“I'm a diplomat with an activist spirit” : Aya Chebbi (Africa -Tunisia) – 2/3

Aya Chebbi was the first African Union Envoy on Youth. Photo provided by Aya

I am in conversation with Aya Chebbi, pan-african feminist organizer and the first AU Youth Envoy. In the first part of our interview, Aya spoke to us about her African identity and her root in pan-africanism. 

In this second part, we dig deeper into the vision for a united Africa and explore Aya’s experience in her role as the AU Youth Envoy. 

I want to know about your style, because you’re always dressed to kill. I have a sense that it's not just about style, but that you're making a point with what you wear. Am I wrong? 

No, you’re not. I think it is identity and self-liberation. You know you grow up wearing what people tell you to wear and there are specific standards of beauty, especially as a female person. My experience with my hair made me realise that how I'm seen reflects who I am. I was bullied for my natural hair and so I used to cut it very very short, but then was forced to have straight hair so my mom would wrap it every night in long tights to be perfectly in shape for the next day. The moment I showered, I would have to go to the salon to do my hair. This was standard in the family.  

When I went to university, I no longer had the time or money to do that and remember being shocked that I had curly hair. I loved being natural and just showering and going out with my hair as it was. In my family, especially at the beginning, the first two to three years, I would hear “Go and fix yourself, you're a mess. What is this hair? You’re a mess.” It's always heard that straight hair is what is proper. I realised my hair was political and used it to make a point about that being who I am and liking it. It takes courage, as well, to wear some of the things that I wear and walk in a room. I'm not coming in a suit and a tight skirt or the idea of what a young woman should wear, what a diplomat should wear, even in the hallways of the African Union. 

“I realized my hair was political and used it to make a point about that being who I am and liking it. ”

My Pan-African identity helped me to take the courage and assert, “This is how I want to be seen. I love my African earrings. I can't take them off. This defines me.” That’s why I dress the way I am, because it's Pan-African for me. Every piece is from some parts of Africa and it’s like, “I am all Africa and I’m walking.” And especially in Tunisia, I love that when people see me they start asking questions, “Oh my God, where is this from?” And then we start a conversation. And I love that; I love provoking that. It helps me in North Africa to start an African conversation which is hard to have. I also realized that when I’m traveling, I blog about food, about clothes, and many of the people who follow me want to go and visit these African countries. That makes them love or become curious about it, and I love that. It is changing the narrative. 

Today, what does a united Africa look like? If we can make Pan-Africanism, as you understand it today, work, what does that look like? What is that utopia for you? 

As much as I am inspired by the ‘60s, I think we have a different vision because they built borders and they fought to have nation states. For me, it's the opposite that my generation seeks today. It’s borderless and not driven by personal interests or colonial borders. People could drive and go anywhere. People would know the history of Tunisia, what Tunisians did in 2011. A Zambian child, for example, would know what Tunisians have changed and would inspire them to do something. We would be economically so powerful, we would not give a shit about colonial imperialism, we would sit at the United Nations and define things. The unity I envision has to do with a population that is conscious as Africans, a common sense of African-ness, of belonging to this space. It also has to do with leadership. Without a Pan-African leadership, it's easy to sell our resources and our agendas. We need leadership that thinks, “I will not do this to you because it's going to harm Ghana, my neighbor, or Algeria. I will not do this to you because it's going to harm Kenya.” That mindset that I should think about other countries, people as African, ideologically… that's what I would see a Pan-African leader would do.

I agree it can’t just be one leader who is thinking Pan-Africanist in a Pan-African way. It has to be a pool. Is that what you were thinking about when you started the Africa Youth Movement? 

Yes, learning from Tunisia’s revolution which was a leaderless movement.  I don't believe in Gandhi, Mandela, Martin Luther King, or the idea of one person who started something and brought the whole movement together. That, in fact, has erased many women from history. I do believe that there are leaders and people who impact or influence other people's lives, but I think if the others don't give a shit it would never happen. With the Afrika Youth Movement,  at the beginning, my idea was to bring together youth who were like me in 2011 and didn't know shit about who they are and bring them to the space and say, “Maybe this is who you are.'' I am very extremist in my Pan-Africanism, and that’s why I say I ‘radicalize’ youth because I ask critical questions and I have an agenda too. I don’t go in saying: “Maybe you're this or maybe you’re that.'' I lead with, “You’re African first.'' I'm recruiting as many youth as possible to this ideology of being African first and having the interest of our community first. 

