AROUND THE WORLD
A group of Loyolans and Libyan refugees at a camp in Tunisia NORTH AFR ICA
In the wake of change I
Loyolans explore Tunisia after the revolution
n January of this year, Tunisians rose up against the authoritarian president, Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, in what is now called the Jasmine Revolution. Peter J. Schraeder,
PhD, a political science professor, has long stud- ied and spent time in the region, and has been leading students to Tunisia since 2004. He start- ed and led the John Felice Rome Center’s spring break trip to Tunisia in 2004 and 2005, and since 2006 has been leading a 22-day summer travel course, “Arab World, Islam, and U.S. Foreign Policy.” This year’s travel course, which included stops in ten cities throughout Tunisia from May 22–June 11, offered a chance to explore a nation on the heels of a large-scale revolution.
Jessica Murphy, a doctoral student in higher
education, was partly drawn to the Tunisia trip because of the unique timing of the course. She describes meeting a group of Tunisian law students as a highlight. “We could understand and experience the revolution in a different way by being there with students, some of whom had demonstrated in the streets to help push the revolution along.” Schraeder, whose wife and three children
accompanied him on this year’s trip, took the group to Sidi Bouzid, the town in which the revo- lution started when a 26-year-old fruit and veg- etable seller, Mohamed Bouazizi, lit himself on fire. Protesting the confiscation of his vegetable cart and harassment at the hands of officials, he later died in the hospital, having set off a wave of demonstrations around Tunisia. “We didn’t know what to expect in Sidi Bouzid,” says Schraeder.
Graffiti in support of the Jasmine Revolution 28 LOYOLA UNIVERSITY CHICAGO
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