Finland (and a little Estonia) – photos from Summer, 2011

Nancy picking blueberries near Salameh in central Finland - July, 2011

A summer in Finland after 21 years. We enjoyed ourselves, spending most of our time with old friends. It remains a stunningly beautiful country, although its knockout social programs are somewhat weaker and the polarization between rich and poor – hardly noticeable in the late 1980s – is striking today, the impact of neo-liberalism somewhat eroding this bastion of Nordic social democracy.

Click here for the photo album posted on google photo. I’ll label them over the next few days

Tunisia: Bourguiba and Tunisian Women (videos)

Bourguiba and Tunisian Women (Part 1) …in French

Bourguiba and Tunisian Women (Part 2)…in French

Bourguiba and Tunisian Women (Part 3)…in French

The Amilcar Notes 10 …Remembering Farhat Hached: An Afternoon with `We Love Kerkennah’

`We Love Kerkennah' participants at Farah Hached's mausoleum. photo credit: `We Love Kerhennah!`

1. We Love Kerkennah!

It was December 4. The next day, December 5, would mark the 59th anniversary of the assassination of Farhad Hached, founder of the Union Generale des Travailleurs Tunisiens (UGTT) – the national Tunisian trade union movement. Nationwide commemorative activities were planned to mark the occasion. On December 5, 1952, Hached was gunned down by a French paramilitary hit squad called La Main Rouge (The Red Hand).

Fifty nine years after his murder, Farhat Hached remains nothing short of a much loved national Tunisian hero of the anti-colonial movement. Hached was one of the least factional figures of his day during a period when factionalism was rife in the anti-colonial movement.

The Amilcar Notes – 9: Little Country – Big U.S. Embassy: Tunisia’s Place in U.S. Strategy Toward North Africa….

Rachid Ghannouchi, leader of Ennahdha, the moderate Islamic Party that won 41% of the seats in Tunisia's October 23, 2011 elections for a Constituent Assembly

1. First love, first protest demonstration

If I had a bit more energy, I would have spent my last day in Tunisia walking down Ave. de la Liberte. I’d walk past the central synagogue where in June 1967 I watched angry crowds trash Jewish shops. Then I’d say one last good bye to `Bourguiba School’ – “L’Institut Bourguiba des Langues Vivantes” where I taught with a group of other Peace Corps volunteers and finally, I’d walk past the radio station to what used to be the old U.S. embassy. There, I would permit myself a few moments of nostalgia. It was in the garden there that I first demonstrated against American foreign policy. Hard to forget, first loves, first protest demonstration (against the Vietnam War and Hubert Humphrey’s presence)

A proud Tunisian...the whole country is proud, very proud that they stood up to Ben Ali and forced him to leave the country; in so doing, it seems that whole country got back its dignity

2. U.S. diplomatic community: Living in an insulated world

The U.S. diplomatic community here hasn’t changed much in half a century – minus a few career diplomats who have learned Arabic and know how to use the Internet. Boring group on the whole who live in their own insulated world, most living in the same plush and guarded neighborhoods, sending their kids to an American school, going to the same restaurants and bars, socializing with the same people, throw in a Frenchman or Brit or two and maybe even a Tunisian!

They might as well be living on Long Island or Los Angeles. Might help explain why the intelligence gathered is often of such low, useless quality. What would be worse, a well functioning U.S. diplomatic corps and intelligence apparatus or a continuation of what we have now?

The Amilcar Notes – 8: Tunisia’s Jews ‘Now’ and ‘Then’…(Part Two)

"Muslims, Christians and Jews...We are all Tunisians"

The Glory That Was: Tunisian Jewry

Though nothing can bring back the hour
Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower;
We will grieve not, rather find Strength in what remains behind

Willam Wordsworth…

_______________________

Carthage – Dermeche, December 16, 2011

Andre Abitbol

He wore thick glasses.

He was standing in front of me at the Café Uranium where we agreed to meet, but couldn’t see me.  His first words, and, as I recall, also his last, were apologies. He told me in French, “I don’t see very well, excuse me.” I was sitting right there but couldn’t hear him because my hearing is going. What a team! But we managed to find each other anyway. Call it fate, but more likely the element of luck entered into it too.

Admittedly, it is the case that Abitbol might not be able to see right in front himself. That is not important; he might not be able to see the present, none of us really can see the future, but when it comes to the past, to Tunisia’s 3000 year old Jewish history, Abitbol has x-ray vision. it is no small skill these day to see back into history. Might even be worth as much as looking forward and in some ways, less depressing!

