ABSTRACT
On 14 January 2012, I was in Tunisia to celebrate the rst anniversary of what had been dubbed by international news media outlets ‘The Jasmine Revolution’. I was sitting with a Tunisian journalist in a French style terrasse of a café on Avenue Bourghiba, the famous street where thousands of Tunisians had gathered, a year earlier, shouting Irhal, degage (‘leave’) to president Ben Ali. It was right there that the people had successfully ousted a more than three-decade-long regime, I thought, while sipping my espresso, feeling grateful to be in that very place to celebrate, a year later. Yet the journalist made me abruptly leave this state of bliss with a provocative question: ‘Do you really want to be in the right place? Do you really want to understand the revolution?’, he asked. ‘Then leave Avenue Bourghiba, leave Tunis, and go to Sidi Bouzid’.
