Flipping between French and Tunisian colloquial Arabic, Amamou, a web entrepreneur, went on to describe the function of anonymous identities in our life, as they are behind everything from great works of art and literature, like Kelila and Demna and 1001 nights, to usual everyday objects like chairs and tables.

In the virtual space of the Internet, those identities thrive and help shape the way our cultures unfold. Amamou refers to the “autonomous creative mass” that operates everyday on the Internet and freely distributes different cultural products (even in the form of banal statements in forums) with no central orchestration. When theoretically framed, these interactions provide for an inspirational model of collaboration that can be used for a plethora of ends, notably political ones.

Beyond theorizing about the “anonymous” construct, Tunisian techies capture its immense potential as a strategic tool to reverse the fait-accompli that is state policing of freedom of expression. It is the “zero identity”, as Amamou puts it, that, next to the multiplicity of identities, becomes crucial to social (re)building, just as the zero construct as a value was the crucial invention of mathematicians in the 9th century AD.

This is not solely about digital activism that centers itself around individualistic online identities. Rather it is a collective unnamed force that creatively stands against “big brother is watching you”, a Western symbol for excessive government power that remains relevant to the Arab World today. In the context of “anonymous”, the “you” becomes elusive, unidentifiable and hence un-targetable.