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Five years after the inspirational uprising in Tunisia that toppled the long dictatorship of Ben Ali, people are back on the streets demanding the fulfilment of the 2011 revolutionary slogan “ jobs, freedom, and national dignity." Last week, at the onset of the 2011 mass uprising, people took to the streets in cities and towns across the country. One protester captured his fellow Tunisians` predicament succinctly: “We have the freedom, but you cannot eat freedom.” There is deja vu between 2011 and now. The same people are in the streets for the same reasons. Official unemployment is at fifteen percent. According to Tunisia’s Higher Education MInistry, university graduates make up thirty percent of the unemployed, but other government statistics have reported that as many as forty percent of Tunisia’s 605,000 jobless hold degrees, with women graduates suffering an even higher rate of employment. Khalil Bendib spoke with Tunisian political scientist Nadia Marzouki about the recent protests and the government’s failure to provide a viable economy for the majority of the Tunisian people..
Five years after the inspirational uprising in Tunisia that toppled the long dictatorship of Ben Ali, people are back on the streets demanding the fulfilment of the 2011 revolutionary slogan “ jobs, freedom, and national dignity." Last week, at the onset of the 2011 mass uprising, people took to the streets in cities and towns across the country. One protester captured his fellow Tunisians` predicament succinctly: “We have the freedom, but you cannot eat freedom.” There is deja vu between 2011 and now. The same people are in the streets for the same reasons. Official unemployment is at fifteen percent. According to Tunisia’s Higher Education MInistry, university graduates make up thirty percent of the unemployed, but other government statistics have reported that as many as forty percent of Tunisia’s 605,000 jobless hold degrees, with women graduates suffering an even higher rate of employment. Khalil Bendib spoke with Tunisian political scientist Nadia Marzouki about the recent protests and the government’s failure to provide a viable economy for the majority of the Tunisian people..
