Hishaam Aidi
Institute for Social Policy and Understanding
9/2/2011
In November 2006, the film The Making of a Kamikaze by Nouri Bouzid, a respected Tunisian director, was screened to great fanfare at the Carthage Film Festival. The film, a collaboration between the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Tunisian Ministries of Interior, Defense and Culture, examines the grievances of Tunisian youth through the story of a young hip-hopper named Chokri, better known by his b-boy moniker, Bahta. The film opens in a coastal town where Bahta and his crew—made up of other unemployed youths—roam the streets, hounded by baton-wielding police, looking for a spot to practice. The atmosphere is tense, the frustration palpable. The United States has just invaded Iraq, and satellite-channel broadcasts in homes and cafés speak of occupation and resistance. A gangly, volatile youth, Bahta splits his time watching television, dancing and seeking a boat to smuggle him across the Mediterranean Sea to Italy. But due to the Iraq war, the Italians have tightened their naval patrols; very few harraga (boat people) are getting across. As doors close in his face, and police maltreatment increases, Bahta turns to petty crime, angry outbursts and wacky behavior, in one scene moonwalking across a café floor in a stolen police uniform, loudly promising all the patrons passports so they can travel legally. He eventually falls in with a crowd of Islamists, who drill him with sermons about the sinfulness of music, democracy and the West, wooing him toward martyrdom.
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