In Tunisia art and music have always had political ramifications. And since the January 2011 revolution that saw the regime of former Tunisian leader, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, toppled, some of the musicians who always took an anti-establishment stand have been able to perform more openly.

Yet they also say that their fight is far from over. And it doesn’t seem to matter how old those rebellious musicians are; they still revel in Tunisian’s new artistic freedom.

In Tunisia art and music have always had political ramifications. And since the January 2011 revolution that saw the regime of former Tunisian leader, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, toppled, some of the musicians who always took an anti-establishment stand have been able to perform more openly.

Yet they also say that their fight is far from over. And it doesn’t seem to matter how old those rebellious musicians are; they still revel in Tunisian’s new artistic freedom.

Nibras Shamam is one of these – the 57-year-old still plays his lute every evening. And his band – known as Al Bahth El Mussiki Group which translates as the Music Research Group – recently set a record for performing: they played 250 shows around the country in the first half of 2012.

Shamam’s musical career began at the age of 17 when he joined a band that played music favoured by the Sufi, an offshoot of Islam. But at 17 he left that band because he became interested in left wing politics and he decided he should make music with a political conscience.

Together with a friend, Shamman first played at a university in the north eastern coastal city of Sfax. However the lyrics were seen as dangerous by the then Tunisian government, led by President Habib Bourguiba, and the musicians started to be harassed by the authorities, subject to arrest and torture and also expelled from their colleges. But this only served to strengthen the musicians’ determination to have an impact with their art and they still performed, only now their performances were limited to demonstrations or for meetings of human rights organizations or unions. 

In 1988, Shamam and his musical colleagues secretly managed to smuggle a tape to France, to have their music compete in an annual contest held by Radio France International. The contest, named Discoveries “aims at promoting career development of artists and professional bands from Africa and the Indian islands” and still runs annually today. The tape that Shamam submitted contained the band’s popular song, Hila Hila Ya Matar, and although the band hardly expected to win, they did. After this, the Tunisian government had a change of heart about the band and even helped to promote Shamam’s group. Unfortunately this more friendly behaviour didn’t last and in the early 1990s, the then president, Ben Ali, began to suppress both Islamic and left wing movements, such as the one Shamam was involved with musically.

Basically this meant that the band stopped playing for years. And the years took their toll – once reunited in the early 2000s when Tunisia’s politics became more liberal again, it became clear that some of the musicians’ political ideas now diverged and they left the original group. Shamam’s new band now features his own daughter and several other new members and before 2011, they continued to perform live, although often under dangerous circumstances. Any profits from those gigs were donated to the families of jailed activists. 

After Tunisia’s January revolution, Shamam and his band were once again able to play music openly. However the revolution has not made things as easy for the musicians as one might have thought.

The fact that Shamam and his group are left wing and that their music expresses those kinds of sentiments has made them a target of Islamic extremists, who are directly opposed to those kinds of politics.

Shamam describes these groups as the kind that endanger the freedoms gained by the Tunisian people. Shamam talks about the practice of “takfir”, which involves one Muslim calling another an unbeliever; this has been happening in Tunisia recently with the more extreme Islamist groups describing Tunisian intellectuals and artists in this way.

“Salafists do not believe in enlightenment and the hostility they show towards art and artists is far more dangerous than any political tyranny,” Shamam argues.

Additionally Shamam refuses to describe 2011’s changes as a true revolution. He  believes that the revolution only forced Ben Ali out of Tunisia but that a lot of the injustices and issues that Ben Ali presided over still remain in Tunisia.

“Historically a revolution would see every aspect of a regime removed,” Shamam argues. “But this hasn’t happened. There is still torture inside our prisons and movements that call for dignity and social justice are still being targeted.”

Shamam is also upset by the political compromise he has seen. He says his group will not perform at any political meetings even if the left and right wings compromise further.

In other words, the struggle of artists in Tunisia must go on – and, as the aging band leader says, he will go on making music that he hopes will convince Tunisia’s youth to reject violence and extremism and to become part of a civil society which embraces all Tunisians, no matter what creed.