Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, a former military officer, was president of the North African country of Tunisia from 1987 to 2011. As the dictator promised new freedoms to a country in revolt, Nadia Khiari compared it with a cartoon she drew of a cat, Willis from Tunis, speaking to a group of mice. "I decided to use this character to tell the story of what was happening in my country," said Khiari. Tunisia’s revolutionTunisia's revolution, with its demands for "work, freedom and national dignity," started various protests across North Africa and the Middle East known as the Arab Spring. Another cat says with a big smile, "If you want to speed up the process, that can be arranged."

Source: The North Africa Journal December 19, 2020 22:05 UTC