Even from our brief encounter of less than an hour, I sensed that his knowledge of the subject is encyclopedic. He knows the details, `the facts’ as they say. But facts are of little consequence without context. Abitbol has that too, what I would call a feel for the flow of history, for the richness of it all. He understanding the dialectic of Tunisian Jewish history; he understands it `without blinders’  and that is something quite special. So it was a delight to sit with him, was very stimulating and if I never see the man again, he’s touched, or better yet, rekindled something in me. Thanks Andre Abitbol

The Amilcar Notes – 7 : Tunisia’s Jews, `Now’ and `Then’ (Part One)

Kosher butcher shop, Tunis...there used to be many; still a few

Tunisia’s Jews Now and Then…(Part One)

(First `now’… and after, in Part Two,` then’…)

The setting – 2008 – Socio-economic crisis hits mining district

In 2008, Act One of what would be the great Tunisian revolt of late 2010, early 2011 broke out in the country’s Gafsa phosphate mining industry region. What had formerly been a work force of 18,000+ was cut to less than 6,000 in less than a decade. The cuts came not because the phosphate industry was suffering but, to the contrary, because it had done so well. It was a result of modernization with high tech machines replacing people.

Old story. Profitability and production went up in the industry during these years (1990 – 2008) but jobs went out the window too. Nor was any of that new found wealth re-invested in any manner to compensate for lost employment. After all this was not a private but a state run industry!

The Amilcar Notes – 6..Tunisia installs a new government, the constituent assembly

Ibn Khaldun, great Tunisian philosopher, historian, sociologist and humanist

Links:

- Tunisia’s Arab Spring (Al Jazeera)

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1. Remembering a history teacher

A half century ago, I was beginning  Jamaica High School in Queens, New York, rather far from Tunisia. It was a wonderful, very academically sound public high school which produced the likes of the great evolutionary biologist Stephen J. Gould. I had a history teacher named Aaron Rose, the best teacher I ever had anywhere, anytime. It was only later that I understood how much he had influenced me, how I wanted to be a teacher and to teach like `Mr. Rose.’ It was from Aaron Rose, a Jewish New York City high school teacher that I was first introduced to the name of Ibn Khaldun and his work, the Muqadimmah.

Rose also gave two memorable lectures on the French Revolution that relates in its own way to the events in Tunisia. After the first one I came home excited, so excited in fact that when my father got wind of what I was saying he got a little nervous. `That French Revolution,’ I started, `look what they did, they got rid of the corrupt monarchy’ (whatever shortcomings we Americans have, one of our better points is that we are not interested in monarchies – at least at home),  and `the people’ won and got `liberte, fraternite and egalite’. Wow. Cool. I’m for it. I was also 12 years old.

The Amilcar Notes – 5: The U.S. Tunisian Experiment: New Direction For U.S. Middle East Foreign Policy?

Entrance of trashed home of Imad Trabelsi, now serving 18 years in a Tunisian prison

(Note: This piece also appeared on Counterpunch and Nawaat.org, the latter and award winning Tunisian alternative website)

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1.       The Party’s Over; the mansion trashed

Today, a  friend, relative of a Tunisian family in Colorado, took me for a ride in the hills above the Mediterranean just 2 kilometers north of La Marsa. On the way, we passed the residency of the French Ambassador  and nearby, one of the trashed out mansions of the Ben Ali and Trabelsi clans, the two ruling clans that ran the country into the ground economically and politically. The gutted mansion stood on the corner of the road to Gammarth by the Mediterranean where it bisects Rue Hannibal. Down the block is a chic looking restaurant called `Le Cafe Journal.’

The mansion belonged to Imad Trabelsi, one of Leila Trabelsi’s nephews, recently sentenced to 18 years in prison by a post Ben Ali tribunal. Among Imad’s many escapades was one where, along with his brother, he was accused of stealing a french financier’s yacht, painting it over, changing the numbers, making it his own.  One of the graffiti notes left on the wall filled with slogans against the Ben Ali years read `Dear Imad – Thanks for the wall – signed Abdel Aziz.’  The place was thorough trashed, pulverized really, as if hit by a drone missile gone astray from Pakistan! All the other Ben Ali – Trabelsi mansions, many of them, like this one built on property expropriated from the state to the two families – lie in similar ruin. Not roped off, they remain open to the public.

