Dystopian and Alternate Realities: An Interview with Lyd filmmakers, Sarah Ema Friedland and Rami Younis

Dystopian and Alternate Realities: An Interview with Lyd filmmakers, Sarah Ema Friedland and Rami Younis

Dystopian and Alternate Realities: An Interview with Lyd filmmakers, Sarah Ema Friedland and Rami Younis

By : Isis Nusair

[This interview was conducted on April 27, 2024, regarding the film Dystopian and Alternate Realities]

Isis Nusair (IN): How did the idea of the film come about? 

Sarah Ema Friedland (SEF): I am Jewish American. I grew up knowing nothing about the Nakba. I read an article in 2015 about the Nakba in Lyd. It was literally the first time I had been introduced to this topic and it kind of blew my mind. I was very moved to try to do something in the way I know how, which is being a filmmaker. It was obvious that I cannot do it on my own. I reached out to a friend who does solidarity work in Palestine, and she put me in touch with Rami. We started working together and it was originally going to be a short film. The more we worked, the more the film grew in different ways. Seven years later, it ended up being a thrilling science fiction documentary. 

Rami Younis (RY): Sarah got me into filmmaking. I do not know whether to thank her since I am a poor filmmaker now (laughs). I am a journalist and a writer born and raised in Lyd. 

IN: Why did you decide to focus on Lyd?

SEF: Lyd was one of the last cities to fall during the Nakba. People from all over historic Palestine came to Lyd to fight against the Palmach.[1] It was one of the first capitals of Palestine. It is under talked about both in terms of its historical significance and what happened there in 1948. People talk about Lifta, Tantura, Deir Yassin, but they do not talk about Lyd. 

RY: It is obvious why I want to tell the story of my hometown. I never thought of investigating and researching the past. The more we worked on this film, the more it became evident that this city had a glorious past and rich history. It was the city that connected Palestine to the world. If we had to personify that space, that place, it would be like a diva, a fantastic singer, that has been forgotten and wanted to bring some of its glory days back. There is a line in the film that says that the story of Lyd is the story of Palestine and what happened in 1948. What took place on a small scale in some places happened on a larger scale in Lyd with the massacres, the demolitions, bulldozing the place, and the ghetto.[2] They bulldozed the old city to prevent the return of Palestinian refugees. It is past due that we focus on Lyd.  

IN: The association with Lyd today is of crime and drugs. We do not know much about the history of the place. 

RY: That is another reason for why it was important to focus on Lyd and offer a different story. We dedicated the film to my childhood friend who was murdered when he was 14 years old.  

IN: I want to ask about the politics of naming. The city itself is a protagonist in the film. It is not just being talked about. It talks about itself, which makes a big difference.  

SEF: The politics of naming is important in the United States. It includes glorifying the people who committed massacres or the heroes of the Civil War. Things are changing slowly. It is like an un-world building. Those who have been the victors had the opportunity to build the world in public space for all of us to walk through in the way they want us to view the place. You see the street signs in Lyd leading to Palmach Square where the massacre took place. It is named after the people who committed the massacre. You get this alternate version of history, the Zionist narrative of history that you are literally walking through. That is why we refer to Lyd as Lyd and not Lod, which is the Hebrew name for the city that Israelis use. It is a choice in stating the position this film is coming from. 

Lyd, Dahmash Mosque (the green sign on the right says in Hebrew Palmach Square)

RY: It is about reclaiming the narrative. We are not the first to do so. DAM did that over twenty years ago.[3]They would never say Lod. I always say Lyd Airport (not Ben-Gurion Airport). The insistence on naming is important here.  

IN: The city is a protagonist in the film and a memory keeper. Maisa Abd Elhadi[4] does a great job in narrating the story of the city.

RY: Unfortunately, as Palestinians, we need to keep humanizing ourselves, and remind the world that we are equal human beings who deserve to live in dignity and freedom. We took this to the next level by also personifying and humanizing the city. Since the city was a character, we wanted that character to speak in a certain way and say specific things.  

SEF: Structurally, in terms of the narrative of the film and because we have such a polyvocal film, we have all these different characters. The film is jumping around in time, and we go into alternate realities. It needed to have a narrative spine. It would not work with the film aesthetically if we just had a regular voiceover and only relied on text cards. It was a creative choice, but also a functional one to hold all the threads together.  

RY: We started by making a straightforward documentary. We wanted to tell the story of what has been happening in the city since 1948. How do you retell a story that has been told so many times? How do you draw more people to it? 

