Revolution Regrets? Tunisia's Bitter Harvest of Freedom, Corruption & Joblessness

After the fall of Zine El Abidin Ben Ali's "Dictatorship" and the start of the "Arab Spring" everything changed, Maybe in a good way maybe in a bad way, I can't give you my personal experience about it cause in that time i only was 11 years old. I'm only here to give you my opinion about what's happening now,  And talk about what people are saying in bars, cafe-shops or on the streets of Tunisia. I'm not gonna get into the details but for the people who's reading this and are not familiar with this event i'm gonna put you in the context. The protests were sparked on December 2010 after the self-immolation of Mouhamed Bouazizi in Sidi Bouzid, They led to the ousting of Ben ali on january 2011 when he offically resigned after fleeing to Saudi Arabia ending his 23 years in power, And all this was caused by government corruption, social inequalities, unemployment, a lack of political freedoms (Such as freedom of speech), poor living conditions and many other things. So my questions are : Did 15 years after the revolution something has changed ? Does the government is still doing what it did before ? Do we still lives in a corrupt society ? I'm not gonna answer these question directly but what i'm gonna do is elaborate most of the facts, causes and subjects that needs to be talked about.

Unemployment

These last past years has been challenging, It's a jouney from hopes to struggles. Between 2007 & 2008, Tunisian's unemployment rate hovered near 12% which was great compared with other African Nathions. But mid 2007 a crises began, and that was caused by "The Global Financial Crises (GFC)" also known as "The Great Recession" and that was a severe econimic downturn trigged by the collapse of the US housing market and the subsequent financial crises. But in 2009 despite the "GFC" Tunisian economy grew by 3.1% and the inflation remaind relativily low at 3.7%, And that was attributed to domestic demand especially private consumption and public investment. Now here's my opinion about it, the story of unemployment in Tunisia is more than a chart of percentages, it's a tapestry woven with the thread of resilience, upheavel and quiet desperation. It's true that back then i wasn't old enough to understand what people felt or live what people lived, But by 2011 the revolution had torn open old wounds, exposing systemic fractures that years of superficial stability had papered over a crony economy hoarded opportunity for the connected few, And sadly it's still happening now a days but i'll talk about it in another chapter. The 18% of unemployment rate that occurred in 2011 wasn't just a static, it was the echo of street vendors shounting into voids, graduates folding diplomas into drawers and fathers masking shame with forced smiles. In the years that followed, Tunisia's struggle became a dance of contradictions, Foreign loans and IMF prescriptions brought austerity that squeezed households already buckling under inflation. Tourism, once a lifeline, flickered between terrorist attacks and pandemic lockdowns, The "Arab Spring's lone democracy" became a cautionary tale of transition of political deadlock stalling reforms, while generation of youth are wired to global aspirations through smartphones, found themselves trapped in a local reality with no exit. By 2023 unemployment still clung to 16%, With youth rates near 40% ! A ticking clock beneath the nation's feet. The road to 2025 & 2026 remains fraught : Climate change parches farmlands, Europe's economic slow down bites into exports, and populist promises too often dissolve into empty rhetoric.

Corruption

In 2008, as the world buckled under the weight of the "GFC", Tunisia’s corruption metastasized in the shadows, teachers bribed inspectors to keep their jobs, hospital beds went to those who could pay "gratitudes", young graduates, even with top marks they knew their CVs mattered less than the "wasta" (connections) they lacked. Corruption wasn’t just theft; it was a suffocating culture, The regime of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali draped in the veneer of “stability,” Operated like a well-oiled machine of crony capitalism. The president’s inner circle famously dubbed “The Family” by wary Tunisians treated the economy as a private bazaar. Leila Trabelsi, the “First Lady” infamous for her shopping sprees in Paris, allegedly demanded kickbacks from every business venture down to the baguettes sold in Tunisian bakeries. "Even the flour was stolen", recalls Habib a retired baker in Sousse. "We’d get sacks half-filled with sand. Complain, and you’d vanish". That same year, in the neglected mining town of Redeyef, protests erupted after it was revealed that jobs at the state phosphate company "The Region’s Lifeline" were auctioned to the highest bidders, Young mens watched an unqualified relatives of officials took posts they’d trained years to earn. When security forces crushed the protests, leaving dozens dead or imprisoned, the international community barely blinked, After all, Tunisia was still praised as a "model of stability". The 2011 revolution shattered the silence, Tunisians poured into streets chanting "Dégage!", for a moment it felt like justice might prevail, the Truth and Dignity Commission exposed decades of theft. But in reality, 15 years later the ghosts of corruption still haunt. A 2022 report by "I Watch" revealed that 70% of Tunisians believe corruption has increased since the revolution, but the same surnames still dominate sectors like construction and import-export. In 2021/2022, A scandal dubbed "The Boss of the Sea" implicated lawmakers in a smuggling ring trafficking fuel and subsidized goods to Europe. Even the judiciary, Tasked with holding power accountable, remains tangled in political interference. Tunisia’s corruption crisis is a paradox, the same system that starves its people also keeps the peace for now. Foreign investors, lured by cheap labor and EU trade deals, turn a blind eye to graft as long as factories stay open. In 2023, Tunisia ranked 85th out of 180 countries on Transparency International’s Corruption Index its worst score in a decade. Youth unemployment, still hovering near 40%. Corruption here isn’t just a crime, it’s a trauma. It’s the reason a fisherman in Zarzis sells his boat to pay for his daughter’s cancer treatment, while officials vacation in Dubai. Today in 2025, the masks have changed but the playbook remains the same. As a taxi driver once told me "We traded a dictator for a dozen little ones". 