What has that looked like? I would imagine it to be a very challenging endeavor given the diversity even within single nations.

It had taken seven years to build this movement before I left, and now looking at other movements like Black Lives Matter, which we think are big movements and massive, I think it would take more than what we’re currently doing. Whenever I travel, I realize the ones I'm recruiting are pretty much the elite. And many of them will be in leadership positions, but that will not mobilize the grassroots. And if my cousin who lives now in the North West of Tunisia on the Algerian border in the middle of nowhere is not believing in this, then we're not going to do anything. If a revolution erupts tomorrow, they wouldn’t know. They didn’t even know the revolution happened. They don’t know who’s the president. So, if you don't have these people to mobilize, then we will not arrive there.

Is this what you want to focus on next? How do you see it happening?

For me, the dream would be for the 300 million young people in Africa to all be Pan-Africanists. If I had the resources in four years, that is my goal. Between 2012 and 2015, when we started the Facebook group and launched the movement, I went to 35 African countries, deliberately selecting them, and using every single opportunity to stay longer and organize.  I would go to global conferences and then convene African meetings on the side. I was deliberate. I had a strategy. I would also always go to universities, the massive spaces where I can find many young people at the same time. 

Before I was appointed as the AU Youth Envoy, I was going to do a video and I started a tour to go everywhere and deliver talks in Africa about decolonization. My dream was to reach 3 million youth in one year. Learning from the Tunisian revolution, I would also connect them to the movement… that is the infrastructure. I would recruit these people and their following, bringing all these movements together. 300 million is a big number, but I think if we target the right people who have a significant following and mobilization magic, we can. It's not impossible; we can. 

You mention you were inspired from what you've learned from the revolution. Thinking back, how did that experience really mould who you are today as a woman, as an African, as a Tunisian?  

The revolution was life changing for me. First, because I think it came at the right time - my graduation year. It came at a time when I was being rebellious within the family, challenging extended family who tried to oppress me as a woman. I was quite radical, within my family, but I wasn’t political. I was afraid to be an activist or political because my father is in the army and could not participate in politics, and my mother was also harassed because she was wearing the veil. I put my energy in community service through photography and reading workshops in children’s hospitals. 

When the revolution came, I was fearless and I was ready because of my community service experience. I went to the refugee camp. I joined the Red Cross and others. I see my fearlessness as being in a space where you're not alone and you can say: “I don't give a fucking shit if you'll kill me because I am fucking going to win and if I die, we have a legacy because all these people are going to stand up.” They tried to frustrate me by taking my camera, because I was blogging at the time. I remember I had been scared of the police all my life but the revolution broke my fear of the system, of the institution, of the establishment. I had never felt so powerful in my life. The word “freedom” made sense again. 

You mentioned blogging and I know that your blog Proudly Tunisian had quite the following, even beyond Tunisia. Tell me more about that in relation to the revolution. 

The second thing I learned during the revolution was related to blogging because I had a duty to tell the world what's happening. I was really frustrated, and technology empowered me. When my pieces started to be picked up by international media, I saw how powerful my voice is. I used to tweet the New York Times and tell them, “No, this protest had this number, not this number.” And they would change it! I realized how I can use my voice and how I can shape conversations. I realized if I did not speak up, I would never change things. 

Another thing I learned was organizing because it was totally organic and a beautiful chaos. Many of my friends now, I met them on the streets. We were all organizing online. We didn’t know each other and somehow, we were coordinated. When Ben Ali left, we had to organize to prevent others from hijacking the space. I learned that organizing takes time and effort, and brings a lot of people together and takes inclusivity. Concepts of coalition building, organizing, bringing people, listening to people, getting feedback, made sense at the end. In the first two years, there were also many betrayals and hijacking of our movement, so I also learned that organizing is about observing and listening and not making quick judgments and getting back and engaging people because you will need them. 

“I learned that organizing takes time and effort, and brings a lot of people together and takes inclusivity.”

This is how I managed to organize because organizing youth is hectic, but also organizing African youth, who are so diverse in one country with diverse ethnicities, clans, languages etc. Even people in one country cannot sit and speak together. If I didn’t have a very strong Pan-African drive, I would have given up many times. This is what I took to the youth movement later; that it is not just about winning the fight, but building within. There are so many things I learned; I need to write a book about a revolution, one day. 

