‘Auntie’ al-Sayida was a young girl when she watched the departure of the last French troops who occupied her country. She witnessed the Battle of the al-Jalaa in Banzart from the frontlines, a key moment in Tunisia’s struggle for independence, in northern Tunisia.
“I remember that sweltering day of July 1961 very well. I begged my father to take me with him to the battle front at Banzart. I wanted to be with the people who came from all over Tunisia to fight the last battle of liberation against the oppressive grip of colonialism,” al-Sayida told Correspondents.
‘Auntie’ al-Sayida was a young girl when she watched the departure of the last French troops who occupied her country. She witnessed the Battle of the al-Jalaa in Banzart from the frontlines, a key moment in Tunisia’s struggle for independence, in northern Tunisia.
“I remember that sweltering day of July 1961 very well. I begged my father to take me with him to the battle front at Banzart. I wanted to be with the people who came from all over Tunisia to fight the last battle of liberation against the oppressive grip of colonialism,” al-Sayida told Correspondents.
“I moved from my house in the old part of the capital city together with many other patriotic people and I was a witness of all the confrontations that lasted four days, after which the last French soldier left the Tunisian land” she added. “I still remember the very painful and sad pictures of our martyrs in this battle.”
‘Guardian of the revolution’
More than fifty years later, al-Sayida’s continued presence on the frontlines of Tunisia’s recent protests has seen her dubbed the ‘guardian of the revolution’ by youth and revolution groups. Wrapped in the Tunisian flag, Al-Sayida continues to fight for her vision of Tunisia.
Al-Sayida is also a religious woman – she wears a headscarf and can always be seen with prayer beads – however, she opposes the Ennahda Movement with orthodox Islamic leanings and she especially opposes Rached al-Ghannouchi, for whom she has strong words:
“He is a terrorist who wants to see rivers of blood flooding in Tunisia and he hates the Tunisian people and the children and grandchildren of Bourguiba,” she said, adding that Tunisia’s leader “does not know the meaning of the nation and does not want see us prospering. He is to be blamed for the blood of the martyrs and we will never forgive him for the assassination of the heroes Shukri Belaïd and Mohamed Brahmi, national figures.”
Al-Sayida says she hasn’t missed a day of recent sit-ins calling for the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly and the ruling troika in Tunis’ Bardo Square.
The veteran activist rose to fame during the earlier ‘2nd Kasbah’ sit-in, at the beginning of February 2011. “On that day, security forces beat me and I was about to perish under their kicks,” says al-Sayida, who was briefly married, but then widowed, and brought up her children as a single mother.
“On that day in February 2011, I became confident that the unjust and police state is still nesting in this country and I became determined to join young people in the streets while they are fighting their battle to re-capture the revolution which has been stolen from them by failed politicians,” says the ever-resolute activist.
Stalwart at sit-ins
Since then, witnesses say she has participated in almost every rally and every demonstration: chanting victory and success prayers for the Tunisian people and anti-government political slogans targeting the ruling Troika led by the Ennahda Movement.
She justifies her anti-Ennahda stance saying that she knows all too well the “dark” history of the Islamists and how they practiced violence against the people in the early 1990’s in the Maa al-Farq in Bab Souika. Or in the Sousse and the Monastir bombings.
“Could it be that former Prime-Minister Hamadi al-Jibali is among those who were proven to be involved in the bombings?” say al-Sayidi. “I am against Ennahda. I am against them all because they are religious dealers yet they don’t understand the values of Islam. I will continue to oppose the Ennahda Movement to the last breath,” she told Correspondents confidently.
“No leaders since Bourguiba”
Al-Sayida hasn’t always been so critical of those in power. She fondly remembers the late Habib Bourguiba, Tunisia’s first president, and bemoans a perceived lack of leadership since. “This land has become barren and did not give birth to leaders after Bourguiba,” she says.
Her admiration for Bourguiba can be seen on the walls of her modest one-room home on the outskirts of Tunis, in al-Qasderiyah neighborhood, where a picture of the former leader adorns her living quarter. But even her hero can’t keep her at home.
Every day ‘Auntie’ al-Sayida walks long distances, unable to afford public transport, from her house in the old city in the al-Sabaghin area to come to the site of the sit-in in front of the Constituent Assembly in Bardo Square. Young people, who have been camping in front of Parliament for more than ten days, say that ‘Auntie al-Sayida,’ as she is affectionately known by younger protesters, is Tunisia’s First Lady, the guardian of the revolution. “Her eyes never sleep,” says one protester.
Till death do us part, revolution
And they have no plans to rest soon either. “The immortal leader had committed a mistake when he did not embrace democracy. I want to expiate the leader’s guilt in my own way. This is why I will always be in the frontline of every demonstration demanding democracy, freedom and dignity,” she says.
Her motivation? “Martyrs died to achieve these demands and I will spend the remaining days of my life to make their dreams and wishes come true.”
