’s accusations, he men-
A lif 35 (2015) 113
tions his possible and probable political allegiance to a religious party, which causes La‘rusi disappointment with his friend. The common space of friendship risks fragmentation due to the new political space in Tunisia. Furthermore, politics interferes with gender politics by breaking the male friendship between La'rusi and Farid, who used to drink together in the same bars and cafés, a space that only men in Tunisia frequent.
In the context of Dukhan al-qasr, Mokhtar interferes in her nar rative with her personal account of the Revolution and her clear dis may of post-elections political climate. By stating her political stance in her personal accounts, she makes the reader aware of her political hyperconsciousness through her mostly male characters interacting within one space: Tunis and, more often than not, the Habib Bourguiba Avenue, a symbol of Bourguiba’s legacy. In other words, Mokhtar creates the context through her literary text, allowing Tunis (as the place) to connect with the new political space through her characters. Westphal proposes that context connects space and place by establish ing meaningful space in the constitution of place (5). Indeed, the new political spaces shape the city of Tunis as the place that they occupy. In fact, Noor exclaims: “I can barely recognize the Habib Bourguiba Avenue on which I have spent more than half of my life. Where are you now, O dear leader?” (154). The female narrator shouts out a final and deep dismay with the new political scene in Tunisia and nostalgi cally invokes Tunisia’s first president, Habib Bourguiba. For the author, Bourguiba represents women’s emancipation as he put forth the Personal Status Code in 1957 and made education mandatory and free to boys and girls.13 The dissatisfaction with the current political scene causes her to yearn for Bourguiba and his epoch, reflecting the author’s political yearning for of Bourguiba’s time when juxtaposed with the present. Mokhtar has shifted in her writings from discussing the social sexual taboos of Tunisia before the Revolution to revealing the innovative political spaces bom after the Revolution.
Writing as Political Defiance
Messaouda Boubakr recounts the political incident behind the title of her short stories collection Azal ahki. While she was protesting in front of the National Constituent Assembly (NCA): “A bearded man told me to be quiet, go home and stay where I belong” (Personal inter view). Because Boubakr felt insulted by her aggressor’s order, she decided to publish her short stories as a response to a man wanting to
114 A lif 35 (2015)
silence her (Personal interview). This incident reminds us of Milani’s description of Iranian women’s newfound space after the 1979 Islamic Revolution. She writes: “They disappeared as entertainers and singers. They faded away from the silver screen. Women’s place, it was argued, was not public but private, not out in the streets but inside the home” (1). Taking a role in public protest implies that Boubakr’s pres ence is emblematic of both her sense of nationalism and her feminism (as she believes that women’s role extends beyond the private space). Heng suggests that when “resurgent religious traditionalism is the dominant mode of nationalist culture, nationalist antipathy to moder nity’s social impact may be expressed as antipathy to the West and to Western cultural modalities”(33). How ironic it is that before the Revolution Boubakr suffered from the national censors at the Ministry of Interior, which caused her to have an inner-censor that she had to surpass in order to write. Today, she maintains she must write and publish to move forward so that no one can silence her. The first ten short stories of her collection were written after the Revolution. They are brief and offer either an account of a historical moment in the Revolution or a critique of a socio-political and socio-religious phe nomenon that occurred after January 2011.
