The north has things in common with southern Europe that it does not have with next-door Libya and Algeria. It even has things in common with southern Europe that it does not have with its own hinterlands. The divide between city and countryside forms one of the most controversial sociopolitical issues in the country. The coastal elite feel they have a hybrid identity. They are not entirely Arab or European but a mixture of both. People in the conservative rural areas are more comfortable defining themselves simply as Arabs.
“There is a fine line between the two sections in Tunisia,” said Karim Dassy, a history professor at the University of Manouba. “There is the elite who have this double European-Arab identity and who are proud to be the descendents of Hannibal. For the more poor factions of the society, there is no connection with Hannibal whatsoever.”
The non-elite do have a connection with Hannibal, though—at least their country does—whether they realize it or not and whether they like to think about it or not.
“They are aware of the fact that they’re made of tidbits,” said Hedi Ben Abbes, the secretary of state to the minister of foreign affairs. “But some of them cannot cope with the contradictions, though these contradictions are absolutely important. This is what French philosopher Edouard Glissant calls the poetics of relations, that tension inside the body made by contradictory influences. It is a positive tension. We are not unicolored. We are made of different flows that make our bodies alive.”
Even the least-educated citizens know their country is at a cultural crossroads smack in the middle of the Mediterranean where East and West, Europe and Africa, and Islam and Christendom have blended for millennia. The elite are just more aware of it. And the coastal inhabitants are more profoundly affected by it.
“For Tunisia,” professor Dassy said, “imperialism means Roman imperialism and Greek imperialism. French imperialism here was similar to both in some ways. It was Roman in the sense that there was a military force here and Greek in that it was partly philosophical. This is why the elite has this dual culture.”
“We’ve had some 20 civilizations pass through,” said Zouheir Touiti, a professor of international relations, “from the Roman and Byzantine empires to the Vandals and Christians. So the output of this long process of history is giving us what you are seeing now.”
Geography is important. Not only has Tunisia’s location made it possible for the likes of the French and Romans to show up in force, but it has also brought certain kinds of non-imperialist immigrants to its shores.
“The Muslims were expelled during the reconquest of Spain,” said Abdelhamid Largueche, a history professor at the University of Tunis, “and the Jews who came to Tunisia to develop commerce and trade are two additional factors in how Tunisia became more cosmopolitan. We deal here with exports and trade. Our proximity to the sea is crucial to the openness of the society.”
There is a third component, too, neither European nor Arab, that should not be discounted. The indigenous population is Berber, or Amazigh. Most Berbers assimilated over the centuries to the culture imposed by Europeans and Arabs, but fragments of their language and culture are part of the mosaic even today.
“There was not a very strong Arabization of the Tunisian society,” said Khadija Ben Saidane, a Berber activist from the south who learned Arabic and French as second and third languages. “Tunisia has not 3,000 years of civilization, but 15,000 years of civilization. Tunisia is the way it is now because of all the civilizations that came here, not only because of the Arabs.”
* * *
Tunisia set itself on a different course from the other 20th century Arab states the instant it achieved independence from France. The country’s first president, Habib Bourguiba, was a dictator in the mold of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of the modern Turkish republic. Like Ataturk, he wanted his country to orient itself toward Europe rather than the East or the south.
“Bourguiba tried to make Tunisia a somewhat Westernized state,” said professor Touiti, “closer to the West than to the African states. Don’t lump us together with the Arab Spring countries. Each state has its own reality. You cannot compare us to Egypt.” He described the country’s liberal tradition as “Tunisianity.” “We have our own Islam,” he said. “We were the first Arab state to abolish slavery. We were the first Arab state to join the Human Rights League. We have a historical progression that’s unlike the other states.”
Bourguiba decreed that education should be in French rather than in Arabic. He admitted, at least privately, that his brief experiment with socialist economics failed, so he shifted to a market economy. Today, as a result, the majority of Tunisia’s citizens are middle class—unlike any other Arab state without oil. Bourguiba implemented the Arab world’s first progressive personal status code that granted equal rights to women and men. He referred to the veil as “that odious rag” and banished it from schools and government offices. I saw vastly fewer women than in other Arab countries wearing headscarves and veils even on the streets, where they’re free to wear what they want.
“No other Arab country has tried the same policy we tried,” said former Foreign Minister Ahmed Ounaies, “to free ourselves from the religious legacy and make religion merely a cultural reference rather than a way of ruling the country.”
Ben Ali replaced Bourguiba in a bloodless coup in 1987. He didn’t alter the state’s ideology, but nor did he govern with vision as had Bourguiba. He just crookedly ran the place as if it were his own private property and smashed anyone who got in his way. Whatever enlightened ideals the state had under Bourguiba were lost to torpor and time.
Ben Ali’s Tunisia was an authoritarian police state, but a relatively mild one by regional standards. He was no mass murderer like Syria’s Bashar al-Assad or Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, nor was his system totalitarian like Muammar Qaddafi’s. It was more like the authoritarian regimes that Portugal and Spain suffered under in the 1970s before they joined the Western European democratic mainstream.