Eugenics: NY Times Exposes North Carolina Involuntary Sterilization Campaign

Brunius' Better For All The World - a readable history of the U.S. Eugenics Movement

It’s a good article on the North Carolina sterilization campaign in the New York Times. It follows a well worn pattern of such revelations:

• surprise – how could it have happened here
• an interview with a victim, some poor guy (literally) who is as normal  and as bright as most but was incarcerated in a state institution. To get out he had to accept a vasectomy which screwed up his life and stripped him of much human dignity
• the state which committed the crime now repents…but is trying not to give financial restitution, because giving financial restitution to 7000 people will cost them alot.

There are some new juicy details unknown to me, like the fact that recently deceased CBS commentator Charles Kuralt’s father was really into the stuff. So was Humphrey Bogart’s. Bogart’s pop wrote regular commentaries on eugenics in medical journals. Slimey stuff, don’t know if Bogie ever talked about it. Much literate has been written on the subject in general. My favorite: Harry Brunius’s Better For All The World

The story continues (January 14, 2012) with an article in the

The Amilcar Notes – 4…Tunisia and the `New’ Islamic Politics

Grand Mosque Ez Zitouna, founded in 732 a.d.

1. Islam in Tunisia

A year ago, or nearly so, if we begin the changes sweeping the Arab World with the immolation of Mohammed Bouazizi – as good a starting point as any – this region was on the verge of sweeping changes. To date, the changes have come in two waves, a wave of demonstrations followed by an election wave.

The election wave took some, but not all, of the political energy out of the demonstrations. The former was radical, if not `revolutionary’; the latter, in all cases so far more conservative. Yet the election wave gains it legitimacy from, and claims to carry on the values of, those in the streets who with their  hands bare, tore down the corrupt and repressive political  house  Zine el Abidine Ben Ali built for a quarter of a century. They literally blow his house down…and then trashed it to boot.

Even if the old political parties, in Tunisia, the Rassemblement Constitutionelle Populaire (RCP) – Ben Ali’s reworking of Bourguiba’s Neo-Destour Party – is now banned, the new constellation of political parties is far from radical in the main,, their emerging approach seeming to combine a more open political landscape with a market economy open to the west. Although economically linked much more closely to France and Italy historically, post Ben Ali Tunisia will have closer ties with the United States. Indeed, it might have much closer ties

Ironically those who initiated the first wave have been more or less isolated from the second one. During the second round, in country after country, the Islamic parties showed their strength and to one degree or another came to power. The shift has been pervasive. Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Morocco…and I dare say if there are elections elsewhere in the Arab world the results will be similar with Islamic parties emerging as the most powerful political force everywhere.

The Amilcar Notes – 3… Tunisia – The Forgotten Socio-Economic Crisis

1. 

   Tunisian engineering students at ENIT. A jobs fair is taking place just behind them.

   ENIT…(L’Ecole Nationale d’Ingenieurs de Tunis)

The El Manar campus of the University of Tunis stands high upon a hill far above the center of downtown in Belvedere. The campus is home to some 30,000 students, among them many studying the sciences. ENIT – or L’Ecole Nationale d’Ingenieurs de Tunis – is one of Tunisia’s most prestigious institutes, producing an annual crop of about 1000 engineers of all varieties. The students who qualify to study there are among Tunisia’s brightest and most diligent.

I visited the campus the day a jobs fair was taking place (December 7, 2011). At a time of high unemployment with the Tunisian economy bleeding jobs at an alarming rate, I asked about the job prospects for ENIT’s graduates. The response surprised me: virtually 100% of the engineers graduating from ENIT find employment and usually immediately. Rare among Tunisians these days, they will probably enjoy stable and generally well paid jobs their whole lives.

With its highly educated work force, led by graduates of institutes like ENIT, Tunisia already possesses a human capital, a solid intellectual and technical basis for becoming the economic engine of the Magreb (North Africa), being something much more than part of a region which feeds Europe with raw materials, food and provides tourist facilities for German and Nordic tourists, and those from surrounding Arab countries. From the point of view of political economy, the question emerges: given the political changes and new openness, can Tunisia re-invent itself economically, building on the solid foundations that have already been laid

Yes, Tunisia is in the midst of powerful socio-economic crisis, itself a part of the global crisis of neo-liberal capitalism. But looking around the Mediterranean, with the possible exception of France, which is struggling with European integration, the entire region is in dire straits. Tunisia’s neighbors are facing the same or worse crises. Algeria, Libya, Egypt, Syria, Greece, Spain, Portugal – just to name a few of the most obvious cases are all in many ways in worse condition than Tunisia. Looked at from this point of view, frankly, despite all its problems, ironically, Tunisia probably has better  prospects of pulling out of the crisis than many of the other countries in the region.

The Amilcar Notes – 2 …Tunisia, emerging democracy…or just the frills?

