Tunisian graffiti artist Elektro Jaye was recently censored at the Tunis Pintemps des Arts (Spring of Arts), a modern contemporary art fair which exhibited more than 500 art works this year.
“One of the fair’s organisers Luca Luccattini literally told me that the state had put pressure on him to remove my posters”, Elektro Jaye told Index.
Lucattini, the fair’s director, told Webdo.tn that one piece by the artist has been taken down, but for administrative reasons rather than pressure from authorities.
The artwork in question (on the far left) features the star and crescent from Tunisia’s flag, along with the Christian cross and the Star of David. The images are combined with the phrase “La République Islaïque de Tunisie”, which translates as “The Islaic Republic of Tunisia”. Islaic is a play on words, “Is” being taken from “Islam” and “laic” from the French word for secularism, “laïque”.
“The idea suggested here is that the religious should not interfere with the state’s decisions, nothing more! In my posters there is only a message of peace, and tolerance,” says Elektro Jaye.
Tunisia has had a heated debate about secularism and Islamism, dominating political discussions in the months following the fall of Ben Ali. Many Tunisian artists did not hide their desire for a secular state, and have used their work to express their view that religion should be kept aside.
While Elektro Jaye was unable to display his work at the art fair, he eventually succeeded in having his work displayed.
“Aicha Gorgi suggested that I display my works in her gallery. Some scandalmongers have been suggesting that this was just a marketing ploy. This is totally wrong.”
A youth revolution has been brewing in Mexico in the last month.
Known as the Yo Soy 132 movement (I am 132), the phenomenon is made up of university students who until a few months ago were a sleeping giant: most planned to vote in blank, or to stay away from the ballot boxes on 1 July elections.
It all changed on 11 May — the day candidate Enrique Peña Nieto of the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI), and the favourite to win in July, visited the campus of Universidad Iberoamericana, an upper-class university in Mexico City. At that rally Peña Nieto answered questions and spoke to students allowed to enter a meeting hall. But at he exited at the end of his presentation, he was pinned against a wall by a large group of student protesters who challenged him.
The candidate’s handlers were so rattled they issued a statement saying the students were “brought in” as professional protesters hired by forces that dislike the PRI. Enraged by the remarks, the students created a video titled “YoSoy131”, which launched the political movement. In it each of the 131 individual students who had taken part in the protest identified themselves with their university cards, proving they existed and were not fake. Since then, 74 universities around the country including private and public campuses have joined the movement, which has remained non-partisan, although it has allowed other more politicised citizen movements to join their group. The name change to Yo Soy 132 reflects the addition of the later activists.
The youth movement has injected doubts into the certainty the PRI will win the presidential elections next July. Recent polls showed the two other contenders closing in on the PRI candidate.
Since 2000, Mexico has been governed by a centre rightist party, the Partido de Accion Nacional. In 2006, Felipe Calderon took office under heavy dissent, as he beat left of centre candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador with a single digit percentage. Obrador and his party refused to accept defeat, holding work stoppages that threaten the country’s stability. Eventually, Obrador went quiet but continued to call himself the legitimate president.
The drug war launched by President Calderon since he took office in 2006 and bad economic times have depleted any support for PAN, sinking the possibility that they could return to power.
The PRI ruled Mexico for 70 years in a one-party system that was wrought with corruption and cronyism. The youth movement has energised an otherwise stilted political process. Nobody know what will happen, but the youth have responded.
Nawaat journalist and activist Ramzi Bettaib (aka “Winston Smith”) has now entered his fifth day on hunger strike.
Bettaieb is protesting against confiscation of his cameras as he tried to cover trials at the Military Tribunal of El Kef in the investigation of the murder of protesters during the 2011 Tunisian revolution — often dubbed the Martyrs’ Case. An army commandant at the tribunal accused him of collaborating with “foreign forces”.
Journalists are allowed to film for only three minutes during court hearings. Bettaieb told Le Courrier de l’Atlas that he feels “frustrated and revolted” by the rule. He began his hunger strike in order to push military authorities to allow journalists and activists to cover legal proceedings in the case “without any restrictions”.
“The Tunisian people have the right to know the truth”, he added.
The Tunisian uprising claimed the lives of more than three hundred persons, most of them protesters calling for socio-economic and political reforms. The Martyrs’ case was transferred to the Military Justice, often blamed for its lack of transparency, and its slow pace of investigation. So far no high-ranking officials have been convicted in the killings.
Houcem Hajlaoui, another Nawaat journalist, and Yassine Ayari, a blogger, have both gone on hunger strike in support of Bettaieb.
“Houcem Hajlaoui and I, we are on our second day of hunger strike. We will stand by Ramzi, and we will follow whatever he does, or decides till the end” said Yassine Ayari today.
Anonymous political cartoonist _Z_ has contributed with his art to Bettaieb’s cause. He drew a cartoon where Rachid Ammar, the Chief of Staff of the Tunisian Armed Forces is depicted as a puppeteer. In one hand, he holds a judge, in the other a police officer, his eyes are fixed on Ramzi Bettaieb and his camera.
“My friends, this is another battle for a new State philosophy, a philosophy whereby censorship, lack of transparency, and repugnance for citizens and all the defects which have been poisoning Tunisia disappear once and for all and join ZABA (a nickname given to former Dictator Zeine el-Abidin Ben Ali) in Saudi Arabia. Let’s support Wisnton against Big Brother!”
