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

Bourguiba and Tunisian Women (Part 2)…in French

Bourguiba and Tunisian Women (Part 3)…in French

`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.

His eyes were always `on the prize’ – independence from France, although he never lived to see the end of the French Protectorate in Tunisia that he helped to discredit and ultimately defeat. While time – and historical revelations – have tended to puncture the halos atop the heads of many of the country’s nationalist icons, Hached’s contribution and reputation remain in tact. Hached’s family along with several French human rights groups are suing the French government both for an apology and for the release of classified government documents related to the case.

Walking down Ave Bourguiba in downtown Tunis, I notice a group of twenty or so young Tunisians. Laughing, joking with each other, they were switching from Arabic to French to Arabic as is common in Tunisia. I recognized the photo of Farhat Hached on t-shirts some of them are wearing. Hached’s image stops me dead in my tracks. I have written about him and intend to do so in considerably more detail. One of the goals of this Tunisia trip is to make contact with his family. I stop and inquire…are they a group somehow connected with Hached, and if so…`qu’est ce que c’est’ (what’s the deal?).

Yes, indeed. They all originate from the Kerkennah Islands twelve miles off of the Tunisian coast near Sfax, from where Hached was born and raised. They were on their way to the Farhat Hached mausoleum just south of Tunisia’s medina to pay homage to Hached and on the spot, invited me to join them, which I did. I felt like I had just `struck gold’.

Kerkennah is poor fishing community of some 14,000 inhabitants that has seen very little development over the years. While the main activities commemorating Hached, national in scope, would transpire the next day, the Kerkennites had arranged their own special mini pilgrimage.

Essentially `a periphery of the periphery’, abject poverty has resulted in an unending stream of emigration of the islands’ youth out on to the mainland in search of work, economic opportunity. `Kerkennites’ retain a strong sense of identity and a sentimental attachment to the islands wherever they may be throughout Tunisia . They form clubs, support organizations, remain in contact socially and often return to `the source’ frequently. I had run into one of these groups, `We Love Kerkennah’.

Jamila Chaari laying a wreathe on her father's coffin

2. Jamila Chaari – a toddler when her father was gunned down

Farhad Hached Mausoleum is an imposing structure, built by Zine Ben Ali early in his rule when he was trying to woe Tunisia’s labor movement. Still, the impression that Ben Ali was `pro-labor’ is deceptive. During his twenty five year rule, wage suppression – enforced by policies of extreme repression – drove even those Tunisians with jobs into greater poverty. Low wages combined with classic `structural adjustment take-ways’ were among the key contributing factors to the revolt which overthrew Ben Ali and forced him and his wife, Leila Trabelsi, to flee the country on January 14, 2011.

The ceremony at the Hached’s mausoleum is short but tasteful. Flowers are placed on his grave. Hached’s daughter, Jamila Chaari, is present and makes some remarks in Arabic. To my surprise, I am asked to say something and am able to mumble out a few words of appreciation. Jamila was just a toddler when her father was assassinated; she and her siblings have tried their whole lives to get to the bottom of their father’s assassination.

After the ceremony, `We Love Kerkennah’ descended `en masse’ to a tea room in the midst of Tunisia’s souk for song, discuission and tea. They were kind enough to invite me along. To sit with tem for an hour was one of the more precious moments of the Tunisia trip. Like virtually all other Tunisians I met during my three and a half week stay, the Kerkennites felt a sense of pride – of a new rekindled nationalism – that Tunisia had rid itself of the Ben Ali and Trabelsi clans who had done so much damage to the country’s body and soul

While the discussions were wide ranging and informal, from Farhad Hached’s Kerkennah origins to the current new Tunisian political situation, much of it focused on the Kerkennah’s, on ideas for its economic development that included possible projects for tourism development, creating bio-fuel from seaweed. They discussed how the club might influence Tunisia’s interim government to pay more attention and invest in the islands, long ignored by Ben Ali and Bourguiba before him. The islands contain a rich archeological heritage as well going back to Phonecian times (1500 BC) that have hardly been excavated or probed (but then that is true for all of Tunisia – which has one of the richest and longest archeological histories of any country anywhere).

`We Love Kerkennah' members having tea in the souk, talking about Farhat Hached and the future of the country and the Kerkennah's. (photo credit: `We Love Kerkennah!'

3. `La Main Rouge’ assassinates Hached …

On December 5, 1952, on the road to Rades,Farhad Hached was gunned down by a French para-military hit squad called La Main Rouge (The Red Hand’) in a operation which all signs suggest was run by the French resident, Jean de Hautecloque, a hard line French colonial administrator, sent to Tunisia to break the back of the growing pro-independence movement.

The murder took place in two stages. A car came along side of his and two gunmen on the passenger side opened fired, severely wounding him and drove off. Hached was able to get out of his car alive. A second car stopped by him. Several gunmen got out and finished Hached off with bullets to the brain. Hached left a devastated 22 year old wife and four young children: the oldest Nour-eddine was eight; the youngest Samira only eight months old.

According to an account in a recently published biography of Mahmoud El Materi, one of the founders of Tunisia’s Neo-Destour – `New Constitutional’ Party, (Mahmoud El Materi: Pionnier de la Tunisie Moderne by Anissa El Materi Hached. Sud Editions, Tunis: 2011), Hached’s assassination provoked angry demonstrations far and wide. Trade unionists in Casablanca, in a number of Algerian cities and elsewhere throughout the world demonstrated for over a week following the assassination. A street in Casablanca bears his name as do numerous schools, hospitals and streets throughout Tunisia.

Other `Red Hand’ assassinations of Tunisian nationalist leaders followed: Hedi Chaker, head of the Neo-Destourian Party in Sfax was also killed as was Chadly Kastalli, vice president of the Tunis Municipality and close to the pro-nationalist Moncef Bey. But none of these assassinations achieved their goal of derailing the nationalist movement and utterly destroying the UGTT. To the contrary, in the aftermath of Hached’s death, the movement for national independence from French colonial domination stiffened.

Volume 1 of the two volume biography of Farhat Hached by Ahmed Khaled. Editions Zakharef: 2007

4. The Man From Kerkennah

Farhad Hached, was born on Kerkennah in 1914. In 1929, forced to leave school at the age of 15, and seek employment because of his father’s death, Hached found work in Sousse, some miles up the coast halfway between Sfax and Tunis with la Société du transport du Sahel (The Sahel Transportation Company) as a mail courier (convoyeur).

Almost immediately some of his other talents surfaced. He wasted no time in organizing a union of transport workers, which affiliated with the France-based Confederation Generale du Travail (CGT). Hached’s union activities continued and soon he became active beyond the transport workers and involved in regional and national union organizing drives, for which, eventually in 1939 he was fired.

Difficult years followed during World War II, when Tunisia was ruled by Vichy French and temporarily occupied by the Nazis until British and US armies liberated it in May of 1943. After the liberation Hached was rehired by the Free French colonial government to direct its Public Works Department in the Sfax region. He immediately went back to union organizing, and now, employed, took the hand of a Kerkennah cousin, Emma Hached.

Soon thereafter, Hached broke with the CGT for which he had organized for 15 years. He, and other Tunisian trade unionists were critical of the positions taken within the French union by socialists and communists who ignored – and did not support – the Tunisian call for independence from France.

The split was significant as it marks the beginning of an independent Tunisian trade union movement with its own leadership and cadre split off from the colonial center in Paris. Hached’s experience, having `grown up’ politically and as a union organizer within the CGT (as either a member or supporter of the French Communist Party – I do not know the exact details here) was by no means unique. Another North African, whose evolution paralleled Hached’s is the Algerian trade unionist and anti-colonial militant Messali Hadj.4

Soon after the split from the CGT, Hached, in concert with other Tunisian trade unionists began the process of bringing together an independent Tunisian national trade union movement. His first effort was to create what was referred to as the Confederation of Free Trade Unions of the South – meaning the south of Tunisia. (L’union des syndicats libres du Sud) based upon a three point program: 1. Social Justice 2. Equality between Tunisian and French workers (working in Tunisia) 3. Support for national independence and an end to French colonial rule. Not long afterwards, he organized, or was involved in organizing a similar federation in the North of the country which came together in Tunis and shortly thereafter, logically, the two federations merged, in 1946, to form the General Union of Tunisian Workers (L’Union generale tunisienne de travail – UGTT).

Poster announcing the Congress of the UGTT; which was just completed (Dec. 26028, 2011) in Tunis

5. Hached becomes secretary general of the UGTT at the age of 30

At the tender age of 30, Farhat Hached was unanimously elected as secretary general of Tunisia’s independent trade union movement. From the outset, Hached directed the energies of the UGTT ending colonialism and winning independence for Tunisia. Autonomous of French influence and completely independent politically, the trade union movement became one of the main bases for support for the broader nationalist movement led by Habib Bourguiba and his pro-independence Neo-Destour Party. The strikes, demonstrations and agitation for independence from 1946 onward intensified and did the calls by the UGTT to improve the standard of living of Tunisian workers living and working under colonial conditions with all the indignities involved.

As a result of this focused, controlled militant activity, the mood of the country as a whole radicalized. Then in 1949, the UGTT became the Tunisian branch of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) which gave Hached international connections and influence far beyond Tunisia’s borders. At the time there were two main international trade union federations. Besides the ICFTU there existed the Moscow leaning World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU). During much of the Cold War the two confederations were in competition with each other, splitting the international working class movement down the middle and weakening the impact of both.

That the radical Hached would choose to lead the Tunisian trade union movement into the U.S. dominated ICFTU rather than the WFTU is interesting. He wanted to steer the Tunisian trade unions away from the WFTU where the CGT retained considerable influence and in so doing limiting the influence of French colonialism on the Tunisian labor movement. Along similar lines, the leadership of the Tunisian nationalist movement, and Habib Bourguiba in particular, tried to develop good relations with the United States, both because the Tunisians understood that the United States was the emerging global hegemonic power and also to create a kind of wedge that would permit the Tunisians to play the Americans off against the French.

In a few short years Hached had become an international personality, and as such was able to present the cause of Tunisian independence internationally.

Accomplishments in five short years

Five years later, – and a year before he was assassinated – Hached was able to report to a national congress of the UGTT, the progress the movement had made which included:

• the UGTT had grown to embrace 120,000 workers throughout the country
• it had led an organized and disciplined grass roots movement against the French Occupation
• The Union had won for Tunisian society as a whole a number of civil rights and constitutional guarantees from the French colonial administration
• the UGTT had achieved international recognition by its adhesion to the ICFTU of which Hached had been elected to its executive board
• The creation of the UGTT had encouraged, with Hached’s personal participation, other North African nations under colonial domination (Morocco and Algeria under French domination, Libya ruled by the Italians) to create their own trade union movements independent of their colonial overseers.
• The UGTT had developed its own economic and social vision, civil rights goals that were embraced by the nationalist movement that could provide direction to the nation after independence.

