THE AFRICAN IN ME TURNED PAN-AFRICAN—BY AYA CHEBBI

 “Game Over! Game Over!”

The voice of freedom was rising from different corners in Tunis, mixed with pain and bravery. Thousands of people poured in from different directions, filling every stretch of Habib Bourguiba Avenue: the café-lined street turned scene of civil resistance. Young women. Unemployed graduates. Journalists. Doctors. Lawyers. Students. Some climbed the walls of the Interior Ministry, a site of torture reports for years. Thousands more waived Tunisia’s red and white flag or draped it on their backs. Hundreds of placards with different colours and the boldly inscribed message: “Ben Ali Dégage!” were held high. Thick clouds of tear gas and black smoke formed a foggy sky.

“Leave! Leave!” we shouted. 

Police. Teargas. Shooting. Citizens. Screaming. Running. Silence…And then, the voice of freedom slowly returned, louder and angry but peaceful.

“No fear, No horror, The street belongs to the people!”

Again, teargas. But this time, the collective steps were walking forward with harmonious and united voices.

“The people demand the overthrow of the regime!”

The world stood in anticipation as we chanted with tears and cried with smiles. These were moments of freedom, of dignity. I had long known that youth drive revolutions, but I did not know I would take part in one. I did not know that in these moments, my generation was showing the world new ways to create change. Protest turned celebration as news started filling our social media feeds and the streets that Friday night: President Ben Ali had resigned and fled. His twenty-three-year dictatorship—the only government I had known my entire life—was over.

When I remember January 11, 2011, I remember the noise. I remember the silence. I remember the words of the Tunisian poet, Abu Al Kacem Chebbi, echoing in my head: “You were born unbound like the shadow of the breeze, and free like the light of the dawn in its sky.” 

*** 

I was born in a village on the Tunisian-Algerian borders to a fairly conservative Muslim family. In my community, certain traditions were common, including a ritual called Tasfih that is practised on girls before they get their periods.

When I was nine years old, I was invited into a room with two of my cousins. An elder came in, scratched my knees seven times, and made me clean up the blood with seven dry grapes while repeating some words to seal the ritual. Tasfih is believed to lock the vagina and protect women’s virginity by preventing sexual intercourse. It is believed that even if the girl is forced into sexual intercourse, it will not be possible. Before marriage, the ritual is repeated to lift the spell, or in the elder’s words “unlock the vagina”. After crying that night, I started to question my body and my role in society as a female. That childhood trauma, amongst others, unlocked my resistance.

From an early age, I began to stand up for my rights within my family, and to make choices that relatives and neighbours considered radical. I chose not to wear the Hijab, becoming the only “non-veiled” woman in my family. I was lucky to be supported by my father who does not identify as feminist, but in many ways nurtured me to become one. My father raised me to have a deep sense of self- confidence, and used his privilege and power—as a man, as the “head of the family,” and as an elder in our extended family—to support this decision, and many others. He provided protection for the consequences of my “radical” actions. Even when we fundamentally disagreed, I knew my right of choice was guaranteed. In daily acts of choosing for myself, the woman in me turned feminist.

When I chose to attend university in Tunisia’s capital city, I became the only woman in my family to live alone. I was sitting for examinations during the first semester of my final year in university, when the Tunisian revolution began.

January 14, 2011 was the culmination of twenty-eight days of resistance sparked by the self-immolation of Mohammed Bouazizi, and fuelled by years of high unemployment, corruption, lack of political freedoms, and poor living conditions. As an International Relations student, I had been grappling with my repressive governments policies for some time. With graduation fast approaching, my classmates and I frequently discussed the very dim job prospects that awaited most of us. Tunisia had become like George Orwell’s Animal Farm, and outside the classroom some animals were more equal than others.

When the protests began in December 2010, I knew that that the dangers of protesting in the streets included being subjected to indiscriminate teargas and police violence. State news media warned repeatedly that police would shoot. But I knew the alternative to confronting the government was worse: the state of waithood. Without a change, my generation would have been condemned to perpetually waiting: waiting for employment, for political inclusion, for justice, equality and much more. So, I decided to go to the streets and join the non-violent resistance   as a protestor, mobiliser, and anything I can do to strengthen our movement  to remain non-violent and untied 

On the streets, I saw other young women like me unafraid to die for freedom.  It was not the first time Tunisian women fought for freedom: our grandmothers and mothers had played a key role in securing Tunisia’s independence. In the 1950s, Tunisian women also played a key role in securing the Code of Personal Status (CPS) that included progressive laws for women like creating a judicial procedure for divorce, and giving women the ability to create businesses and own passports. 