IN: You chose for the narrator to be a woman and not a man. We usually have this deep voiceover of the narrator who holds the truth. Is it because of the association of femininity with the homeland?  

SEF: The land is often personified as a woman. You also have the trope of raping the land or colonists coming and pillaging the land. Maybe in the back of our minds some of that was there. How do you flip the narrative? How do you make this strong female character who represents the land advocate for herself and tell her own history?  

IN: You finished the film just before October 7, 2023. One of the hardest things for me while watching the film was the constant reminder in many of the scenes of what we are witnessing today in Gaza. It is as if we are reliving the Nakba of 1948.  

SEF: One of the things the film roots itself in is the horrific massacre that took place at the Dahmash Mosque in Lyd in 1948. This was only one of the violent occurrences that took place when the Palmach invaded the city. It is the one that people talk about the most. Until this day, there is a plaque at the entrance to the mosque that says, “A horrible massacre happened here.” It is one of the rare occurrences where the Palestinian narrative is part of the built environment. We tell this story from the perspective of Palestinian survivors of the Nakba, mainly Eissa Fanous who was twelve years old when the massacre took place. It was important to get these testimonies from the generation that survived the Nakba. Two of the people we interviewed, Eissa and Um-Hassan, died during the making of the film.  

We had access to footage from the Palmach Archive that was never seen. That footage was taken in 1989 where Palmach members talked about the war crimes they committed in Lyd. They are proud of this history, and that contributes to the harmful imaginary of the Nakba as a “War of Independence,” which is a mythology that is crucial to sustaining the occupation for Israelis and American Jews. We need to build up the archives of survivors and there are amazing groups, like Zochrot,[5] who are doing this. We also want the film to be viewed as an archive of people who survived this moment, telling it from their perspective. 

RY: I keep thinking about the interview with Eissa and how surprising and shocking it was. He was a young boy when the massacre happened. Suddenly, he starts talking about being taken with four other children a week after the massacre to pull decomposed body parts out of the mosque so Palmach members can bury them. It was a shock to us because we have not talked about this before. We are grateful for him for sharing that account and for speaking up. It was very hard for him. He wanted to speak but was very traumatized. Yet, once Eissa started talking, it was like a flood. He kept this locked inside for so long. It breaks our heart that he passed away before the film was finished. 

IN: You interview Lydians who live in the West Bank. Lyd is an imaginary for them before you even present the science fiction part because it is something that is so close yet so impossible to reach or return to. 

RY: We filmed in Balata and Askar refugee camps.[6] In regard to how different generations imagine the possibility of going back to Lyd, the right of return was at work here. The characters dubbed themselves and were part of the creative process of creating the alternate reality. 

SEF: Another reason for why we chose Balata Refugee Camp is that we were working with the Jaffa Cultural Center, and they connected us with the Lydian refugees in Balata. 

A person and a child

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Lyd, Tarteer Family, Balata Refugee Camp 

RY: It was important to pay tribute to the refugee camp and to the people of the camp. It was also important to show what it feels like to live there. When I needed to record the voices of some of the characters, it was difficult to find a quiet corner. It is a dense place.   

IN: You can grow up within the Israeli educational system not knowing much about Palestinian history. Yet, the daily reality itself is very politicizing, it urges you to want to learn and create these alternative spaces.  

RY: I am a product of the Israeli public school system. You learn the history of the Jewish people by learning the Zionist narrative while not learning much about your own history. My work as a journalist and writer revolves around identity issues. We were asked the other day about what will prompt Palestinians to create an alternate reality. I do not think we are in that place yet. We first need to go back to the roots and educate Palestinians to let them know they are Lydians. After we know where we come from and solidify that shared collective identity, then we can start talking about alternate realities.

IN: There is also the time element. The expectation was that the more time passes, the more people will forget. The children in the film show that unless you educate them, they will forget.  

 


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A group of children sitting at a table

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Lyd, Real and animated classrooms

RY: We show what happened in May 2021. Lyd was the epicenter of the Unity Intifada (هبة الكرامة). There were Palestinian flags and people demonstrating against Israeli settlers, against the police, and against the Jewish establishment. They were showing solidarity with what was happening in Sheikh Jarrah and the planned displacement and expulsion of Palestinians. They were also showing solidarity with Gaza. When things get heated, people in Lyd discover a shared collective unity that is not always made public. 