Decorated villa entrance - Amilcar, Tunisia

6. The French Repress the Tunisian Independence Movement

In 1952, hoping to gain a quick independence, the Tunisian national movement opened negotiations with the French government. The negotiations failed and were almost immediately followed by a harsh wave of repression against the movement. The French colonial government in Tunis engaged in a full scale press to break the back of the independence movement in one fell swoop. Most of the leadership of the independence movement, including Habib Bourguiba, were arrested. A curfew was imposed; all political activity was banned; mass arrests were carried out by the French foreign legion.

It was at this moment of full crisis, with the nationalist movement reeling from the repression, that the UGTT stepped forward, picked up the pieces and assumed the leadership of both the political and armed resistance (there was some) against the French authorities. In so doing, it was the trade union movement in general, and its talented leader Farhat Hached that saved the independence movement from collapse.

In the face of the wave of repression,  and French Colonialism could, when it felt obliged reveal its fangs in the nastiest of fashions, it was Tunisian trade unionists – its working class – that stood fast, held their ground and continued the struggle for independence as they say `on all fronts’.

And for that they paid a price, a terrible price, one hardly acknowledged outside the country. 20,000 trade unionists were arrested and placed in prison and concentration camps, knowing they would face what the French in North Africa excelled at: abuse, torture of an exceedingly refined kind, possible death. Of the 20,000 arrested, 9 were condemned to death and executed, 12 condemned to life imprisonment of forced labor, with many others receiving heavy jail sentences In protest demonstrations hundreds were killed and wounded.

In a letter that Hached wrote just before his own assassination to the secretary general Oldenbroek of the ICFTU, the Tunisia trade union leader comments, `Let us add (to the repression noted above) the 50 assassination attempts against Tunisian militants organized by Le Main Rouge (The Red Hand), French colonial paramilitary terrorist group. 5 Others, when released from concentration camps (imagine – only seven years after the defeat of Hitler the French were establishing concentration camps in Tunisia!) were denied employment.

The resistance largely organized by Hached and the UGTT in that crucial year of 1952, in many ways, broke the back of French colonialism and set the stage for talks between France and the Tunisian national movement that would, four short years later, result in independence, an independence that Farhat Hached never lived to see.

But it is not for nothing that 59 years later, through all of Tunisia’s years as an independent country, through the Bourguiba and Ben Ali’s years, that it has been impossible to snuff out the memory of Farhat Hached. He’s too much a part of his country’s history. Farhat Hached, son of a fisherman from the Kerkennah islands, 12 miles off the coast of Sfax a poor island chain, `the periphery of the periphery’. He made history. Next year, on December 5, 2012 will mark the sixtieth anniversary of his assassination. I expect the commemoration next year will be even larger than this year’s gathering (the official one was rather large). My body permitting (we’ll see), I hope to be in attendance.

______________

Links:

Farhat Hached and the Struggle for Tunisian Independence (note – there is some overlapping with the current entry above…but mostly different material)

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

The Amilcar Notes 2 – Tunisia: Emerging Democracy or Just Frills?

The Amilcar Notes 3 – Tunisia: The Forgotten Socio-economic Crisis

The Amilcar Notes 4 – Tunisia and the New Islamic Politics

The Amilcar Notes 5 – The Tunisian-U.S. Experiment: New Directions in Foreign Policy?

The Amilcar Notes 6 – Tunisian Installs a New Government: The Constituent Assembly

The Amilcar Notes 7 – Tunisia’s Jews – `Then’ and `Now’

The Amilcar Notes 8 – Tunisia’s Jews – `Then’ and `Now’ – Part Two

The Amilcar Notes 9  - Little Country, Big U.S. Embassy: Tunisia’s Place in the U.S. North Africa Strategy

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?

Still there are some curious developments even in this sterile world.

For example, here in Tunisia one American described the State Department staff as having `one of its ass cheeks in the Defense Department’, oftentimes it is the military attaché and not someone from the Ambassador’s staff, or State Department who makes the strategic diplomatic rounds, showing up at receptions and  parties representing the Stars and Stripes.

A part of a whole post-September 11 militarization of U.S. foreign policy?

The new push to use n.g.o.s, AID for intelligence because they are `on the ground’ rather than the diplomatic corps living in Lalaland?

The never ending confusion between gathering intelligence and doing dirty tricks which has characterized U.S. intelligence operations since the days of Eisenhower?

Foreground: Byzantine (early Christian) ruins. St. Augustine passed by here; Background: The Mosque of Carthage

3. The U.S. Embassy: big embassy for a little country?

The United States has built a new embassy in Tunisia, a real monstrosity. Super-duper modern, and heavily guarded, it is a good ways away from the center where the former one was located. Something is just out of whack. Even viewed from a distance, the American Embassy gives the impression of being a major communications center for U.S. foreign policy in the region, the region being North Africa – or as it called here `the Magreb’ or Arab West. Its size and electronic sophistication seems out of proportion with the embassy’s needs. It begs the question: why such a sprawling, technically sophisticated structure for a country – a major communications center – where both U.S. strategic and military interests are somewhat modest at best?

Looking strictly at U.S. – Tunisian relations, such an important embassy doesn’t especially make sense. Thinking regionally, however, a pattern begins to emerge connecting Tunisia to its neighbors, Libya and Algeria.

Compared with other North African countries, Tunis is a safer place for the United States from whence to watch the probable further implosion of Libya and to monitor the development in nearby Algeria and the Sahara to the south. Tripoli is not a great place for a U.S. embassy. There will be some kind of U.S. diplomatic presence there but because the security situation is so unstable there, all suggestions are that it will be of more modest in nature. Watching the Libyan events from Tunis  presents fewer risks. is.

Tunisians look at Libya with both genuine sympathy for what the Libyans have endured, but also with the prospect of Tunisian dinars in their eyes. Tunisians are, among other things, the ultimate entrepreneurs. They see an opportunity in Libya’s situation; Tunisians talk about both the problems at the border, but also the great economic opportunities that could come from helping Libya – or “Libyas” – get back on its “or their” feet.

Tile work on entrance to villa,Amilcar

4. Tunisia: wedged between Libya and Algeria

But ask about Tunisia’s relations with their western neighbor Algeria, and silence reigns once as it did in the Ben Ali days. It’s the only subject that I stumbled upon here on which people either seemed genuinely ignorant, or about which they did not particularly want to talk. Some say they just don’t know. That is possible; there is very little news here about Algeria. Others make byzantine statements typical like `ahhh, Algeria that is tough one’, `Algeria remains a closed society’ as if speaking about it could land whomever in hot water. Follow up questions are usually brushed aside.

Relations between Tunisian and Algeria have long been tense. They remain limited in nature. Hundreds of thousands of Algerians take their summer vacations in Tunisia every year because the tourist services at the beaches are much better and the political environment more open. Tunisian’s living near the Algerian border cross over frequently – there is no problem for them – taking advantage of cheaper food and especially gasoline; modest but continuous economic, cultural exchanges do take place. There are allegations of drug running and a brisk black market trade, but hard evidence concerning such activities is lacking.

There is little doubt though that the Algerian government felt threatened both by the uprising here in Tunisia that swept away Ben Ali and also the toppling of Khadaffi. If the relations between the Algerian military and Ben Ali were not close, still they had worked out a kind of modus vivendi between them. Algeria would have preferred if Ben Ali remained in power. If change could come to Tunisia and Libya, Algiers reasoned, Algeria might be next in line. Although diplomatic relations between Algeria and Tunisia have recently been re-established, they remain cool.

There were also reports of Algerian security forces actively helping Khadaffi, of Algerian diplomatic efforts in Europe to defend him and of some of the 250,000 security force of Ben Ali being folded into the Algerian security force. But one thing for sure, the Algerians were pre-occupied with Tunisia and refining their approach. Unlike many others in this region, the folks in control of Algeria are strategic thinkers.

Mediterranean: Tunisia is wedged between Algeria and Libya

5. Tunisian protests resonate in Algeria

Mohammed Bouazizi’s immolation on December 17, 2011 had repercussions in Algeria. People took to the streets of Algiers and other major cities, calling for political reforms, jobs, housing and an end to the state of siege which had been in place in the country for twenty years, since 1991.

Already in January and February of 2011 as the regional uprising against poverty and repression spread throughout North Africa and the Middle East, the Algerian government was quick to engage in a form of damage control that others would essentially imitate: combining repression with the promise of massive state socio-economic programs and with a slight loosening of the screws on repression and freedom of expression. The government threw billions of dollars in promises of jobs and social programs at the protesters to dampen the revolutionary fires.  For the moment it seems to have worked.

There is a curious parallel between how Algeria managed to dampen its social unrest and how the Saudi’s are doing it: same same…`kif kif’ as they say here: they throw billions at jobs and social programs. Both countries seem to be utilizing a similar if not identical mass containment strategy and that possibly that is not accidental: Make economic concessions as a means of maintaining political power at all costs.  If the people continue to demonstrate, offer even more. If the demonstrations persist, crush the movement in a manner which they will never forget, the goal being to make the price of freedom so high that it will not be worth the cost in human suffering and pain.

The threat of a blood bath is not far from the surface in both countries. The memory of Algerians horrific civil war in the 1990s is still very much alive here as well. It was a factor in the social movement’s caution. In Saudi Arabia, it is enough to remind the people that a government that would cut off someone’s hand for robbery or stone a woman for marriage infidelity would not hesitate to crush a social movement that challenges the free ride the Saudi royal family has so long enjoyed at the expense of the Saudi people. Imagine the body parts they would cut off for political subversion!

Falling from the heights. Will Ben Ali and Leila Trabelsi return to Tunisia to stand trial?

6. Algeria: king pin to U.S. North Africa Strategy

In North Africa, Tunisia is not the king pin of U.S. strategy. Although it is hardly publicized here in the U.S., that honor falls to Algeria, `The Magreb’s Prussia’. The strategic alliances between Algerian government – most especially its military and security apparatus – and the United States (through AFRICOM/U.S. Special Forces) have been growing over the past decade, although the exact nature of the arrangement remains hidden in the deeper fog of the war on terrorism.

Improving relations with Algeria started in Washington sometime around the turn of the millennium after it was clear that the Algerian military-security apparatus there had survived the Civil War there in the 1990s both intact and in power. A key figure in building the relationship on the U.S. side has been Daniel Benjamin, Coordinator for Counterterrorism at the Department of State. A closed regional conference on combating terrorism cemented in mid November of last year cemented the relations.

What lies at the heart of this quiet but growing alliance?

Each side gets something a little different from the relationship. Algerian natural gas supplies to the U.S. have increased and that is a part of the equation. But  it is the strategic cooperation which is even more important and is for the United States nothing short of a strategic bonanza. Improved relations offer the prospect of access and/or control of strategic resources from Algeria to Nigeria – two key African oil producing countries (although more than oil and natural gas is involved). As the United States struggles with China, India and many of its supposed allies to corner the market on these resources, this access is indispensible to U.S. interests and its continued role as a hegemonic (if weakened) power.

For the Algerian military-security apparatus, its power base is strengthened to have the U.S. as a regional military ally.  What it seems to want most of all is high tech toys – drones, sophisticated listening devices – the kind of stuff that makes militaries the world over drool or get a wet spot on their pants. Beyond that, the improved relations with the United States gives the Algerian government a bit more leverage in its dealing with the two other power bases whose interests it must take into account – France in specific and the European Community in general (which have slightly different if overlapping agendas) .

