A trip to Tunisia despite attacks
I traveled to Tunisia a month ago. Just one month after the attack on El Bardo Museum, I toured the country as a tourist on a whirlwind four-day visit, in which I tried to stick my head in their culture and in their concerns. I remember long conversations in the car, in the heat of a mint tea or between ruin and ruin, with Tunisians outraged by the march of the country and, especially, due to the drop in tourism, almost fatally wounded after the latest attacks. Tunisia unites the exoticism of Arab culture with a tourist infrastructure envied by any other North African country. It is an easy place to travel, with wide and comfortable roads and better quality hotels than those in many European countries.
my days there, between attack and attack, they went like this, at the comfortable pace of the tourist, amazed at every minute by its rich and unknown history and amazed by its landscapes. But also saddened by the shock of seeing half-empty hotels and few groups of tourists walking through the Roman cities. Before the Arab spring 2011, millions of visitors came each year to dive in its bazaars, explore its deserts or relax on the beach. Those beaches that have now been seen splattered with blood and that will surely scare away many tourists who had decided to travel there despite fear. Tourism is the second engine of the Tunisian economy and its constant decline over the last five years has forced hotels to close, reduce flights and leave hundreds of people unemployed.
I remember long conversations with Tunisians outraged by the march of the country and, especially, due to the drop in tourism
But, traveling through Tunisia is still feeling with one foot in Europe and the other in Muslim Africa. It is the only democratic country in the area after the "jasmine spring", that meant a radical change in their lives: more freedom, on the one hand, but more religious extremism, other. These are precisely the topics of conversation of Tunisians today, who need tourism more than ever to lift a society threatened by unemployment and the desire to emigrate to the promised land on the other side of the Mediterranean.
If fear is forgotten, today the tourist feels especially cared for in Tunisia
"How can it be that those bearded men live among us?», wondered one of the few Tunisians who still lives today from tourism, collating it, yes, with other jobs to make ends meet. “In Tunisia we are not very religious, the mosques are not full, I don't understand where they hide. They are the first to be amazed at what is happening today in the country, terrorist haven, which are calculated by thousands, returned from fighting in Syria and Iraq. They celebrate the possibility of speaking freely, but they also view with concern laws close to Islam, like one that restricts alcohol consumption near temples.
Walking through the streets of the capital, radicalism is not seen. Half of the women are not veiled and he and she mix normally. Young people fool around in the squares proudly wearing their branded sneakers, while the grown-ups smoke their hookahs. You don't see those "bearded men" who are trying to end the country's economy today.
"How can it be that those bearded men live among us?», asks a Tunisian who continues to live off tourism
If fear is forgotten, today the tourist feels especially cared for in Tunisia, because they are aware that they need visitors and pamper them as much as they can. At least in the short term, it can only come back if it manages to recover its tourist industry. It has to continue to be a destination to mark on the calendar, for its beauty, your culture, his story and, also, price.
must remain so, especially, because a healthy economy would strengthen its democracy and it would be able to fight against the ignorance and poverty that lead to radicalism. I traveled despite the attacks, and i loved it.
