http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2011/01/2011113192110570350.html
"I understand the Tunisians, I understand their demands. I am sad about what is happening now after 50 years of service to the country, military service, all the different posts, 23 years of the presidency," Ben Ali said.
I don't know enough about president Ben Ali to judge whether his sadness over the recent occurrences in Tunisia is genuine or not, I just know what Tunisian themselves write about him on forums and blogs, not much good things....
What stuck me was he astonishment that after so many years of "service" people of Tunisia are apparently not happy. I am not much surprised from little I know about the standard of life of Tunisians.... enough to say that resent riots started as a result of a death of a young man who set himself on fire in an act of desperation after police confiscated his vegetable stall, his only of of earning livelihood. The young man was graduated from a university, had to sell vegetables for living, burnt himself alive because Tunisian police decided to take even that away from him.
I do not really know how common such situations are in Tunisia, but consistency with which young Tunisian keep trying to get illegally to Europe, even though if they succeed their life here would be very difficult, lets me think it must be rather tough life over in Tunisia.
Yet president Ben Ali is surprised.
And he is not isolated in this astonishment, in this lack of understanding of his own nation. That seems rather common illness of politician, not just in such dictatorship countries like Tunisia, but in Europe as well. My personal feeling is that our governments have no really knowledge what their nations want, what is good for them. They talk about things they have no idea at all. Most of our presidents, prime ministers, ministers, members of parliament never in their lives did any work, they were always well off, their went to good schools, never used public transport, they never had to look for a job, to spend hours in job agencies, to cut expenses to cover financial crisis caused by some rich people we will never see. No, they do not know hat is it like. And yet, they claim to speak on hour behalf, to act on hour behalf and most of their actions shows clearly we are actually loosing out on their decisions.
It is assumed democracy is a political system of representatives of some particular group of people, but I do not really feel at all like this would be the case. Do you? I can hardly remember any acts or bills introduces by parliaments or governments that would in some way made my life easier. What can recall easily, though, is constant talk of necessity of cutting off public spendings, constant promising of creating new place of work for millions and millions of unemployed people in Europe
The idea of democracy is actually great, sadly we have a huge problem with putting it into practice. I have read an article claiming that in UK 90% of higher public offices are occupied by graduates of 4 best universities. I don't know whether it is true or not, but it certainly feels like that. I do not think that those people can represent warehouses workers or people spending most of their lives on the assembly lines, can they? I do not see a reason why cannot be a son or daughter of butcher to be a prime minister, why does it have to be a child of a professor or some kind of a noble? What is wrong with butchers?
I will finish today with a quote, a saying by a Prophet of Islam:
"Leader of a group (nation) is their servant". (Prophet Mohammed - peace be upon him)
I wonder if president Ben Ali consider himself a servant of a young man that burnt himself alive?
