Episode 8: The Election
Who would lead Tunisia into the next chapter of its history — the revolutionaries who had pushed Ben Ali out of power, or the returning Islamists who had spent years exiled in Europe?
Episodes
Revolution 1: The Story of the Tunisian Uprising
Revolution 1 brings the story of the Tunisian Revolution — the uprising that ignited the Arab Spring — to life through the voices of those who lived it.
Episodes
Episode 7: The Kasbah Protests
Ben Ali was gone, but the trouble with popular uprisings is there's not a lot of foresight. So how do you bootstrap a democracy when you've never really had one?
Episode 6: Dégage
The final days of the revolution crashed into Tunis and onto Avenue Habib Bourguiba, but as protesters called for Ben Ali to get out, a dark secret was hiding just below their feet.
Episode 5: On the Media
The Arab Spring is often called the Twitter Revolution, but who were the people behind the keyboard sending all those tweets? And, maybe more importantly, who were the people reading and acting on the calls to protest they saw on social media? This week we follow along with Lina Ben Mhenni and other bloggers and activists who were crucial to making the Tunisian Revolution a success.
Episode 4: The Interior
As Ben Ali loses his grasp on power, we meet two young lovers who are willing to risk everything to get the protests to spread.
Episode 3: The Gafsa Mining Strikes
In a dusty mining town on the edge of the Sahara, we follow along with two young spies on a dangerous mission in what would become the prelude to the revolution.
Episode 2: Ben Ali
What do a yacht heist, a tiger, and a couple dozen Porsche SUVs have to do with the police state that was Tunisia in 2010? Well, everything, actually. Come along for the ride as we meet Zine el-Abbedin Ben Ali and his wife, Leila Trabelsi, who built their outsized lives on the broken system that was crushing Tunisia.
Episode 1: Sidi Bouzid
Where were you on the day that changed the course of the 21st century? I'm not talking about 9/11, but about January 14, 2011, ten years ago today. You don't remember? Then you're not going to want to miss this story.
Coming Soon... Revolution 1: The story of the Tunisian Uprising
Ten years ago, a desperate young man set himself on fire in an obscure town in Tunisia, and set a new course for his country — and the world. The Arab Spring reshaped the course of the 21st century, but the uprising that inspired them all is often overlooked. Until now. Revolution 1 tells the story of the Tunisian uprising through the voices of those who lived it. We follow high schoolers-turned spies on a nail-biting mission to ferry video out of a blockaded city; a blogger who became the voice...