“It is not suitable for leftists to get engaged in this popular folklore, such as visiting the tombs of the righteous persons or begging people to convince them that they are Muslims and religious persons like them,” said Mukhtar al-Ahwali, when he attacked the pious behavior of some of the leaders of the Popular Front on the occasion of the recent parliamentary and presidential elections.
“Leftist ideas teach people and advance their awareness. They search the depths and the existence of a society to elevate it to the level of creative humanity,” he said.
“It is not suitable for leftists to get engaged in this popular folklore, such as visiting the tombs of the righteous persons or begging people to convince them that they are Muslims and religious persons like them,” said Mukhtar al-Ahwali, when he attacked the pious behavior of some of the leaders of the Popular Front on the occasion of the recent parliamentary and presidential elections.
“Leftist ideas teach people and advance their awareness. They search the depths and the existence of a society to elevate it to the level of creative humanity,” he said.
Betrayal to history
Mukhtar al-Ahwali is an extremist communist and he openly criticizes historical leaders from the socialist and leftist scene, some of whom today are now in the parliament, thanks to the recent electoral success of left leaning parties in the November parliamentary elections. “The revolution has proven that these are illusionary and inflated leaders by Bourguiba and Ben Ali and the reflection of the proverb which says ‘give your opponent a bigger size than their real size so that the war with this opponent becomes more important.'”
Al-Ahwali is critically referring to the Workers’ Party and its leader Hamma Hammami, the presidential candidate who abandoned the name of the party for fear of being accused of atheism. Just before the recently held October 26 parliamentary elections he also abandoned the hammer and sickle, the universal symbols of communism and visited one of the shrines of one of the pious worshippers of Allah on the occasion of the presidential elections.
Al-Ahwali fears that the Tunisian left might betray its values and principles and ally itself with liberal parties that he claims only serve the interests of the bourgeoisie class, such as Nidaa Tounes.
Communism is my religion
Al-Ahwali recalled the bread uprising in 1984, when the rise of food prices led to popular uprisings:
“Like all other young men of my age, the philosophies of the 1970’s and 1980’s had a big influence on us, especially the bold and rebellious political ideas that were abundant at that time. We used to gobble up books and the university was the racecourse for intellectual and ideological struggle.”
He does not deny that the university conflict in the eighties is still casting its shadows on the political scene today, particularly between the leftists and the Islamists.
“The crisis intensified at that time and from a political crisis it became a crisis of thought in the minds of the elites. Discussions about the necessary alternatives needed to elevate the Tunisian society to a human level, with all of its creative and innovative values, mounted. The right intellectual doctrine was communism, and nothing else but communism. It is for the sake of the society that I had chose communism as my religion and my doctrine.”
Born on September 18, 1963 in the al-Zarat village in Qabes province Al-Ahwali leaned toward Trotskyism, he said because he was more inclined to adopting a communism with a distinctive intellectual feature, which he says makes communism more flexible and where cultural mechanisms are not under the control of the one party system in the Stalinist culture.
Memories of Baghdad
At the end of 1988, like thousands of young Arab men, al-Awhali went to Baghdad, which was considered, before the first Gulf War, the minaret of culture and science, and the beacon of Arab youth. He went there to study theater but found himself studying at the Central Institute of Education instead.
“It is the city with a splendor, intellectual glory and a spirit inhibited by the nature of the Iraqi personality, its intellectual dimension and its humanitarian depth,” he recalled. “This has made this city a temporarily homeland, which I put in my suitcase and brought back with me to Tunisia.”
Accepting and adapting with defeat
Mukhtar returned to Tunisia as a frustrated freedom fighter (during the repressive Ben Ali years)and joined the civil service and married. His trade union activism did not give him the opportunity to speak loudly enough to express the volcanic anger growing inside him, which exploded in the face of the regime during the 2011 revolution.
He remained faithful to all the revolutionaries throughout the ages regardless of their ethnic backgrounds and races like Abu Zar al-Ghaffari, one of the genius Muslim figures described by historians as the first socialist personality in the history of mankind. Mukhtar also admired Che Guevara and the voice of Fayrouz, the poetry of Badr Shaker Sayyab, Muzaffar al-Nawwab, Amal Dankal, and Manwar Samadeh.
But he does not see his heroes as prophets: “Often prophets fail in convincing people of their ideas, but when they leave, they leave behind their immortal message.”
His bold ideas about religion, in a society which is afraid to speak about holy issues and which adores taboos, have placed him in danger, especially after the revolution when religious radicalism was prevalent in Tunisia.
“Religiousness was created by fear, and the great human thought invented religion to get rid of fears and anxieties.”
The only thing that would make him bow down to God, he said, as required by the Islamic law, is when all his dreams and hopes vanish. “Otherwise, I will continue to be a steadfast communist as a last dinosaur on earth. Even if all leftists in the world bow down I will continue to stand up.”
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