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Lyd, Demonstration against house demolitions in May 2021 

IN: I want to ask about the archive and how it is linked to memory. You use different drone shots and archival footage, and speak about obtaining this kind of footage and the telling and retelling of these narratives and memories.

SEF: Accessing the footage was through the Palmach Archive in Ramat Aviv. We told them that we were making a film about Lyd and 1948. Maybe because I am an American Jew and my name is Sarah Friedland, they assumed that we were telling the story from a perspective that they would agree with, or maybe they just do not care. We obtained the footage legally and people have different reactions to it. It was important not to tell the story of the 1948 invasion of Lyd only from the Palmach perspective. The film has three Nakba survivors, three different elders who tell different pieces of that history, starting with Eissa Fanous and the massacre, then continuing with the people in Balata Refugee Camp who talk about the expulsion. That is part of the polyvocality of the film where somebody starts a story, and then someone else picks it up along the way. 

We shot the drone footage ourselves. One of our producers brought a drone. I initially did not want the drone footage since it is associated with the military and surveillance. Now I am glad we have that footage. Whenever you see that footage, that is when you hear the voice of Lyd. She is in the air of the city. Hopefully it works differently than signaling surveillance or an overproduced documentary with fancy images.  

An aerial view of a city

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Lyd, Drone shot of public square

To cut back and forth between the Palmach archival footage and present day Lyd, we created matching shots to visually indicate that the Nakba is ongoing. Shmaryahu Gutman, one of the commanders of the Palmach, starts that sequence. He was standing by a house, a Palestinian house, when he was filmed in 1989. We were able to find that exact location and film there in the present and do these kind of match cuts so that when we go back and forth between the two time periods, it is always with an awareness of the memory in this place. 

IN: When did you get access to the Palmach archive? It will probably be near impossible to have access now. 

RY: It was in 2016. We went to that archive twice. We looked for the footage and spent hours going through it. This is where our partnership pays off. As a Palestinian, I would never think of going to that place because it represents pain and atrocities.  Sarah, having an outside perspective, had a healthier approach. She said, “What do you have to lose? Let's see what they have there.” We struggled but were able to find never seen footage of Palmach members essentially saying there were women and children in the mosque. The official Zionist narrative when it comes to the Dahmash Mosque massacre is that there were only “jihadis” there. We show in the film testimonies from the Palmach that it was not the case and that war crimes were committed.  

IN: You were very creative in how you built this imaginary in the science fiction part. I was fascinated by the reference to George Habash, Hannah Arendt, and Khalil Sakakini and what it said about the history of the city before and after 1948.    

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Lyd, Animated Hannah Arendt Lecture Hall

SEF: We were originally making a straightforward documentary. We were invited with the Palestinian Film Institute in 2018 to pitch at Cannes Film Festival as part of the first Palestinian Pavilion. It was an amazing experience. It was there that we thought that we would not want to watch the film we were making. There was nothing liberatory about it. I love science fiction. I mainly read but also watch science fiction films. There is a long history associating science fiction with liberation. I will speak from my perspective, and it is obviously very different for Rami. As an American Jew, we are literally taught an alternate reality, taught an alternate history. The Zionist project of creating the state of Israel is a world building project. The reality we live in is like science fiction, and that surrealness was one of the biggest inspirations for the science fiction elements of the film. 

To build a nation, you need to create a mythology. The mythology of the state of Israel that we all are taught and kind of brainwashed with is what sustains the occupation. It is so deep. We already talked about changing names on streets and calling Lyd Lod. The name Lod comes from ancient Jewish biblical texts, it is a process of resurrecting these ancient names to prove some kind of indigeneity. There is also the process of resurrecting ancient biblical Jewish names for the same reason when Jewish people immigrate to Israel and change their names to become Israeli, for example David Ben Gurion was born David Grün. This is so interesting to me because when Jews immigrated here, to the U.S., our names were changed not by choice, in order to become American. I see both as a form of erasing our diasporic Jewish cultures. There is so much worldbuilding in the project of the nation state. For us, it was important to draw on these tools that have been used by the oppressor in building our own reality.

I had to do a lot of learning and unlearning throughout this process. I did a lot of historical research. I was really inspired by Salim Tamari’s book, Mountain Against the Sea and the memoirs of Palestinians before European colonization of Palestine. Khalil Sakakini is talked about in that book together with the project he started in Christian schools where they would use the Quran to teach Arabic. I believe in the diaspora and have always been inspired by Hannah Arendt and her essay, “We Refugees.” The diaspora in this context is kind of an Avant Garde, the forefront. I wanted to pay homage to her and to the kind of breath she breathed into Jewish identity.  

