Democracy Cannot Survive Hunger but Dictatorship Only Hides and Aggravates the Problems in Society - Messoud Romdhani

In-depth conversation with a member of Tunisian civil society which won the 2015 Nobel Peace Prize.

In February this year, I was in Kathmandu for World Social Forum 2024. (I am based in Chitwan, 136 km away from Nepal’s capital city). When I reached the venue, I found Messoud, one of the speakers in a panel I was set to moderate, in the crowd in the Palestinian tent in the WSF venue.

In the bleak backdrop of the relentless Israeli assault on Gaza, the Palestinian tent was a lively place with a series of focused group discussions, multilingual musical performances and some other passionate activities.

I pulled Messoud aside and introduced myself. We connected emotionally very fast and later in the day, Harsh Mander from India, another speaker in the panel, also joined us.

I conducted a nearly two hours long interview with Harsh the same day and an hour long interview with Messaoud the following day. These conversations took place in addition to the nearly two hours-long regular WSF panel discussion that we had in the open space in front of a modest audience.

Here I am presenting my conversation with Messaoud which I recorded in the hotel he was staying at.

I was particulrly keen to explore the trauma the Tunisian society must have been going through now given its relapse to autocracy in recent years. That keenness, in turn, was the result of my own apprehension about the future of Nepal with widespread disaffection of people towards the governance by the elected representatives.

Ultimately, though, we ended up conversing about the issues of democracy, tyranny, and dignity that transcend national boundaries. While Tunisia may be the microcosm of what can go wrong with democracy, no part of world is immune from that kind of restlessness, trauma and the sense of suffocation resulting in self-immolations and much more.

So, here goes the interview in my new youtube channel dedicated to ideas that should shape the future. I hope you will enjoy this and share it to your friends, in social media sites as well as by forwarding this email to them. I am especially thankful to Ian, IC Member at WSF who suggested us to include Messoud in the panel, and Usha Titikshu, the dear friend who connected me to the WSF platform.

Next video in this series will be our panel discussion at WSF with Messoud, Harsh and Dr. Meena Poudel from Nepal which was titled ‘Deradicalizing South Asia by Comating the Weaponization of Faith’. For now, please enjoy: