Luckily there were no sunbathers at the swimming pool when the mob of 80 Islamic hardliners arrived to smash up the Horchani Hotel, the only place in Sidi Bouzid where you could buy a cold beer.
Bearded, angry young men threatened the few staff who were around at lunchtime with iron bars, broke windows, smashed up ornamental fountains and threw bottles of wine and spirits into the empty pool, which is now full of shattered glass.
"They said if I serve alcohol again they will come back and burn down the hotel," said Jamil Horchani, 64, whose family has run the place since 1976.
The birthplace of the Arab Spring is a few streets away in the flyblown, ramshackle town four hours drive south of Tunis, the capital. A desperate young street vendor, Mohammed Bouazizi, set himself alight in December 2010, sparking protests which grew into an uprising and toppled the autocratic leader Zine el Abidine Ben Ali before spreading beyond Tunisia's borders.
The revolution, started by an act of despair, raised high hopes in Tunisia, a nation of 11 million which [is] has as much in common with the northern Mediterranean countries as the Arab ones on the southern shore; lively bars, beaches where Tunisian women wear bikinis, and universities which turn out well-educated young people who struggle to find work in the depressed post-revolution economy.
Sidi Bouzid, a backwater and unemployment blackspot, doesn't enjoy much of the capital's Tunisian dolce vita, and since its brief moment of glory last year not much has changed. At least the police who hounded Mr Bouazizi to his death have been withdrawn from the streets – their place filled by earnest young men in traditional robes with long beards. » | Nick Meo, Tunis | Saturday, September 22, 2012
