Tunisia | ST McNeil

A gulf between paradise and hell

10 June 2013 by ST McNeil

After a week bouncing around different ministries seeking authorization to film in “secure” locations, Rad and I left Tunis headed south on June 2 in order to shoot a travel magazine feature for the next issue of the Dubai-based Brownbook. Making a little bit of money on the side never hurt, no? Our overnight train was packed and tense. The train attendant looked like Moammar Gaddafi’s short cousin—and he acted that way. Yelling at everyone, slapping his conductor’s hat into [...]

Categories: Africa, Africa North, Climate, Middle East, Tunisia • Tags: climate change, climate chaos, Djerba, documentary, Gabes, Kerkennah, pollution, Sfax, Tunisia, tunisie

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Burning jasmine for the revolution’s ghosts

10 April 2013 by ST McNeil

Adel Khedhri climbed the white marble steps of the Municipal Theater in downtown Tunis covered in gasoline. Blaming an economy wracked by the legacies of neoliberal authoritarianism and post-revolutionary instability, the 27-year-old fruit vendor came to follow the fiery example of Mohamed Bouazizi. “This is a young man who sells cigarettes because of unemployment—this is Tunisia, this is unemployment,” he shouted March 13 before igniting himself. Police rushed to his engulfed body on the steps of the enormous white marble Francophone building in the middle [...]

Categories: Africa North, Clips, Middle East, SISMEC, Tunisia • Tags: Adel Khedhri, Chokri Belaid, Ennahdha, Hamadi Jabali, Jasmine Revolution, Mohamed Bouazizi, Tunisia

Tunisia’s Second Wave?

7 August 2012 by ST McNeil

This article was originally published in Al Jazeera. On July 31, some 200 Tunisians protested in front of the headquarters of the National Constitutional Assembly against a new government programme. Announced just after the state’s welfare system was scuttled, the new law would compensate about 11,000 victims of Ben Ali’s security apparatus with a package worth 750 million Tunisian dinars, or $470m, averaging payouts of $42,000. Mohammad Sudani is one of the resistance’s veterans targeted by the bill – but [...]

Categories: Africa, Africa North, Clips, Middle East, Tunisia • Tags: Al Jazeera, Ben Ali, Bouazizi, Dimassi, Ennahdha, Marzouki, Sadok Ben Mhenni, Tunisia

The Ants of God: Clashes, Curfews, and Art in Tunisia

16 June 2012 by ST McNeil

Originally published at SISMEC Yasmine Hamdan and Badiaa Bouhrizi’s opening songs will herald the beginning of the Carthage Alternative Music Festival today in the ritzy suburb atop Byrsa Hill in Tunis. But this showcase of Tunisia’s kaleidoscopic nationality and secular-Western cultural ties, rolls on warily, under a shadow of furious anti-secular riots sparked by a man long dead. Last week, seemingly from the grave, Ayman al-Zawahiri set off these protests with a recorded message criticizing the ruling Islamic party Ennahda. “They are inventing an [...]

Categories: Middle East, News, SISMEC, Tunisia • Tags: art, Ayman al-Zawahiri, Ennahda, Ghannouchi, La Marsa, Le Kef, Marzouki, SISMEC, Tunis, Tunisia

Brand Justice and Development: Just call them a success

9 December 2011 by ST McNeil

Beneath all the din of an Islamist Trojan Horse following the despots’ downfall is simple, savvy electoral strategy: promise jobs, preach broad cultural values, and call for justice and development. While Al Jazeera spread Mohammed Bouazizi’s revolutionary flame to Cairo and beyond, another pattern is emerging from the ashes of Ben Ali and Mubarak. It is best seen in the election results between the straits of Hormuz and Gibraltar. Who is getting the votes? The winners in Morocco, Tunisia, and [...]

