A Call for Solidarity and Against Racism and Hate Speech
The rhetoric our country has witnessed in recent years—rhetoric that violates human dignity based on skin color or administrative status—is not a recent phenomenon. Rather, it is a direct legacy of colonial logic, built fundamentally on a hierarchy of bodies, cultures, and social classes, and on the division of people into the “civilized” and the “savages,” into those who deserve freedom and mobility and those who must be controlled, monitored, and subjected to border policies. This logic did not leave with the departure of the colonizer. It has reproduced itself in immigration policies, the export of European borders, and in domestic discourses that adopt—consciously or unconsciously—the very colonial framework historically used to justify our enslavement, and used today against our migrant sons and daughters in the countries of the North.
The logic of sorting people to justify their exploitation can only lead to heinous practices that violate human dignity and threaten civil peace. Moreover, this logic will not remain confined to a single category. Whoever accepts the classification of people based on skin color, origin, and/or administrative status opens the door to a logic that will inevitably expand to include regional affiliation, family origin, dialect, or even political or social affiliation. Hate speech does not “protect” anyone; it creates an expandable system of oppression, waiting only for someone to set it in motion against the next group. This comes at a time when most Tunisians—including those who are taken in by fearmongering rhetoric against “the other”—face a real livelihood crisis marked by high prices, unemployment, the deterioration of public services, ongoing job insecurity, a lack of prospects, frustration, and the absence of hope and dreams for a better future. Racist rhetoric thus creates a fictitious internal enemy and diverts social anger toward a vulnerable group less capable of defending itself, rather than directing it toward the system responsible for producing injustice and precariousness.
Pushing vulnerable groups—immigrants and Tunisians—into horizontal conflict with one another directly serves those who do not want us to ask: Who creates this vulnerability in the first place? Who benefits from conspiracy theories and fearmongering? Who benefits from agreements and understandings with the European Union? Who benefits from the absence of genuine regional development policies that create opportunities for all young people?
How long will our collective energy be misdirected, while policies that impoverish us all and perpetuate discrimination and injustice continue unchecked and unmentioned?
Our shared history as a society is shaped by Arab, African, and Mediterranean diversity. The future we want for all of us is to live in a space where equality and solidarity prevail—not hatred.
Racism is not a respectable opinion, nor a “point of view” worthy of calm discussion. Racism is a crime. Society’s silence on it is complicity; neutrality in the face of it is a bias toward the oppressor.
Therefore, we direct our appeal to everyone who refuses to succumb to the logic of racism, hatred, and the justification of injustice:
• To workers
• To students and university students
• To intellectuals, athletes, and journalists
• To all civil society organizations, unions, associations, and political parties
• To every citizen who sees Tunisia as a space for solidarity and respect for human dignity
Go out, speak up, write, film, organize, and take a stand. Do not leave the public sphere to hate speech, incitement, and the logic of intimidation.
On June 20, 2026, starting at 5:30 PM, we will be in the streets, united and in solidarity, to say with one voice:
Yes, to solidarity. No to racism. No to hate speech. No to criminalizing solidarity. No to injustice.
We count on you in the media and in mobilizing through all means, platforms, and forms you deem appropriate, because the struggle against racism—and for solidarity, freedom, and dignity—is our collective duty.