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Lyd, Animated Khalil Sakakini School

RY: The alternate reality that we created is not a utopia. When we developed the alternate reality, we started viewing the documentary footage with the actual reality as dystopian because it looks so depressing. There is a scene at the school with the students not knowing their Palestinian identity. We recreated that scene in the alternate reality. It was about Palestinian privilege and helping the less fortunate. 

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Lyd, Animated Jehad

We talk about George Habash and Khalil Sakakini. We planted these hidden messages to get people to think about the “what if, if history was different” questions. George Habash, founder of the Popular Front (for the Liberation of Palestine), was a revolutionary. He was revered yet also demonized by so many. He had a great influence on the global left. He came from Lyd. In the alternate reality we examine what would have happened if there was no occupation in 1948, his sister had not been killed, and he did not become a refugee. He would have no reason to start the Popular Front.

SEF: Since he was a scholar and a physician, we figured he would have been a famous intellectual and why not name a university after him.

IN: Last time I was in Lyd in 2021, they took us for a tour in the city and showed us the clinic where George Habash used to work. They also showed us the expulsion route towards Ramallah. That was the only road refugees could take if they wanted to stay alive. Can you speak about ruptures and rebuilding in the film?

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Lyd, Recreation

RY: There is tension between the alternate reality and the dystopian reality, where one reality is trying to take over the other. That is why we created the rupture. We imagined that what happened in 1948 was so traumatizing that it created a rupture in space and time where one reality could seep into the other. We figured that would be an entry point for introducing the science fiction part. 

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Lyd, Recreation

All around, there are remnants of old soap factories that belonged to the big families in the city. These are beautiful, ancient buildings. Today, they are deserted, neglected, and falling apart. No one is renovating or maintaining them because they do not relate to the Zionist past and do not support the Zionist narrative. The rebuilding part is within the dystopian reality. These buildings deserve recognition because they are part of the history of the place. Lyd had a glorious past and rich history. It was very important for us to rebuild the old soap factories, Khan El Hilu, and the bridge. 

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Lyd, Real and animated soap factory

SEF: The whole thing is about the importance of radical imagination. adrienne maree brown urges us to use the imagination to build the world we want to see. For the whole time, we are seeing the alternate reality seep into the dystopian reality but not the other way around. 

IN: That reminds me of the Saint George story in the film. That is what Lyd is known for, its association with Saint George. 

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Lyd, Animated Eissa and Saint George statue

RY: Manar says in the alternate reality, that before it became fashionable to see skinny blonde girls riding dragons and slaying them, we had Saint George who is buried in Lyd. His mother is Lydian. This was a holiday in which Muslims and Christian Palestinians celebrated the patron and symbol of the city, Saint George. It is no longer a holiday for the entire city because of the divide and conquer policies of the Israeli establishment. In the alternate reality, we wanted to show that everyone celebrate that holiday including Muslims and Jews. 

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Lyd, Animated newsreel

SEF: This is another place where the past informs the present. Before European colonization, and we know this from Ottoman census records, 5% of Palestine was Jewish. These were Jewish Palestinians. We have records of Christians and Muslins celebrating Purim together. 5% is not that much, but that is more than the percentage of the Jewish people in the US today, so it is significant. Another thing that is kind of erased in the Zionist narrative is that there are and were and will continue to be Arab Jews. We are told that Arab countries were never safe for the Jewish people. This is not true. 

IN: Tell us about your collaboration and how it kept the project going. 

RY: We figured that we are making a film that is not very traditional, an unorthodox film, and maybe its funding needs to be unorthodox. We had an Indiegogo campaign and later Roger Waters became our executive producer. Because it is a Palestinian and an American film, we got support from the New York State Council on the Arts. We also received support from the Religion, Conflict and Peace Initiative at Harvard Divinity School.  

When Palestinians talk about the occupation, they talk about 1948 as the root of all evil. Others, in the West and especially liberal Zionists, would want you to believe that the occupation started in 1967, and what had happened in 1948 was just a necessity, a national necessity. I do not even have words to describe what is happening right now in Gaza. To fix the present, we need to go back to the past.  

IN: What about the reception of the film? 

