All the residents in Az Zarat can point to one of their village’s oldest and most precious landmarks; the home of Sheikh Ali Al-Amery, the oldest man in their small fishing village in Gabes, 470 kilometers southeast of Tunis.
Celebrating his 133rd birthday last month, Ali smiled amid the wrinkles that covered his entire face and sat on the same bed he spends most of his time in his room’s corner.
All the residents in Az Zarat can point to one of their village’s oldest and most precious landmarks; the home of Sheikh Ali Al-Amery, the oldest man in their small fishing village in Gabes, 470 kilometers southeast of Tunis.
Celebrating his 133rd birthday last month, Ali smiled amid the wrinkles that covered his entire face and sat on the same bed he spends most of his time in his room’s corner.
He recalls his life in an intermittent voice while struggling with his memory that witnessed the most important historical events in Tunisia, starting with the Bey Dynasty rule in the nineteenth century to Ben Ali’s escape in January 14, 2011.
Dreams and regrets
Despite losing his sight many years ago, Ali is still able to describe the social atmosphere he grew up in with his parents and siblings among the woods of ‘Shatea Awamer’ village.
Ali was born in a cottage that lacked the most basic necessities, such as electricity and drinking water. After his father’s death, he became the family breadwinner at the age of 15. He worked in farming and in some trading activities between Tunisia and Algeria.
He had four children with his first wife, all of whom died from incurable diseases and a lack of vaccinations. He blamed his wife for the deaths, and divorced her, which he today regrets. She later got married and had healthy children.
After that experience, he gave up marriage for 11 years until he overcame his feelings of guilt, he says. Then he married a Libyan woman who came to the village with her family fleeing the Italian occupation.
He lived with her until she died in 1984, leaving him with two children: 60-year-old Fatima and 54-year-old Abdul-Aziz, who enjoys looking after his father.
The Germans went down fighting against the English
“I won’t forget”, Ali recalled, “the courage of the German soldiers in front of the English during World War II in Mareth, even though their forces were dispersed and they lost control of the battle, leading to the death of hundreds and escape of most of them to the farms of people who protected them and treated their injured as they didn’t care about the battle’s result.”
Despite not taking part in the armed struggle, Ali insists that the most prominent historical event in his life was Tunisia’s independence, which prompted him to receive the late President Habib Boureguiba in 1968, during his visit to Gabes. People in Ali’s generation consider Boureguiba as a great historical leader and the liberator of the Tunisian people.
Ali says he wasn’t interested in politics, but in providing decent living conditions and says he didn’t care when Ben Ali rose to power in 1987. “I even felt sad when Ben Ali stepped down,” he says, justifying the social privileges he enjoyed by local authorities, including housing improvement, financial aid, and free public services, which he has lost since the first months after the current government took power.
Az Zarat symbol
Ali has been living with his son, Abdul Aziz, for five years. He goes out only to visit the doctor when he has a backache or a stomachache. He has no chronic disease, unlike all his friends who died many years ago, which has affected his psychology and morale. The visits paid by neighbors and relatives, however, compensate for his loss.
In Az Zarat people say Ali is the village’s symbol. They volunteer to serve him and race to be blessed by him. Even people from other villages rush to host him in their houses, but his family refuses given his health situation.
Ali’s family is happy with the media attention and hopes it contributes to recognizing him as the oldest man in the world by national and international organizations, maybe even one day appearing in the Guinness Book of World Records.
