Tunisian Music: The Soundtrack of the Revolution, the Voice of the People

In North Africa, between Algeria and Libya, you'll find the small country of Tunisia with over 10 million inhabitants, most of whom I found to be both welcoming and generous. 1 The North borders the Mediterranean and boasts sandy beaches with beautiful aqua blue waters and the capital of Tunis. The South treasures the mysterious and vast Sahara desert and lush oases with their numerous palmeries. It was in this country, 5,000 km from my home here in St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador, that I found myself at the end of May 2012. I was interested in the opportunity to immerse myself in a part of the world I knew little of, do field research for the first time, talk to first-hand witnesses concerning one of the most important world events of the early second millennia, and delve into the relationship between history and music. These interests culminated in a proposal that I created and submitted to the Summer Research Program at the College of the Holy Cross where I was working on my Bachelors of Arts in French and in Music. I was thrilled to find out that I was accepted to participate in the program sponsored by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. As a Mellon Fellow, I spent 5-1/2 weeks conducting research under Holy Cross music professor and librarian Alan Karass. This was Alan's tenth trip to Tunisia as he was working on his Ph.D. in Ethnomusicology on the Douz Festival in the country's south. He introduced the other student, Matt Burke and myself to his friends and contacts (or his “Tunisian peeps” as we came to know them as) who became our family during our time in Tunisia as well as our richest sources of information. I was given the opportunity to interview them as well as their network of artist acquaintances, giving me the chance to talk face-to-face with profound musicians and other citizens, as well as traditional musicians and rap stars alike. Unless I happened to find someone who felt more comfortable speaking in English, we communicated in French, which is widely spoken in Tunisia. Before leaving for North Africa, I had thought that my foreignness and the importance and relative newness of the subject matter I was to address would make it very difficult for me to gather information. To the contrary, I found my interviewees to be extremely willing to share their experiences and opinions on the Jasmine Revolution and its relationship to Tunisian music. Their openness and generosity in sharing their wealth of information and opinions made my research possible. The reason for my research in Tunisia last summer was to find out the influence of Tunisian music on the Jasmine Revolution of 2010-2011. (I just want to note that my interviewees suggested the term “revolution” cannot be applied to the events of December 2010-January 2011 because the term implies a complete change, while change in Tunisia is still in process today. A public upheaval may be a more accurate term. However, since media sources widely use the word “revolution” to refer to the time period I will be discussing today, for simplicity’s sake I will use the term. Just keep in mind that it is not a complete revolution I am referring to, but a historical moment marked by a public cry for change and the start of that change). In order to share with you what I discovered, I will start my presentation by briefly situating Tunisia in its historical context. I will then explain what the Musical Scene in Tunisia looked like