You should! I've been working in the NGO sector and international development and this whole, meaningful youth engagement, I don't even know what it means, at this point. When you were appointed as the AU Youth Envoy, what did you think about the position? 

It came as a surprise, and I did not expect to be selected because two years before I was selected, I was in the AU staging a boycott and I walked out of the same room I gave the acceptance speech. They had organized an intergenerational dialogue and I didn't like how the whole thing was working. It didn’t feel like a dialogue, and didn’t seem democratic, and I walked out with 20 other young people. 

However, I applied because I thought I deserve it and I thought that's the next level I want to be organizing within the system. I also applied for the UN Youth Envoy and I was one of the finalists. It was a total surprise, and I appreciated the way I was selected. It was a rigorous and transparent process that took several weeks. I love to tell that story to inspire youth that you can be in positions of leadership you deserve. You don't have to know someone or work for your government or because you know or are liked at the AU. And many people still think my government nominated me or something, but I spent all my life in civil society. And I also tell them being an activist can take you to diplomacy, to politics, to wherever you want to be. It's not the position; it’s what you want to do. Titles are only vehicles of change. I'm very proud of this role. I love it. I love serving the youth constituency. I hope I did it justice. I think the AU is very relevant to be united. 

And in the 2 years that you spent in this role, what has success looked like for you?

I hope I did justice to this role and built the foundation for a strong youth space within the institution. I put everything together in a legacy report to amplify the impact of young people and show what young people can do when you open more space for innovation.

I grew in between the revolution and now, I grew from resisting the system, to wanting to be in the system and change things from inside. It was scary for me. I didn't want to compromise on myself - my noisy loud radical self - and my values. I'm a diplomat with an activist spirit, and what I want to be is a bridge between generations, between disconnected systems. The problem is that as young people, we’re the radical ones and we call the system out. But then we don't know the common ground. At the same time, it's very frustrating for me to sit in rooms with old men who don't give a shit about their youth population. And who, at the most basic level, I'm not even talking about policy or implementation. I'm talking about convincing the person of why you should care. 

Tell me about that experience of navigating these spaces as a young person, especially in a leadership role. How did you feel doing that?

Currently, I'm exhausted from punching the system and I think we should find a way to dialogue with them. It's not working for us to just organize ourselves outside the corridors of power. This has become my call to curate Intergenerational Co-leadership, that we both have to find a solution together and dialogue. These spaces exist because we accept them, and we accept to be there and sit and be used. I'm moving to a space where I am organizing. I'm going to invite you to fit in my agenda and to make a commitment. That makes me feel more confident, more powerful, more agenda driven, and I'm not used as a young person. 

I would wish, after those two years, for this concept to become embedded, to be a normal thing that we should be having every day and every space to be intergenerational and co-led. The process of leadership, of governance, conversations, all the high-level things we're talking about should have this inter-generational co-leadership. I also see a difference with women's spaces. I think maybe in these spaces, people feel so inspired by other generations and they’re more comfortable to speak to an elder, than in spaces with old men.  

I agree about the difference in women’s spaces, where co-leadership is a model that many of them are adopting. I know you’ve spoken about your experience as a young person in that space that’s often dominated by older men. What was your approach as a woman?

I led in this role as a female leader. My idea of female leadership is collaborative. It is emotional intelligence; it is about uniting people around Pan-Africanism, uniting people around the African agenda. They're both linked first because I feel that we have been deprived from knowing all the women who have contributed to the liberation. I know inside me there was a massive women's movement behind it. Also, the men who inspire me like Thomas Sankara, are feminist. I can’t see Thomas Sankara as feminist without being Pan-Africanist because he fought for Africa being self-independent and said it cannot be without women’s participation and emancipation. 

You can't unite our continent or anything without being a feminist, without believing in equality and without believing that women are fundamentally part of Africa's revolution. 

In the next part of the interview, we discuss Aya’s feminist journey and her efforts to organize young Africans across the continent. Click here to read this final part.

Note from Eyala: This interview was first recorded by Françoise Moudouthe in July 2019. Updates were made in April 2022 to reflect changes and progress in Aya’s journey since the first interview period.

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Want to connect with Aya? Follow her on Twitter @aya_chebbi