Celebrating the Power of Art that Builds Peace in Tunisia

In fall 2015, the Center for World Religions, Diplomacy, and Conflict Resolution (CRDC) hosted an art contest titled Imagine Tunisia. The goal of the contest was to support the creation of imaginative art that promotes peace and nonviolence. The winner of the contest, Ghassen Elhani, is a 30-year-old photographer who lives in Monastir, Tunisia and his submission focused on the role of Tunisian women in building Tunisia’s future. “Tunisian women are part of our future,” Elhani says. “Their struggle for equality, peace, freedom, and the hope to fulfill their dreams, are what I'm trying to show with this series of photos.”

Elhani, who is orginally from Maamoura, a small town in Tunisia, started taking photos three years ago. He used free photo tutorials from the Internet to teach himself. Today, he photographs for events, families, and private businesses. Elhani believes that artistic activities can help “citizens to understand different points of view” and how prejudice mentalities can divide communities.

Tunisia, a small country in North Africa, became famous in 2011 as the starting place of the Arab Uprisings - a revolutionary wave of demonstrations and protests in the Arab world. Tunisia is also one of the most progressive Islamic countries for women’s rights and today, Tunisia has more women serving in parliament than the U.S. or France. But it is not just women on the rise in post-authoritarian Tunisia. There has also been an increase in public art.

I first traveled to Tunisia in 2010 to do a creative writing project on Tunisian hospitality to counter the Islamophobic ideas that were being perpetuated in the wake of 9/11. As a tourist, I noticed huge pictures of Ben Ali plastered onto the sides of buildings and hovering over public squares. One can even say that the Ben Ali regime had established a sort of artistic omnipresence.

Janine DeFeo argues in How Art Reflects Dictatorships and Revolutions that “totalitarian art is not just propaganda.” Rather, creating and displaying art is an exercise of power. In post-authoritarian contexts, there is also often a ritualistic destruction of symbols of the old powers. Tearing down statues of dictators is a common example. DeFeo argues that these attacks aren’t “symbolic” but are actual moments of political change.

Likewise in Tunisia, after the revolution there was an increase of public art, such as an international mural contest in Djerba. Another project, Artocracy in Tunisia replaced photos of former president Ben Ali with playful portraits of young boys, laughing sisters, and produce sellers. Public spaces were returned to the people—not just through the right to assembly, but through the right to creativity.

The increase of public art in Tunisia is a platform for sustained peacebuilding. In Appreciative Inquiry in Peacebuilding: Imagining the Possible, Claudia Liebler and Cynthia Sampson point out that “our actions are linked to our image of the future.” The Imagine Tunisia contest sought to support peacebuilding through the creation of images that depict hope for Tunisia’s future. Liebler and Sampson point out that images of the future penetrate the mind on the subconscious level, shaping our responses to threats and perceptions of self and other.  

It is my joy to cordially applaud Elhani’s work, which emphasizes the role of women in Tunisia, on behalf of the Center for World Religions, Diplomacy, and Conflict Resolution.

### A woman taking part of a march for doctors rights in Tunis. Photo: Ghassen Elhani.