Sadly, the last three blog posts that I have written are all about personalities that have passed away. This one is about Lina Ben Mhenni, an iconic young woman from Tunisia, who died much too young, only 36 years old. Even though she was suffering from an autoimmune disease, it was shocking to learn about her death. She had made history at a young age, and she had so much more to give.

In 2010 and early 2011, she was one of the young internet activists who had played an instrumental role in documenting the Tunisian dictatorship, through her trilingual blog, ‘A Tunisian girl’. This courageous documentation helped to bring down the corrupt dictatorship of Zine El Abdine Ben Ali and his clan.

In mid-January 2011, when Ben Ali had just fled the country due to a popular uprising which later spiraled into an Arab spring in the whole region, I first met Lina in Tunis.

Lina Ben Mhenni was young, brave, committed and talented, but also very humble – and suffering from a chronic kidney disorder. But that did not make her stand down.

In October 2011, I met her again, together with Svenska Dagbladet’s photo journalist Yvonne Åsell. This was a time when Lina had just been nominated to the Nobel Peace Prize. One would think that it whould have filled her with pride and happiness. However, instead we met a young democracy activist who was saddened by the enormous pressure, media exposure and bad-mouthing that she was encountering.

Not everyone in Tunisia welcomed the nomination – in some cases simply due to envy. In other cases, because she challenged conservatives of all sorts. Or maybe just because she was a young woman who stood firm in her principles. She would have deserved the Nobel Peace Prize – but I am sure that she would have preferred to share it with others.

She was humble but still became iconic, not only in Tunisia. Her coffin was carried by women in a funeral procession in Tunis the other week. As a gesture of the efforts that she and her father Sadok hade made to provide books to prisoners in Tunisia, people brought books to her funeral to pay tribute to this amazing personality.

Today, Lina Ben Mhenni is gone but she will not be forgotten. A new international prize surely must be devoted to the legacy of Lina Ben Mhenni.

The article on this link is from Yvonne Åsell’s and my encounters with Lina and her father Sadok Ben Mhenni in October 2011. Many have written beautifully about her. Lina Ben Mhenni was not only a woman of principle, but she also touched the hearts and minds of so many.

Screen shot from The New Arab, see: https://www.alaraby.co.uk/english/news/2020/1/29/women-carry-tunisian-blogger-lina-ben-mhennis-coffin