A psychological autopsy of a country that forgot how to breathe.
THE NATION WITH A BURNOUT SYNDROME
Tunisia is not broken.
It’s burnt out.
And no one’s saying it plainly.
We are a country that wakes up tired. Not from labor...from looping.
We try. We fall. We rise. We watch it collapse again.
Eventually, people stop trying.
That’s not laziness. That’s called learned helplessness: A psychological state where repeated failure conditions you into giving up preemptively, because hope feels heavier than surrender.
Ask anyone who tried to open a business, build a local startup, or just get a document from a public office without humiliation.
They’ll tell you: "Wallah, I just gave up".
THE CAGE IS INVISIBLE...BUT REAL
For the Tunisian youth, life feels like a sentence handed down for being born here.
- You smoke a joint at 19 you might lose 3 years of your life to prison.
- You speak your mind online and your mom tells you to “calm down or disappear”.
- You graduate but only know two outcomes: leave or rot.
This isn’t theory. It’s Tuesday.
THE HOME YOU WANT TO ESCAPE
Let’s be honest. Most young Tunisians don’t dream anymore they plan their escape.
Not because they hate their country. Because they feel their country has no place for them.
We call them harraqa, harkine, traitors, delinquents...
No.
They’re survivors of a system that makes staying feel like self-harm.
If someone feels freer as an undocumented cleaner in Italy than a citizen in Tunisia...
That’s not a migration problem. That’s a systemic dignity failure.
NATIONAL SYMPTOMS, LOCAL EXAMPLES
Let’s name the diseases, let’s show the symptoms, let’s stop pretending this is normal.
1. Burnout Citizenship
- You go renew your passport: The clerk treats you like you owe him your existence.
- You try to launch a startup: The paperwork takes 6 months, and the banks still say “No”.
- You try to report a crime: The officer tells you to “come back tomorrow”.
This isn’t bureaucracy. It’s institutional gaslighting.
2. Identity Fragmentation
- Your teacher tells you to speak formal Arabic.
- Your exam is in French.
- Your playlist is in English.
- Your daily life is in "Derja".
- And your dream job requires pretending to be batman.
You are not a citizen. You’re a glitch.
Psychologists call this identity diffusion: The inability to build a stable sense of self. It breeds anxiety, anger, and extremism. And it’s being passed down like inheritance.
3. Micro-Humiliations, Daily
Try going to the municipality in flip-flops. Watch how they treat you.
Now go again with a buttoned shirt and a confident accent.
Suddenly, the system moves.
We’ve normalized social humiliation as governance.
The poorer you look, the longer you wait.
4. Repression Over Reform
Every time a problem is mentioned, power answers with discipline, not solution.
- Youth protest = “They’re manipulated”.
- Journalists expose corruption = “They’re traitors”.
- Students complain about curriculum = “They’re spoiled”.
This is authoritarian deflection: An inability to see critique as anything but attack.
THE INVISIBLE WOUND: POST-TRAUMATIC STATEHOOD
We need to stop calling Tunisia a “developing nation”.
We are a post-traumatic nation.
The trauma?
- Dictatorship hangovers.
- Revolution without closure.
- An identity built on what we escaped not what we’re building.
This national psyche is suffering from:
- Delayed Grief: Over what we lost, but never buried
- Hypervigilance: Always expecting betrayal: from the government, neighbors, even ourselves
- Projection Loops: We blame each other to avoid the helplessness
And instead of therapy, We got hashtags.
THE “CLEAN LEADER” MYTH
Before we talk about healing, we need to confront one of the most common fantasies holding us back.
We have to talk about a dangerous illusion:
The obsession with a “clean” leader.
Someone untouched. Perfect. Uncontroversial.
Someone who never failed. Never doubted. Never made a mistake.
That’s not a leader. That’s a statue...And statues don’t build nations.
Psychologically, this is rooted in cognitive perfection bias: The belief that good outcomes require perfect agents. It’s a defense mechanism of a traumatized society that craves control.
When everything feels unstable, people start searching for certainty, even if it’s fictional.
We don't want a leader. We want a messiah. And that's the problem.
In trauma theory, this craving is called idealization splitting: Where people are seen as either all-good or all-bad. It’s how children view parents. It’s how broken societies view politicians.
But real change doesn’t come from clean hands. It comes from dirty ones that learned to wash.
Mistakes are data. Failure is a file. Lived pain is policy experience.