Freedom of speech

Under Ben Ali’s 23-year rule, Tunisia was a showcase of suffocation. The regime’s censorship machinery ran like clockwork. Newspapers were state puppets, their headlines curated to praise the “Supreme Leader.” Private media? A myth. Satellite dishes, banned too risky for citizens to glimpse Al Jazeera’s truths. Dissent lived underground, in whispers and samizdat blogs. The regime used some tools that were blunt but effective, like the "Article 61" of the Telecommunictions law was used to criminalized "spreading false information" online, a charge wielded to jail bloggers like Zouhair Yahyaoui who sadly died in 2005 after torture, or like the "Internet Police" who was used as a cyber-army monitoring cafes, throttling websites, and implanting spyware. And some newspapers like La Presse and Assabah functioned as the regime mouthpieces. The fall of Ben Ali in January 2011 unleashed a tsunami of sound, for a moment Tunisia tasted raw freedom. State TV, once a propaganda loop, aired debates with Islamists, secularists, and Marxists shouting over each other. Newspapers like Al Maghreb and Inkyfada bloomed, their pages splashed with exposés on regime crimes, but cracks strat to appear. In 2013 the journalist Lotfi Hajji was arrested on charges of "defamation" and "publishing false information" under Tunisia's penal code. These charges were tied to his reporting on alleged corruption involving a public official linked to Ennahda, despite post-revolution reforms aimed at enhancing press freedom, his arrest was seen as part of a broader pattern of using legal frameworks to intimidate journalists. Forward to 2019, President Kais Saied was elected as a "man of the people", but sadly that was just the facade. In september 2022, the president signed the "Decree law 54"  a digital revival of Ben Ali’s Article 61, which purported to combat "false information and rumors" on the internet. In that same month, the journalist Khalifa Guesmi was sentenced to six months in prison for spreading false information under the "Decree law-54" and defamation under the "Article 128" of the penal code, Guesmi had reportedly published documents and information alleging corruption within the National Guard agency, including misuse of public funds. And we still got other cases like Media Blackouts and Harassment like the shut down of IFM Radio in 2022 for airing interviews with opposition figures or the deportation of the french journalist Taha Siddiqui in 2023  while he was documenting Kais Saied’s crackdown on migrants, And in 2024 the journalist Fatma Ben Arfa defied charges of "defaming the state" by reading her article aloud until guards cut the mic. Sadly Tunisia’s free speech saga is a story of cycles, not linear progress. The same tools that toppled dictators social media, art, sheer audacity now face co-option by new autocrats.

Conclusion

Tunisia 2025, the revolution’s invoice remains unpaid. The bill came due in blood and fire in 2011: payment demanded for decades of stolen futures, suffocated voices, and a state treated as private loot. Fifteen years later, the core creditors "Unemployment, Corruption, Repression" are not just still waiting, they’ve compounded interest. Unemployment, promised to be tackled, instead became a generational trap. The 40% youth rate isn't an economic indicator; it's a live wire strung across Tunisia’s future, sparking with the frustration of a million Bouazizis-in-waiting. Corruption, promised to be purged, simply laundered its image. The brazen theft of "The Family" evolved into the networked graft of political-business cartels, thriving in the fertile soil of impunity. The flour might not have sand anymore, but the recipe for extraction remains patented. Freedom of Speech, promised as the revolution’s crown jewel, is being pawned. Decree 54 isn't protection; it's Ben Ali’s ghost wielding a digital baton, silencing dissent as efficiently as Article 61 ever did. Ask Khalifa Guesmi, ask Fatma Ben Arfa. So, what changed? The masks. The excuses. The sophistication of the theft. The depth of the disillusionment. We traded overt tyranny for a fractured landscape where accountability dissolves in political fog and old demons learn new tricks. The revolution exposed the ledger, it named the debt. Fifteen years on, the question isn't whether Tunisia is better or worse. It’s whether the powerful old guard, new elites, international enablers will finally settle the account owed to the people. Or will they keep forging the books, hoping the ticking bomb of stolen dignity, hoarded opportunity, and gagged truth simply  runs out of time? The streets remember the debt, they’re still waiting for payment.