RY: We decided for the premier to be in Amman, Jordan (at the Amman International Film Festival in August 2023). We chose Amman because it has a large population of Palestinian and specifically Lydian refugees. We saw the profound impact the film had on them, especially the alternate reality part. Seeing this alternate reality of the place they were dreaming of was empowering. The film contributes to imagining that place and how return might look like. 

We released the film in August. It was before the genocide. Some people did not want to see it, support it, nor become part of it. We did win the Feature Length Documentary Award in Amman, Jordan. The film sold out and we had to have a third screening. The genocide is attracting more attention to the film, and that is unfortunate. It should not be like that. 

SEF: It was hard to make this film. When we screened the film last August in Amman, Jordan, it sold out and we needed to have an additional third screening. It worked for the public, and we won the Critics Association Award. That was incredibly validating.  We had other people who believed in us like MAD Solutions, our Egyptian distribution partners. Now we also have distribution in North America from Icarus Films. We are getting so much interest in this film that nobody wanted to see before because of the genocide in Gaza. This happens with documentary films all the time. When there is a tragedy, you start looking for something that speaks about what is happening. I am happy we have a resource for people to put in context. It is also devastating that it took a genocide to get the visibility we are getting now. 

Featuring 


Sarah Ema
Friedland is a NYC-based media artist and educator. Her work has been screened, pitched and exhibited at institutions including Cannes Film Festival Doc Corner, Lincoln Center, Anthology Film Archives, The DCTV Firehouse Cinema, PBS, the Tang Teaching Museum.  Her works have been supported by grants and fellowships including Jerome Foundation, Paul Newman Foundation, Ford Foundation, NYSCA, the Palestine American Research Center, the LABA House of Study, and the MacDowell Colony. She was named one of the “Top 10 Independent Filmmakers to Watch” by the Independent Magazine, is a recipient of the Paul Robeson award from the Newark Museum, and was nominated for a New York Emmy
Her work has been covered by Variety, The New York Times, Filmmaker Magazine, and The Brooklyn Rail. She has written for Millenium Film Journal and Filmmaker Magazine.  Friedland received her BA from Sarah Lawrence College and the International School of Film and Television in Cuba and her MFA from the Integrated Media Art Program at Hunter College. She was the founding Director of the MDOCS Storyteller’s Institute at Skidmore College . She is currently a member of the Meerkat Media Collective and is a Clinical Assistant Professor at NYU, Liberal Studies where she also directs the Liberal Studies Global Media Lab. 

Rami Younis is a Palestinian filmmaker, writer, journalist and activist from Lyd. He was a 2019-20 Fellow at the Harvard Divinity School. He is a frequent contributor to the online magazine +972 and served as both writer and editor of its Hebrew sister site, “local call”, a journalistic project he co-founded, designed to challenge Israeli mainstream journalism outlets. Rami served as a parliamentary consultant and media spokesperson for Palestinian member of Knesset (Israeli parliament) Haneen Zoabi. Rami is also co-founder and manager of the first ever “Palestine Music Expo”: an event that connects local Palestinian music scene to the world wide industry. Younis was the host of the critical Arabic-language daily news show, “On the Other Hand.”


[1] The Palmach was a unit of the Jewish Haganah. 

[2] See Elias Khoury’s novels about Lyd, Children of the Ghetto, My Name is Adam (Dar Al-Adab, 2016) and Children of the Ghetto II, The Star of the Sea (Dar Al-Adab, 2019).

[3] DAM is a Palestinian hip-hop group founded in Lyd in 1999 and led by Tamer Nafar. They are known for their song Min Irhabii

[4] Actress Maisa Abd Elhadi was put under house arrest by the Israeli authorities and prevented from using social media for comments she made online following the October 7, 2023 attacks. 

[5] Zochrot was founded in 2002 by a group of Jewish-Israeli activists calling for the recognition by Israeli society of the Nakba and the Palestinian refugees' right of return. See https://www.zochrot.org/welcome/index/en

[6] Both Balata and Askar refugee camps are outside Nablus in the northern part of the West Bank. 

Nidaa Tounès et Ennahda, l’alliance entre « deux forces d’ancien régime » en Tunisie. Retour sur l'histoire de la révolution avec Aziz Krichen

Aziz Krichen est une figure historique de la gauche tunisienne. Son opposition frontale aux régimes de Habib Bourguiba et de Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali le conduit en prison puis à l’exil. Ministre conseiller du président Moncef Marzouki depuis janvier 2012, il a démissionné de ses fonctions en mai 2014 pour ne pas avoir à cautionner une stratégie consistant à attiser les clivages identitaires du pays pour mobiliser l’électorat islamiste en prévision de l’élection présidentielle. Il répond ici à Khadija Mohsen-Finan qui l’interroge sur l’état actuel et le devenir de la classe politique tunisienne.