Greek Orthodox Chapel - Tunis. There used to be large Greek, Maltese, Italian and Jewish populations in Tunisia. Today they are much smaller, although the new government has pledged to honor their rights and defend their presence in the country

7. Tunisia: Communications Center for the United States in North Africa?

This U.S.-Algerian relationship is also the key to understanding U.S. Tunisian relations as well.

Although contacts with Algeria are far more important to the U.S. than its Tunisian ties, a high tech U.S. embassy in Algiers might not be such a good idea in part because it could become a very good target for terrorist attacks. Nor is a major U.S. military presence in Algeria good for Algeria’s `radical’ image. Too many risks, better the friendship be more subtle for all concerned, not secret necessarily, just low keyed and downplayed.

There is a certain comparison between how the U.S. deals with Saudi Arabia, an old strategic ally and Algeria, a new one. A large military U.S. presence in Saudi Arabia did not turn out to be a good idea. In the 1990s after the first Gulf War, the U.S. tried a quiet, unostentatious military build-up in Saudi Arabia but was forced out by several Al Qaeda bombings (and subsequent exposure) of U.S. military headquarters.

Being flexible and listening carefully to Washington’s good friends, the Saudi royal family, the United States moved its operational and communications base to nearby Qatar, which has worked out much better. Qatar is a weird place in a way…a major U.S. military base with liberal Arabic cable tv stations called Al Jazeera which is probably part of this strange mix in some way (but let’s leave that aside for the moment).

a small passage way in the Jewish quarter of Tunis' old medina. The new president, Moncef Marzouki, meeting with Tunisia's chief rabbi, invited those Tunisian Jews who left the country to return once again to live there

8. Tunisia: The Qatar of the Magreb?

Think of Tunisia as essentially being “The Qatar of the Magreb”.  Tunisia, for all its problems (collapsing economy, political instability) is still more stable than Libya and has a much less explosive presence in Tunisia than it would in Algeria. Voila! Ok…but move it out of the more vulnerable downtown area just in case.

True there is no U.S. military build up in Tunisia, nor do I expect that there will be. It is not necessary, with a major U.S. naval presence in the Mediterranean, big U.S. bases in Italy and on the Greek island of Crete, the United States, could if necessary, move into Tunisia quite rapidly. Instead, Tunisia is a communications center, a place for processing information from all of North Africa and the Sahara. The Obama Administration’s main concern in Tunisia centers around maintaining the security of the embassy. Economic relations are not irrelevant, but are less important.

In a world of satellites and advanced electronics which can not only follow a person’s actions but almost read their minds (to say nothing of their emails) what can’t be done in Algiers- super sophisticated U.S. embassy including a massive regional listening post – can more than likely be accomplished in Tunis.

The political forces that have come to power in Tunisia since the collapse of the Ben Ali government are glad to have improved relations with the Unitede States and believe they have nothing to lose in such an arrangement. Tunisia wants closer ties with the U.S., to balance off French and Italian influences (that have yielded very little).

Both countries had a shared interest in seeing Ben Ali bite the dust but for different reasons. It is possible that one of the reasons that the Obama Administration supported Ben Ali’s removal was to have a government in place in Tunis that would protect U.S. interests more than Ben Ali was willing to do. It turns out that Ben Ali’s relations with Washington, especially during periods when Democrats have been in the White House (Clinton, Obama) have been strained.

The Tunisians hope for trade and investment. I am not so sure much will come on that front. It may but the global economic crisis and growing weakness of the U.S. financial sector suggests progress might be slow. Finally from a security point of view, it is a plus for the new government. Should the Salafist offensive (Islamic fundamentalist movement) now in Tunisia grow beyond a certain point and threaten state power, one can imagine that the United States will  not idly sit by. It appears the Obama Administration is already `advising’ Rachid Ghannouchi and his Ennahdha Party on that score. That is what I read into the award Ghannouchi received in Washington DC and his quick post election visit to the USA.

Another curious thing is that as the roles of Qatar and Tunisia are evolving along parallel lines visavis the United States at least, that the cooperation between the two countries is expanding. Qatar has promised Tunisia billions in economic aid. The Qataris are far more likely to deliver on their promises than other countries. Finally there is the curious connection between the two in terms of freedom of speech. Whatever else Tunisians might not get from their revolution, they have, through their blood and tears won a freedom of speech and created a social movement to defend it, that will I believe, endure for quite a while into the future. It runs deep. In Qatar there is Al Jazeera. Curious.

Links:

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

The Amilcar Notes 2 - Tunisia: Emerging Democracy or Just Frills?

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

The Amilcar Notes 4 – Tunisia and the New Islamic Politics

The Amilcar Notes 5 – The U.S. Tunisian Experiment: New Direction in U.S-Tunisian Politics?

The Amilcar Notes 6 - Tunisia Installs New Constituent Assembly

The Amilcar Notes 7 – Tunisia’s Jews – `Now ‘and `Then’

The Amilcar Notes 8 – Tunisia’s Jews – `Now’ and `Then’ – Part Two

The Amilcar Notes 10 – Remembering Farhad Hached: An Afternoon with `We Love Kerkennah’

"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

He has his theories too, about how Tunisian Jewry came about, about, the connection of Tunisian Judaism to the Phoenicians, its role influencing the birth and rise of Christianity, its growth and flourishing in its three Tunisian Judeo-Islamic centers of learning: Tunis, Kairouan  and the island of Djerba, its contribution to the intellectual explosion that characterized Moorish Spain and its historic `trialogue’ between Averroes, Maimonides and Thomas Aquinas,the situation of Tunisia’s Jews under the Ottoman and French colonialism and a bit about `the unraveling’ that took place after the 1956 independence of Tunisia.

And all that in less than an hour!

Jacob Lellouche giving his 45 minute 3000 year history of Tunisian Jewry. He also ran in the recent elections for Tunisia's constituent assembly. He lost but he made his point: Tunisian Jews are a part of the broader society

Jacob Lellouche

Fortunately I had heard the same outline with slightly different emphasis a few days before from Jacob Lellouche who runs` Mama Lilly’s’ restaurant in La Goulette. My great hopes of playing the taped interview on KGNU in Boulder, even though it was in French, were dashed by, well let’s just call it `my technical incompetence’. So hearing the rap a second time was not such a bad deal. Besides they have different emphases. Abitbol concentrated on the early history – I can’t emphasize how fascinating I found it. Lellouche on the other hand is more the modernist emphasizing the past 200 years.

I’ll come back to it in a moment.

I knew a little of Abitbol’s hypotheses, particularly the connection between the Phoenicians and ancient Israel at the time of Solomon and their combined role in the founding of Carthage. But I am more familiar with Lellouche’s description of the Jewish Community’s post 1850 history, some of which I have taught about, and most specifically the period of `unraveling’ (my term) that led to the exodus of the bulk of Tunisia’s Jews to France, Israel, Italy , USA and the community’s rapid decline thereafter.

Therefore it was easier to follow Lellouche as I had more intellectual historical markers with which to gauge his commentary. It appeared that Lellouche does this often, that he has the rap down and it was more or less the same talk he gives to groups of tourists (he told me that). Ok. Still it was stimulating and I learned something..quite a bit actually.

Maimonides, Great Sephardic Jewish Scholar, Spanish born, life spent mostly in Egypt..

Point one: on the general aspect of Tunisian Jewish History

Abitbol produced a short 4 or 5 book bibliography. The books are quite old but I’ll find them. I should have little problem retrieving these books from the University of Denver library or through inter-library loan. I want to read them, to learn more of the 3000 year history of Tunisian Jewry, because it is fascinating in and of itself, and because its story is much less familiar that that of European Jewry, because North African – Moorish Judaism, Sephardic Judaism, has an older and in some ways more intellectually vibrant character than the Medieval European Judaism which owes its intellectual origins to it. And because, on some fundamental level, it is my story too!

Although reduced to little more than a rump community today, Tunisian – more generally North African – Jewry encompasses to my mind one of the great human cultural traditions anywhere, anytime. It has produced great intellectual works, philosophy, history, medicine as well as a whole magnificent body of music, art and poetry. The complete cultural package. It kept renewing itself, in different ways, again and again and again and was able to do so in large measure both because of its own  great emphasis on education, a bedrock of Jewish culture throughout the ages, on the one hand. On the other, throughout this long period, it was not an isolated culture but one that was in every way connected to the broader world around, so much so that I think it something of a misnomer even to speak of `Tunisian-Jewish’ culture.

For here in the Mediterranean, a kind of `fused cultural model’ exists, where different streams are in constant interaction with one another – giving and taking at will. Judaism in Tunisia has given so much to Tunisian Islamic culture – and Islamic culture to Tunisian Judaism  that it is impossible to separate the two historically. It is not, for example that the traditions merge into one, although I do think the generic term of `Mediterranean culture’ has some merit, but that they feed off of each other in so many ways that it is virtually impossible to cull out one tradition from another.

Take for example the way that Averroes, Thomas Aquinas and Maimodines all took from each other, from the Greeks from wherever, synthesizing the traditions into a kind of philosophical and sociological intellectual couscous (not an original analogy by the way in any sense). Jews, Arabs, Christians, Greeks, Phoenicians, Egyptians, French, Italian, Byzantine all draw from one another and give back as well. It’s quite an extraordinarily rich integrated heritage. In the same manner, the notion that `European culture’ – that which is often dated from the medieval period and the Renaissance -can somehow be separated from the Islamic/Ottoman tradition is an equally false assumption.

Over the past half century an intellectual acknowledgement of the interplay between cultures of the Mediterranean and beyond have appeared. I only mention a few of the better known works which have enriched my thinking: William McNeil’s The Rise of the West, Braudel’s The Mediterranean World of the Sixteenth Century (in two volumes, although I should add here anything by Braudel), Janet Abu Lughod’s Before European Hegemony. There are many others. Why these particular more global works? Because it is within the great traditions and historical shifts that these books detail and analyze where `Jewish history’ becomes alive, where Judaism become alive as an integral creative element of a broader cultural/historical tradition.

Herb Prince...`davening' as he often did, at Aqueduct Race Track. He's praying...praying for a winner

My father had a particular affection for Italians. He loved them. As a boy of 12 or so, I would ask him why but he couldn’t explain. He tried once by telling me that in so many ways, Italians are like Jews, which made no sense to me at the time because if they were like `us’, then why did they have names like Macaluso, Corraggio, Fabrizzi and Napolitano (names of childhood friends)? My entire life I’ve lived in proximity with them, from when I was a child to today. Then one day, not long before my father died when I was visiting him, I looked up on his shelf and there was…Braudel, the great three volume history of 16^th Century Capitalism (different from the books cited above). My father had read Braudel and not only that, he understood it, had absorbed it, not so surprising because, as a Jew, even one who had changed the family name from Prensky to the amorphous “Prince”, he’d lived it.

