Did that happen? Did we win? Ben Ali has gone and he will never come back? Are we dreaming? Were there snipers on roofs and gangsters on streets here in our neighborhood? It happened and we were not dreaming. Everything changed so fast so crazily to the point I am surprised that we are here alive enough, optimistic enough to start to build. The critical characteristic of all what happened, of all what we lived here in Tunisia, seemed simply imaginary. I am not talking about a revolution. Revolutions happened and will continue to happen; I am talking about people, about Tunisians. People were aware enough, cultivated enough and hopeful enough to protect each other, to clean and to come back to work as soon as possible, people who finally breathed and really freedom smells good. It was miraculous; it was beautiful like a fairy story. But it was hard, scaring, and more particularly bloody. People died for this, many people civilians and militants. A friend’s brother has been killed, the son of one of my father’s friends has been killed, and many like them sacrificed their souls for us to live, for us to build a country, a free country where we are supposed to not shut down again.
I heard a lot of talking on TV. Everybody is talking; everybody is analyzing the situation of my country. Everybody is trying to tell us what to do. Still, we know exactly what to do; we did it. Nobody has told us what to do when gangsters were on streets, nobody has told us what to do when stores were closed or streets unclean. We don’t need political analyses or economic studies to tell us what to do, we need our own analyses and our own studies.
I have been and I will be always positive. Unexpectedly, or expectedly I am very positive for my country’s future. Before, everything in life for me has a single meaning: happiness. Now everything has another connotation a very patriotic connotation. I am patriotic, I was and I will be forever. Now I want to be better not for me and for my own happiness only but also for my country. I told my mother, proudly, that I have a lot to tell my kids about. My generation, what we did and what have been done to us. But what shocks me most about this generation is the amount of consciousness they have. I have seen people protesting and asking for the whole system in Tunisia to change from presidential to parliamentary. Very simple people were asking for this, very simple people that you will easily assume they do not have any political background but they were interestingly positive, aware and above all Tunisians.
I am very hopeful for my country. What is happening now I have not even dreamt of. Now I think I will start to dream again. I will imagine my country colored and happy. I will come back to my painting materials that I have left times ago to draw the little house again, the little sun and little clouds, the little flowers, trees, birds and the big Tunisia for me and for my children a better Tunisia, the best that Tunisia could be, I will do me with all Tunisians on the planet.