Khadija Mohsen-Finan. — Selon vos propos, après 2011, la classe politique tunisienne a «  confisqué le soulèvement  ». Pouvez-vous clarifier votre pensée  ?

Aziz Krichen. — En réalité, le terme de confiscation est impropre. Cela voudrait dire que la révolution était entre certaines mains et qu’elle serait ensuite passée à d’autres. Or, ça n’est pas ce qui s’est produit et ça ne se produit jamais ainsi.

Le soulèvement était spontané et sans encadrement politique au cours de l’hiver 2010-2011. Il a atteint son paroxysme le 14 janvier 2011, avec l’exfiltration de Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali. C’est à ce moment là que les choses ont commencé à refluer. Pareil mouvement de bascule est d’ailleurs inhérent à tout soulèvement spontané.

Le mot d’ordre était «  Le peuple veut la chute du régime  » mais en contrepartie, il n’y a jamais eu de revendication positive. Les questions classiques relatives à l’exercice du pouvoir, aux changements économiques et sociaux à introduire ne se sont pas posées. C’est toujours le cas lorsqu’il y a un soulèvement spontané. Il y a une cible à abattre, en l’occurrence ici le régime de Ben Ali, et ensuite, c’est en général assez obscur. Par quoi allait-on remplacer le régime à abattre  ? Le pays était dans le flou total à ce propos. Rien de très précis n’était prévu sur les réformes politiques, les déséquilibres dans l’assise territoriale du pays, le chômage des jeunes, etc.

L’opération de reprise en main par les forces politiques commence dès le 14 janvier, avec les deux gouvernements Mohamed Ghannouchi — un homme sans envergure. En mars, Béji Caïd Essebsi, qui est alors appelé à diriger le gouvernement, réussit à mettre toute la classe politique dans une structure, la Haute Instance pour la réalisation des objectifs de la révolution, de la réforme politique et de la transition démocratique. Elle est créée le 15 mars 2011 par la fusion du Conseil de défense de la révolution, qui bénéficie d’une certaine légitimité, et de la Commission supérieure de la réforme politique, qui était l’une des trois commissions nommées par Ben Ali le 13 janvier, la veille de son élimination, pour réformer l’État selon un processus «  légal  ».

Entre la Haute Instance, comme on l’appelait, et le gouvernement, il y avait un risque de dualité du pouvoir. Caïd Essebsi a alors réduit cette instance à un rôle consultatif, même si les cadres de la Haute Instance ne l’entendaient pas ainsi au départ.

À partir d’avril 2011, au terme d’un long débat sur le mode de scrutin, nous avons assisté à une reprise en main de la vie politique par les partis. Il n’y a donc pas eu renouvellement par le bas, mais cooptation par le haut. La classe politique l’a opérée de manière collective, en attendant les élections. Ceux qui ont fait la révolution ont eu le sentiment d’avoir été dépossédés par la Haute Instance.

Le 15 juillet, des jeunes venus de l’intérieur du pays protestent place de la Kasbah (Kasbah III) à Tunis, pour rallumer le flambeau de la contestation. La police les empêche de se rassembler et les partis politiques, y compris ceux de l’ancienne opposition, s’arrangent pour que leur initiative ne débouche sur rien.

La rupture finale se produit au moment de l’inscription sur les listes électorales. L’Instance supérieure indépendante pour les élections (Isie) voulait constituer un nouveau fichier d’électeurs pour ne pas avoir à utiliser l’ancien fichier du ministère de l’intérieur. Malgré les délais supplémentaires et les facilités accordées pour s’enregistrer, seule la moitié de la population apte à voter a figuré sur les listes électorales. La seconde moitié n’a pas voté. Les abstentionnistes provenaient essentiellement des régions de l’intérieur et des périphéries des grandes villes. Plus de 85 % des citoyens âgés de 18 à 25 ans ne se sont pas inscrits. Cela veut dire que les vecteurs du soulèvement ne se sont pas reconnus dans la nouvelle classe politique : l’offre politique ne correspondait pas à la demande populaire.

Ce constat est valable pour les trois moments électoraux que nous avons connus depuis la révolution : en octobre 2011 avec l’élection des membres de l’Assemblée nationale constituante, en octobre 2014 avec les élections législatives et en novembre-décembre 2014 pour ce qui concerne l’élection présidentielle. Entre octobre 2011 et décembre 2014, on a encore perdu un million d’électeurs. Un peu plus de 3 millions de citoyens se sont déplacés pour voter au deuxième tour de la présidentielle, sur plus de 8 millions d’électeurs potentiels. Nidaa Tounès et Ennahda, les deux principaux partis, ne mobilisent qu’un peu plus de 2 millions de personnes. Ces chiffres indiquent le décalage existant entre la société politique et la société réelle.

Les acteurs du soulèvement populaire d’il y a quatre ans n’ont pas donné naissance à des formations politiques en adéquation avec leurs aspirations. Ceux qui sont aux commandes à présent sont en complet décalage avec ce qui s’est produit en décembre 2010 et janvier 2011.

K. M.-F. — Vous considérez que la classe politique ne s’est pas suffisamment renouvelée  ?

A. K.— Par rapport à la situation antérieure au 14 janvier 2011, par rapport à il y a dix ou vingt ans, on retrouve les mêmes acteurs principaux, c’est-à-dire Nidaa Tounès, qui prolonge d’une certaine façon le mouvement destourien, et les islamistes d’Ennahda. Le grand progrès réalisé par rapport à autrefois réside dans le fait que ces deux partis ne sont plus en guerre l’un contre l’autre, dans un système fermé et dictatorial. Ils sont désormais associés, dans un régime ouvert et démocratique. Mais il s’agit toujours des deux mêmes forces politiques, passées d’un état de belligérance à une situation de partenariat. Et les petites formations (les groupes de gauche, les libéraux, les démocrates, les nationalistes arabes), restent subalternes, comme il y a dix ou vingt ans. Il n’en demeure pas moins que le rapport d’association existant entre Nidaa Tounès et Ennahda est un progrès, car il permet à la Tunisie de surmonter ses divisions identitaires, condition indispensable pour affronter les vrais problèmes du pays et non ses fantasmes.

Par ailleurs, ces deux forces politiques sont dans un rapport d’équilibre, elles bénéficient d’un soutien populaire quasi équivalent : environ un million de votants pour chacune. Cette situation constitue une sorte de garantie pour la préservation des libertés. Les deux partis se surveillent mutuellement, neutralisant ainsi les velléités hégémoniques qui existent ici et là. Le souci, c’est que ces deux forces sont, pour ainsi dire, des forces d’ancien régime.

Entre Nidaa Tounès et Ennahda, au-delà de l’antagonisme idéologique apparent, il y a une identité réelle, notamment en matière économique. Ils ont le même programme. L’affichage varie, mais leurs conceptions économiques sont les mêmes : un mélange de clientélisme et d’ultralibéralisme. Les deux mouvements sont aujourd’hui aux affaires, ils ne peuvent reproduire que les anciennes recettes, dont tout le monde sait par avance qu’elles ne vont pas fonctionner.

Prenons un exemple. L’une des raisons du soulèvement d’il y a quatre ans était la très grande disparité entre les régions, conséquence des choix économiques du passé. Ben Ali répétait à l’envi qu’il fallait investir massivement à l’intérieur du pays pour arriver à bout de ces disparités. On continue à dire la même chose, mais le gouvernement n’a aucune solution pour résoudre ce problème. Or, à y regarder de près, à l’origine de la question, il y a une politique économique qui a appauvri la paysannerie et empêché le développement agricole du pays. Cela a provoqué un exode rural massif et les régions de l’intérieur ont été sinistrées. Cette situation, qui dure depuis soixante ans, s’articule autour d’une politique des prix agricoles (fixés par l’État et non par le marché) qui aboutit à un véritable pillage du monde rural. L’agriculture et la paysannerie ont été laminées, non par le manque d’investissements, réel par ailleurs, mais à cause de cette politique des prix. Consultez les programmes de Nidaa Tounès et d’Ennahda, vous ne trouverez pas une seule ligne sur cette question essentielle, à l’origine du plus grand déséquilibre de nos politiques de développement.

