The controversy raised in Tunisia by the Fallujah series is commensurate with its success: enormous. Directed by Saoussen Jemni, the soap opera broadcast during Ramadan on the private television channel Elhiwar Ettounsi gathered no less than 2.3 million spectators when it was launched on March 24, after breaking the fast, approaching 70% of share. of hearing. A popularity that has taken hold despite strong criticism from some representatives of national education.
Degradation, drug trafficking and consumption within the school premises, inappropriate behavior with teachers… The series, which takes its name from the Iraqi city that became a bastion of resistance against the American army during the second Gulf War, follows a group of students in conflict with their families and the teaching world. “Welcome to Fallujah”: in the first episode, this is the tag that a newly arrived teacher discovers on her car.
Denouncing a sensationalist staging of the difficulties encountered by certain schools, the Minister of Education, Mohamed Ali Boughdiri, described the soap opera as a “fiasco” on the airwaves of local radio Diwan FM. Fallujah, he pointed out, undermines the educational institution and “considerably harms the image of the Tunisian school”.
In the process, lawyers Saber Benammar and Hassan Ezzedine Diab took legal action to demand the pure and simple end of the series. One of them split a post on Facebook accusing the soap opera of “introducing the teachings of Freemasonry in schools in place of the values of Islam and authentic Arab morality”. . An argument that the High Court of Tunis clearly did not accept: the request for suspension filed by the lawyers was rejected on March 27.
“Opening the debate on the school”
However, the detractors of Fallujah did not take off. “The scenario poorly represents the reality in our high schools and colleges,” says Raouf Chakhari, Deputy Secretary General of the Federation of Secondary Education: “As a union, we have asked the Minister of Education to stop the soap opera from the first episodes. We have not been heard. In particular, he criticizes the series for exaggerating drug use and trafficking among teenagers, calling the problem “minimal”. Worse, Fallujah would encourage consumption “by showing students who were not taking drugs how to do it”, he believes.
But not all teachers share this view. For Mounir Hassine, who works in a high school in Monastir, “the soap opera has the merit of opening the debate on the school, it should above all not be censored”. According to him, the problems related to drugs, student indiscipline, aggressive behavior do exist, and we must face them. “Our education system is filled with violence and intergenerational conflict. When I speak with my students, I see that they are very critical of this system full of pressures and punishments that imprisons them,” underlines the professor of geography, regional president of the Tunisian Forum for Economic and Social Rights (FTDES).
According to this organization, nearly 100,000 students left the Tunisian education system each year between 2010 and 2020. Faced with this phenomenon, Raouf Chakhari and Mounir Hassine agree on the lack of resources allocated by the ministry and on the obsolescence school programs. “It’s been twenty-two years that it’s been the same lessons, the same program. That’s a problem that can be solved and the Fallujah scenario does not address it”, denounces Raouf Chakhari.
Asked by Le Monde about the controversy aroused by his soap opera, Saoussen Jemni did not respond. The 20th and final episode airs Wednesday, April 12.