On the morning of February 1, 2014, fifty-something Mustafa left his modest house in one of Kasserine’s slums and headed towards the city center, as he did every morning, to go to the governor’s office. Mustafa hoped the governor might offer him a job so he could feed his five children, as opposed to begging for help from neighbors and relatives. “As usual, the guard did not let me enter the governor’s office saying that he wasn’t there.” 

On the morning of February 1, 2014, fifty-something Mustafa left his modest house in one of Kasserine’s slums and headed towards the city center, as he did every morning, to go to the governor’s office. Mustafa hoped the governor might offer him a job so he could feed his five children, as opposed to begging for help from neighbors and relatives. “As usual, the guard did not let me enter the governor’s office saying that he wasn’t there.” 

Without saying a word, Mustafa left, as he did every morning, frustrated and bitter. He thought about his children, especially his eldest son, who was forced to leave school although he was a clever student. 

Mustafa thought about their hunger, the tattered clothes unsuitable in the cold of winter and of his wife, who often complained about the family’s difficult life.

At the end of the street he spotted a vendor selling smuggled gasoline from Algeria who displayed plastic containers on the side of the road. He walked hesitantly towards the vendor as he heard his own heart beat wildly. 

Painful memories

With the last bit of money in his pocket, Mustafa bought a gasoline bottle and walked towards the neighborhood café at a leisurely pace, lit another cigarette and reflected on his life:

The day his mother died, he was not yet ten years old. His father too died when he was still not old enough to face life. 

Mustafa grew up as a despised orphan in his uncle’s house, a man who made him work in sandstone quarries when he was still very young and then forced Mustafa to marry his daughter, although Mustafa never liked her.

As Mustafa walked further along, the painful memories continued to follow him.

One of his neighbors noticed Mustapha’s pale face and the vacant, almost haunting look in his eyes. He stopped Mustafa and asked him he was and how his children were.

Revolutionary stupor

Mustafa didn’t answer and kept walking, now with his head down. When he reached the café, he stopped for a moment and stared at it. He remembered the days during the revolution when this café had become the place where the sons of the neighborhood used to meet and organize mass demonstrations and most of which ended in bloody confrontations with security forces stationed at the end of the street.

Mustafa felt as if time was moving backwards, like it was January 7, 2011, the day of the popular uprising in Kasserine City, when thousands of people came out to challenge the security crackdown and to demand the departure of Ben Ali.

On that day, he was leading the angry crowds and the skies were clouded with tear gas. He believed that the revolution would bring justice to the people in need and the marginalized and create a spring for disadvantaged areas like his native Kasserine. He heard himself shouting: “Bread and water!” “Down with Ben Ali!” “Work! Freedom! National Dignity!”

He smiled bitterly as he recalled the days of struggle and how little they changed his present reality. Mustapha started to mutter sarcastically to himself: “Ben Ali has fled the country but bread and water are still unattainable dreams.” He smiled ironically and said: “Yes dignity… We revolted because we wanted dignity. .But where is our dignity? We want some dignity.”

Mustafa raised his hand to touch the deep wound in his shoulder caused by a treacherous bullet fragment during the revolution. The wound was deep and he had stayed in the hospital for more than one week.

When he left the hospital, Mustafa learned that Ben Ali had fled and Mustafa was classified as one of the victims of the revolution for his brave participation in the popular protests. He felt proud and gratified at that time and he truly believed that the situation would change for the better.

A desperate moment 

Mustafa suddenly shouted in a very loud voice to draw the attention of the people sitting at the café who were busy playing cards. With his right hand, he poured gasoline over his body, while his left hand searched through his pocket for a lighter. ”Death is much better than a life of humiliation! May God forgive me! Death is better than a life of humiliation!” 

The people at the café realized what Mustafa was about to do. They ran out of the cafe and one of the elders shouted at him: “Mustafa, are you crazy? What are you doing my son? This is haram. Think about your children.”

Mustafa remembered hearing the voices of people begging him not to burn himself. “It was as if they are coming from a very distant place, from another world.” 

“The only thing I felt and thought of was death, to end the pain and agony of the past,” he said. After taking a deep breath and contemplating, he remembered further details about that day:

“I was conscious and aware of what I was doing when I started to burn my cloths, which were wet with gasoline.  I was not afraid at all.  Suddenly, the sleeves of my shirt caught on fire and I felt the fire burning my hand and my heart. My deep suffering made me forget the pain in my hand. I remembered my children and I started to shout from the pain I felt in my hand but after that moment, I don’t remember anything other than the person who jumped on me, made me fall on the ground and covered me with a Burnus (a Tunisian traditional dress). It was then that I became unconscious.”

A disturbing trend

Mustafa is one of many in a larger phenomenon sweeping through Tunisia since the Jasmine Revolution in 2011 that was sparked by Mohammed Bouazizi, the vegetable seller who set himself on fire after a run-in with a municipal police officer.

Official figures obtained by Correspondents from the Interior Ministry show that in 2011 and until the end of the first six months of 2013, the number of people who committed suicide by self-immolation reached 194, 91 in 2011, 63 in 2012, and 40 in 2013.

As for those who tried to commit suicide by burning themselves but failed to do so like Mustafa, the same figures show that during the same period there were 271 cases, 112 in 2011, 99 in 2012 and 60 in the first six months of 2013.

The number of persons who poured gasoline on their bodies without setting fire reached 284: 123 cases in 2011, 87 cases in 2012 and 74 in 2013.

Psychologist and sociologists in Tunisia confirm that suicide attempts using the ‘Bouazizi method’ has become a tragic trend. Victims are young people and adults aged between 20 and 40 years old. According to specialists, Tunisians resort to this violent self-immolation method because of its symbolic value. “This value emerged during the Tunisian revolution and has become widely spread in other Arab countries as a symbolic protest method.”

 Bouazizi No. 2

Adel Al-Hadri went to Tunis in March 2013 in search of a job to provide for his family. After great effort, Adel was unfortunately unable to find work so he began selling cigarettes in the streets of Tunis. He spent all day on his feet and he barely scraped together enough money to meet the basic needs his family, including his disabled father, unemployed mother and four sisters.

Tawfiq, Adel’s cousin, had unsuccessfully tried to help Adel find work and that Adel, like Mustafa, had tried to contact many officials in different ministries but he was always tunred away.

“The day before he burnt himself he came to visit me in my rented room. He was distracted and sad. I wanted to help him and cheer him up and invited him to sleep at my place but he refused and left at midnight.  He didn’t even have dinner with me. This was the last time I saw him alive. The day after, I only saw his burnt body in front of the municipal theater in the Habib Bourguiba Avenue.”

Later on, Tawfiq learned that his cousin spent the night at the bus station and in the early morning hours, he had stopped at a gas station, bought a bottle of gasoline, went to the front of the stage, and when the traffic grew congested in Tunis’ main street, he started screaming loudly, pouring gasoline over his body and saying: “Watch the end of a poor young man. Watch the end of a cigarette vendor. Watch and never forget this scene. Today, I am joining Bouazizi.” The media then dubbed Adel ‘Bouazizi No. 2’.  He died two weeks later.

Failing 

After his suicide attempt Mustafa spent one full month in the hospital with second and third degree burns on his arms, chest and right cheek. He learned that he stayed in a room next to the one that briefly housed Mohammed Bouazizi, Tunisia’s most notorious self-immolation. “Today my wife and children are afraid to look at me,” Mustafa laments.

“I failed,” he said “and I couldn’t achieve any of my goals in life. Even death, which I desire, rejected me.”