Walking down the avenue, no one would guess that the square near the statue is supposed to be called the 14 January 2011 Square. There is no sign.
It would be easy to blame old-regime sympathizers in power. But many Tunisians have far more nostalgia for their ex-dictator than the revolution that toppled him.
If Ben Ali had kept ruling as he did in his early years in charge, “he could’ve stayed,” said Sondes Kouni, 55, from the coastal city of Sfax, who was walking through the Le Kram roundabout. She had not protested in 2011, but had, in the end, been persuaded that Ben Ali needed to go.
Those who were killed protesting “didn’t die for nothing,” she added. “But afterward, there were mistakes that weren’t supposed to happen.”
According to Mr. Tahari and many others, Tunisia’s post-revolution leaders had done next to nothing other than enrich themselves and their friends.
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Perhaps none have greater cause for bitterness than the families of the dead.
Le Kram’s black spike is not the only one of the neighborhood’s memorials to the killed; a simple block of marble was first put up by their families. Inscribed with the eight names, it stands across from its taller cousin in the roundabout.
The municipality holds quiet commemoration ceremonies at the big monument, but only the families come to the small one.