My generation, however, was showing the world new ways to mobilise with our savvy use of social media. We organised under the slogan “Jobs, Freedom, Dignity,” using platforms like Twitter and Facebook to circulate photographs and videos of each demonstration, and issue calls for the next one. Western and mainstream media outlets started to call our revolution the “Arab Spring,” the “Arab Awakening” and the “Jasmine Revolution”, which I found very frustrating. Their single narratives did not articulate the fullness of my people’s identities, and the layers of our struggles. Our revolution was a "Revolution of Dignity".

It was driven by the unemployed and the employed demanding their rights, artists and intellectuals demanding their freedom, journalists denouncing censorship, and lawyers and judges demanding an independent judiciary. It was driven by youth, and it was driven with women. We were a leaderless mass of informed citizens, led by unity of purpose across age, sex, religion, education, and class lines. We went to the streets to demand accountability, and those streets became a space for intersectional citizen engagement. I wanted to see these stories of agency become headlines. I wanted to see the stories of our humanity alongside the stories of our inequalities.

So, I started a blog called Proudly Tunisian to offer counter narratives. The Revolution of Dignity was a big moment of growth for me, and I like to say I grew up with the revolution. The revolution helped me realise the power of the people is more powerful than the people in power. It also showed me Tunisia’s streets belong to the people and not the state— I left the walls of Facebook to tag the walls of the street, with graffiti, and with no fear.  It was an empowering time, but also a time of political consciousness.

The civic engagement of youth had reduced our collective state of waithood—we had created new spaces to organise and new frameworks to influence decision making. But the revolution had not solved fundamental issues like unemployment and exclusion. We thought we had ousted a dictator and won the battle against oppressive individuals, but we had a longer battle to fight: a battle against the system to defend our human rights. 

While young people had played the leading role in toppling Ben Ali’s regime, “the elders”—the more established political forces—told us we were incompetent to lead and hijacked our participation. Western forces who came with the power of funding started building “youth political participation” programs, but they had the same mindset—they told us we were not ready to lead yet. 

We were excluded from senior positions in state institutions, and from participation  and decision-making in political parties. The elders filled the vacuums the revolution created,  and not only excluded us, but failed to engage us by listening to our grievances. Young people had come together during the political revolution, but following our exclusion from traditional institutions, we struggled to articulate a new common purpose and to define new political roles for ourselves, so we found ourselves divided.

During this period of transition, I found power in my voice. On Proudly Tunisian, I blogged for hours, days and months during the most chaotic and exhilarating times. Western and mainstream outlets started to publish my blogs, which were read by thousands around the world. International media narrowed their headlines to two extreme narratives. According to some, the revolution was “dying,” “hijacked” and “extinguished in the mire of violence” by Islamists, by Liberals, by the Right, or by the Left. Others, however, spoke of “a new Tunisia” that was “the beacon of democracy in a region of sorrow” and a “role model.” There was barely middle ground. Everything digital became my tool to tell my version of the story. Post-revolution, the activist in me became a political voice.

The transition was not without its trauma. There were several times I had to choose between peace and violence, on and offline. I was repeatedly abused on social media because of my political positions. When I joined peaceful demonstrations on the street, I was subjected to harassment and assault. One of the most terrifying and humiliating experiences I had was during a protest on Tunisian Martyrs’ Day in 2012. This public holiday commemorates the lives of people who died fighting for Tunisia’s independence. During this protest, a huge body double my size, with a long sharp baton in hand, seized me by my hair. He beat me, confiscated my camera and insulted my mother. In moments of violence like that, I chose to close my eyes, meditate and remind myself that peace is within me. I reminded myself that if I fed my awareness with stillness and harnessed the power of my female intuitions, I could always cultivate conscious decisions.

Youth like me who had grown up with the revolution chose to channel their anger in different ways. Some chose to refrain from politics as a conscious political decision. They denounced partisan politics, and refused to be manipulated by corrupt and self- serving politicians. A subset of this group chose to vote blank in the elections in protest. Some of us exercised our lobbying power on the streets, and organised ourselves into civil society organisations and watchdog groups. Some sadly chose to migrate through dangerous means, dying in the Mediterranean. And unfortunately, thousands of youth channeled their anger into violent extremism. 