In the end Italians, Jews, Tunisian Arabs, Lebanese, Greeks, those Catalans who think they are not in part Spanish, the Armenians, the Turks,  the Slavs, the Turks, the Egyptians, the Syrians and others I have left out, shared a common world, and in some broad ways common values. They still do. The Odyssey, in a sense is not simply a Greek story. It is a Mediterranean story and it is no accident that in the telling a good part of the Mediterranean is touched.

One last point on this first point. All of these people have a rich experience in long distance trade. High risk, high gain stuff certainly in the past. But also something else, it is the trading peoples I am convinced that more likely to produce the sciences, social or hard. This is so not because trading peoples possess more intelligence or any other stupid racist explanation for their insights.

It is because they have travelled.

Traveling people can make comparisons; have the ability to understand that there is a life, a way of doing things beyond their own culture because they have seen it with their own eyes. Explaining the differences between peoples, the comparisons between people  – whether it’s Ibn Khaldun or Montaigne or Franz Boaz doing it – that gives rise to technical innovation, to art, philosophy and the world’s great religions.

And who has traveled more in this world than `the wandering Jew’…and for most of history we have not traveled `first class’. The history of Tunisian Jewry is a part of this great historic movement through time. Not even the community’s continued dismemberment will ever be able to undo that.

To be continued…

_____________________

Links:

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

The Amilcar Notes 2…Tunisia: Emerging Democracy or Just Fills

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

The Amilcar Notes 4…Tunisia and the New Islamic Politics

The Amilcar Notes 5…The U.S.-Tunisia Experiment: New Direction in U.S. Middle East Foreign Policy?

The Amilcar Notes 6…Tunisia Installs A New Government: The Constituent Assembly

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

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

The Amilcar Notes 10…Remembering Farhad Hached: An Afternoon With `We Love Kerkennah’

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 center of the storm was a mining town, Redeyef.

It was a rebellion of major proportions. Literally the entire community rose up in anger and frustration calling for fair hiring practices, jobs, infra-structural development – in short a life for a dying community. If Redeyef was going to die, at least its people were going to go down fighting, fighting for what Tunisian independence from France in 1956 had long promised but never delivered: democracy and development.

There had been other rebellions in Tunisia’s rural areas over the years; in fact in the rural interior they were frequent but not of this magnitude. Until Redeyef, Ben Ali had  been able to contain and cauterize rural uprisings before they reached Tunis, Sousse, the Sahel region (Madhia) and Sfax , heart of the country’s economy and its tourism industry. He almost succeeded with the Redeyef uprising too, except for one little detail, that being the internet. As a result of cell phone cameras, independent journalism transmitted on satellite, Facebook etc, I could sit in my basement office in Denver Colorado and follow the uprising almost day by day.

That is exactly what I did. I watched it all on my computer

-          as first Ben Ali tried to ignore the turmoil and when he couldn’t, sent in his security troops.

-          as 20,000 people – the entire town of Redeyef – marched on the town jail to secure the release of the protest leaders and was proud that so many of them were teachers!

-          as Ben Ali as the repression deepened – 200+ arrests, some deaths as the security forces open fired, killing several unlucky ones who just happened to be on the scene.

-          as the reports of torture came in, accompanied by photos that would stand up in court most places in the world, excepting Tunisia of course.

-          as hundreds of locals, bitter at being crushed by a government they could not believe would turn on them like that, tried to flee the country by leaving for nearby Algeria.

-          as those desperate souls having given up on the idea of Tunisia as they were met at the border by armed security forces, pummeled and forced to turn back. Ben Ali was afraid the international media coverage of such an event might negatively impact foreign investment and tourism. Of course, what else?

Magreb A Traverse Le Siecle by Juliette Bessis. Fine volume. Includes some good history of the Tunisian Jewish Community

Enter Roger Bismuth

Enter onto this disturbing scene one Roger Bismuth, advisor to since deposed President of Tunisia, Zine el Abidine Ben Ali, multi-millionaire developer, until recently the only Jewish parliamentarian in the Arab World and last but not least, President of Tunisia’s small Jewish Community of between 1500 – 1800 persons, most of whom live in the Tunis region and on the island of Djerba. Bismuth’s statements on the repression in Redeyef were, let’s just say, unbecoming.

He did not deny there were `problems’ but `a la Mussolini’ emphasized  Tunisia was a safe country where people could walk around at night without being robbed or otherwise harassed, ie, the repression is needed to keep social peace.   Bismuth commented that there was some possibility of private investment that might follow to rectify the situation. Nothing happened on that score though for the next few years until Mohammed Bouazizi, exactly one year ago today (I write on December 17, 2011) poured paint thinner over himself and after being thrown out of the Sidi Bouzid town hall, lit a match seen round the world.

Bismuth’s comments gave me such a creepy feeling at the time. A Jewish spokesman for Ben Ali!  A Jew on `the wrong side of history’. That can have unpleasant consequences. I wondered if this would impact Tunisia’s Jewish Community. The whole thing seemed weird; why would he put himself in such a position? I’m still wondering that.

Here was a major socio-economic crisis that Ben Ali had no intention of addressing, but to smooth things over,  he carts in as his spokesman, the president of Tunisia’s tiny Jewish Community? It seemed a cynical attempt use a Jewish face for damage control. Bismuth took the bait and did his best to soften the hard edge of Ben Ali’s repressive apparatus.

Tunisian Jewish Art by Nessim Pareinti

The setting 2011. Bye bye Zini and Leila with 40% of Tunisia’s national wealth

Then Zine Ben Ali made his hasty exit from the scene, saying `sayonara’  to the Tunisian people, trying to get used to the fact  that he can’t torture people at will anymore.  He went off to his post – power retirement in Jedda, Saudi Arabia. With him came his darling wife and some of the members of the two family (Ben Ali, Trabelsi) clans; they were saddened to leave Tunis, a blow softened somewhat by the fact that they took 40% of the country’s wealth with them according to some estimates.

The events of late 2010, early 2011 must have placed Citizen Bismuth in an awkward position, on `the wrong side’ of history. It would take considerable organizing talent, good political instincts and probably some sharp advisers for  him not to sink on Ben Ali’s ship. Besides I’ve heard Jeddah, where the Ben Ali family relocated, is not the best place for a Tunisian Jew who not so long ago made his own personal pilgrimage – to pay homage to Israeli General Ariel Sharon, lying in a coma in Israel.

As an advisor to Ben Ali, Bismuth was definitely `up there’, a part of Ben Ali’s ruling circle, even if his actual power was limited. It is difficult to get as far as Bismuth economically in Tunisia, especially during the Ben Ali years, `on your own’ so to speak. All the more reason why, most likely, Roger Bismuth was a little nervous in the period after Ben Ali was forced from Tunisia. He is quoted in at least one article (March, 2011) as saying that he isn’t taking his options of leaving Tunisia for Israel off of the table!

Joseph Fouche, extraordinary political acrobat, walked political tight rope from period of the French Revolution, was able to survive many purges, bend with the wind, land on his feet and stay in power in post Revolutionary France. The perfect bureaucrat

That was in March, now we are approaching the end of the year. Although it could have cost him, Bismuth has personally come through the crisis of the past year quite well indeed. A modern Tunisian Jewish Fouche? He’s landed on his feet. All in all, so has Tunisia’s Jewish Community. All’s well that ends well?

Roger Bismuth has come through these stormy waters unscathed. He has not been indicted for anything, nor has Bismuth picked up and moved to Israel. He’s still in Tunisia, a Tunisian citizen although he can no longer claim the title of being the only Jewish Member of Parliament in the Arab World, as he is out of office. Nor have his business interests been touched. Furthermore, Bismuth’s past association with Ben Ali does not appear to have hurt him much as he remains the President of Tunisia’s Jewish Community. I’m not exactly sure how he worked all that out, but if Tunisia functions anything like Colorado, he must have some pretty good attorneys advising and negotiating for him.

An ugly `anti-Jewish Salafist dance’; but no support from broader Tunisian society

Although Tunisia’s Jewish Community seems to have come through the events of this past year in tact and generally in good political and social health, this has been a year of uncertainty for them. Recent events  cap what has been a 130 Tunisian Jewish roller coaster ride that started with Tunisia becoming a French protectorate in 1881. It continues today.

Since the collapse of the Ben Ali – Trabelsi regime, there have been anti-Jewish incidents in Tunisia as well as  rumors, some of which proved to be unfounded. But a Salafist (radical Islamic fundamentalists) openly anti-Jewish demonstration not long after Ben Ali fled in early February, 2011 did take place in front of Tunis’ main synagogue on Ave. de la Liberte. Several hundred people were involved There were accusations some elements of Ben Ali’s former security force were involved, attempting to sow seeds of confusion and split the unity of the anti Ben Ali social forces.

It was ugly, rounded condemned by virtually all elements of Tunisian society, including what is now the influential moderate Islamic Ennahdha Party. The Salafist synagogue demonstration did accomplish one thing: it frightened people some, especially Tunisian Jews. Israeli calls for Tunisia’s remaining Jews to leave the country and join the Zionist state fell flat and were publicly rejected by Tunisian Jews themselves.

For Tunisia’s Salafists who give all appearances to be run by forces outside of Tunisia’s mainstream, demonstrating at Tunisia’s main synagogue was just a warm up round for their real target, strengthening their position in Tunisia’s mosques, its more secular schools and media.

It’s symbolically reminiscent of the Crusaders yore,  `reving up their medieval storm troopers’, by killing Jews in Germany on their way to kill Moslems in Jerusalem, a practice round so to speak. For the modern day Tunisian Salafists it’s a case of slandering a synagogue to prepare for a cultural offensive against the country’s educational system and media in an attempt, using the usual thug tactics, to bring the broader and more open society `in line’ with Wahhabist thought.

Kick the Jews in the nuts first for old times sake and then move on to more strategic targets. Unable to get the Tunisian people roused about anti-Jewish sentiment – the synagogue protest did not win them support – the Salafists have moved on. They have explored other avenues break into the Tunisian mainstream, so far unsuccessfully, their social base in Tunisian society being quite thin.

In the period both before and after the October 23, 2011 Tunisian national elections, Ennahdha leaders Rachid Ghannouchi and Hamadi Jabeli, the latter now the country’s prime minister, went out of their way to meet with Bismuth to reassure him of Ennahdha’s good will. The message was clear: that an Ennahdha victory would not negatively affect Tunisia’s Jewish Community status and that there is nothing to fear. This can be explained both by reasons of principle as well as politically.

Tunisian Jews musicians of old

The scoop on Tunisian Jews

No need to engage in political fantasy.

There is something amiss about a Tunisian Jewish Community that a century ago was at least 300,000 out of 10, 000,000 and is now reduced to 1,500 – or 1,800 at most in a population now of 10 million plus. It hasn’t been all peaches and cream for Tunisia’s Jews although many more of them migrated to France rather than going to Israel. But the details and parameters of that history, and it will be covered, we’ll put aside for another entry (coming soon by the way).

Still, for all that, it is useful to remember that Tunisia is, as I have said repeatedly in this series, a tolerant place. Jews have been a part of Tunisian history since long before the time of Christ, long before there was a European Jewish Community even.

