Tunisian youth as drivers of socio-cultural and political changes: glocality and effacement of cultural memory?

Abstract

ABSTRACT The prediction that the nation of Tunisia would initiate a walk towards democracy was not on anyone’s mind. In the context of two draconian regimes and a colonial past, the 2010 Arab Spring brought significant changes to Tunisia, observable mainly in freedom of expression and association. This helped to create and shape a space wherein Tunisians’ daily lives reflect the cultural juxtaposition of an Islamic heritage with a secular propensity. This paper examines the content of Tunisian cultural memory from youths’ perspectives on the past, cultural icons, and nostalgia. It argues that Tunisian youths’ disenchantment with the socio-political life in Tunisia and its impact on their feeling of belonging hinges on a sense of fracture or discontinuity in the nation’s cultural memory, considered the blueprint of Tunisianité or national identity. The paper demonstrates that despite youths’ hybrid culture, influenced by ‘globalization’ and ‘glocalization,’ the majority of surveyed youth value, inter alia, family life, and identify with the Islamic culture and religion. Tunisia’s youth may know little of their pre-colonial and post-colonial history, but Tunisians should reengage with their young constituency through education and a cultural memory that binds generations. This will ensure that the Tunisian culture does not absorb western values and ideals in the name of progress.