Saturday, March 21st

Arrived at 12:40pm at Tunis–Carthage International Airport following a two-day meeting in Geneva. The two cities, while less than a couple of hours by flight, might as well be decades apart in history, culture and development.

Over the coming week, I will be writing my take on what is happening in Tunis during this WSF;largely related to my area of focus - Africa & global migration, racial justice and climate change.  This of course is likely to expand into much more as I come across friends and colleagues who invite me into their spaces of organizing around gender, Pan-Africanism,  #BlackLivesMatter, labor,.............oh wait, I just got an email from my friend Bill Minter about tax justice/illicit financial flows...... and more.  Keeping it coherent and giving readers a sense of what is happening here is what I hope for, but we'll see.  Along with blogging, I'll try to share a sense of the city, issues and the WSF with the photos and videos.  Be sure to "follow" this blog if you don't want to miss anything - and send me comments/questions, if any.

Foremost in peoples' minds when hearing about Tunisia is the recent shooting at the Bardo Museum which claimed 19 innocent lives, many of them tourists.  As a country that has enjoyed relative peace following the Jasmine Revolution (which sparked the Arab Spring) in 2011, Tunisia was not expected to be on the ISIS hit list.   Many coming to the WSF wondered whether to cancel or continue as planned (myself included).  Feeling assured by messages from allies like GGJ (Grassroots Global Justice) and the need to stand in solidarity with the Tunisian people, immediate postings on FB were "I will come to Tunisia" I was convinced!  Affirmations of a resolute and united people determined and standing by the statement that "another world is possible" are not deterred or intimidated by a few gunmen!

I close today's blog by sharing this photo: walking outside my hotel surroundings, I came across this spot: AfriCafe - closed unfortunately, but certainly to be visited tomorrow!