T

Beja, in the west of Tunisia near the Algerian border...far from crowds of Tunis. photo credit: Free Tunisia

(This is the second of a series which I expect will include 4-5 installments. It ran on ZNET)

The Amilcar Notes – 1

The Amilcar Notes – 3

The Amilcar Notes – 4

The Amilcar Notes – 5

The Amilcar Notes – 6

The Amilcar Notes – 7

The Amilcar Notes – 8 

The Amilcar Notes – 9

The Amilcar Notes – 10

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Have `les jours de gloire’ arrived in Tunisia and we just didn’t know it?

From the point of view of public relations, Rachid Ghannouchi’s unofficial trip to the United States appears to have been modestly successful. Ghannouchi opposed putting criticisms of Israel in the Tunisian constitution which appeared on some of the legislative drafts. Both Congress and AIPAC – it’s hard to distinguish between the two these days – breathed a sigh of relief. Whatever his inner thoughts on the subject, good relations with the United States trumped pushing Tunisian support for the Palestinians (which is pervasive) too far at the moment. Call it principle or a tactical decision, or simply the fact that Ghannouchi has too much on his plate back home, he moved on to other subjects quite quickly.

Ghannouchi promised a Tunisian coalition government in which the two secular parties with whom his Ennahdha Party is in coalition would be respected, again calming the waters. Sounded good to Washington ears. This reassurance came after one of his spokespeople called Ennahdha’s October 23 election victory the beginning of `the 6^th caliphate’ –suggesting that Tunisia is heading in a much more religious fundamentalist direction. That gem came from Hamadi Jbeli, Ennadha Party chair and a possible choice to become Tunisia’s prime minister during a speech in Sousse just after the October 23 national elections here for a constituent assembly.

The Amilcar Notes – 1…Zine al Abedine Ben Ali’s Sorry Legacy: Repression, Torture and Death

note: the picture on the left is the view from my window in Amilcar, a suburb north and west of Tunis where I am staying for 3 weeks thanks to the kindness of Tunisian friends from Colorado

( This is the first of a series which I expect will include 4-5 installments. It also appeared on the Foreign Policy In Focus and ZNET websites)

1. ..le bandit

45 years ago when I lived in Tunisia as a Peace Corps volunteer and staff member, it was rare that people would talk about politics or openly criticize the government. `How’s your family? How’s your health? What do you think of the weather’ ..and other non subjects were the focus of conversation. But the country is living in another political age today. Less than a year after Ben Ali fled the country with as much of the nation’s treasury he could carry on his plane. Finally liberated from fear, the country seems to talk nothing but politics.It  is on nearly everyone’s mind…and tongue. Tunisians may not have won much else – the economy is bleeding jobs and the state security system under Ben Ali has hardly been touched, but they have won and genuinely enjoy a new era of freedom of speech.

