'Tunisia's revolution isn't over, but the fear has gone'

Tunisia's future remains uncertain, but for many young people the end of Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali's reigns means the end of living in a police state 

At 19, Ghazi Megdiche, the son of an administrator from central Tunis, knew his baccalaureate certificate wasn't worth the paper it was printed on. Going to university would leave him with barely a one in 10 chance of ever finding a job, so he turned up at one of Tunis's burgeoning call centres – the modern-day sweatshops of Tunisia's unemployed university graduates. Working 10 hours a day, sometimes seven days a week, on customer relations for a French paper firm, and earning on average £1 an hour, Megdiche says he can not complain. "At least I saved myself the agony of the kids who study for five years, can't find a job and fall into a deep depression," he says.

Tunisia's polyglot youth, at the forefront of the street protests that toppled the dictator Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali, is one of the most highly educated in the Arab world. With a 78% literacy rate, and 40% of the 10 million population aged under 25, the regime's propaganda machine used to love boasting about its bright young things. The official unemployment rate is 14%, but in reality, more than a third of graduates have no hope of finding a job unless their parents can pay heavy bribes to corrupt officials with connections in the ruling party.

The curse of unemployment and the young generation's disgust at corruption were key to the protests that ousted the dictator and led to contagion on the streets of Egypt.

But on the streets of Tunis, even after the revolution, the country's youth say their problems go deeper. "Psychologically, we were in a bad place. What defined us was not lack of job prospects, but lack of the most basic freedoms: being a teenager in a police state," Megdiche says. "It was absolute stress at all times, we were contorted by nerves and fear and living on edge every day. Anything you did, you were watched, you couldn't talk about politics even in your own home. If a young guy went out to pray, he'd be lifted by police, if you went for a drink, you'd be lifted by police. If you went out on Saturday night you had to think of taking extra cash in case stopped by police. Even my parents at home whispered. We never knew our neighbours, never said hello in the entrance hall, for fear everyone was spying and an informer. You trusted no one."

Megdiche briefly worked in a music shop. Like most young Tunisians, he is a fan of the local rapper Balti and the underground hip-hop scene that often spoke of the mental horrors of life under a north African Stasi. At the shop, Megdiche and some friends got around internet censorship to download footage of coverage of the Iraq war. Plain-clothes police swooped on them and he was arrested on accusations of being an Islamist terrorist. "I'd never even prayed in my life. I was held for two days in a detention centre," he says.

Mariem Chaari, 21, an arts student, took part in the demonstrations that toppled Ben Ali and considers herself a symbol of women's freedoms in Tunisia. She wears what she wants and once lived with a boyfriend. "The revolution isn't over. The [ruling] RCD party is still everywhere and I'm not sure what role the Islamists want to play, even though Tunisians don't want an Islamist state. It will take a while for our psyches to adapt. I still can't believe police in the streets are smiling, I still think I'll be woken up and find it's all a dream and there are hidden cameras everywhere."

Soria Jabri, a student of German, who wears a headscarf, didn't take part in Tunisia's weeks of protests. "I was so fearful. I could barely pay for the cost of my student halls in Tunis [around £30 a term]. The head of the halls was an RCD party member, we couldn't talk for fear of being overhead. The net was censored. I never emailed about anything other than boring family things. Wearing a headscarf meant I was constantly stopped by police and asked for ID. Just the fact that I can talk in the street now is great. The revolution isn't over yet. But the fear has gone, even if it takes a while to adjust."

Like her friends in the women's student halls, Jabri listens to rap and Celine Dion, dreams of moving to Europe to find a job. "My father's unemployed so can't pay a bribe to get me a position," says Mourhene Sahraoui, 21, from the rural interior. "So I've got little choice but to go abroad."