In the short story entitled ‘“ A rus” (Bride), Boubakr undertakes the topic of m ut‘a (pleasure) marriage as she describes the dilemma of a young university student who finds herself pregnant after a night of pleasure with a man with whom she consummates a m ut‘a marriage. To her surprise, he divorces her the following morning and she finds herself pregnant. However, a girlfriend of one of the main characters approaches her saying: “Someone talked to me about you. He’s one of our colleagues at the university. In fact, you know him. He wants you for his wife in accordance with Shari'a law and the Prophet Muhammed’s tradition” (11). The pregnant student simply answers: “For how many nights?” (11). Not only does Boubakr reflect upon a new post-revolutionary social phenomenon, but she also questions gender roles in the new socio-political space in Tunisia that has allowed what was previously hidden and taboo to surface. Westphal states that representation “involves the translation of a source into a derivative—the source is sometimes ‘the real’ (the world), and the derivative is ‘fictional’ (the mental image, the simulacrum)” (75). Thus, Boubakr shifts from source to derivative. Her reader perceives her translation of the new political space into social phenomena. The newness of the political scene has given birth to complex and retro-
A lif 35 (2015) 115
grade social issues, some of which may have been dormant under dic tatorship, the Revolution allowing them to erupt publicly. According to Boubakr, the rise of religiosity in Tunisian society has diversified codifying sexual practices, through 'urfi or m ut'a14 marriages that Boubakr refers to in her short story ‘“ Arus.”
Referentiality, defined by Westphal as the relations between reality and fiction, stands as the parameters of each of Boubakr’s short stories. In fact, without the reality of the social upheaval of the Revolution—as represented by Boubakr—her fiction would not stand or even exist. Furthermore, the author mocks the exhibitionism that the religious men and women portray in their clothing in her short story “al-Shams taskhar min sawadina” (The Sun Mocks Our Blackness):
My neighbor, covered in black cloaks, carefully watches her steps as she descends the newly white-painted stair case and its shiny, clean marble. I can see her fingertips difficultly pulling aside the lengths of her cloak, as she attempts to balance her pyramid shaped body. I walked past my neighbor as I swiftly walk down the staircase I know so well, while holding together my white coat. I wanted to say good morning to her, but seeing no face to welcome my greeting made me retract it. (27)
The narrator creates a space where she juxtaposes the black and the white. The significance of the colors goes beyond the simple image they represent (as colors) and they become the mirror of the charac ters’ souls. Through her narrator, the author reflects a socio-religious stance that can also be translated into a political one by describing her discomfort toward the munaqqaba (wearing a full-face veil) woman. In fact, she later mentions that meeting this woman in the morning caused her soul to sink into a state of “black anxiety” (27). Furthermore, this short story reflects the association between a cloth ing style that reflects Islamic religiosity with political allegiance and belonging. Boubakr’s fictive peregrinations in Tunisian society reveal the changes in image (especially in women’s clothing) that the Revolution has brought about. The above passage reveals the new divide in Tunisian society between the “religious” and the “secular ists.” However, through a politics-of-gender lens, one sees that the multifaceted political scene has caused the female narrator to be crit ical of another woman because of the image she projects. One may
116 A lif 35 (2015)
wonder if we are truly living in a democratic Tunisia if a non-veiled woman refuses to look at a fully veiled woman as her equal and instead is critical of her attire to the point that the blackness of her clothing profoundly disturbs the one who observes her. Another post-revolutionary woe in Tunisia appears to be the association of clothing with political opinions and allegiances. According to Melissa Gregg and Gregory J. Seigworth, this phenomenon relates to affect, which in their opinion “arises in the midst of in-between-ness: in the capacities to act and be acted upon .. . affect is persistent proof of a body’s never less than ongoing immersion in and among the world’s obstinacies and rhythms, its refusals as much as its invita tions” (1). Hence, Boubakr creates female characters in her short sto ries that embody political performance in their behavior and appear ance. W omen’s bodies are the bearers of political meaning and active performers in Tunisian society. While one character imposes her physical appearance in the name of freedom and democracy, the other one imposes her refusal of the latter as she reacts to the other’s performative embodiment of a political concept.
