A Siege of Salt and Sand starts off solemnly with a quote from Aboul Qacem Echebbi, the young Tunisian poet who wrote the final two verses of the Tunisian national anthem. Echebbi’s foreboding quote addressed “To the Tyrants of the World” (McNeil, 2014) becomes prophetic after watching the documentary all the way through.
The disastrous effects of climate change are suffocating the Tunisian people between the rising sea level and sand incursion. The activist film attempts to shed light on the bleak situation by bringing much needed attention to the Tunisian governments lack of attention towards the communities most affected by the environmental encroachment.
The films clever title hints at the overthrows of sea water (salt) and saharan sand, but doesn’t mention one of the most historically significant issues throughout the Middle East and North Africa, Water, or its lack thereof. Although the MENA is typically a very dry region, local farmers have been able to raise sheep and other agriculture, but climate change has exacerbated the regions lack of rainfall. Water, second only to oxygen in sustaining life, has become so expensive that farmers are forced to give up their livelihoods and migrate into nearby cities. The frustrations that concentrated the Tunisian population into cities sparked the Arab spring and the eventual overthrow of the Ben-Ali regime. Although the documentary was made in 2014, after the overthrow, it serves as a grave reminder to other countries in the region of what can happen if authoritarian governments are allowed to continue to exploit the land and people they govern.
A Siege of Salt and Sand seized my heart and I got emotional, both for the Tunisian communities and for future generations that will live in a weakening world. I think the format of the film was very effective because it’s in our nature to sympathize with humans, not statistics that are meant to briefly scare us into change before we use the plastic straw anyway.
Bibliography
A Siege of Salt and Sand. Directed by St McNeil. Tunis: Radhouane Addala, 2014.
Authoritarianism in the MENA 