Those traditions of tolerance and of the general integration of Jews in the fabric of Tunisian life run deep. Even as the Jewish Community here (I write from Tunisia) shrank, a lot of this good will remains. Older Tunisians  remember when they socialized with Jewish neighbors, most vividly reinforced in the Tunisian film Summer in La Goulette by Tunisian film director Ferid Boughedir.      Tunisian Jews also keep their memories alive through websites (Harissa.com), blogs and some pretty fine scholarship on their own complex history.

Entrance to a Jewish home in Djerba

Changing U.S. Role

There are also political reasons why some genuine turn for the worse for Tunisia’s Jewish Community is not likely in the offing and that the Salafist outburst of a few months ago is not indicative of a deeper trend here. First of all, Tunisia’s Jews today are a tiny community. Its historic place in Tunisian society is great, but its economic resources and actual population are minimal. The idea that the community is `spying for Israel’ is utter nonsense. Those in power as well as many others here know it.

Another factor that comes into play is Tunisia’s improving relations with the Obama Administration. These relations are still in a formative stage, but they seem to deepen daily. They have little to do with Tunisia’s Jews, but a lot to do with a U.S. attempt to find a new cultural wedge in the Arab World where its influence – despite U.S. military might – had declined dramatically as a result of the invasion of Iraq, the wars in Afghanistan, Pakistan, etc. as well as U.S. support for the Saudis and other medieval Middle East autocracies.

Jacab Welles, career diplomat just appointed new U.S. Ambassador to Tunisia to replace Gordon Gray. Appointing a career diplomat rather than some jerk who made some big campaign contribution as ambassador suggests the seriousness with which the Obama Administration views its evolving relations with Tunisia

With Tunisia the Obama Administration hopes to open a new page of U.S. Arab relations. I’m convinced of this, probably the biggest surprise of my three week visit here (still a few days to go).  (It could all come unglued if the U.S. and/or Israel attack Iran by the way ) . Any efforts to create difficulties for Tunisia’s tiny Jewish minority would only complicate, if not sabotage, this political thaw. Nor is there any will to move in this direction

The new Tunisian government will do everything it can to avoid such a crisis. This also extends to how Tunisia will deal with the Israeli – Palestinian issue. Tunisians, as I have written elsewhere, have overwhelming sympathy for the plight of the Palestinian people. How that is expressed politically is a different matter. When certain draft documents were circulating suggesting condemning Zionism as a part of the new Tunisian constitution, Rachid Ghannouchi immediately cut off the discussion and ended it curtly by killing the idea. Good relations with the Obama Administration apparently trumped official criticism of Israel. To make the point, Ghannouchi made his announcement of this policy in Washington D.C. on his recent.

For its own strategic reasons, Tunisia wants to improve its ties with the United States, to lessen its dependency on its former colonial power.  It cannot do that tolerating an anti-Jewish policy at home. Its sympathy for the Palestinians will continue to be expressed, but the Tunisians will be careful not to cross an invisible line. They know exactly how far they can and cannot go on this issue.

Meanwhile – and it is of course a good thing – Tunisia’s Jewish Community can breath easy and I believe this will be the case for sometime into the future and I for one am very pleased. I want to end by noting, strange as it might seem for me that it’s here in Tunisia, that I feel as much at home with being Jewish  as any place. But you’ll have to wait for Part Two of this series, for that to make sense…Coming soon, tune in.

Links:

Tunisian Jews Celebrate Death of  Kabbalist Rabbi Hai Taieb

De Carthage a Jerusalem: Histoire des Juifs de Tunisie

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

The Amilcar Notes 2…Tunisia: Emerging Democracy or Just Frills

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

The Amilcar Notes 4…Tunisia and the New Islamic Politics

The Amilcar Notes 5…The U.S.-Tunisia Experiment: New Directions in U.S. Middle East Foreign Policy?

The Amilcar Notes 6 – Tunisia Installs A New Government – The Constituent Assembly

The Amilcar Notes 8…Tunisia’s Jews…`Now’ and `Then’ (Part 2)

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

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

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

Links:

- Tunisia’s Arab Spring (Al Jazeera)

________________________

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 next day, continuing on the French Revolution, Aaron Rose shifted gears. Having brought us up to the heights the day before. I WANTED MORE. Didn’t happen. He talked about how the revolution turned on itself, how the freedom of speech was suppressed, how the atmosphere quickly hardened and witch hunts began against anyone who spoke out who were labeled `enemies of the revolution’ and finally how so many innocent people  met their deaths along with a few guilty ones.

It was crushing. He’d played a cruel trick on me,that Aaron Rose did, one day giving me hope and then stomping on it. At 12 really I had no politics, was much more interested in basketball than girls (still the case). My family was m a not particularly political. And here Aaron Rose for the first time kindled my interest in politics one day only to crush it the next. And maybe he WAS talking to me, because we were as close as I got to a teacher personally up until then. I liked him. He was smart, new his subject, didn’t bullshit the students (although I do not think he was some kind of radical). He was just a fine teacher who loved his students and his subject and has long been a conscious model in my 45 year teaching career, soon to end.

In any event, seeing me steaming in my seat, Mr. Rose called on me.`Prince, you are upset’ .  I answered something like `Yes, you’re playing games with us, kindling hope for change one day and then snuffing it out the next.’Why did you do that ?’

I don’t remember his exact words but I never forgot the essence: `it’s not me whose playing games’, he said, `it’s history. One can look at history honestly or choose to deny it. On the subject of the French Revolution, I am just the messenger. and it’s not that nothing changed because a lot of things changed. The monarch was corrupt and it was destroyed; France was not the same place after the revolution as it was before. Old institutions were swept away, new ones, along with a new legal system  and new modern values replaced it…and if that revolution did not solve all the problems of all the people – and it didn’t, it solved some of the problems of the old system. It’s not true that France after 1789 was in the end the France that existed before. `It is a lie,’ he said with some emphasis, `that the French Revolution was in vein.’ Its goals were just partially achieved.

Then he added the line that has stayed with me all these years and this is a quote…In the end, a revolution simply exchanging one set of problems for another. The problems of the new world are usually quite different from those of the old system. People  know the old problems, the old system, but the `the world coming into being’ is something of a mystery and the problems come fast and furiously and the new order has to learn to deal with things it never had to address before…

Tunis, from the hills to the northwest of the City

2. Saluting Tunisia

As much as anyone,  Mr. Rose helped give me  the eyes and the mind to attempt to process what I am seeing here in Tunisia. The need to be honest about the problems, but not to lose sight of the main picture and the flow of history, to appreciate from whence history flows, and even though it’s difficult to get a glimpse as to where it might be going. History is alive, organic and on the move. Attempting to capture its motion, trying to understand that moving target..well I can tell you, now that is something worth running after! … As is learning how to see through the fog that often surrounds it!

Every once in a while, the fog clears for a moment at a place, a time…and right now one of the places is Tunisia and the time is the present. I had to come.

Tonight I watched Tunisia invest a new president tonight on tv. I was at the home of Tunisians, descendants of the sheiks of La Marsa,  relatives of Tunisian friends in Colorado. For those present watching Moncef Marzouki invested as President of the country, this was a precious moment, one that they were savoring, almost sacred. The only proper thing to do was to congratulate them which I did. They graciously acknowledged their national achievement.

It was a moment of national emotion and pride for all Tunisians. And despite the challenges, problems that lay ahead – I have written about many of the in this series – something very special has happened here as it `exchange one set of problems  for another’.

Today in Tunisia a new government was put in place. Two new presidents took their seats, one for the country overall, the other of what is called that is called the Constituent Assembly. That assembly was the result of  the first genuine election in Tunisian history.

Yes, all  election processes have their limits (as we know in the USA) but this one was done fairly. The president was not put in power by tanks, a military coup or frankly by foreign powers (who of course tried to manipulate it as is their nature), but was the result of an uprising led by the country’s youth seeking a future with dignity and commenserate with their unlimited untapped talent.

The revolution was accomplished relatively peacefully although there were casualties (les martyrs). During most of this time of crisis, people here in the Tunis region and other big cities went to work although the ministers and some corporate heads had fled keeping the country running the best they could, far different from Libya where virtually everything has fallen apart. And all this done by an over-educated underemployed and underpaid people whom were beaten down, intimidated, tortured and robbed blind by two clans of nouveau riche thugs – that is really all they were in the end – for a quarter of a century.

It is true that those who led the charge, took to the streets and faced down  fear – fear of arrest, of torture of being killed by Ben Ali’s assassination hit squads – are not those in the elected Constituent Assembly.  As I have written elsewhere in this series, this is so not unusual and might even before for the best. There is something important about the continuation of a permanent social movement outside of government to continue as a check to those in power, to remind them of the source of their legitimacy – that it comes from the street, from mass, mostly peaceful demonstrations, de-legitimizing one government, giving birth to the conditions for another.

On this, history suggests that the Russian anarchists were right to distrust all power and to challenge it. Tunisia’s social movement remains vibrant despite going through a difficult period. This will ultimately be the real check on the corruption of power and the Tunisians have learned to use this weapon as well as – or better than – most

This was done with an unequaled level of courage and humanity, and a sense of national solidarity, as if the Tunisian people had woken up and found each other after a long sleep, or should I say, nightmare. People broke out of their isolation, reconnected to each other, recommitted themselves to common social goals. It is frankly, something that cannot be described in words, not my words at least. It was a beautiful thing to watch, even from far away Denver from whence I long have hailed. The uprising wasn’t  about religion, it wasn’t  `a left uprising,’ it was a `revolt of a new kind”…it was about a nation struggling with its soul and trying to find its way in the world again on a new more wholesome setting

What happened here is nothing short of an explosion of Tunisian nationalism in all its aspects – mostly tolerant – it is not propaganda that Tunisia is profoundly tolerant place, not just a tolerant Islamic country, it is just tolerant, period. Yes there are some uglier aspects of Tunisian nationalism that have also surfaced. They are marginal, have very little actual history or base in this country and while they are making alot of noise and headlines right now, it is unlikely in the end that their impact will amount to much. They do scare people for the moment but their very intolerance marginalizes them and will be their undoing.

That this sense of dignity is exactly what Tunisians are feeling today was reinforced today during a chance meeting with a Tunisian woman in Carthage . Her commentary on the past year got right to the point: “I never really thought of Tunisia as `my country’, but since the revolution I feel a part of it and am proud .”  

A corrupt, repressive regime has been overthrown by its own people, its former leadership either forced to flee the country or in jail. A state security force of 250,000 snoops and torturers could not stop a people’s movement triggered by the immolation of a frustrated, educated, barely employed youth in Sidi Bouzid. The pictures of Ben Ali and Leila Trabelsi came down overnight. There is now a Boulevard Mohammed Bouazizi  in Tunis.

A political party  first called the Neo-Destour and then morphed into the Rassemblement Constitutionel Democratique, with its roots in the colonial period that was used by two presidents, has been dissolved and a whole region turned into turmoil with the calls for greater democracy, greater economic opportunity. And an orderly election without any violence (that I am aware of) took place, a model for other countries.

