The presidential election is in the news, while Tunisians are also preoccupied by major imperatives. Coping with the expensive expenses of the start of the school year, overcoming the rise in prices, paying water and electricity bills and meeting vital needs: a daily struggle for large sections of the population.
Those who have neither a source of income nor a salary border on total precariousness.
Solutions are far from appearing on the horizon. Inflation is not abating, growth is slow to recover, employment is scarce and wages and pensions are insufficient. Fractures, inequalities and poverty at worrying rates are a concern for us.
The wealth redistributive system is failing to be deployed. The public budget remains very limited. While demand is strong.
A social emergency is taking hold and requires immediate responses. The proposed programs cannot solve the pressing daily problems today.
How will Tunisian society be able to survive? Apart from the resources of the informal sector, which accounts for more than half of economic activity, the invisible part of survival is based on mutual aid. People support each other, starting within the family. Those who manage to earn money give it back to others. The amounts are often modest, sometimes irregular, but they constitute crucial assistance.
Need breeds ingenuity that can create a lucrative business. To get by, there are many ways: crafts, agriculture, livestock farming, small trades, etc. Very small informal businesses are then born, struggling to find financing and sell their products. The main thing is to preserve dignity and obtain the vital. The social and solidarity economy, established by the law of June 30, 2020, is still embryonic. Activating all its provisions and implementing them will deliver its great promises.
The urgency, however, is mutual aid, the strongest social bond. Expanding solidarity, rooting it in collective behavior and imagining new, more fluid and efficient channels for it could reduce the hassles of life.
Giving, sharing, helping, rescuing, sponsoring and restoring hope is imperative. It is embodying a high sense of responsibility, in response to the rise of individualism and exclusion. In these times of fragility and uncertainty, reaching out to others pulls them out of their distress and strengthens the cohesion of society.
Everyone has their own initiative, their own action, their own form of support. Being united means making human values prevail. Tunisians are steeped in the virtues of mutual aid. Over the generations, they have offered edifying illustrations of this, often in the most absolute discretion.
The scale of the needs requires more involvement. Giving is not just about handing over money. It is also about listening and paying attention, supporting and looking out for others. Beyond the urgent, it is often about providing solutions. Sharing is not only about goods, but also about values, a new perspective on our lifestyle and consumption, on the environment, respect for nature and our relationship with sustainability. Helping is about helping to understand the new world that is coming, its challenges, its risks and its opportunities.
Solidarity must also be demanded in our international relations. To include it at the heart of the founding principles, to demand it in cooperation, to make it a reality in the prevention of climate change and to ensure it in respect of humanitarian rights: we cannot renounce it.
The greatest urgent effort, however, must be made in Tunisia, today. in favor of those in need. To give is the generosity of the soul.
Charity is the most beautiful of virtues.
To be in solidarity is to be united, for a better life together.
Taoufik Habaieb
