When I woke up one morning last January, I thought it was going to be just another ordinary day. My biggest problem was my hair - which was getting damaged from straightening. My other concern was my weight. With these trivial concerns in my mind, I headed out to the center of the town to do some shopping with friends. As I walked down the road, I met another friend heading to a demonstration. She suggested that I come along. I wanted to say no, but I thought it would be fun to watch people demonstrate. Perhaps I could even have a couple of pictures taken of me holding a flag or something to post on my Facebook profile.

Upon arriving at the demonstration, I immediately felt dissatisfied. But just a couple of minutes later, a rumble started among the people. I saw them moving forward so I moved along with them. While walking, someone started singing the national hymn. Little by little, more and more people started singing. The voices grew louder. It sounded like thunder and I felt like I was in as storm. Before I knew it, I started to sing along too. I realized for the first time that our hymn is so beautiful. It contains very powerful messages, especially the line, “if the nation wants life, fate must surely respond.” 

As we sang, people started holding each other's hands. People of all colors and ages were walking side by side, singing and looking up to the sky. I gazed up at the sky too and found that it was more beautiful than ever. I felt that I really loved my country and all those people around me—all differences melted away in a shared love for our homeland.

When we arrived at a street crossing, we were surprised by police forces lined up in front of us. They held shields and arms in their hands. We didn’t care. We just kept moving forward. Adrenaline was rushing through our veins. Courage was pushing us forward. 

We started running towards them, but to our surprise, they aimed at us and started shooting. It was the first time that I ever saw real guns and bullets. I felt both fear and excitement. I had in my mind one concept, “What happens to others, will never happen to me.” So I felt courageous and continued running along with everyone. But the police didn’t show any signs of giving up and continued firing. The shooting sound was so loud and terrifying that we froze in our places for a moment, causing the police to think of themselves as heroes. They even went further by shooting over our heads. The bullets were low enough to cause injury to some people. Little by little, a massive wave of anger grew among us. We were defending a righteous cause and they shouldn’t treat us as criminals! This is our homeland and our children have the right to live a decent live after us! With these thoughts, we continued with more courage and persistence, saying to ourselves, “We have to do this.”

The police continued shooting bullets in the air, trying to scatter us, but it was in vain. Our wills were stronger—in that moment, they realized that holding us back was impossible. So they put on their masks and started throwing tear gas. I had never been exposed to tear gas before, so I took it lightly and thought it was nothing. But with the first breath, my lungs started burning. Yet, I didn't give up. The police continued throwing bombs and the situation started to get dangerous. My face was burning and my eyes felt like they were going to pop out. Coughs started to rise among us and we were forced to release each other’s hands to run from the gas.

I started running along with them, trying to catch my breath. Unfortunately, the police had another plan. They had reinforcements who arrived and started shooting at us. This time, we realized that they were shooting to kill. We were surrounded by police in three directions. We had no choice but to run towards a certain building.

It was too late when we realized that the police planned to corner us there.

The massacre started. Machine guns were shooting everywhere and people started falling. I was so scared. My whole life started passing in front of my eyes (I used to hear this in films and never believed it, but now I understood).  I hadn't done anything with my life and I started thinking: If I die, will anyone remember me? Will my family forget about me? Maybe I should die. I am just useless. But no! I want to live! I MUST live to defend my country that I just discovered I loved so deeply.

I was running, overwhelmed by my thoughts when a bullet penetrated the skull of the boy who was running in front of me. His skull literally blew up and his blood covered me. A piece of his brain fell on my shoulder. It was my breaking point. I went crazy and started screaming, shouting out incoherently. Everything became scary and I could barely see. Everything was blurry. I could only see red. I was so afraid, so terrified. The boy’s head blowing up appeared again and again in front of my eyes.

Suddenly, I tripped on something and fell on it. I realized it was a corpse. Its lifeless eyes were staring at me. I started screaming and crying hysterically while shaking the corpse, telling it to wake up and not leave me alone. In that moment, I felt all alone in the world and engulfed in darkness. Someone grabbed my hand and pulled me away. I was so terrified that I was literally blind. I started hitting that person with all my might, crazily thinking that she was going to hurt me. I was out of my mind. I got smacked in the face and heard her voice telling me to calm down because everything was going to be okay. I fainted; I just couldn’t take it anymore.

Later, I woke up and found myself lying on the ground. I was under a tree with an old woman beside me. She started to comfort me, saying that she found my cell phone on me and had searched for numbers. It was my father who took the call. Feeling weak and useless, I fainted again.

I woke up later in my room under warm sheets with my mother beside me. She cried and kissed me, telling me how worried she had been. In that moment, I realized, “I had to change!”

In the following days, I walked in many protests and tried to help grieving families as much as I could. My sorrow was great when I heard about people dying every day. My parents were horrified and even tried to lock me in my room, saying that I could die. But I didn’t care. I just continued going out and helping. Even when our president fled, I realized that it was just the beginning.

The tree was cut. Now we had to work on its evil roots and remove them forever.

Further Reading
1.  Wikipedia article on the 2011 Tunisian Revolution