I have written a fair amount in  The Amilcar Notes about `the new set of problems’ Tunisia is facing in this series, and frankly there is more to say.  I don’t think my observations are much off the mark. The country faces many challenges…all that glitters here is not gold. Much of the old system remains in place and in fact in some ways (economy, state security apparatus, administration) at least to date, there have not been many changes at all.

But let us not at this moment forget that Tunisia today is a different place than it was a year ago, open and proud as it should be, it is a better place – it has reconnected with its own humanity. Something truly historcal took place here. We can argue later – as we should – about the dimensions of the changes, or where Tunisia is or isn’t going.  The significance of what happened here starting a year ago goes beyond even the Middle East. It has undermined the cynicism of so many who said it couldn’t happen here, in an overwhelmingly Arab and Moslem country run by a dictator. But it is the Tunisian changes that have created hope around the world, everywhere, including in the United States, that change is possible.

The ‘people’s coup’ as one Tunisian observer called it, brings us back to a truth that reactionaries and conservatives throughout  the world have tried to stamp out, to destroy: that it is the people who make history and not crumb-bums like Zine el Abidine Ben Ali or Hosni Mubarek.  Once that process begins to take form, the `great powers’ are shrunk back to their much less powerful size. Neither France nor the USA could stop the Tunisian people. The Tunisians did it by themselves and they know it; all of them! The very people  the U.S. media has denigrated – Arabs and Moslems –  deformed their history, language and religion so out of shape that it is unrecognizable and so that people in the United States fear the words `Arab’ and `Moslem’…it is precisely these people who have responded by showing the world what human decency, democracy is all about. The Tunisians are leading the way.

Yes it is a beautiful thing..with all its bumps and warts.  I’m glad I lived to see it and that for three weeks I could be here, watch it, think about it, worry about it and share in the wonder. The Tunisians have started the world on a journey; they’ve taken the first step. Now it’s our turn to take the second. This is not a time for cynicism, not even mine

Rob Prince – Amilcar, Tunisia

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The Amilcar Notes 1…Zine Ben Ali’s Sorry Story: Repression, Torture and Death

The Amilcar Notes 2…Tunisia: Emerging Democracy or Just Frills

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

The Amilcar Notes 4…Tunisia and the New Islamic Politics

The Amilcar Notes 5…The U.S.-Tunisia Experiment: New Direction for U.S. Foreign Policy?

The Amilcar Notes 7…Tunisia’s Jews: Now And Then (Part One)

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

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

The Amilcar Notes 10…Remembering Farhad Hached: An Afternoon With `We Love Kerkennah’

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.

A person can just walk in and look around as we did. Trabelsi  did not get along well with the neighbors and didn’t seem to care. The unbridled arrogance of the nouveau riche! Trabelsi  had the neighbors pay for a retaining wall within the property to insure privacy. The mansion hosted loud and wild parties almost non-stop I was told. The neighbors complained to the police, the police came and arrested the neighbors for disturbing the party rather than the party-ers for disturbing the peace. In quiet revenge, Trabelsi’s neighbors did not lift a finger to stop the popular rage against property . Not many tears were thus shed when the Trabelsi’s fled.

I wondered, with the French residence being so close, how close the Trabelsi’s were to the French diplomats who protected and defended the old order down till the end and how many Trabelsi wild soirees the French ambassador (or other French diplomats)  might have been regulars. Did  the ambassador pass by to check out the damage, symbolic at least on some level of the damage done to French – Tunisian relations as well. Because France took something of a diplomatic hit from the Tunisian crisis.

General Rachid Ammar `centurion' of the Tunisian Revolution, also known for close ties to AFRICOM and NATO

2.       General Rachid Ammar’s Dilemma

Just at the time Zine el Abidine Ben Ali – whose name in Tunisia today is worth less than mud – fled Tunisia with a million Tunisians cheering him on to go in the streets of Tunis, a curious article appeared in the French press. I don’t have the citation handy but remember it clearly. It was `curious’ because of its content and brevity. It alleged that the chief of the Tunisian army, General Rachid Ammar was at a loss as to whether or not to obey Ben Ali’s orders to mow down protesters with machine guns from armored vehicles and helicopters.

General Ammar, who has slipped back into obscurity, was caught in the middle between Ben Ali and the Tunisian people. He was caught in one of those `damned if you do – damned if you don’t’ moments. His crisis was being unable to discern at the time which side in the fight between Ben Ali and `the people’ would come out the winner. Before January 12, 2011 when 150,000 people demonstrated against Ben Ali in Sfax in a demonstration called by the country’s union movement – the UGTT – it was not at all clear who would win – Ben Ali and his wife, Leila Trabelsi (who was hated in some quarters here in Tunisia even more than the president) or the Tunisian people. Given that making the wrong decision could have cost General Ammar dearly, he needed to weigh it carefully.

General William Ward, former U.S. AFRICOM chief of command. Just lending a friendly hand to a Tunisian military colleague in need of advice

3.       Africom’s General William Ward To The Rescue

It is exactly at crisis moments like this that former President George Bush tells us, that he consulted God. Maybe General Ammar did too, but if the French press is right, Ammar also was in close contact with, the then acting head of Africom, General William Ward  whom the French suggest played a key if not decisive role in influencing Ammar’s decision helping the Tunisian chief of staff understand which ways  the political winds were blowing. Apparently the United States, interestingly enough was betting against Ben Ali. Whatever advice General Ward offered to Ammar, it was enough to help give the good man enough spine needed to refuse Ben Ali’s order to slay his own people at will.

And for that, Ammar became and remains something of a Tunisian national hero, `le centurion du peuple’  coming only behind the immolated Mohammed Bouazzizi and the million or so demonstrators that marched on Tunis, calling on Ben Ali to make a hasty departure.

The French press revealed the details of the Ammar-Ward relationship at that sensitive moment. Let us be clear here, theirs is more than a personal connection. The contact marked a quiet watershed in U.S. Tunisian ties. The French were not pleased the Americans had gotten to Ammar before they did and so leaked the story in bits and pieces in an effort to press the French government to define itself more clearly on the Tunisian crisis. France defended Ben Ali almost up to the last second, the United States shifted gears and gambled against Ben Ali in the last two seconds, so the U.S. stuck it to France and positioned itself well to influence the flow of events in the post Ben Ali period.

North African Oil and Natural Gas pipelines. To date little oil has been discovered in Tunisia...but, the fossils and geological strata are right

4.       U.S. Increases its influence some in Tunisia; France rushes off to insert itself in Libya

France, as nervous about losing its influence in North Africa as it is concerned about the crisis of the euro, responded by trying to regain the influence in Libya which it had lost in Tunisia by pushing NATO to take military action against Khadaffi in Libya. France placed itself to the military forefront hoping to regain in Libyan oil what it lost in Tunisian influence.

The Americans didn’t mind if France got its claws in Libya which would be a mess for a long time and therefore be more France’s problem than the U.S.’s. Besides Washington could argue this time that it was France that was too quick on the trigger taking a little pressure off what the U.S. was doing unsuccessfully in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and unofficially in Yemen, Somalia and who knows where else. In the end Tunisia would be a much easier country to `help rebuild’, Libya more difficult. A U.S. foothold in Tunisia has its own strategic logic, in line perhaps with AFRICOM plans for Africa?  Not a bad deal. Some shrewd thinking there for a change? Not a lot of shrewd thinking going on in Washington for some time now, but this showed something a bit more interesting.

More of Imad Trabelsi's trashed house. A Tunisian family was exploring the premises with me. The man of the family summed it up: `c'est la revolution qui a fait ca.' (this was done by the revolution)

5.       Developing the hypothesis of a new Tunisian American relationship

These thoughts have been brewing in my mind,  actually since the day I read that General Ammar was getting psychological therapy from General Ward, but I wasn’t sure what to make of it. Recent history and a couple of thoughtful articles by Tunisian political figures have given more texture to these thoughts.

Let’s look at the chain of events.

Although he gets some heat from Republican presidential hopefuls, many who probably think Tunisia is a part of the Indonesian island chain, as well as AIPAC (who else?), in an unusual turn of events, Obama himself supported Ben Ali’s removal from power, breaking with 66 years of U.S. policy of supporting dictators of every stripe from the more secular Shah of Iran to the Wahhabists in Saudi Arabia.

There were signs – today not all that difficult to read – that the U.S. was at least positioning itself for a post Ben Ali future. For those of you who are conspiracy buffs, sorry to disappoint (again). It is not that the U.S. engineered the changes, but…more that in the Tunisan case, Washington tried jumping on a running horse rather than blowing it out of existence with bunker busters, smart bombs and torture.

-          Actually, Ben Ali’s relations with the U.S. have long been rocky. When Republicans were in power, he fared better, but with the Democrats he has never been popular. For example, when ben ali came to Washington DC in the 1990s, he hoped that Bill Clinton would honor him with a state dinner. It didn’t  happen. Instead Clinton shuffled Ben Ali off to Madelaine Albright. She would agree to an informal chat at the font hallway of the State Department. He went back to Tunisia empty-handed and angry.

-          The first indication of  more significant shift than a simple diplomatic snub cited above came after he was re-elected President with 94% of the vote in 2008 in another rigged election. Ben Ali waited for a congratulatory telegram from Barack Obama. It never came. Some might have missed it, but Zine Ben Ali didn’t.

-          There some of the WikiLeaks dealing with Tunisia made it clear that the State Department had no illusions about Ben Ali’s lack of popularity, his repressive politics and the money grabbing nature of the crudely nouveau riche Ben Ali and Trabelsi clans.

-          Then there is a short blog by none other than Elliot Abrams on the Council of Foreign Affairs website, Is Tunisia Next, on Jan 7, 2011, a week before Ben Ali took flight coming close to predicting the end. Elliot Abrams who has played one of the most insidious roles in U.S. foreign policy from the day’s he supported the Nicaraguan Contras was now behind removing Ben Ali?

-          After Ben Ali came to power both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were on the same page concerning Tunisia much more so than was  the case with Egypt where Hillary held on tight to Mubarek for as long as possible. Hillary continues to show special interest in Tunisia. A few days ago she had a column in a recent Tunisian newspaper (in French) on the status of women

-          The statements of the current U.S. Ambassador to Tunisia, Gordon Gray, himself a former Peace Corps Volunteer in Morocco I am told, has consistently praised the transition away from Ben Ali-ism and seems to have played a role in the emerging U.S. approach

So from left to right, or from center to right in the U.S. government, the evidence is mounting that the U.S. was not unhappy to see Ben Ali go and when they had the opportunity, let that be known to General Ammar through the medium of AFRICOM commander William Ward. The suggestion that came with Ward’s comments – made either directly or in a more coded manner – was like manna from Heaven for Ammar. he could assume, rightly or wrongly, that the weight of the United States was behind him, helping prop up his confidence to stand down Ben Ali.

Even if the details are off here and there – I think they are quite accurate actually – a overall picture has long been coming together in my mind that the United States government, whatever else it is doing in the Middle East, supported the ousting of Ben Ali in Tunisia and within certain well defined boundaries, supports the reform process taking place as well as the role of the Ennahdha Party as a leading force in this `new age’.