Un autre exemple : l’économie parallèle, qui constitue près de 60 % de notre PIB réel. Sans parler des villes qui sont défigurées par les étalages anarchiques, l’ensemble de nos activités dites «  structurées  », dans le commerce, les services et l’industrie est menacé par la prolifération de ce phénomène. Je prétends qu’il n’est pas possible de développer le pays et de stabiliser son système démocratique en restant dans le cadre d’une économie divisée de cette façon.

Le gouvernement actuel n’a pas de vision pour régler ce problème, à part les descentes de police pour nettoyer la rue. Il a donc recours aux méthodes anciennes, mais sans disposer des moyens du passé, c’est-à-dire ceux d’un État policier.

Si les deux principales forces politiques travaillent bien ensemble, si elles sont bien représentées dans le même gouvernement, la fracture entre ce qu’elles peuvent proposer et ce pour quoi le pays s’est soulevé reste entière. Tandis que le pouvoir reste sans réponse appropriée, le pays continue à s’enfoncer dans le marasme. Le gouvernement s’agite en donnant le sentiment qu’il ne sait pas ce qu’il doit faire.

K. M.-F. — Où est passée la gauche tunisienne  ?

A. K.— Il faut comprendre que la bipolarisation a marginalisé toutes les autres forces politiques. Du temps de Ben Ali, lorsque le pouvoir en place désignait les islamistes comme le principal ennemi, il faisait d’eux une alternative incontournable, le recours vers lequel se reportait automatiquement la majorité de ceux qui s’opposaient à ce pouvoir. Les autres formations d’opposition se retrouvaient dès lors marginalisées, elles ne pouvaient plus jouer un rôle de premier plan.

Avec la troïka1, la même mécanique s’est remise à fonctionner, mais à fronts renversés. En 2012, lorsque Nidaa Tounès a commencé à se constituer, cette formation ne pesait pas lourd par rapport à des partis comme Al-Joumhouri2 ou même Al-Massar3. Mais dès lors qu’Ennahda a désigné Nidaa Tounès comme son adversaire numéro 1, ce parti est très vite devenu le pôle central autour duquel s’est aligné le reste de l’opposition.

Au-delà de leurs divisions — provoquées notamment par le syndrome présidentiel de beaucoup de leurs dirigeants —, les groupes de l’opposition démocratique et progressiste ont continuellement été écartelés par la bipolarisation. Ils n’ont cessé de basculer en recherchant des alliances avec l’un ou l’autre pôle majeur.

L’opposition démocratique n’a jamais développé de projet qui lui soit propre et qui garantisse son autonomie. Elle n’a jamais été en mesure de développer une vraie vision des changements économiques et sociaux dont le pays avait besoin et elle n’a donc jamais pu mobiliser de manière significative les milieux populaires intéressés par ces changements. En un mot, elle est restée une force d’appoint, à la remorque d’Ennahda ou de Nidaa Tounès, sans jamais pouvoir jouer le premier rôle.

Avec la mise en sommeil effective de la bipolarisation, les choses pourraient et devraient changer. La gauche pourrait enfin se mettre à exister. Je crois même que ses chances d’exister et de peser n’ont jamais été aussi grandes tant le pays est en attente.

Ennahda et Nidaa Tounès sont aujourd’hui associés au pouvoir. Pour coexister, ils sont condamnés à évoluer. S’ils réussissent leur examen démocratique, ils pourraient se transformer en partis de droite classiques, l’un plus conservateur, l’autre plus libéral. Ensemble, toutefois, ils ne représentent actuellement qu’environ le quart du potentiel électoral global du pays. C’est dire que la grande majorité de la population attend autre chose, une autre offre politique.

Une gauche rénovée et refondée pourrait répondre aux besoins de la masse des Tunisiens qui ne se retrouve pas dans la classe politique existante. C’est mon vœu le plus cher et c’est en tout cas à la réalisation de cet objectif que je consacre tous mes efforts.


 1Gouvernement de coalition entre 2011 et 2014, dirigé par Hamadi Jebali puis Ali Larayedh et rassemblant trois partis politiques représentés à l’Assemblée constituante : Ennahda, Ettakatol et le Congrès pour la République (CPR) dans le but de former une majorité stable.

2Appelé aussi Parti républicain, fondé le 9 avril 2012 par la fusion de plusieurs partis centristes et socio-libéraux.

3Encore appelé La Voie démocratique et sociale. Parti créé le 1er avril 2012 de la fusion entre le mouvement Ettajdid, le Parti du travail tunisien et des indépendants du Pôle démocratique moderniste.

[Cet article a été publiè pour la premiére fois sur OrientXXI]