In her short story “Hirabi” (Chameleons), Boubakr’s style turns Orwellian and reminds us of Animal Farm (1945) or of Kalila wa Dimna (12th century) by Abdullah Ibn al-Muqaffa‘ in that she sets the stage of a revolt that happens in the animal kingdom. The animals have issues in the fictive setting that reflect the political and economic scene within which Tunisians live since the Revolution. For example, the importation of goods, including cattle, remains problematic. Boubakr writes:
Not only did the revolution reach humans but also it spread to the stables. Hence the pregnant ewes rebelled against their owners followed by the roosters who were upset by their competition with those imported from foreign markets. As for the cows, they protested against the existence of a mixed breed of cows that competed with them over their food and the reduced number of bulls. . . . Only the chameleons tres passed from one group of protesters to another, as they changed their colors searching for the winners. (25)
In a change of style, and rather than making use of reality as it is in her fiction, Boubakr employs the metaphor of the animal kingdom to describe the current political scene in Tunisia with humor. In the
A lif 35 (2015) 117
above passage, which is the core of the short story, the revolution is portrayed as an epidemic that passes from humans to animals. The reader becomes aware of the economic issue with importing cattle from abroad while cattle are raised in Tunisia. Another critique that the author sets forward is that of the “reduced number of bulls” which is another way of saying that Tunisia suffers from a low num ber of men, in the sense that manhood and masculinity are equated to bravery, courage, and standing up for justice. In the current polit ical space in Tunisia, Boubakr describes the chameleon as the only animal in the kingdom that survives. It is the representative of the human being who hurdles from one party to another and then quick ly follows the winner. The winner is the one who wins the elections and gains the support of people, even of their previous opponents. Furthermore, the animal kingdom metaphor mirrors the chaos that occupies the socio-political spaces in Tunisia today. It appears as though humans mimic animals’ behavior. Boubakr establishes a mimetic relationship between humans and animals, which portrays the author’s dissatisfaction with post-revolutionary political life and its repercussions on the socio-economic situation. Her political hyperconsciousness prevails as her texts focus on the socio-econom ic state of Tunisia. Boubakr maintains that she currently follows the political scene in Tunisia closely as she senses that the Revolution allows her to develop into a politically conscious citizen. Boubakr proclaims that writing is the tool she uses to translate her political consciousness (Personal interview).
Boubakr’s writing reflects a hyperconsciousness present in all of her short stories written after the Revolution. The relationship between Tunisia’s socio-political reality and writing creates a new space that emphasizes referentiality and the new political environment surrounding her. Rather than focusing on gender relations in her short stories, the author chooses to focus on the Orwellian allegory of the animal farm, as she rids the short story of male characters and politi cizes the silent exchange between two women representing the newly found political spectrum in Tunisia through the one’s veil and the other’s unveiledness. In her short narrative, Boubakr embodies secu larism and religiosity in the physical appearance and attitude of the two women. Dismissing male characters or describing them in one short story as the missing bulls reveal Boubakr’s dissatisfaction with male performance in the Tunisian political spaces that merges into the space of her fiction.
118 A lif 35 (2015)
From Self-Censorship to Political Hyperconsciousness
When Fatma Ben Mahmoud takes her pen to document the Tunisian Revolution through her woman’s eyes in Imra’a fi zaman al- thawra, she successfully describes the anxiety and hope she experi ences during the days of the Revolution. It would have been difficult for the reader to predict that her final two chapters would be a cry of dismay about the outcome of the Revolution. The “real” drives her personal account/memoir of the socio-political events that led to January 14, 2011. While the days of the Revolution inspired Ben Mahmoud to write poetry about Bouazizi and the snipers, the last two chapters read as a determined promise that she will defend her free doms as a woman, a writer, and a Tunisian citizen. On the other hand, a close look at Amel Mokhtar’s Dukhan al-qasr, which she started before the Revolution and completed after, reflects the influence of the real on the fictive. The uniqueness of this novel stands out in the author’s direct intervention in her fictive narrative with two chapters that document the Revolution. She highlights the new political divides in Tunisian society and shows how the political spaces that the Revolution created caused social splits rather than a national rap prochement. Her work reflects her dismay with the outcome of the Revolution and her suspicion that it was a ventriloquist’s puppet in the hands of higher world powers.
