Monday, January 17, 2011

me and yassine show you what we living like/my block continued




my apologies, it turns out i'm a terrible camera man. after about 30 seconds my khoya Yassine takes over and it's much better. This took place between a relative lull in the drama last night. More videos from the main barricade I was at later.

UPDATE...

5:50 pm Monday,

The garbagemen emptied out the dumpsters today. Also the pillar of smoke rising from the south (supposedly the smoldering bus station?) has disappeared and the mixed gender cafes have generally reopened.

Most importantly the local police (who seem to be largely not responsible for the terrorism, either during or after the regime) have started working with the army on the streets.

All of these are good signs.

My students who live in a working class neighborhood to the south of Sousse told me via facebook that the corner crews in their neighborhood had found a handfull of gun wielding men in plain clothes walking the streets and driving around (ie. rogue special police/terrorists ). Per usual the men were badly beaten and handed over to the military.

The new government was formed today, and it's full of people from the old regime (defense minister, foreign minister and rather surprisingly interior minister). There are also many ministers who are former anti-government activists recently released from jail. Its only a temporary government, but many people will be unhappy that ANYONE from the old regime is taking part in it.

There is some speculation that all the terrorism might not be directly on the orders of Ben Ali, but rather former members of his regime who wanted to use it (and their ability to stop it) as leverage to keep power/avoid prosecution (ala the Awakening Councils in Iraq), but who knows.

The evening call to prayer just happened and as I write the sun is setting. Inshallah, tonight will be quiet.

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