Which 25 July do we want?

Which 25 July do we want?

25 July is the day on which the post-independence generations have been accustomed to celebrating Republic Day… Today, fifty-nine years have passed since the proclamation of the first Republic and Tunisia’s entry into a new era of consolidating national sovereignty, rooting the choice of citizenship and building the modern nation-state…

But for the past three years, 25 July has also marked a painful anniversary: the assassination of the martyr Mohamed Brahmi, a treacherous and despicable assassination that took the life of one of the sons of the first Republic and one of the most important contributors to building the second. An assassination that brought deep pain and grief to his family and to Tunisians, and that struck the completion of the republican project with shock and upheaval, through the symbolism of the date, 25 July, and of his position as a member of the Constituent Assembly. An assassination that nearly caused a serious setback and plunged the country into the unknown of chaos, a power vacuum and rule by the street.

25 July is the day that embodies, above all others, the Tunisian paradox: a country torn between two states, two concepts, two outlooks. Seeing the glass half full or half empty… looking at it from the joy and birth of 25 July 1957 or from the grief and mourning of 25 July 2013… Yes, this is a torn and lost Tunisia… a Tunisia that does not know whether to celebrate or to grieve… the Tunisia whose model the world acknowledges and rewards, or the Tunisia where citizens labour under the weight of economic, social and security hardships… the Tunisia that drafted a consensual and modern Constitution, or the Tunisia living through a political deadlock that some attribute to that very Constitution… the Tunisia that achieved a revolution and chose freedom, dignity and citizenship, or the Tunisia that some want to drag backwards… This is 25 July: a date whose brilliance has not faded… a date that challenges us, stirs what lies dormant within us and reminds us that we all stand at a real and decisive crossroads. Which Tunisia do we want? The Tunisia of death or the Tunisia of life… the Tunisia of hatred and revenge or the Tunisia of forgiveness and reconciliation… the Tunisia of helplessness and idleness or the Tunisia of will and work… the Tunisia of corruption or the Tunisia of clean hands… the Tunisia of sterility and mediocrity or the fertile Tunisia that still brings forth the outstanding, the gifted and the brilliant… the Tunisia of blind terrorism and of those stripped of their humanity or the Tunisia of sacrifice and valiant soldiers…

To every Tunisian who cares for this country, confident that the good in human beings will inevitably prevail and that the will to live will triumph among peoples (“If one day the people will to live”): we have, in our land of Tunisia, work to do… Do not let despair creep into your hearts… Do not give up this beautiful thing called Tunisia… Make 25 July 1957 the anniversary of a first birth (the Republic) and of a second birth, not of a death (“We die, we die, so that the homeland may live”)…

May God protect Tunisia and have mercy on her devoted martyr Mohamed Brahmi and on all those who watered the soil of the homeland with their blood.

Mondher Zenaidi, 25 July 2016