Une chanson révolutionnaire (A Song of Revolution) - Revisited

Duolingo French Podcast

Duolingo

Society & Culture, Education

4.5 • 5.7K Ratings

🗓️ 14 March 2023

⏱️ 25 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In honor of Women’s History Month, we’re revisiting a story by Emel Mathlouthi, a singer whose music became a symbol of freedom during the seismic revolution that took place in 2010 in her home country of Tunisia. Stick around until the end to hear what Emel has been up to since this episode first aired.

A transcript of this episode is available at https://podcast.duolingo.com/french.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Bonjour, dear listeners. In many countries around the world, March is Women's History Month.
0:08.2	To mark the occasion, the dueling of French podcast is revisiting some of our favorite stories
0:13.1	from women trailblazers across the Francophone world. Today we'll hear an episode from September
0:19.4	2020, featuring Emel Matlouti, a singer-songwriter from Tunisia. As an artist, Emel aspires
0:28.4	to bring a spirit of freedom to her country through her music, which she didn't expect
0:34.4	was to find herself seizing the moment center stage in the middle of a revolution. Keep
0:41.7	listening to hear her fascinating story, and stay tuned at the end for an update from
0:47.5	Emel now onto the episode.
0:54.0	It was the summer of 2007. Emel Matlouti was a 25-year-old musician living in Tunisia. One
1:01.8	day while attending a festival in the country's capital, Tunis, a friend approached Emel.
1:24.0	Emel Matlouti was a singer-songwriter.
1:26.5	That night Emel read the poem. It was written in Arabic and the first line struck her.
1:34.2	We are free and unafraid. To be free and unafraid, that's what Emel aspired to. That's
1:43.3	why she sang. But in Tunisia, in 2007, this was far from reality.
1:51.1	I grew up in Tunisia. In my country, in 2007, this was dictatorship. Ben Ali was
1:59.8	president after a coup d'état. He was in power for 20 years. There were many corruption,
2:08.5	repression and poverty.
2:11.8	Emel wanted to denounce the dictatorship and the country's inequality with her music.
2:18.0	But she knew that openly criticizing President Ben Ali's regime was a serious act with serious
2:24.6	consequences.
2:26.4	The government could put all the people who criticized him. But I believe in truth. It's
2:34.8	important to be able to say what is not going to be and to speak better.
	...

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