When eating becomes a crime

Recently I’ve seen a lot of articles speaking about how policemen are taking citizens (and I insist on the fact that they are tunisian citizens)  who eat or drink in public during Ramadan to the prisons. In the begining, I didn’t believe these articles and I thought they are just rumors tryning to make the websites get more viewers. But then, I realized that it’s just the reality, and that there is a law that justifies such a behavior. Also, and from some friends in other arab countries, I discovered that this kind of arrestations exists in their countries too. But the most chocking moment for me was when one of my friends (a tunisian) shared her personal opinion on this issue and expressed how these laws are making her ashamed and disgusted, and one her followers (who is also a tunisian young citizen ) said « that this is justified, they deserve to be punished because they didn’t respect people who are fasting  ». For him, « a month in prison is a good lesson to make them learn to respect muslims and don’t eat as the law says ».

This post was like a slap in the face for me. It made me wake up from a fantasy I was living and believing in, in which Tunisia is a country of freedom of choice and respect. I always thought that I am living in a country of diversity and co existence. I always believed that terrorism and extremism are external, and that the government and the tunisian constitution are fighting. All this and more disappered when I read the articles and this comment on my friend’s facebook post. Now I am pretty sure that terrorism is something that unfortunately exists in the souls of some of us without being brainwashed or manipulated, and try to advocate and promote it. And from what I see now, the government is not fighting terrorism, but supporting it and helping it. Because terrorism is not only in attacks and murders, but also in imposing your religious belief on someone else and punishing him when he doesn’t follow you. We just reachs a level where eating or drinking is considered as a felany and is more dangerous that sexual harrasment or stealing !!!

The argument this category of people often use to justify their extreme position is that Tunisia is a muslim country, and that the majority of its citizens are muslims. And when a person eats in front of a muslim who is fasting is disrespectful because it is considered as a provocative way to make him desire food and stop fasting. In fact, isn’t the main purpose of Ramadan (as they claim) to make people feel the pain and hunger poor people are living on a daily basis ? Well, poor people see the others citizens eat in front of them all the time and don’t complain. So why don’t they accept seeing someone drink when they are fasting and live it as a part of the experience ? This shows how ridiculous and weak is their argumentation, and how they try to use every opportunity to make our society a homogenous one.

Is it that much difficult to accept different people who are surrounding us and co exist with them ? Why many people see the fact that others have not the same traditions as them as a manner of disrespect and invasion. Being muslim or fasting dosen’t give anyone the eligibility to impose his habits on others or makes him responsible of « guiding them to the right path ». And  this  doesn’t mean that this is an exclusively Islam thing. All religions are concerned, because people everywhere try to use them as an argument to justify division and hate ideas.

But thankfully, for every dark side there is a bright one. This community of extremism and mental terrorism is a minority in Tunisia. Maybe such ideas were more common in the previous generations, but for sure, youth these days is more open and trying to do its best to stop and erase such thoughts. The fact that this kind debates and conversations is happening now in the coffee shops and the small meetings is a sign of progress and a step to the change. For sure it’s a long road of fighting and resisting  to end this extremism, but there is no doubt tunisians will reach eventually the real complete freedom of choice one day. Because as our grand parents made it possible 50 years ago to say that women emancipation in Tunisia is a reality while we are surrounded by countries where women in some of them recently got their right to drive cars, we as future leaders will manage to solve this issue of religion acceptance and say that Tunisia is a country where every religion is welcomed.