Apparently the Obama Administration gave the Tunisian Revolution `the green light'..thing is, Tunisians didn't ask the U.S. for permission

6.       Farhat Othman’s Little Political Bomb: The U.S. Gave `The Green Light’ To The Tunisian Revolution

An article appeared today (December 11, 2011) taking up the issue of the new U.S.-Tunisian relationship. Nawaat.org, an award winning human rights alternative website, published a piece in French by Farhat Othman, former diplomat expelled by Ben Ali for not towing the party line in the 1990s. His piece is entitled La verite sur la revolution tunisienne en dix points (The Tunisian Revolution’s Truths Explained in 10 points) in which he asserts that the U.S. supported Ben Ali’s overthrow, why the Tunisians took the U.S. bait, and the nature of the evolving U.S.- Tunisian relationship could look like.

Perhaps Othman will elaborate on these points in the future, but let me say that for the moment, his is a coherent, credible explanation of the U.S. role.

Given the overall record of the United States in the region, complimenting the United States, U.S. Middle East policy in any way in Tunisia is not easy.  Othman is taking a lot of heat. Othman’s reward for putting forth his ideas so far has mostly to be thoroughly trashed by readers  comments, but I think that he has come as close as anyone to explaining the hows and whys of the new U.S – Tunisian relationship well and I’d like to see some convincing arguments against it rather than just the name calling.

What are his main points?

Othman begins by calling the uprising in Tunisia, now nearly a year old,  a `people’s coup’ and gives it his full support. In so doing, Othman begins by paying homage to those who actually made the revolution: the country’s youth who paid the price with their blood and suffering. It is not particularly original but it reveals the deep respect and love that the Tunisian people as a whole feel for their youth, those that showed a courage that many older people here could not quite muster, a courage not for themselves but for the country as a whole and in so doing rekindled the wholesome fires that is a long suppressed Tunisian nationalism.

What follows however is more original and probably explains what triggered the negative responses.

Othman states unequivocally that the Tunisian revolution could not have succeeded on its own without the green light from Washington and the media coverage the protest movement here enjoyed from Al Jazeera. He credits `the green light’ as the key element that gave the Tunisian military the courage not to fire on demonstrators; that corresponds to what I argued above.

I would only add here, that Tunisians did not go asking kindly for permission with Washington agreeing. It was rather that unable in any way to control the flow of events in Tunisia (or elsewhere in the region these days) the Obama Administration had, for a change, the good sense to role with the punches so to speak and make the best of it. Had Obama not seen it in U.S. interests to help push Ben Ali aside, he could have made life much more difficult for Tunisia’s social movement.

Othman goes on to claim that Washington’s support for the changes in Tunisia are not as strange as it might seem as `about faces – or changing of the guard’ is not so unusual for `the world’s policeman’. (in french: la volte face du gendarme du monde n’etait pas nouvelle). Without mentioning the specific cases, he is referring to the U.S. policy of abandoning allies when they are no longer useful. Cases like Marcos of the Philippines, Mobutu of Zaire come to mind, there are many more examples.

At times, U.S. global interests needs new face – a face lift – as the old ones have become more a liability than an asset. So it was with Ben Ali. Supporting him too long backfires politically. The U.S. – or atleast Obama – understood this, Sarkozy didn’t until it was too late.  (in reference to the Arab Spring, Chomsky gave a great speech in Denver and interview on Democracy Now! with Amy Goodman on this subject).

Othman’s point here is that to suggest that the United States was preparing for some kind of change like this in the Arab World. He doesn’t explain why, given his barebones synopsis but it’s not hard to put together the dots.

Trabelsi's Trashed Mansion (again)...In response to my question, a Tunisian exploring the place with me described Trabelsi as `foul mouthed, rude, greedy'...and more importantly to him `pas un bon voisin' (not a good neighbor)

7.       The United States rides a dark horse in the Middle East

The U.S. Middle East policy has been in crisis for some time. No secret. Some (I’m one of them) would go further and say that it is, overall in shambles with no long term strategy, a more and more militarized policy which just lurks from one crisis to another. No vision, No de Gaulles to save us from ourselves. It is a policy that has welded virtually every U.S. administration since World War 2 to Arab tyrants – secular and religious, and Israeli policies against the Palestinians and neighboring Arab people.

To that overall structural rot long perculating add the U.S. invasion of Iraq, and the wars in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia. The combined impact of these policies has led to a precipitous loss of U.S. prestige throughout the region. At some point…and it sure seems we’re almost there, the negative reaction that these policies have triggered boil over that they threaten U.S  strategic regional interests there  (specifically oil and natural gas) unless things change. The United States has been riding dark Middle East horses for decades; Washington is glued to them in fact with a political epoxy from which it has been unable to free itself (not that it wants to).

Among other things, the Arab Spring exposed to the bare bone, the weakness of U.S. Middle East policy.  The U.S. has had strong ties for decades with leaders in so many of these countries – perhaps with the sole exception of Syria. Strong ties? Even that is an understatement, without U.S. support a good many Middle East dictators, blessed with the label of `moderates’ in Washington, could not maintain power.  Washington had even made its peace with Khadaffi. Supporting the Tunisian `people’s coup’ gave Washington a chance to change course just to the slightest degree and to identify with the historic movement of the Arab peoples, rather than against it…and of course slap the French in the face (it really is a very small slap actually) which pleases Washington.

Imad Trabelsi backyard swimming pool. Notice retaining wall he made the neighbors pay for to assure his privacy for bashes

8.       Othman challenges the `U.S.-uses-Qatar-and-Al Jazeera to overthrow-Ben-Ali’ conspiracy

In this part of the world, conspiracy theories abound. Of course we in the U.S. should talk with all the attention the 9-11 conspiracies have gotten! Actually the reason for this in the Middle East is that there are a lot of conspiracies actually taking place. William Burroughs has that wonderful line defining paranoids as simply people who have more facts than others.

That said the current conspiracy theory about the Tunisian revolution is that it was engineered by the Americans (who else?) through the Qataris and Al Jazeera tv. It doesn’t hold water. Othman doesn’t think so and neither do I. His main point is simple: Othman argues rightly here that such a theory denigrates the role of the Tunisian people in their own mass effort to overthrow Ben Ali. This people’s coup was not hatched in Washington via Qatar and televised by Al Jazeera, although at a critical moment Al Jazeera’s reporting helped create awareness and support for the rising social movement.

It was `hatched’ by a quarter of a century of Ben Ali’s repression, of his regime slavishly following IMF and World Bank structural adjustment policies, of massive unemployment and neglect of the country’s interior and of a rapacious uncontrolled greed of two crude nouveau riche arrogant clans – the Ben Ali’s and the Trabelsi’s, who have gotten off quite lightly for the many crimes they have committed against the Tunisian people

Trashed SUV in Imad Trabelsi's backyard. This is also the guy accused having stole a French banker's yacht, and like a car thief, had had it repainted and the numbers changed. Nice guy...and `pas un bon voisin` too boot

9. A new alliance?

The more controversial part of Othman’s hypothesis is that he openly credits the United States for having helped enable the Tunisian changes and doesn’t really mind giving the Obama Administration credit for it. Takes a bit of courage to defend that position, and courage on Nawaat’s part to publish the piece too. The argument is simply that for a moment in time, without illusions, that the needs of Tunisian democracy coincide with developing U.S. strategy in the region. Not a marriage of love, but one of convenience.

Othman makes this argument in a classically Tunisian manner. It is not out of ignorance of the overall U.S. role in the Middle East. Tunisians, of left, right or center are not stupid. Comes with being a small country! To survive you have to be brighter than bigger and frankly not very nice neighbors – Algeria and Libya. The more I watch Tunisian foreign policy, the more I am impressed by both its cosmopolitan nature and its political pragmatism. Tunisians know Washington and Obama; they understand the parameters of power under which their situation is evolving. But they also know that their close relationship with France over decades have yielded them little to nothing.

Othman speaks of France’s claims of solidarity with Tunisia as being `no more than words, and essentially demogagic’ ( “que la France dont les protestations d’amitié pour le peuple tunisien restent purement verbales et démagogiques”). He ‘s got French Tunisia policy pegged. So what does Tunisia have to lose by distancing itself from France and edging closer to the United States which is just acting, , as any imperialist power would act, trying to enhance its strategic interests in the region and improve its image by befriending Tunisia?

This is not the line of reasoning the line of reasoning of a Tunisian neo-conservative pandering to Washington instead of Paris. It is something far different from what I can understand, although it is a gamble for Tunisia rolling the dice with Washington, obviously.

Then what is it?

Practical choices for small countries are rather limited, at least within the framework of traditional world politics. Tunisia finds itself caught in the the dilemma of many of the world’s small countries, trapped as potential pawns in the big power game to try to figure out which way the wind is blowing and what alliances to make with the world powers that might further their national interests.

author in front of apartment building he lived in 43 years ago - 65 Ave. de la Liberte, across the street from the Monoprix. The cafe his friends and he used to hang out in trying to read Le Monde together is now an optical store. A pity, but that's progress folks. photo credit: Laura Feliu

10. New direction for U.S. Tunisian relations?

So… the U.S. green light, the Tunisian revolution could have turned to a blood bath.  In recognition of the U.S. role, Tunisia opens a new page its relations with the United States, downgrading them a bit (here let’s not exaggerate too much) with Paris. On the basis premise, Othman is `on spot’. Ghannouchi’s `informal’ invitation to the U.S. only reinforces the validity of his views. U.S. – Tunisian approaches are being coordinated. Ghannouchi was careful not to let any issue that might side track the cooperation – like adding a section of the proposed constitution to complicate the relations. He has made other gestures in the direction of damage control as well.

What is important is to understanding the underlying processes taking place, if only to be able to come to grips with the reality: and the reality in this case is that somewhere along the way, the United States has decided that it will cooperate with Ennahdha and that there is a new U.S.-Ennahdha strategic relationship in the making. Indeed it is already made.

Othman gives the Obama Administration credit for understanding Ennahdha far better than the French have. The French fear it as yet another manifestation of Islamic fundamentalism masked with a cover of European liberalism. There are some Tunisians here, by the way who feel likewise. More than the French, the Obama Administration has come to understand that Ennahdha’s represents a genuine political force in Tunisian life. Yes it is a mixed bag and is currently experiencing some problems winning the country’s trust, some of its own making I might add.

The new alliance builds on similar relations the United States has with Turkey. It shows a modicum of realism, a willingness to deal with a Middle East country more on its own terms, rather on terms dictated by Washington and as such, also is an admission of declining U.S. influence as Washington can no longer dictate Middle East policy. It needs to be more flexible to maintain its interests. It is the beginning of recognition in the U.S. Administration of a need for a changed U.S. policy, perhaps too little too late – U.S. policy in the Middle East has done enormous damage already that will not be so easily undone

Yes, there are many problems with this strategic alliance both from Tunisian and the United States point of view but in a region where the U.S. is drowning in bad and inhumane policies – contrast it support for Tunisian democracy with its policies towards much more strategically important Egypt, it is – at least a glimmer of hope on an otherwise dark regional tableau.

