I fully support his idea and his arguments. His point is that if our leaders are making this union a low priority, let’s make them aware that we, the united people of the Maghreb want this union and that this is our own chance to stand up economically in front of the EU in the north.

Here are some excerpts of his post:

On the 1st of June, I'll be blogging for the Maghreb union

But in my opinion the main reason for our interest in this election is the thirst we have in debating political ideas, expressing opinions about candidates, criticizing and disagreeing without attracting the censors of the Tunisian government. If we can’t be part of a real democratic election in our country, we can at least participate in the French one.

The lack of freedom in choosing our leaders and our government since the independence made us loose any interest in being part of any staged election in our country. We all know that it is a staged comedy where the numbers are “cooked” in the HQ of the Interior Ministry. During the last presidential election, the candidates were said to be chosen by the president himself and that does not surprise me since any time they got some airtime, they don’t stop thanking him fro all his achievements.

This lack of interest and ignorance about our government members was a subject of a post from “Girl from Mars”

Bref, j'ai remarqué que la plupart d'entre nous connait par coeur la scène politique française, est capable d'énumérer la majorité des membres du gouvernement français, peut énumérer les propositions de chaque candidat, en faire la critique et proposer ses propres modifications..ils nous manquerait plus que la carte d'électeur pour voter:)
Mais combien d'entre nous est capable de donner les noms de nos ministres (moi personnellement même le premier ministre je connais pas son nom!), d'énumérer nos partis politiques, de distinguer le programme de chacun d'entre eux, de citer les dernières mesures gouvernementales…
J'en connais pas beaucoup..
Sommes nous plus français que les français ou moins tunisiens que nous devrions l'être?

Mani l’africain, wrote a very nice post presenting the French candidates as if they were Tunisians candidates for the Tunisian presidency. A very elegant and smart post where Nicolas Sarkozy becomes “Si Markouzi”, Segolene Royal becomes “Sihem Malki” and Francois Bayrou is “Firas Bouzagour”. Too bad I can’t translate the whole post, but this the part presenting Mrs Sihem Malki.

“Tank-borne democracy” has resulted in horrific figures in terms of the number of bombs, deaths and the mistreatment and torture so carelessly meted out. Today there is no hope whatsoever that peace will return to the land of the Tigris and Euphrates.

Alluding to the lack of freedom, Stupeur wrote a very subtle post “51%: We lost the opportunity to have an opportunity”

Oh yeah, we've lost the chance to have a chance!
On this day, March 20, the board met and announced that repression
would be the majority shareholder in our company!
A shareholder of great financial, ideological and socio-cultural
importance.
He is capable of buying even more shares at the expense of other
shareholders.
A consuming company where the large eat the small.

BigTrapBoy, a very popular and smart blogger (my favorite actually), wrote about the movie “Apocalypto” and made a very pertinent comparison between the Mayas and the Arabs.

I just saw “Apocalypto” again, the last film by Mel Gibson which I
liked alot. I'd like to recommend it to you and moreover cite the
quotation which appears at the beginning of the film, a quotation
full of truth:

“A great civilisation is not conquered from without until it has
destroyed itself from within.”
Will Durant.

That's my “thought of the day”. Something to think about, no?

With regard to the film itself, the story takes place at the time of
the Mayan civilisation in South America, but it's clear that Mel
Gibson wished to draw parallels with what it going on in the world
today. Are the Arabs the Mayans of today, one might ask?

Le 11 mars, regardez vers l'ouest
La Mauritanie, vous savez le petit pays qui fait partie de l'UMA, là-bas juste en dessous du Maroc. Mais si! Le pays ou tout le monde s'appelle Oueld quelque chose ? Vous voyez de quoi je parle ?
Bref, dans ce petit coin perdu qui n'a jamais notre attention, on s'apprête à vivre un évènement historique. Le 11 mars prochain, des “élections présidentielles”, des vraies, vont avoir lieu! (pour ceux qui ne sauraient pas ce que cette expression veut dire, restez sous votre bouclier, c'est mieux) […]
Le CMJD organise un référendum constitutionnel qui entérine notamment la réduction du mandat présidentiel à 5 ans et son renouvellement à une seule fois, ainsi que des élections municipales, législatives et sénatoriales. Il abroge un texte de lois qui restreignait les conditions d'associations, de réunions publiques et d'expression, gracie des opposants emprisonnés et permet le retour au pays des autres, met fin au système de censure et libère la presse et l'audiovisuel, réforme le statut de la magistrature pour garantir la neutralité des juges, met en place des procédures pour réduire la corruption, renforce le dossier des finances publiques, et réduit la dette extérieure. La meilleure reste quand même le miracle suivant: après 19 mois à la tête du pays, le colonel Ely Ould Mohamed Vall “se retire” pour laisser la place à son successeur, qui sera élu en mars, et martèle la nécessité de préserver la neutralité totale des dirigeants en cette période décisive[…]

**Nadia here made an implicit reference to another excellent article she wrote this week, about how the country (Tunisia) lives under a super shield that protects us from all the bad stuff. She was alluding to the editorial line of our national press, and the official state of the country as depicted by the government.

