The author explores the process of forming the figure of the bandit in cities, highlighting its Tunisian specificity. How did the bandit become this figure that we know today? How did he end up dominating his neighborhood and embodying the image of the hero-antihero? Who are his ancestors?
The press — “AJWAD WA AWGHAD, Quessat Al Bandi Ettounsi” of which we can try to translate the first part (the second being: the history of the Tunisian bandit) “Noble and scoundrel” or perhaps “good and wicked”, is an exceptional work signed by Haïkel Hazgui, alias Nash. The book published by the Dissonance Association (Nachèz) explores the fascinating history of the Tunisian bandit between nobility, violence and cropperie; Legends and realities.
Haïkel Hazgui holds a math chair and a master’s degree in mathematics applied to the economy. Writer and music critic, he is interested in traditional and modern music and marginal cultures.
“Like the gods and half-gods who constituted the two pillars of ancient mythology, the Bandiyya (bandits) also shaped a kind of urban mythology dominated by the figures of the saints. They were the half-Saints, representing the rebel, underground and profane side of this mythology.
They inherited a set of values and principles transmitted by young slingers and marginal of past generations. Popular memory saw a popular hero in the figure of the bandit, a Savior, a wrongful rectifier, and attributed everything that she lacked or dreams of finding him. In return, the Bandiyya’s accounts and their legends have nourished a dense and abundant collective imagination.
-Communities always need heroes, and invent them if necessary, even if they do not have all the ideal qualities – because, as they say, “man is naturally forced to the imaginary”, this is how the author signs his back cover. The latter invites us to a captivating dive in this long hidden and engulfed world in the dark corners of the city. A job he started two years ago, the fruit of an immersion in the heart of the universe of Tunisian banditry. Haykel Hazgui presented his opus, invited by Perspectives Editions, as part of the International Book Fair which ended last Sunday.
“This is an old obsession that I finally materialize, a subject that long attracted me. A work that I consider necessary, because there is no research study in this sense, “he said to talk about his work that he dedicates to his grandfather Khlifa ben Mohamed ben Abdallah Hazgui who transmitted this passion for history and research to him.
The book is made up of 232 pages including 12 referring to references in Arabic and French. Books, press articles, visual supports, YouTube links and other meetings made in Mahdia, Sousse, Monastir, Bizerte, Tunis and Gabès, with former detainees, bandits or people who have rubbed shoulders with, filmmakers, writers, families of bandits and others, a whole material that forms a large corpus.
Haïkel explores the process of forming the figure of the bandit in cities, highlighting its Tunisian specificity. How did the bandit become this figure that we know today? How did he end up dominating his neighborhood and embodying the image of the hero-antihero? Who are his ancestors? Etc.
Ecligpending and edifying stories reported by this excellent author and researcher who addresses different aspects around this popular figure full of contradictions, among others the ethymology of the term in the Tunisian diaclete and in slang, Italian and Maltese influence, dokers, boxing, national resistance movements, urban myths, popular music and female contribution. A book to read absolutely.
