National Memory in the Making: Gendered Re-Configurations of Martyrdom in Post-revolutionary Tunisia

Abstract

Zusammenfassung Treating the category of “martyr” as socially constructed and contested along gendered and political lines, this chapter examines how heroes and martyrs have been produced and deployed in post-revolutionary Tunisia. It begins by examining governmental attempts, launched soon after the revolution, to monopolize and institutionally define who could benefit from official recognition as a martyr. It then unpacks the differences in definitions of “martyrdom” between official institutions and families of the deceased, arguing that “martyr” is a moral category, the boundaries of which are often drawn in terms of differing masculinities. The chapter goes on to demonstrate how the category of “martyrs of the nation” has progressively overshadowed the category of “martyrs of the revolution” in official memorial practices, as the commemoration of the revolution has progressively focused on its uniformed victims, leaving out the civilian ones.