Zawaya

Nessma's case: A conflict that is more political than religious

By: Saloua Charfi

To understand the tension stirred in Tunisia by Pan-Maghreb TV channel Nessma after broadcasting the Iranian film “Persepolis”, we should note its particular Tunisian context.

The conflict is part of the polarization experienced by Tunisians, amidst the election campaigns of modernists, secularists and liberals on the one hand, and Islamists and conservatives on the other.

Nessma’s message was political, and so was the response of the Islamists.

Nessma’s message expressed the following idea: “This is what might happen to you if you vote for Islamists. Do not make the same mistake as the Iranians”. The counter-message of the Islamists was: “Do not listen to Nessma, it’s a channel of unbelievers as you see from its depiction of God.”

In fact, the scene where God was personified in the movie lasted for a few seconds only.

These two purely political messages were actually wrapped in an artistic discourse by Nessma, and in a religious one by the Islamists.

Nessma claims that artists have more freedom than politicians, and don’t need to take into account beliefs, timing or cultural consensus on the ban of God’s depiction.

Conservative and religious people argue that freedom of expression must stop at the threshold of religious beliefs. Therefore, people who defended this idea by taking to the streets actually protested against Nessma’s iconoclastic speech, and not against underlying the negative aspects of the current Iranian regime.

The protesters were not necessarily sympathetic to the political ideas of Islamists. They were a mere crowd of believers, not voters.

How to explain such a paradox?

The Tunisian people just got rid of a dictatorship that lasted for centuries, including 55 years of independence.

Therefore, there is a blatant lack of democratic and artistic cultures in the country. The dominant and most understood culture in Tunisia is the traditional one of Islamic scholars (Fuqaha).

Nessma’s event had a positive aspect, since it certainly enabled artists to understand cultural issues and their role in spreading an alternative culture that is open to new horizons.

However, this awareness should be transformed into a strategy combining education and communication, and politicians should be prevented from exploiting art for political purposes.

Now that it has become possible to express oneself against the government, artists and intellectuals must seize this right and new power to diversify the horizons of Tunisians.

The role of art in the consolidation of democracy is as important as that of political parties.