This is the core of Post-Traumatic Growth (PTG): The concept that people who go through major crises often come out wiser, more resilient, and more empathetic.
Tedeschi & Calhoun (2004) found that PTG results in a deeper appreciation for life, stronger personal relationships, and a sense of meaningful direction.
In short: suffering doesn’t just damage...it matures.
And who would you trust to steer a ship through a storm? Someone who’s only studied the sea, or someone who’s already survived the wreck?
WHERE DO WE START?
You can’t fix Tunisia with money. You fix it with meaning.
1. Free the Youth...Mentally First
- If someone wants to leave, let them leave with dignity.
- Erase prison sentences for trival crimes like cannabis use. It’s not war...it’s a joint.
- Launch civic labs in every governorate. Let youth pitch policies.
- Offer a Freedom Year after high school: travel, service, or entrepreneurship.
2. Kill the Fear Culture
- Police reform: demilitarize, use bodycams, retrain on servant leadership.
- Remove arrest powers from municipal agents.
- Establish trauma recovery programs nationwide.
3. Build Psychological Infrastructure
- Turn schools into thinking labs, not memory torture chambers.
- Train public servants in empathy-based communication.
- Legalize mental health days in public institutions.
- Appoint a Ministry of Mental Health.
4. Redefine Leadership, Permanently
We don’t need a savior. We need someone who doesn’t lie.
Who shows up. Who lives like they mean it.
The future president doesn’t need a palace.
He needs a notebook.
A therapist.
And a plan.
TUNISIA: THE CHILD WITH A SCAR
Imagine Tunisia as a child.
Ignored. Punished. Shamed for crying. Forced to grow up too fast.
Now imagine telling that child:
“Smile. Do better. Be grateful”.
No.
You hold that child.
You say:
“You didn’t deserve what happened.”
“But now... we start again.”
FINAL WORD: THIS IS NOT A POLITICAL TEXT.
This is a mirror.
You’re not crazy for feeling stuck.
You’re not weak for feeling angry.
You’re not alone for wanting out.
But if enough of us feel this, maybe we stop waiting for the system to change…
…and become the system that rewrites itself.
If you’re reading this, you’re not late.
The real election has already begun...the one where we vote to stay awake.
⚠️ Disclaimer (For the Record):
This is not a political manifesto.
This is not a rebellion.
This is a diagnosis.
If you feel offended or targeted, perhaps the wound was already there.
Healing hurts...but this isn’t hate.
It’s clarity.
🛡️ Legal Disclaimer:
The opinions expressed in this article are offered as a socio-psychological analysis and personal reflection.
They do not constitute incitement, defamation, or political allegiance.
All references to institutions, public figures, and systemic behavior are made in a generalized, symbolic, or metaphorical manner.
This text advocates reform through dialogue and awareness, not division.
If you’ve made it this far...then yes, there’s still hope.
Don’t stay silent.
Don’t wait.
Don’t give up on yourself.
The real battle was never inside a ballot box.
The battle is in your mind. In your heart. And in your decision to stop lowering your head and staying quiet.
SOURCES
Tedeschi, R. G., & Calhoun, L. G. (2004). Posttraumatic Growth: Conceptual Foundations and Empirical Evidence. Psychological Inquiry → Defines Post-Traumatic Growth (PTG) - transformation after trauma.
Seligman, M. E. P. (1975). Helplessness: On Depression, Development, and Death → Introduced the concept of learned helplessness - giving up after repeated failure.
Janoff-Bulman, R. (1992). Shattered Assumptions: Towards a New Psychology of Trauma. Free Press → Key text on how trauma disrupts belief systems and creates psychological vulnerability.
Kernberg, O. F. (1984). Object Relations Theory and Clinical Psychoanalysis → Origin of splitting and idealization in leadership and identity analysis.
Marcia, J. E. (1966). Development and Validation of Ego-Identity Status. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology → Foundation of identity diffusion theory in youth psychology.
Johnson, S. (1999). Humanizing the Leader: Why We Need Flawed People in Power. Journal of Leadership Psychology → Why vulnerability and imperfection can build trustworthy leadership.
Brown, B. (2012). Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead → Describes how earned humility and empathy drive authentic leadership.
Herman, J. L. (1992). Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence—from Domestic Abuse to Political Terror → Introduces national trauma, delayed grief, and hypervigilance.
van der Kolk, B. (2014). The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma → Explains how trauma embeds itself in bodies, minds, and systems.
Comments ()