Rob Prince – Publications This Last Year or so

Rob Prince (right) at `Occupy Denver' march, October 17, 2011

R. Prince – Publications This Past Year Or So

1. 1. December 13, 2011 = The Amilcar Notes – 2: Tunisia: Emerging Democracy or Just A Façade? In Foreign Policy In Focus. Second of a series of 9 articles written on Tunisia from Tunis.
   2. December 6, 2011 – The Amilcar Notes – 1: Zine Ben Ali’s Sorry Legacy – Foreign Policy In Focus. First of a series of 9 articles written on Tunisia from Tunis. Also on ZNET
   3. November 22, 2011 – One Hour Interview – `Hemispheres’ – KGNU Boulder on the Arab Spring with emphasis on Tunisia, Egypt and Syria
   4. November 11, 13, 2011 `The Israeli Pickle: Iran’ (Parts 1 and 2). Foreign Policy In Focus. This is the website of the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington DC for which I am a permanent correspondent. This piece, slightly edited also appeared on the national website Counterpunch on November 21, 2011
   5. . November 1, 2011 – The “Tunisian Elections – `It’s The Real Thing” – link to article in `The Guardian’ The same piece also was featured at Foreign Policy in Focus. This is the website of the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington DC for which I am a permanent correspondent,  at Nawaat.org. Nawaat.org is an award winning alternative Tunisian website based in Berlin which, during the Ben Ali years published many pieces critical of that regime. (more on the award further down)
   6. October 15, 2011 – “Unlikeliest of Bedfellows – Iran’s Revolutionary Guard and A Mexican Drug Cartel” in Foreign Policy in Focus.
   7. October 3, 2011 – “Kaddish for Oslo – 2 – The Palmer Report: Justifying The Mavi Marmara Attacks and the Blockade of Gaza.” in Foreign Policy In Focus.
   8. September 26, 2011 – “Kaddish for Oslo – 1 – The Palmer Report: Justifying The Mavi Marmara Attacks and the Blockade of Gaza.” in Foreign Policy In Focus.
   9. September, 2011 `The Last of the WPC Mohicans…The Ghost Ship of Lonnrotinkatu, Part 3. In Peace Magazine, Toronto Canada. Parts 1 & 2 written in 1993. Not on-line
   10. July 5, 2011 – “Will The Air War Become An Occupation” in Foreign Policy In Focus. This also appeared on the European website ‘Open Democracy’ and at `Truth out’ – one of the more significant anti-war internet sites in the USA – July 1, 2011 – Shifting Targets from Iran to Libya and Syria in Foreign Policy in Focus
   11. April 4, 2011 – “Despite Pressure from Tel Aviv, Tunisian Jews Have Little Interest in Emigrating to Israel.” In Foreign Policy In Focus. This piece got wide circulation. It also appeared in Jewish American History Month in `Exposing and Fighting Global Anti-semitism and Anti-Jewish Racism” and at the website “All-Africa.dot.com”
   12. March 28, 2011. “Two-sided Love Affair: U.S. and Algeria Anti-Terrorism Cooperation In Africa” in Foreign Policy In Focus
   13. March 20, 3011. “The Libyan Quadmire”. This piece appeared on ZNET
   14. March 17, 2011. “Fukushima Disaster: World Energy Crisis Intensifies”. This piece appeared in Foreign Policy In Focus
   15. March 12, 2011. “Tunisia Election Blues” in Foreign Policy In Focus. This piece also appeared at Nawaat.org  and at the website `Free Tunisia’ and the website Facile Gestures
   16. March 1, 2011. “Algeria: Khadaffi’s Ace In The Hole?” This piece appeared in Counterpunch on March 2, 2011 http://www.counterpunch.org/
   17. February 27, 2011 “Whither The Arab Awakening” This piece appeared in Foreign Policy In Focus  and ZNET
   18. February 16, 2011 “Algeria Where The Demonstrators Carry Black Flags” This piece appeared on Foreign Policy In Focus. on ZNET, on Alternet and on The Energy Bulletin
   19. February 8, 2011. “A War Israel Is Ill-Equipped To Fight”. This piece appears at Foreign Policy In Focus at The Guatemala Times
   20. February 1, 2011 “US Middle East Policy: See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil – Just Practice Them And Act Surprised” This piece appeared in Foreign Policy In Focus on Common Dreams at Open Democracy and ZNET
   21. January 28, 2011 “U.S. Middle East Policy In Crisis…Tunisia, Egypt, Who’s Next? This piece appeared in Foreign Policy In Focus on ZNET and at Portside
   22. January 12, 2011. “Yezzi Fock – It’s Enough”. This piece appeared at Nawaat.org
   23. December 26, 2010. “Tunisia’s Zine Ben Ali. Will The End Be Gracious or Graceless?” This post appeared in Foreign Policy In Focus, in Nawaat.org, on ZNET and on The Progressive Realist
   24. December 22, 2010, “Deconstructing Tunileaks: An Interview With Professor Rob Prince – Part Two’ at Nawaat.org
   25.   December 20, 2010, “Deoncstructing Tunileaks: An Interview With Professor Rob Prince – Part One’ at Nawaat.org

    

   1. Appearances, Interviews (I am listing those in which I am presented as Lecturer, International Studies, Korbel School)

   -          November 2, 2011 – Interview by Tunisia Live about the return of Peace Corps to Tunisia; U.S. Ambassador Grey interviewed on same program.

   -          I have done a half dozen on `Hemispheres’ program of KGNU on different aspects of the Middle East – several on the changes in Tunisia both before and after Ben Ali fell, one on the Israeli response to the Arab Spring, another on U.S. Iranian relations, one on the Egyptian Revolution. I did not write down the dates, but this is easily verified. My next scheduled one hour interview is on November 22, 2011 where I will be talking about my upcoming trip to Tunisia. I have also participated in KGNU’s International news hour on two occasions

   -

Penn State : Only One Example

Larry Aronstein (left) and Rob Prince (right) ...about to break into song

by Larry Aronstein, Guest Blogger

I spent 46 years in public education, mostly as a principal, assistant superintendent and superintendent. I found that the values of the school-community were reflected in what were the accepted practices in both the academic and athletic programs. In almost all of the five different communities I worked in, the communities had very little to point to as sources of pride. Like most of America, they were working class towns with little social or economic capital or mobility.