From Tunisia, Nizar Kerkeni on strengthening free technological solutions that are accessible to all

We are continuing the APC series "Building a Free Internet of the Future", in which we publish a monthly interview highlighting the experiences and perspectives of individuals and communities supported by NGI Zero (NGI0) grants, as well as members and stakeholders of the NGI0 consortium. Funded by the European Commission, NGI0 supports projects related to free software, open data, open hardware and open standards. It provides financial and practical support in a variety of forms, including mentoring, testing, security testing, accessibility, dissemination and much more.

For this latest interview, we are joined by Nizar Kerkeni, NGI0’s regional representative in Tunisia. He is also the founding president of the CLibre association and a founding member of the Ubuntu Tunisia community. With over 20 years of experience, he shares with us here some news and context since the very recent launch of his mission, the first of its kind on the African continent. The overall scope of work involves rebuilding ties with Tunisian communities with the aim of revitalising them and encouraging them to launch and develop projects related to free and open-source technologies.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

From a historical perspective, how would you describe the links between Tunisia and what is commonly referred to as the “free culture movement”?

I cannot claim to know the full history, but I can provide some insights regarding free software. Politically, Tunisia was a pioneer in Africa and the Arab world, having established, in the early 2000s, a State Secretariat for Information Technology, the Internet and Free Software to implement a national strategy for free software. Later, we discovered that this strategy was being used by Ben Ali’s dictatorship as a means of blackmailing Microsoft into setting up digital surveillance.[1] Naturally, Microsoft took advantage of this to “kill free software” in Tunisia.[2] Thus, for many years, the State Secretariat’s main role was to organise a national free software day, whose main guest was… Microsoft.

In terms of the community and civil society, activities centred on free software were mainly carried out by university clubs. An association was set up, but it failed to gain a foothold, given the political climate at the time. Community activities, driven by university clubs, reached their peak between 2005 and 2017. Several editions of “Software Freedom Day Tunisia” were organised, along with the creation and official recognition of the Ubuntu Tunisia community, and so on. This buzz continued for a few years after the 2011 revolution, particularly with regard to “OpenGov” and “OpenData” initiatives inspired by free culture. I personally founded and chaired, from 2013 to 2016, the “Association pour la Culture numérique Libre - CLibre”, where we organised several editions of Software Freedom Day, the first meeting of Arab Wikipedians and Wikimedians, seminars on OpenData and OpenGov, and so on.

Unfortunately, for the past few years, there have been no further activities relating to free culture, at least to my knowledge. If there are any, they are likely being announced and publicised via proprietary social media platforms, which I left a long time ago.

What made you decide to become an NGI0 regional representative?

Throughout my involvement in community and voluntary work, we were always faced with the same problem: funding. That’s why, when I saw the call for applications to become an NGI0 regional representative on the social network Mastodon, I thought it was a good opportunity to revive the activities of the Tunisian free software community, knowing that there is an organisation behind it that can meet the financial needs. 

How is funding for free software and open hardware in Tunisia perceived (or how little is it visible) by the European Union?

I am not aware of any previous funding in the areas mentioned. But I can say that civil society can only welcome any funding opportunity, especially one coming from a longstanding partner such as the European Union.

NGI0 has been running since 2019, offering opportunities to nationals of the so-called “countries associated with Horizon Europe”, of which Tunisia is a part. Do you think anything has been missing since 2019 that might have prevented people from Tunisia from getting involved?

Actually, I too was surprised to discover how long the NGI0 project and the other projects run by the NLnet Foundation have been running, and I asked myself, “Why have we never heard of this foundation and its various funding projects?” The explanation that seems most plausible to me is that here in Tunisia, we tend to look towards the “traditional” partners – France and the United States – and we don’t look, or rarely look, towards other European countries. One of my tasks as a regional representative is to remedy this lack of information and do my best to involve as many people as possible.

What are the technological challenges in Tunisia today?

I believe the greatest challenge lies in digital independence and sovereignty. 

With the dominance of GAFAM [Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon and Microsoft] and other centralised, proprietary social media platforms that are everywhere, it is vital to adopt a national strategy to free ourselves from this new form of dictatorship.

Take what happened recently with the ICC [International Criminal Court] judges, who found themselves unable to access their emails[3] and, in some cases, even their payment cards.[4] Another example, on a smaller scale, also caused a stir in Tunisia when the Tunisian Parliament’s YouTube channel disappeared from view,[5] leaving the Parliament unable to broadcast debates live, not to mention the loss of all recordings – the channel was subsequently reactivated. These recent examples should serve as a warning to us all about this technological dependence. Either we sit idly by, waiting for the blessing of GAFAM and their mentors, or we take action to adopt and implement sovereign and independent solutions. This can only be achieved with free software and technologies – a PeerTube server for our Parliament instead of the YouTube channel.

News from NGI0 Tunisia can be read via the social network Mastodon. Why was this communication channel chosen?

For those who aren’t familiar with it, Mastodon is a microblogging social network, much like X/Twitter or Bluesky. Unlike the latter two, however, Mastodon is free software based on an open-source protocol and developed by a community of volunteers from all over the world. Thus, on this social network, there will never be surveillance, advertising or algorithms designed to boost the visibility of certain posts (or accounts) whilst reducing that of others. For all these reasons, Mastodon is therefore the communication channel that best aligns with the NGI0 ethos: building a new free, independent and decentralised internet. I would like to take this opportunity to invite all readers to create an account on Mastodon, if they haven’t already done so, and to follow us. If there are any Tunisian readers, they can join us on the first Tunisian Mastodon server, hosted in Tunisia. 

In 2013, Wilfried Nguessan’s book 54 Reasons for Africa to Choose Free Software was published. I believe you’ve read it. Could you give us a summary?

I did indeed have the pleasure of meeting Wilfried at an event in Morocco, and he gave me a copy of his book. That was in 2017, and I don’t have an elephant’s memory – Wilfried is from Côte d’Ivoire – to recall the details. What I can say is that there were 54 reasons, because there are 54 African countries. The reasons mentioned cover several aspects, such as digital independence and sovereignty, the development of local skills, and so on.

Are these aspects that you will also be focusing on as a regional representative?

Indeed. The principles of free culture remain the same, whilst adapting to new technological challenges, which themselves evolve and change from year to year.

To wrap things up, I’ll leave it to you to share a message that’s close to your heart and that you’d like to get across.

First of all, thank you for granting me this interview, and I hope it will be of interest to your readers. To conclude, I would say that the free software community has consistently fought just causes for free technological solutions that are accessible to all and respectful of personal data and privacy. Today, this “bataille du libre” continues in the finest tradition, standing up to the hegemony and dictatorship of GAFAM and their equivalents, and as our friends at the Framasoft non-profit organisation say, “It’s a long ride, but the way is free” (La route est longue, mais la voie est libre).

Xavier Coadic is a consultant for the NGI0 consortium, and a free/libre open source software activist with 15 years of experience in free open source cultures and communities (software, data hardware, wetware, policy makers and political groups, research and development).

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