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Links to the rest of the series:

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

The Amilcar Notes 2 – Tunisia: Emerging Democracy or Just Frills

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

The Amilcar Notes 4 – Tunisia and the New Islamic Politics

The Amilcar Notes 6 – Tunisia Installs A New Government: the Constituent Assembly

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

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

The Amilcar Notes 9 - Little Country, Big U.S. Embassy: Tunisia’s Place in U.S. Strategy Toward N. Africa

The Amilcar Notes 10 - Remembering Farhad Hached: An Afternoon With `We Love Kerkennah’

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

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.

In the United States and Europe, there has been some `surprise’ at this electoral turn of events although all the indications are that after all the moaning and groaning in Washington about the Islamic fundamentalist threat, that the Obama Administration is willing to make its peace with `political Islam’ and at least give it a chance. Not that the Americans or the Europeans have any choice. The Arab peoples didn’t ask Washington permission to revolt as I recall. Still, given recent history it is a curious alliance, both for the Arabs and the Americans.

Some people ask how did this happen? What happened to these mostly secular radicalized youth for whom religion did not seem to play a role (and didn’t). How is that Tunisia’s militant youth in jeans, carrying cell phones to which they are addicted, those whose courage and militancy brought down the dictator are now being replaced in the public eye by politicians in three piece suits talking about free market capitalism, the Koran and making silly statements about how unwed moms are ruining the country?

The long term explanation for the shift goes like this: Tunisia has always been – or at least since around 700 a.d.-  an overwhelmingly Moslem country. In Tunisia, despite the fact that yes, there are some Jews and Christians, the country is overwhelmingly Sunni Moslem. Religion in the cultural glue; its diversity is found in language, be it French, Imazighan (Berber). This situation, which extends to other North African countries, differs from the Arab East where it is the Arabic language that gives a connection to peoples that have long been more religiously diverse.

In North Africa thus, separating Islam from politics or culture is not possible. Why the surprise then, that Tunisian political institutions shouldn’t on some fundamental level be so influenced? There is also the forgotten (but not here in Tunisia) fact that European colonialism’s assault on the region, from the outset after the Napoleonic invasion of Egypt, has always included a strong Christian proselytizing element which denigrated Islam, sometimes more aggressively, as in Algeria, sometimes with a somewhat lighter touch as here in Tunisia. Tunisia has two Islamic institutions of great importance. The holy city of Kairoaun, third most important place in the Sunni Moslem world after Mecca and Jerusalem and Ez Zitouna University, which claims to be the oldest teaching establishment in the Arabic speaking world. Older than the Sorbonne, Oxford, Cambridge, Heidelberg by hundreds of years, founded in 737 Ez Zitouna has been in continuous existence since then.

It is true that Tunisia’s first president, Habib Bourguiba, insisted on separating church (or mosque) from state. But he never was so foolish as to challenge the fundamental Islamic nature of Tunisian society. He just tried to modernize it. His biggest contribution, acknowledged by many Tunisians even today was a modern secular education system based more or less upon a French model. In those early Bourguiba budgets a full 50% of the funds were earmarked for education. Furthermore, it wasn’t as if Tunisian Islam at the advent of independence resembled the much more conservative  Saudi wahhabist model. Even then it was a much more tolerant, flexible variety which really didn’t conflict very much with Bourguiba’s educational reforms.

The vilification of Islam did not start with President George Bush’s declaration of jihad against Islam but has been a part and project of the European colonial project and what could be called the American neo-colonial project. It runs deep. While there are many solid exposes on the subject, one of the better ones – Edward Said’s Orientalism stands out among the best. In it he speaks of a ‘constellation of false assumptions Western attitudes towards the Middle East.”

In response to colonialism, there has been a long struggle of defense of Islam. It has been an integral part of virtually all the North African anti-colonial struggles; the Islamic religion has been written into all the constitutions, although how so, in different ways. Add to this picture the failure of Western secular political models to deliver on the twin promises of modernism: more democracy and more development, and perhaps one can better understand the drift towards `Islamic politics’ in North Africa and throughout the region. If communism has collapsed unceremoniously, and what we might call bourgeois democracy comes to North Africa in the faces of Mubarek and Ben Ali, why not go back to the tried and true religion which has, at least, offered solace these past decades to get through hard times.

Blue Mosque, Istambul

2. Region moving towards Islamic politics

On a more immediate level, writing in Le Monde on December 78, 2011, Alan Frachon does a good job explaining the political shift in the Middle East towards political Islam, that rings true here in Tunisia. Sitting here in Amilcar, just outside of Tunis, now ten days into a three week stay in Tunisia, I’ve been thinking about that too.

Frachon cites four themes to help explain the rise of the Islamic parties. They are worth probing, although I also have some observations of my own to add to the overall picture.

First, while none of them initiated the demonstrations in their countries that they were the best organized forces and thus were able to take advantage of the political vacuum created by the departure of tyrants like Mubarak and Ben Ali. It is a sad fact that those who made the revolutions – mostly disenfranchised youth – in all these countries were essentially excluded from power across the board when the elections took place, although they remain active in the social movements which if anything are as critical now to democracy as they were before the regime change.

This is not unique. There are many examples where those who make the revolutions do not come to power (whether France in 1789, Russia 1917, Eastern Europe 1989 or now the Arab World 2011). It appears to be more of a rule than an exception. The Middle East parties who have been able to take advantage of this situation are by no means radical. While their rhetoric might talk of ‘continuing’ or `deepening’ the revolution, these parties tend to be rather conservative in the main. Do not expect them to tamper too much with neo-liberal capitalism nor to dismantle the state security apparatus they inherited.

This theme certainly reflects what I have been experiencing in Tunisia where Ennahdha, the Islamic Party came out the clear winner by a long shot. It also reflects the situation in Egypt and Morocco where elections yielded similar results.

The second point that Frachon makes is that these results could have easily been predicted, and some cases actually were. He cites a University of Maryland survey taken in five Middle Eastern countries –Lebanon, Egypt, Jordan, Morocco and the Arab Emirates asking respondents to name the most admired foreign power in the world today. The answer came back overwhelmingly – Turkey, this despite knowing that there is repression against dissident voices is commonplace there as are terrorist bombings (atteintes). No question – Turkey is the model: limited democracy, a capitalist economy, the separation of church and state, and in the Turkish case, a military ready to step in `if necessary’. It is not only Arab countries that are counting on Turkey but the United States as well, as Turkey’s security role in the region under the NATO umbrella is continually expanded.

Thirdly, secularism in the Arab world has a bad name. It is associated with the oppressive regimes, Ben Ali or Mubarek and marks nothing short of an ideological failure of that model.  People in the United States, Canada and Europe might associate secularism with democracy, but in the Arab World it was integrally linked with the oppressive system put in place by the dictators. Propping up these dictators, singing democracy’s song while supporting some of the most repressive regimes in the world, has long been the modis vivendi for the United States, France, UK and Italy.  As any kind of oppositional organizing or criticism was crushed, it wasn’t possible for secular opposition parties to get any kind of a serious foothold or popular base.  In reaction to the abuses of the secular dictatorship, Tunisians found refuge in the mosque and attendance began to grow along with the repression.

Islamicists were oppressed too, indeed in Tunisia Ben Ali had nothing short of  an obsession with them. But Ben Ali couldn’t destroy the mosques as the Islamic religion runs too deep in the country. It has long been a tolerant, flexible variety of Islam in tandem with the cosmopolitan Tunisian people, descendants of the Phoenicians. Although ripples of fundamentalism have appeared recently (more on that later), Tunisia, unlike a place like Yemen, has never been a Salafist stronghold, to the contrary. Under Ben Ali, with no other place to turn, no social space where they could feel at home and protected, people flocked to the mosques, creating the social basis for the Islamicist political party rise, as well as a wellspring of sympathy for what in Tunisia it had suffered. Deprived of dignity in a civil society that denigrated and oppressed them daily, the only thing left for many Tunisians to retain a small modicum of dignity was their religion. They grabbed hold.

Frachon’s fourth point is very simple and accurate: once this wave of demonstrations began there was no way for the United States to stop them. What was Washington going to do, bomb the Tunisian people with F-16s or send in the marines to counter the massive demonstrations there? Not only was the United States caught off guard by the amplitude of the demonstrations, but it really didn’t know how to respond in a way that would protect U.S. strategic interests, especially oil, once they began.

Iraqi prisoner being humiliated and tortured at Abu Ghraib, Iraq.

3. U.S. War in Iraq, Israeli Treatment of Palestinians factors in Islamization of politics in Tunisia…or the Bush-Ben Ali Double Whammy

Another thing that came into play that Frachon neglected to mention has been the impact of satellite tv. Channels like Al Jazeera brought the war in Iraq, the Israeli invasion of Lebanon and its military plundering of Gaza onto tv screens throughout the Arab world (and beyond). Of course Tunisians didn’t need Al Jazeera to know what has been going on in Iraq and in Palestine (Israeli Occupied Territories), but it did remove any lingering filters. They have long known both situations, but  the power of the images seen on television only brought home to them even more the unfolding horrors. Al Jazeera did not hold back on showing the results of those wars.  This not only increased anti-Americanism in the region – already it had a long history actually  – every time that the United States vetoed a resolution critical of Israel in the UN, but it cemented forever in the minds of Arabs the U.S.- Israeli connection.

It is impossible to measure the depth of the support in Tunisia for Palestine. It is pervasive. Even though Israel-Palestine is thousands of miles from Tunisia, Palestinians and Tunisians speak the same language, Arabic and are linked culturally despite the distances. Watching Israel pounding away at the Palestinians and the U.S. both arming and supporting Israel’s every move has been another humiliation that Tunisians have to suffer.  People cannot see such suffering on t.v.without internalizing it, and feeling that it is also theirs. The images leave psychic bruises

The same goes for the U.S. war on terrorism, which despite denials is essentially an anti-Islamic crusade attacking both Arabs and Muslims. Americans might have forgotten about Obama’s pledge to shut down the prison in Guantanamo, but I can assure that Tunisians have not; many have asked about it. I have also been asked by a number of Tunisians how the tortures committed at Abu Ghraib in Iraq can square with U.S. stated concerns about human and civil rights. Hard one to answer…at least truthfully.

Humiliated at home by Ben Ali and internationally by the United States, Tunisians turned to their last refuge, the mosques and not surprisingly to the more religious oriented political parties.

It will take more than a few good speeches by Obama in Ankara and Cairo to change that.

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Links:

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

The Amilcar Notes 2 Tunisia: Emerging Democracy or Just Frills?

The Amilcar Notes 3  Tunisia: The Forgotten Socio-Economic Crisis

The Amilcar Notes 5 The US-Tunisian Experiment: New Directions In US Middle East Foreign Policy?

The Amilcar Notes 6 - Tunisia Installs A New Government: The Constituent Assembly

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

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

The Amilcar Notes 9 - Little Country, Big U.S. Embassy: Tunisia’s Place in U.S. Strategy Towards N. Africa

The Amilcar Notes 10 - Remembering Farhad Hached: An Afternoon with `We Love Kerkennah’