In 2013, my twenty-two-year-old cousin became a part of this latter group.  My cousin and I were very close, but suddenly, he stopped shaking my hand. He asked me to start wearing the veil, and even called me an unbeliever. My family found out he had been recruited by Daesh and was preparing to go to Syria.  I had long conversations with him and knew that he felt more marginalised while others had taken advantage of the political vacuum left by the revolution. Daesh had given him a sense of belonging and identity.  Eventually, with my strong family and community we were able  to deradicalise him. He went back to school for his master’s degree, started a project in his village and even got engaged!

This tough experience with my cousin made me begin to think about why young people like my cousin join violent and extremist groups. I studied the concept of Hogra, an Arabic word used in North Africa, which captures the sentiments of many youth in post-revolution Tunisia. Hogra is the feeling of exclusion one experiences when it becomes evident that you are not being treated fairly in the provision of public services, or in the protection of your civil or human rights. It is the feeling that those who have power or money acquired it by crushing the most vulnerable. Many Tunisian youth had internalised the idea that they were Mahgours—victims of Hogra. They looked at groups like Daesh as legitimate fighters of Hogra, rather than as perpetrators of violence and terrorism. These youth saw joining such groups as heroic, and sought martyrdom as a reaction to Hogra. It became clear to me the solution wasn’t to fight back, but to create alternative spaces for youth.

While I reflected on these issues, I began to draw inspiration from other parts of the African continent. My activism had led to opportunities to travel and support uprisings in other countries, speak up at conferences, and train African youth leaders on the things I had taught myself: blogging, mobilisation and peacebuilding. Little did I know: I had one more identity to embrace.

In the summer of 2011, just a few months after the Tunisian revolution, young protesters filled Dakar’s streets. These young people were tired of power outages, government corruption, school shutdowns and the escalating prices of basic commodities amongst other injustices. When Abdoulaye Wade, Senegal’s President at the time, tried to introduce a constitutional amendment to allow for a third-term in office, citizens cried out “y’en marre”—“we’ve had enough” or “we are fed up.” They succeeded in blocking his re-election bid and Wade peacefully handed power over to President Macky Sall. When I visited Senegal, I was so overwhelmed with the energy of the young people as they proudly told me about how they organized theirmovement.

Not very far from Dakar, in 2014, thousands of youth organized a mass uprising in Ouagadougou to oppose a constitutional amendment that would have made it possible for President Blaise Compaore to extend his twenty-seven-year old rule. Braving teargas, youth marched with placards in the city’s square that said “Blaise Dégage!” As peers and friends from Burkina Faso messaged me (“Aya, it’s happening!” “One revolution, One solution!”), I remembered how Tunisian youth braved teargas and marched with placards that told Ben Ali to dégage— to get out. In Kenya, I analysed Al-Shabaab’s youth recruitment tactics and found similarities to the tactics Daesh used in Tunisia: both groups were tapping into young people’s experience of marginalisation, and their desire for agency and belonging. When Boko Haram abducted female students in Nigeria, I visited the country and stood in solidarity with citizens demanding that the Nigerian government #BringBackOurGirls. Across the continent, our victories and struggles were shared, and I felt deeply connected to these different movements. As I crossed borders, I felt at home in every region of Africa. In the languages, stories and music of other African countries, I saw aspects of the beautiful culture of the Sahara where I come from. I saw how the Sahara that is meant to bridge us, divides us. The northern part of Africa is often labelled “Arab” and the southern part “Sub-Saharan”, but I began to see how these labels fuel racism, xenophobia and Afrophobia.

My father served in the Tunisian Armed forces for forty years, and I grew up like a nomad within Tunisia. As a child, my family moved almost every year to a new city or town in Tunisia, and I studied in eight different schools from the northernmost to the southernmost parts of the country. As a result, I grew up with multiple identities, the strongest of which was Arab. From primary school, my history studies focused on the Arab civilisation. In the third grade, I learned French, which cultivated my Mediterranean identity. My Maghrébine identity surfaced naturally, through contact with our neighbours: in the summers, Tunisian coastal cities filled up with Algerian tourists. Trade also flowed freely on our borders with Libya. In school, we were taught Tunisia’s geopolitical location was a crossroad of civilisations: we learned about Tunisia’s mixed history with Moors, Turks, Jews, Andulasians and Arabs. But the one identity I had never learned about those early years was my African identity. Even when my conversations with Senegalese and Malian students in Tunisia piqued my interest in my African identity, I was unable to find African literature in library bookshelves or African courses at our universities. But now, outside the boxes of Tunisia’s education and political institutions, I was gaining a new education. I was reclaiming my African identity.