Quoi? Vous n'êtes pas au courant ? Mais si je vous dis, il y a un Super Bouclier installé juste au dessus de la Tunisie. Naturellement, il épouse parfaitement les contours du pays, on a utilisé des cartes très précises quand on l'a installé !

[…]

Le Super Bouclier protège des idées extrémistes. Même quand certains individus mal intentionnés ont réussi à franchir les frontières, ce n'était évidemment pas ici qu'ils avaient tout appris, car ici tout ce qui se dit est pur et pacifique, pas de manipulations, pas d'endoctrinement, pas de misère, donc pas de danger. Et puis de qui se moque-t-on? un tunisien n'est par définition pas si crédule pour se laisser faire!

[…]

Le Super Bouclier protège des crises économiques. Dès qu'ils atteignent le Bouclier, les chiffres gonflent, les profits se multiplient, les avancées deviennent tellement énormes que les autres pays de la région sont admiratifs de notre succès.

Le Super Bouclier protège de la connerie humaine, tout citoyen tunisien est tellement intelligent qu'il sait absolument tout sur tout, qu'il a des certitudes sur chaque chose, parce que le Bouclier attire et filtre pour lui toutes les connaissances dignes d'être acquises, pas besoin de lire, de s'informer, de faire autre chose que profiter de la présence de cet outil miracle qui nourrit son esprit.

Par contre, le Super Bouclier a un inconvénient. A force de perfectionner ses filtres, on y a malencontreusement introduit un “bug” : un filtre contre la “conscience” …

Another event that did not get enough coverage on the Tunisphere is the second anniversary of the imprisonment of Lawyer Mohamed Abbou from Tunisia. He was convicted on fictitious charges because he was critical to the president in an article published on the internet. Zizou from Djerba mentioned it briefly in his blog.

Une petite pensée pour Maitre Mohamed Abbou. Il a été condamné a 3 ans et demi de prison et il vient aujourd'hui d'achever sa deuxieme année sous les verrous.

After its last campaign in December last year, which targeted multiple blogs that were a little critical about the current situation in the country, ATI seems to be more permissive.
Zizou from Djerba interpreted this as a good sign, hoping that it is a prelude to a new overture from the government, even though he thinks at the same time we saw very few critical posts since that campaign, adding that the last events (gunfights between police and armed Salafists) had to do something with this attitude.

Il est aussi vrai que les blogueurs tunisiens ne se sont plus risqué dans les sujets sensible et le surf sur les sujets borderlines ne semble plus etre le passe temps favori de la majorité des blogueurs.
En tout cas on ne peut pas nier que tout ceci est la consequence de l'episode de Soliman…

The only blogger who remains under surveillance is Mouwaten Tounsi, who is at his 6th new address since last year. Mouwaten chose to be more direct in his posts, especially in his open letter to the president, about more freedom for the Press.

It is true that lately, very few posts were critical to the government. Critics tend to be very present in commentaries around social or economical posts like Tarek Cheniti's post about the privatization of the education [fr] or very subtle like Isis 's post [fr] about the country's accomplishments in the last 51 years since its independence. By trying to expose certain problems without dealing with the cause, bloggers avoid being targeted by ATI.

Another very creative way to avoid censorship while talking politics was initiated by blogger OuNormal (usual). His blog NormalLand is about a virtual country with a virtual governor (himself). He started by assigning department head functions to different Tunisian bloggers. Being very satiric, his departments are for ultrastructure, black market, fights and disputes and even one department of corruption! He even created a parliament designated as Znouss counsel (my translation for Znouss is bad boys). NormalLand has a flag inspired by the real Tunisian flag and a very funny national anthem.

Many bloggers took part in this fiction, especially when OuNormal was victim of coup plotted[Ar] by one his aids Chanfara[Ar]that forced him to stage a presidential election[fr] for which many bloggers announced their candidacy such as Mouwaten[fr]and Temeraire[fr].

This is in my opinion, very typical of Tunisians, who always come up with ways to work around many limitations in our society.