Messaouda Boubakr’s collection of short stories Azal ahki rep resents more of a fictive critique of the new social phenomena that are one of the Tunisian Revolution’s by-products. Since Ben Ali ruled with an iron fist to insure that freedom of expression and press were stifled, it became difficult after the Revolution to decipher what social woes already existed and which ones were a direct consequence of the newly created political spaces or of a newly found freedom of the press and of expression. Despite the divergence of their stories, all three authors converge in the fact that their texts mirror their political hyperconsciousness and have moved them from being apolitical writ ers to becoming politically conscious ones.
N otes
1 Amel Mokhtar is a Tunisian novelist, short story writer, and journalist in the
Tunisian newspaper d-Sahqfa. She publishes parts o f her works and short articles on herFacebook page: < https://www.faœbook.conVAmelMoktharEcrivaine>.
A lif 35 (2015) 119
2 Fatm aB en M ahm oudis a Tunisian poet, short story writer, novelist, and the correspondent in Tunis o f the journal cd-Imarat al-thaqafiyya. One may con sult her writings on her Facebook page: < https://www.facebook.com/fben- mahmoud?ffef=ts> .
3 Messaouda Boubakr is a Tunisian novelist and short story writer. She became a political activist in civil society organizations after the Tunisian Revolution. One may find som e o f her writings on her Facebook page: < https://www.facebook.com/messaouda.benboubakei> .
4 In her seminal work Words, not Swords: Iranian W omen Writers and the Freedom o f M ovem ent, Farzaneh M ilani refers to the contemporary histo- iy o f Iran, but her comments are equally valid when discussing Tunisia after the 2011 Revolution
5 According to Ai'cha Ghedira, the first published text by a Tunisian woman in French appears in the 1970s, with the publication of Gmnes d’espérance by Malika Golcem Ben Rejeb, which was followed by Sophia El Golli’s Signes in 1979.
6 All translations from Arabic are mine. 7 After the Revolution o f 2011, Tunisian authors (men and women) shared
their thoughts, opinions, and even literary productions on the walls of their Facebook page. Social media became instrumental in communicat ing authors’ views and perspectives.
8 The Bouazizi narrative has since been questioned by many Tunisians. However, it was useful for revolutionary propaganda at the time.
9 W hile Ben M ahmoud describes the Tunisian R evolution’s effects on her through a screen, M ona Prince, the Egyptian academic, blogger, and writer describes the days o f the Egyptian Revolution in Tahrir Square in her work R evolution Is M y Nam e with more hum or and horror than Ben M ahmoud describes the short-lived Tunisian uprisings. W hile the Tunisian author suffered psychological wounds, the Egyptian author was abducted and bru tally beaten by the security forces o f M ubarak’s regime.
10 M okhtar m entioned that the R evolution caused her to become an observer rather than a writer, and that she suddenly suffered a writer’s block as she did not know how to situate herself as a writer in a free country. She was used to writing while thinking about ways to overcome the censor. Yet, today, she can write what she pleases and as she pleases, which caused her a great shock (Personal interview).
11 Consequently, M okhtar translates the anxiety o f Tunisian society through her many characters. On the cover o f Dukhan al-qasr, Tunisian academic and writer Olfa Y oussef writes: “This novel contains many characters expressing their various voices and their different opinions. However, T unisia remains the main character who appears to be evasive and shift-
120 A l i f 35 (2015)
ing, sad and revolted though dreamful o f a better tom orrow .” Y o u ssef s description o f M okhtar’s work emphasizes the contradictions the different characters live throughout the novel, which further reflects the new polit ical reality created in T unisia after January 14, 2011.
12 The alienation caused by gender conflict is not foreign to Tunisian w om en’s works and is not lim ited to literature. Moufida T la tli’s films such as The Silences o f the Palace (1994) or her second film The Season o f M en (2000) reflect the continuation o f gender conflict w ithin Tunisian society. In fact, Lamia Ben Y oussef Zayzafoon argues that T la tli’s work is “a political allegory for wom en’s struggle against new forms o f oppres sion in the post-colonial era; namely, Western fem inism ’s silencing o f the ‘Third W orld M uslim sister,’ the post-independence state patriarchy, and Tunisian w om en’s own interiorization o f the law o f ‘heteropatriarchy’” (48). Zayzafoon’s argument reflects the many gender struggles Tunisian women confront and which are replicated in the visual art production of Tunisian women.