When I visited for the first time in 2004, I sensed that the country was predemocratic, that if the autocracy could be cleared out of the way, Tunisia might have a real shot at advancing to the next level. Most citizens seemed to share at least some of Bourguiba’s views of the modern progressive society. They were relatively liberal and tolerant on their own initiative, not because the president ordered them to be. Ben Ali could hardly be bothered with ideological Bourguibism anyway. By the time Mohamed Bouazizi set himself ablaze in Sidi Bouzid, Tunisian political life had been stagnant, oppressive, vision-free and corrupt for a whole generation. The relative liberalism of Tunisia’s street-level culture was hardly being forced on the citizenry by the palace.
Christopher Hitchens visited in 2007 and came away with the same impression. “I could not shake the feeling,” he wrote in Vanity Fair, “that its system of government is fractionally less intelligent and risktaking than the majority of its citizens.” His local friend Hamid compared Tunisians with their neighbors in Libya. “We are the same people as them,” he said, “but they are so much en retard.”
So neither Hitchens nor I were surprised to see a mostly nonviolent democratic revolution break out. (There was never any chance of that happening in Libya or Syria.) It makes perfect sense that the Arab Spring began here, that it did not lead to civil war, that an orderly election was held on time, that the majority of Tunisians voted against the Islamist party and that even the Islamists were compelled to say that they don’t want an Islamic state.
My optimism doesn’t come naturally, not in this part of the world. I witnessed firsthand how the Cedar Revolution in Lebanon in 2005 was smashed by the Syrian-Iranian-Hezbollah axis and wrote a book about it, The Road to Fatima Gate. I never thought Egypt had much of a chance. The country is too poor, too Islamist and too authoritarian for political liberalism to take hold anytime soon. Qaddafi turned Libya into a vast prison. His total-surveillance state is still the most terrifying system of government I’ve ever seen up close and i
n person.
Tunisia is exceptional. It is not yet, however, the Italy or France of North Africa. There are still grounds for pessimism. The biggest hitch is Ennahda, the party of the Islamists. They’re described in the Western press far too often as moderate. They’re moderate compared with the totalitarian Salafists, sure, and they’re moderate compared with Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, but they’re extreme by the standards of Tunis.
Party leader Rached Ghannouchi has praised suicide bombers who murder Israeli civilians. “Gaza,” he said of the Palestinian territory ruled by totalitarian Hamas, “like Hanoi in the ’60s and Cuba and Algeria, is the model of freedom today.” He declared war on the United States during the run-up to the first Persian Gulf War. “There must be no doubt that we will strike anywhere against whoever strikes Iraq,” he said. “We must wage unceasing war against the Americans until they leave the land of Islam, or we will burn and destroy all their interests across the entire Islamic world.”
Americans are hardly the only ones disturbed by him and his party. Secular Tunisians across the political spectrum find Ennahda alarming.
“It is a fascist party,” said Rami Sghayier, a local activist with Amnesty International. “They tried to convince people they’re just defending religion and they won the election that way, but they have a fascist program. They’re protecting the Salafists and other extremists. We don’t only have the Salafists here—we also have Hizb ut-Tahrir. The interior minister did not even move his finger when the Tunisian national flag was attacked at Manouba University by Salafists. They took down our country’s flag and replaced it with their black flag.”
It’s important to note, though, that Ennahda campaigned on a moderate platform. Ghannouchi didn’t pimp his creepy ideology during the election season, nor did he serve in the government. (He was an influential party head, but he had no more actual power than Bill Clinton or Sarah Palin in the United States.) Hardly anyone in Tunisia wanted to vote for someone who thinks suicide bombers are healthy role models for their sons and daughters. Hardly anyone in Tunisia wanted to transform their country into the Gaza of Africa. Ennahda was forced by the society and its coalition partners in government to surrender to Tunisianity.
“There is a potential for extremism in Ennahda’s philosophy,” said Ounaies, the former foreign minister. “But they will try to adapt and become pragmatic so they can stay in power and be admitted by the Tunisians and by the world. Any ideology based on religion is extremist, but that is not the Tunisian way.”
Indeed, it is not the Tunisian way. Tunisia, perhaps more than any other country in the Arab world, save Morocco, values moderation and centrism.
“Tunisia has always favored the center and rejected extremism,” says professor Largueche, “and Ennahda has started to grasp that. So they’re changing. Salafism has always been rejected in Tunisia. In the 19th century, Wahabbism was also rejected. Mohammad Abdul Wahhab in Saudi Arabia asked the bey of Tunisia to adopt it, but religious leaders here asked the bey to reject this school of thought. They didn’t want it.”
One of the most important developments after the revolution was Ennahda’s formal announcement that it supports a secular state and not an Islamic one. “That was the one big impediment in the way of a secular constitutional framework,” said professor Dassy. “Fifty percent of the problem is now resolved. But even though Ennahda dropped the Sharia provision, there is no guarantee it will protect individual liberties, political freedoms or women’s rights—that’s the other half.”
The country could still go either way then. Plenty of things can and usually do go wrong after revolutions, especially in countries like Tunisia that, while politically liberal in some ways, have only a little experience with working democracy.
