Source: The World
The Lookout "jasmine revolution", a sign of the metamorphosis of history
Abdelwahab Meddeb, writer and poet
Article published in the edition of 18.01.11
What acceleration of history! The self-immolation Mohamed Bouazizi December 17 in the flight of Ben Ali on January 14, not even a month had elapsed
do. This unprecedented event showed us, as a surprise, the realization of the desire of a people on the stage of history, which proved
nice just because, and just because that nice.
This sequence has been exceptionally busy with a strictly local drama and pornography. It is a revolution that has made essentially
the Internet medium through the generation of digital and the blogosphere. And the brilliance of its duration is matched to the speed and immediacy that gives the instrument
.
Now we have with this "jasmine revolution" a new expression of time in history. This will be subject to condensation produced by the mutation
coordinates of space and time. We had a historical sequence to the second flap on the unknown and the known
shortens the distance to make it close.
is now using the technique that humanity will adapt to the horizon of his destiny the theological concept of omniscience and she lives on a daily
for its own account. This formidable
medium is neutral, it has no purpose in itself. It can come the best and worst. It simply bend to the will of its user. And it's
Islamic territoriality that we came early in the twenty-first century, two events that best illustrate the best and worst
, civilization and barbarism.
The worst came to us a September 11, 2001, where the new technique that accompanies us as our breath gave birth crime most heinous terrorist
executed by agents of the elusive Al-Qaeda. And the best was realized a few days ago before our very eyes that saw
the fall of a dictator and the emergence of a people to freedom, going towards the realization of democracy in a restive area decreed that form
policy. Form that I do not fantasizing, I do not sublime, I do not make up, I do not see more than what it is.
But despite its flaws, its shortcomings and deficiencies, its failures, its perversions and its incompleteness, the fact remains that it remains the only form
to accept a living-room set that landscape polyphony , debate, controversy, confrontation of the friend and enemy in
civility in the limits of reason, by the use of speech, the rhetoric of persuasion, argument, maintaining the dispute by
words and not guns, taking care to maintain open space which extends the choice of the individual in preserving law integrity
of his body and his conscience and freedom to enjoy it as dictated by his desire, his will, his truth.
Thus he should read what happens in Tunisia. This event is to be at the height of World Time. Do not bring it back to our old and stubborn
categories that divide our world into zones identify where the differences irreconcilable irreconcilable.
The Silence of the intellectuals and politicians is understandable because of the appearance and unprecedented inaugural event. That silence can be explained and justified
during the first two weeks. For the drama that began in this place that is lost Sidi Bouzid could be likened to one of these revolts
bread that occur in dictatorships and off from another world, distant, alien and strange, different located in another
economic structure (that of underdevelopment) and another specific culture, unassimilable (Islam or Africa). He could still be seen in
perspective paternalistic, condescending, a former colony which has already succeeded in ensuring decent hardware to its subjects,
which is a commendable performance that deserves good marks from the former metropolis.
But that silence has become unforgivable with the persistence of the movement. After receiving word of his slogans ("Freedom, work, dignity" to "Ben Ali
liberates!"), After diving into the archives of written, visual and noise accumulated by cybertémoins, one is entitled estimate that
silence becomes culpable. How to interpret this silence? Is it due to indifference? Is it still the sign of division into
center that controls and decides the hierarchy of events and suburbs destined to submit to and obey orders and classifications established by the center
?
It seems that events in Tunisia we should avoid double tropism: the paternalism of decolonization and of thinking and hegemonic differentialist
which divides the world into center and periphery. The revolution that was to theater what the Romans called the Africa
was triggered by a sacrificial body that has burned in Sidi Bouzid, that is to say, in the periphery of the periphery, in a shift squared. It was then relayed
urbi et orbi from space deterritorialized the blogosphere, which is capable of making the whole periphery of a center.
What comes from Tunisia upsets all our categories. If we are to understand the world as it is, if we want to situate
as the most relevant, it should reflect this shift and this deterritorialization. We must admit that the little neglected Tunisia
and unregistered at the forefront of our priorities may come an event that signals the qualitative transformation of history.
To be fully aware, we have to leave the fate that is otherness in a radical difference. In the different, I try to enter the
like without retracting the unlike. One look and have already warned Perceived Mohamed Bouazizi, its Islam itself, updating
a Christ figure of redemption, to be entered in our imagination lay beside Ian Palach, the slain of the "Prague Spring". And beyond the situation of these events
in their horizontal and depth Arab African, we must also consider their
global and universal.
course, considered in its geographical and cultural context, this revolution dignified, quiet, sure of itself, peaceful, responsible, mature
footprint, will be the promise of peoples and the nightmare of dictators. But, subject to the scansion of globality, it confirms in his own way
the universality of democratic desire and natural right to liberty.
That's why what happens in Tunisia requires our solidarity and active support, especially in the debate future, which necessarily theses
Islamists will want to speak. But we have the intellectual and political means to confront them, fight them and contain them.
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Abdelwahab Meddeb is the author of Bet civilization (Seuil, 2009).
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