The Salafists and the Tunisian Revolution: Identity and Citizenship

Abstract

The coming to power of Islamic forces in Tunisia and other Arab countries that witnessed popular uprisings in 2011 has raised a cultural problem connected to social behavior and the question of identity and the relationship of the individual with the group. This problem requires a reading that goes further than current reality given that the issue includes a range of elements that do not actually exist but are in essence cultural and belong to worlds whose inner workings combine mythical and legendary imaginings that project the past onto the present by reinstating illusory images from a time that is absent from our daily lived present. The aspects of this imagined world hidden in symbolic stories must be read to reveal the ambiguities of the illusionary personalities that are leading the group towards an abyss that conforms negatively with the changing reality of their convictions.