Tunisian harga: facts, theories, and conclusions

Abstract

‘Burn the papers, burn the borders, burn from the inside.’ Nothing is more accurate to define the harga phenomenon than these words from Leila Chaïbi’s documentary La Brûlure. Following from Chaïbi’s description, harga is a one-way journey to a better life that soon degenerates into a process of self-burning, a process whose meanings include but also much exceed definitions as ‘illegal’ or ‘irregular’ migration. Yahrag, the verb form of harga, implies that ‘nothing will be left from me’ when I burn my travel documents, the borders, and despair while trying desperately to survive the high waves. It is a journey that the harraga are compelled to choose due to the condition of desperation at home; a journey that also frequently ends in utter failure due the contentious immigration policies of many Global North countries, which criminalise the harraga simply for wishing for a better future away from home. Such a journey was succinctly depicted by one of the harraga in 2017. ‘I’d rather die trying than live in despair,’ he boldly put it (cited in Tabbabi 2020). ‘To die trying’ means essentially to burn your misery by courting death, or to live in the twilight zone between life and death, when you take a gamble regardless of the outcome. It is a process that supplements hope for a better future with a death wish, which one deportee voiced fervently while boarding a plane back home: