Enough is enough, numbers speak on Avenue Habib Bourguiba.
No longer cautious to show emotion in central Tunis. 
Flailing from tear gas police aimed at protesters.
Developments too overwhelming for some.
Tear gas plumes into Tunis side streets
With leader of a Tunisian-banned Islamist party, Rached Ghannouchi returning to Tunisia in a couple of weeks, how will this shake up the slant of the opposition.
In Ben Ali's regime it was not encouraged for males to have full beards, for Muslims to pray at 3am prayers or to own what the regime saw as excessive amounts of Islamic literature. A student in Sousse told me how in 2009 one of his colleagues, a devout Muslim, went to 3am prayers and was never seen again. Unconfirmed reports are that the student was seized by undercover police. He is still missing. Under Ben Ali, Muslims were treading on eggshells. With the removal of the President Muslims will enjoy a freedom that they have not had for a quarter of a decade: to go to prayers when they want, wear what they believe right and follow their religion without restriction of practice. The relief that many practising Muslims will feel has brought about speculation that an Islamic party may come to the forefront as a contender for ruling the new Tunisia.
Tunisia has been screaming for freedom: freedom of the press, freedom of speech, and freedom of religious expression. What would an Islamic Government mean for Tunisia?
Enfidha Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, Tunisia's newest International Airport welcomed its first landings in the Spring last year. The airport at Enfidha, located between the two well-established tourist resorts of Sousse and Hammamet, was the new talking point of the Tunisian economy.
My companion, a Tunisian National, was visibly nervous as I spoke to one of the protesters, asking what was going on. One woman from the group told me about, the now Arab martyr, Mohamed Bouazizi. Her words ran so quickly from her mouth like flames, without hesitation, and my friend hung on to her words, as if hypnotized by the confidence with which she spoke against Tunisia's regime. 'It is enough, enough unemployment, enough turning blind to what they do … this student [Bouazizi] was taking initiative, making some income, like any man in this country [the UK] can do, and what they did closing him down is so typical, we have had enough'. The lady was Algerian, married to a Tunisian and both were now living in the UK.
What I noted about this encounter, and what comes into my head every time Tunisia hits the headlines, was the charge coming off this one lady as she spoke. Her words now seem relics: 'imagine doing something like this in Tunisia, standing and speaking against the Government the way that we are here'. As I looked at the huddled group of North Africans on a puddled January pavement on Kensington Rd, I imagined the same huddle on the tiled streets of Tunis, and I shuddered.
My companion stood on my toe and gestured that we move on, as we were walking away he said: 'that man, the one in the middle, is the biggest rebel against Ben Ali, he is wanted all over Tunisia. If he came back to Tunisia, and someone killed him, they would not even go to prison, that's how much the President wants him.'
I asked why he was so keen to leave the protest, he told me he was petrified in case one of the video cameras caught his face, 'It would be so dangerous'.
Who could have predicted that seven days later five thousand people would be on Avenue Habib Bourguiba in the Tunisian capital shouting 'degage' with fists hammering the syllables, whilst Bouazizi's flames set the whole of Tunisia ablaze.
That doughy, waxen face of Ben Ali that greeted sweaty Europeans at arrivals, jolted dosing drivers awake on main roads and reflected the glassy sunlight on street corners back into the eye of the onlooker, will be hanging limp from billboards across Tunisia.I have never been comfortable with photographs on my walls due to that back-of-the-neck-shiver feeling, that the people in them are staring at me. Yet this is a feeling the Tunisian nation has lived under every time they drove their moped through town, walked to a shop to buy 20 Mars cigarettes or to pick up a tin of harissa. This is more than the sense that the pasted-up faces of your Vogue cut-outs will tut in disgust from your bedroom wall when you trim your toenails and blow your nose. Ben Ali's clammy little hands, either adjusting invisible cufflinks, comically clasping or jovially waving at passers-by comes with a secret handshake, not a glassy stare. Podgy hands that gesture a waving reminder: 'I'm here, and I saw you'.
Today in Tunisia, the portrait that wall-papered the nation was laid on the road, throwing down a gauntlet for drivers- daring them to speed over the dictator's face. Youths watched, egging on every car to accelerate over the ex-president, and his milky wrists. When one car hesitates, the crowd heckles and groans. Their disappointment is short-lived as a following car makes sure the tyres really press into the image, pausing as the wheels make contact and beeping in celebration as the car moves forward. On the 15th January 2011, the image that was once obligatory wallpaper, became the people's carpet.
WORTH A WATCH: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6KBfJFgYwd0
It seems like Tunisia, with the ceiling torn off, is in the whirl of a masquerade ball. Police are dressing as civilians, gangs are donning police hats, whilst newly released prisoners stroll amongst them all.
When I heard that the troops would be sent in to restore some order, I was concerned how the Tunisians would react to this familiar face of control, now the boundaries had been smashed. Seeing images of protesters greeting the army surprised me. Asking a student in a Tunis suburb what she thought of the military presence leaking into towns across the country, she chirped: 'listen, the army are neutral, not like the police. They don't listen to anyone's orders, they will help us'. With the amount of current shape shifting in the country, it is no wonder that Tunisians are embracing the army: their camouflage is the only uniform that stands out.
