Two squares, separated by barbed wire and a few hundred metres. In one sqaure, everybody is busy laying out food, soft drinks, water and fruits on tables in the street. The sun is setting and more and more volunteers from neighbouring houses arrive bringing extra dishes, new pairs of hands and good spirit. The scene is Bardo Square, home of the Constituent Assembly, where thousands of anti-government protesters have been camped since July 28.

Two squares, separated by barbed wire and a few hundred metres. In one sqaure, everybody is busy laying out food, soft drinks, water and fruits on tables in the street. The sun is setting and more and more volunteers from neighbouring houses arrive bringing extra dishes, new pairs of hands and good spirit. The scene is Bardo Square, home of the Constituent Assembly, where thousands of anti-government protesters have been camped since July 28.

As the sun sets, thousands more leave work and join the protesters to break their fast together in solidarity in public. Even government supporters, who have gathered in Tunis’ Kasbah Square, nearby, “to support and defend the legitimacy of the government,” are breaking fast with allies in public.

The ‘couscous volunteers’

The Iftar meals-on-wheels phenomenon is emerging in large part thanks to the contribution of different citizens, especially women, dubbed ‘couscous volunteers.’

One woman emerges from her large black car and takes trays of food out of her boot. “The least we can do to support these young men, who are protesting in the squares, is to bring them some food and stand by their side,” the woman in her forties, who for security reasons preferred not to be named, told Correspondents.

“These young men give us hope that Tunis will be saved from the rule of the Muslim Brotherhood and from terrorist threats which we are now experiencing and which are spoiling our lives,” she added.

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Snacks-en-masse: parts of Tunis are turning into open-air living rooms as thousands of protesters eat their meals in the streets. 

The meals are also supported by the Protests Supply Committee, formed by the Salvation Front, the most prominent representative of the opposition political parties such as the Popular Front and the Union for Tunisia in addition to a number of other organizations.

Rashad Shoshan, a human rights activist sits on his side of the divide eating his Iftar meal: a barley soup, salad and a dish of couscous so as to prepare himself to the resumption of that night’s protests. As he heats he continues to chant the now eponymous anti-Ennahda slogan: “Leave!”

Rashad left his house and joined the thousands of Tunisians participating in the sit-in demanding the ouster of the current government, an end to power monopoly by Ennahda, and government responsiveness to the revolution’s demands. 

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Iftar Sit-in

“The government has failed to administer the country’s affairs,” says Rashad.  This failure has led to the “deepening of the crises in an unprecedented way in the modern history of the country, as reflected in the assassinations of political figures and ambushes targeting the Tunisian army soldiers,” adds the activist.

Young men on opposite sides of enemy lines

Meanwhile on the other side of the fence from Rashad, among pro Ennahda Movement supporters a few hundred metres away, a young man from outside the capital has travelled far to voice his support for the government. ”The aim behind my participation in the sit-in is support of legitimacy, so that the country does not fall into chaos,” says Hamza al-Qarawi, a teenager who travelled 150 kilometres form his parents’ home in Kairouan to attend the support rallies. 

“My major concern is to defend Islam against its enemies. The leftist opposition and the remnants of the former ousted regime are seeking to destroy the country by calling for the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly,” says Hamza, eating his Iftar meal at the Al-Kasbah Mosque.

This pattern has become a daily routine for young Tunisians and it has become an indication of the state of polarization the country is experiencing because of the absence of dialogue channels between the government and the opposition.  The opposition insists that a national salvation government, from non-partisan independent personalities, should be formed in addition to an expert committee to finalize the drafting of the constitution. It also insists on the importance of revising the administrative appointments, according to MP Issam al-Chebbi of the Republican Party, who recently withdrew from the Constituent Assembly.

Both Hamza and Rashad are young men of similar ages, caught on the opposite sides of enemy lines. It is perhaps becoming all too common a feature of Tunisian society today – tensions over contrasting preferences for political systems, democracy and Islam.  

Back in Bardo Square, among hopeful yet tired and worn opposition supporters, protestors carried the photos of recent political figures that have been assassinated, namely Shokri Beleid and Mohamed Brahmi. Many carried Tunisian flags while others had banners supportive of the army and security forces and criticizing violence and terrorism.

The protests continue…

Others pack up the remains of the Iftar meals, everyone performing their task: collecting chairs, cleaning and preparing the square to receive its night visitors. 

Then Bardo Square becomes a place where Tunisian youth gather to write and hang their slogans, sing their songs and listen to music. Rashad is among them. Across the fence Hamza is still there. The stalemate continues.