This blog is an archive of interviews, specific to the historical moment of the Tunisian revolts, after Ben Ali fled the country. In the time between April 7 and April 12, 2011 we (activist-artists, based in Vienna) got the chance to travel to Tunis and to participate in an international meeting, that took place in the headquarters of the Tunisian Worker’s Union UGTT and was organized by activists of the Sidi Bouzid revolution and activists from the Italian network UniCommon.
We took this chance to go to Tunisia, to meet and learn from people, to get information about the revolution that is not filtered by the Western mainstream media, to make contacts, exchange, form networks and further think together about differences and common aims in fights against repression, capitalism and systems of oppression. Our aim is to learn what might be a new possibility of political struggle.
The interviews gathered on this blog should give an opportunity to think about different positions in the Sidi Bouzid revolution, that did not – as mentioned many times – stop with the flight of Ben Ali. Who engaged, what methods are in use, how to organize and which aims or utopias are put forward. This revolution is not a revolution against one person, nor is it to achieve a western model of democracy.
The fight is for us to develop a position opposing and criticizing the narrative(s) of European democracy, and therefore to speak of a white, Christian, capitalist structure that enforces oppression of the “others” and has its clear continuities from Colonialism and fascism.
The interviews were made possible through an encounter with artists and activists based in Tunis. This blog is showing the early experience of a collaboration, that developed further to common artistic-political practices.