*2 The Personal Status Code guarantees women’s freedom in marriage as well as their right to dvoroe, alimony, and child support. For further information see: <http://www.e-justiœ.tn/fileadnin/fkhiers_site_francais/axfesjuridqjes/Statut_per- sonel_Fr.pd>.
14 According to Tunisian law, ‘urfi marriage is an illegal marriage contract that occurs between a man and a woman in the presence o f two witnesses. The contract cannot be registered as it does not conform to state regulations regarding legal marriage contracts. As for m u t'a marriage, it is literally a “pleasure marriage” that can end whenever either party decides to end it. The sole goal o f this illegal union is pleasure. Both marriages are foreign to Tunisia. Hence the author expresses her shock with such a social phenom enon that has repercussions upon women who can end up pregnant and abandoned by their male partners such as in Boubakr’s short story.
Works Cited
Abdel Qader, Emna. Emna. Tunis: al-Dar al-Tunisiyya lil-Nashr wa-l-Tawzi‘, 1984.
Ben M ahmoud, Fatma. Im ra 'a fi zaman al-thawra [A Woman at the Tim e o f Revolution]. Tunis: Manshurat Karem el Cherif, 2011.
Bhabha, Hom i. Nation and Narration. London; NY: Routledge, 1990. Boubakr, Messaouda. A zal ahki [My Storytelling Goes On], Tunis: Dar
Sahar, 2013. —. Personal interview. Tunis. July 4, 2013.
A l i f 35 (2015) 121
Dikeç, Mustafa. “Space as a Mode of Political Thinking.” Geofomm 43 (2012): 669-76. <www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/SOO 16718512000334#>.
Ghedira, A'icha. “Le roman tunisien féminin d’expression française.” <https://www.openstarts.units.it/dspace/bitstream/10077/7017/1/Ghedira _LF_2003_2.pdf>.
Gregg, Melissa and Gregory J. Seigborth, “An Inventory of Shimmers.” Affect Theory Reader. Eds. Melissa Gregg and Gregory J. Seigworth. Durham, NC: Duke UP, 2010, 1-25.
Heng, Geraldine. ‘“A Great Way to F ly’: Nationalism, the State, and the Varieties of Third-World Feminism.” Feminist Genealogies, Colonial Legacies, Democratic Futures. Eds. M. Jacqui Alexander and Chandra Talpade Mohanty. NY and London: Routledge, 1997. 30A5.
Honwana, Alcinda. Youth and Revolution in Tunisia. London; NY: Zed books, 2013.
Milani, Farzaneh. Words, not Swords: Iranian Women Writers and the Freedom o f Movement. NY: Syracuse UP, 2011.
Mokhtar, Amel. Dukhan d-qasr | S moke of the Palace]. Tunis: DarSahar, 2013. —. Personal interview. Tunis. July 3, 2013. Prince, Mona. Revolution Is M y Name: An Egyptian W om en’s Diary from
Eighteen Days in Tahrir. Trans. Sarnia Mehrez. Cairo, AUC P, 2014. Tlatli, Moufida, dir. The Season o f Men. Original France Petite Movie, 2000. —. The Silences o f the Palace. Capital Films, 1994. Westphal, Bertrand. Geocriticism: Real and Fictional Spaces. NY: Palgrave
Macmillan, 2011. Zayzafoon, Lamia Ben Youssef. “Memory as Allegory: The Spectre of Incest
and the (Re)naming of the Father in Moufida Tlatli’s The Silences o f the Place (1994).” Critical Art 21.1 (2007): 47-67.
122 A lif 35 (2015)
Copyright of Alif: Journal of Comparative Poetics is the property of Alif: Journal of Comparative Poetics, AUC and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use.
