Tunisia is a small, Mediterranean country in North Africa. Back in 2007, Tunisian citizen-journalists and bloggers had documented
the tourism/shopping sprees of the dictator's wife aboard the
presidential plane to Europe and global fashion capitals. (H/t Global
Voices)
In 2010, the TuniLeaks
website was set up to post (WikiLeaks-released) internal U.S. Embassy
documents candidly exposing the corruption of Tunisia's dictatorship.
Fascinating photo
(released by Ben Ali's office) of dictator Ben Ali visiting the hospital bed of the desperate young
man who set himself on fire in Dec. 2010 -- the young man didn't live
long enough to learn that his act led to the overthrow of Ben Ali after sustained nonviolent protests.
Amid the protests, Tunisian rapper El General put out this widely-circulated music video
attacking Ben Ali and urging folks to join the protests. It led to his arrest for a few days. Soon after, the dictator fled. The song went on to become an in Tunisia, Egypt and elsewhere.
U.S. jazz legend Dizzy Gillespie performs his classic jazz tune "Night in Tunisia," first recorded in 1944.
No comments:
Post a Comment