“My feeling is that Tunisia will cross five years of uncertainty,” said Ounaies. “But the trend is toward a strong Arab democratic society. Within five years I think we will stabilize with a new legislative assembly and create a new tradition of democratic rule in the country. We are the ones who are creating this pattern of Arab politics. We are the first.”
Tunisia’s relations with the West after the revolution were better than one might expect, considering the fact that Islamists won almost half the votes in the first election and that the U.S. and Europe tacitly supported the former dictatorship.
Secretary of State Hedi Ben Abbes—who was from a secular liberal party, by the way, not Ennahda—described American-Tunisian relations as “state of the art.”
“The relationship has never been so good,” he said. “It hasn’t always been good, but it’s excellent now because the United States pays great attention to human rights and universal values. We also subscribe to those principles since we are involved in a democratic process. We believe in transparency, good governance, the separation of powers, freedom of speech, freedom of the press and so on and so forth. These values make Tunisia a model country in the Arab world. I’m crossing my fingers because it’s a very delicate process. What we are sure of, though, is that we will never go back to dictatorship.”
Tunisia’s relations with Israel remained terrible, though. The two countries don’t even have diplomatic relations. A loud minority even clamored to forever ban normalization of ties in the new constitution. But even Ennahda went on the record and said that’s not going to happen, that the constitution is no place to regulate relationships between states.
I suspect that Tunisia, once things settle down, may have more in common politically with Turkey than with any Arab system of government. Turkey has plenty of problems, but it’s in much better shape than most Arab states. Islamists and secularists are more or less evenly matched in both places. They scrap with each other ideologically rather than with bullets and car bombs. Neither is able to fully dominate the other.
Tunisia has advantages over Turkey, however, insofar as it’s less culturally self-referential and more open to the world beyond its frontiers.
“Turkey is closed,” said Touiti, the international-relations professor. “They have not a second language. They only speak Turkish. Ataturk taught them that Turkey is the only civilization they should believe in. Habib Bourguiba kept the French language and forged international relations with the European Union. Turkey is more nationalist. We are more open.”
So while the Arab Spring soured in Egypt, Libya and Syria, the place where it was born looked better every year. If Tunisia succeeds—and if it becomes a model for others—for that we can partly thank Carthage and Rome.
Chapter Eleven
Lebanon’s Israel Syndrome
Beirut, 2013
Lebanon has a serious problem with Israel. The country has technically been at war with its southern neighbor since the Jewish state declared independence in 1948. Israeli citizens are banned. Even foreigners are banned if they have Israeli stamps in their passports. Lebanese citizens aren’t allowed to have any communication of any kind with Israelis anywhere in the world. If citizens of the two countries meet, say, on a beach in Cyprus or in a bar in New York, the Lebanese risks prison just for saying hello. Israel doesn’t even exist on Lebanese maps.
At the same time, with the possible exception of Morocco, Lebanon is in important ways the least anti-Israel country in the Arab world. Indeed, decades ago many Israelis assumed it would be among the first Arab countries to sign a peace treaty. It made sense at the time. With its enormous one-third-Christian minority (it used to have an outright Christian majority), it’s the least Muslim and most religiously diverse of all the Arab countries. And since a huge number of its Christians insist they aren’t even Arabs, Lebanon might be the least Arab of the Arabic-speaking countries. Its capital, Beirut, has more in common with Tel Aviv than with any Arab city, including others in Lebanon. Put simply, Lebanon is just about the only Arab country where Israel can find natural allies.
Decades ago, many Israelis believed Lebanon would be the first Arab country to make peace, yet today it’s widely assumed that Lebanon will be the last Arab
country to make peace with Israel.
It’s a paradox, but that’s Lebanon for you. To say it’s a nation of contradictions is a cliché, but it’s a cliché because it is true. It is simultaneously Western and Eastern, Christian and Muslim, modern and feudal, democratic and illiberal, secular and sectarian, cosmopolitan and parochial, progressive and reactionary, tolerant and aggressively hateful. That’s because there is more than one Lebanon.
The country is divided roughly into Christian, Sunni and Shia thirds, with a 10 percent Druze population to make things even more complicated. The Christians have had ties with the West for centuries. Most of the Shias look to Iran for leadership and support. The Sunnis are generally aligned with the more liberal and moderate forces in the Arab world, as well as with the Saudis. Thanks to all of this, as well as Lebanon’s location between Israel and Syria, Lebanon gets sucked into regional conflicts.
And because Lebanon was a vassal state of Syria, and because it’s where Hezbollah lives, even discussing peace and normal relations with Israel can get you imprisoned or killed. That’s been the case since the middle of Lebanon’s civil war, when international peacekeepers withdrew from Beirut and Syria’s ruling Assad family came to dominate Lebanese politics.
Lebanon is more or less a free country that protects freedom of speech, but on the Israeli question it is effectively a police state. Lebanese are afraid to talk to each other about it. They’ll talk to me, though, because I’m an outsider. They’re extremely careful, of course, and much of what they say is strictly in confidence, but once in a while someone will talk to me on the record, knowing perfectly well that I’m going to publish what they have to say.
Tower of the Sun: Stories From the Middle East and North Africa Page 20