As I studied African history, I was fascinated by the political solidarity African countries showed in the face of colonial powers in the 1950s and 60s, leading to the independence of these countries. Young Africans had organised across colonial borders without technology, and with very few tools. I learned North Africa was embraced as a part of these movements, and countries like Algeria actively participated in anti-colonial and anti-apartheid revolutions with other African countries. As I learned more about Pan-Africanism, I realised that even if we ousted all the dictators from all the African countries, this generation’s problems would not be solved, because alternative leadership solutions and institutions had not been developed. I also started to see that present-day struggles across the continent are still a fight against colonial institutions, and that the power of post-colonials lies in embracing our collective identity.

As the African in me turned Pan-African, I decided to develop a transnational space where African youth could develop a sense of common identity and a critical consciousness that would allow us to effectively lead in our countries. This began by creating a Facebook group to open an online discussion. I regularly added inspiring youth I met or trained until the group swelled to thousands. 

We began to have Google Hangouts, during which I radicalised the group with Pan- African ideology. We learned about the values that can bind our continent: non- violence, ubuntu, integrity and accountability. Radicalising also meant a commitment to unlearning patriarchy, which was particularly difficult: there were some men who left this collective because they could not accept the idea of “being led by a woman.”  But for those who stayed, we accepted the idea that there is no Pan-Africanism without feminism, because objectification and oppression are at the root of colonialism and racism which Pan-Africanism emerged to fight.

As the collective continued to grow, we organised ourselves into committees with diverse themes like gender equality, good governance, environmental sustainability and more. There were some members who felt we should only focus on a few issues “worth our time” but I could not agree to that. I was determined for the movement we were building to be rooted in the ideology that: “your liberation is my liberation, and your access is my access.” This means if I have access to healthcare, education, and the internet in Tunisia, my work is not done until citizens in South Africa or Liberia have the same. Organisation led to mobilisation: this is how  “Afrika Youth Movement,” was born and began to partner on development projects through our hubs across the continent. We also continued to recruit other youth to join our movement. As I write this, over 10,000 youth from 40 African countries have been recruited into the Afrika Youth Movement, making it one of Africa’s largest youth led movements.

Few weeks ago, the Chairperson of the African Union Commission appointed me as the first Special Envoy on Youth, with a mandate to engage young Africans across the continent, and advocate for their interests within the African Union. My diplomatic appointment was a full-circle moment—one of the reasons I joined the Tunisian revolution was to fight for institutional inclusion. But until my access becomes the access of other African youth, my work—and the work of the revolution—is not done. 

The Pan-Africanism of the 1950s and 60s largely fulfilled its purpose: the realisation of independence and the creation of independent nation states. This generation, on the other hand, is faced with new challenges.I strongly believe Africa’s peace and prosperity lies in re-building our institutions at all levels, with this redefined Pan-Africanism.

This Pan-Africanism embraces what I call Intergenerational Co-leadership. It is my hope that that high-level appointments like mine become the norm in institutions at all levels across Africa. 70% of Africa’s population is under age 30. This generation is the most educated, skilled and interconnected of all times. We are already tweeting presidents, building campaigns, leading NGOs, driving movements and ousting dictators. We are not the leaders of tomorrow—we are the leaders of today. Bridging generational divides will create a powerful space for action on the United Nation’s2030 Agenda and the African Union’s 2063 Agenda.

This Pan-Africanism reclaims narratives. The struggle of this generation is a struggle for voice. Young people are calling attention to our being and our becoming. We are reminding the world of our right to define our struggles in our contexts. We are rebranding Africa by success, and not failure; by people power, and not submission; by collective identity, not division.

This Pan-Africanism adopts transnational solidarity. Youth are calling for an Africa with open borders. An Africa with e-governance, e-commerce and e-citizenship. An Africa where we trade freely with each other, study in each other's universities, and serve within each other institutions. An Africa where African citizenship is recognised.

This Pan-Africanism values the contributions of women. It is still challenging as a young woman to travel the world and occupy leadership positions in male-dominated institutions. There are many spaces where I am not taken seriously because of my gender. I have had men wait for the end of meetings to invite me to their hotel room “to finish the conversation.” But I am hopeful that in my lifetime the revolution of dignity, for dignity, for women, for young people and for all Africans will be fully realised.

And while I continue to do the work for the Africa I want, I remain committed to my own being and my becoming. I am a Radical Pan-African Feminist, and in daily acts of choosing for myself, I am becoming unbounded like I was born to be.