The self immolation in 2008 of vegetable seller in Tunisia is cited as the spark that ignited the Arab Spring. But social unrest was was simmering long before -- and long after -- in Tunisia's phosphate mining region in the country's interior.
By Bill Code, for SBS
The face peered down from the statue in the middle of Redeyef's roundabout; the martyr's eye keeping watch over his peers.
Images like this one have become commonplace since Tunisia's revolution was borne from the vegetable seller who self-immolated in a desperate bid for recognition of his situation.
It was in the same style of one particularly famous poster of that vegetable seller, Mohamed Bouazizi, his face peering out, along with his name and date of death.
But there it was, clearly written: 2008. Not 2010, the year that Bouazizi kicked off the Tunisian revolution and broader Arab Spring.
Redeyef sits wedged below an inhospitable rocky bluff a few kilometres from the Algerian border, a 45 minute drive from the nearest city of any note, Gafsa, and, importantly, in the middle of the Tunisian phosphate basin.
In 2008, a distinct over-reliance on the phosphate industry saw the town revolt at the corruption it saw. The phosphates left the ground in Redeyef and its sister phosphate towns, but the profits went north and to the coast. Unemployment plagued many of those not lucky enough to have a job in phosphate extraction. So a hunger strike was started, and several people died in protests which were violently put down by the former regime.
For the people of the Gafsa region, the social unrest which led to the Tunisian revolution - and in turn, then, the Arab Spring - began here, not down the road in Sidi Bouzid, two years on.
We take a minibus to Redeyef early from Gafsa's chaotic minibus station, passing through the town of Um Larais. The previous weekend, rampaging youths blocked roads in and out of the town and burned down the police station, chasing officers out of the town. This weekend it was calmer - but the police station remains scorched and deserted.
Um Larais revolted when the state-run phosphate company released the names of the job-seekers who would be taken on. Those who were not selected vented their anger on the streets, adding to the central government's concerns. This weekend, it was Redeyef's turn.
We visit Adnen Hajji, the firebrand unionist - his stint as a political prisoner now over - who has focused much of the anger in the region in recent years. Anger at what locals see as the export of the wealth, the corrupted role of government in the former company, the pollution of water supplies and the scarring of the landscape.
He stresses the region's addiction to phosphates and takes aim at the post-revolution government in Tunis for doing nothing new for the region since taking power - worse still, he says, they've discontinued some of the few good programs the fallen regime managed to implement.
Exact and up-to-date unemployment figures are hard to come by, Tunisia's official rate is 18.3 per cent but the figures for graduate unemployment in the Gafsa region was last measured at 47 per cent in 2010.
We take a walk into the company grounds on the edge of town, where soldiers lurk amid giant dunes of grey dust, mining machinery at every turn. The employees aren't working today - nothing unusual in a country now plagued by strikes and sit ins - but half a dozen are guarding the machinery from the specter of (still) unemployed youths venting their fury when the employment results are announced in the afternoon. They're on guard to protect their source of income there's no chance of work anywhere else should the property be ransacked, they say.
The army has a noticeable presence, as it does across Tunisia. But the police are nowhere to be seen. There's a sense of relief amongst the older workers and, and a sense of mock disappointment amongst some of the excited young applicants in the town's main cafe. No police - hated since at least 2008 for allegedly firing on protesters when the army held back - means the chances of confrontation today have dropped considerably.
And at 2:30pm, it's results time. We follow our new friend Karim and his pals from web cafe to web cafe as they all log on to the internet to check if their applications have been successful: in this town, it seems all of the young men, as well as some of its women - have applied for work with the company.
Just over 450 people are to be taken on; but we're told that thousands have applied for the jobs.
We see dejected, tired looks mix with accusations from some that the company has merely switched allegiances; before the revolution, jobs were given to the sons of those with links to the last government; this time they're reserved for members of Ennahda, the ruling Islamist party, they say. We meet one man prepared to admit he was successful in his quest, but he doesn't want to speak on camera, perhaps shy of appearing to gloat. We meet plenty more who remain unemployed.
A 150 or so rejected applicants gather in the centre of the town. A rumour goes around that four of the successful candidates actually live in France. This should make them illegible, people shout.
An angry crowd gathers around a journalist from the state-run TV channel. They don't trust him, they say, before singling us out, as well.
We move on, and the protest dies down for a while. We've missed the last minibus out of town, but Karim and his now-glum friend help us find someone who'll play taxi driver back to Gafsa. We walk past the local office of the new ruling party Ennahda. Attempts to film the scorch marks around the door, the results of a burning tire placed there, we're told, are met with glares.
In the car, we drive through the scarred landscape, as the piles of phosphate by-products give way to a stark, bone dry beauty. Camels, a little birdlife, and shepherds dot the landscape.
Far from the country's elite, Tunisia's revolution began out in these deserts.
But the message from the unemployed youth who drove that revolution is loud and clear; nothing much has changed out here.