Categories: Egypt, Middle East, Tunisia • Tags: 25 January Revolution, Cairo, Egypt, Ennahda, Justice and Development Party, Mediterranean, Morocco, Muslim Brotherhood, Racshid Ghannouchi, Tahrir Square, Tayyep Erdogan, Tunisia, Turkey, Zen El Abdine Ben Ali

The Transcontinental Election Everyone is Kind of Looking at

21 October 2011 by ST McNeil

On this Sunday, Oct. 23, Tunisians will vote for the first time, for real, ever. Ten months after their revolution which sparked the Arab Awakening, les Tunisienes will cast ballots for the Constituent Assembly – the 217 women and men charged with forging a new constitution. Many will read in this election’s coffee grinds regional implications. How will democracy play out in the post-dictatorship Arab world? What about women and the diaspora? Tunisia could exemplify solutions, or problems, for say elections [...]

Categories: Africa, Africa North, Middle East, News, Tunisia, Uncategorized • Tags: Arab Awakening, election, Jasmine Revolution, Tunis, Tunisia, Zen El Abdine Ben Ali

Not another Twitter Revolution

23 September 2011 by ST McNeil

The Jasmine Revolution and the January 25 Revolution are not Twitter revolutions…sorry, but sometimes you just need to beat a dead horse. Only 131,204 Egyptians used Twitter as hundreds of thousands massed in Cairo earlier this year. Just 35,746 Tunisians tweeted along Avenue Habib Bourguiba and Le Kef during the days of rage and tear gas. Barely two percent of Egyptians and five percent of Tunisians log onto Facebook (nine million together), no doubt socializing with the Arab world’s other [...]

Categories: Africa North, Egypt, Middle East, Research, Tunisia • Tags: Cairo, Digital Evangelism, Malcolm Gladwell, Mark Zuckerberg, Moammar Gaddafi, Net Delusion, SISMEC, social media, Tahrir Square, Tunis, Tunisia, Zen El Abdine Ben Ali

Piss Pride Porcelain

22 June 2011 by ST McNeil

From Seattle to Jerusalem, I’ve pissed in hundreds of urinals. One has time to think in those sixty to six hundred-second leaks: aim, pressure, splash radius, urinal cake odor. If us men are lucky, we get to power-melt leftover ice from the hotel bar. Sometimes these recepticals of our fluid waste are simple troughs of cheap metal. Other times stately affairs of crafted porcelain accomodate our urine streams. On top of most urinals, though, is a clue to American foreign [...]

Categories: Research • Tags: American exceptionalism, American Standard, Cairo, Dahab, Egypt, Gaza, Ideal Standard, Libya, lion fight, palestine, Sinai, toilet philosophy, Tunis, Tunisia, urinals

What do Gaddafi, Ben Ali, Mubarak and Berlusconi have in common?

23 February 2011 by ST McNeil

When Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire, he probably didn’t imagine his funeral pyre would force Zine El Abdine Ben Ali from the Tunisian presidential palace in tropical Sidi Bou Said to the sands of Saudi Arabia. While this thawura – revolution – is rapidly expanding across the Arab world, we would be remiss if we ignored it’s worldwide implications. Morocco, Algeria, Libya, Tunisia, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Bahrain, Jordan, Palestine, Syria, Iraq and Iran have all caught fire – [...]

Categories: Africa North • Tags: 25 January, Beyonce, Central Italian Energy, Italy, Jasmine Revolution, Libya, Moammar Gaddafi, Mohamed Bouazizi, Silvio Berlusconi, STRATFOR, thawura, Tunisia, Zen El Abdine Ben Ali

Moon Risings Over Ksar Ghilane

28 January 2010 by ST McNeil

In the first cold weekend of December 2009, I hit the road with eight friends. We headed south in rented sedans, towards the desert. When our plans in Douz fell apart, I began telling the tale of the desert castle Ksar Ghilane. Soon, we were cutting south down the pipeline road towards it. Spare steel tubes for repairing the line lay on the sides of the blacktop. We passed an oil refinery, camels and innumerable security checkpoints. Pulling into the town [...]

Categories: Africa North • Tags: Berbers, Ksar Ghilane, Roman ruins, Sahara, Tunisia

ST McNeil

Environmental Convergence Journalist

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