On Tunisian Revolutions

In this short piece, Julia Clancy-Smith argues that it is necessary to view Tunisia’s Jasmine Revolution as more than a revolt against Ben Ali’s kleptocracy. Instead, she looks to longue durée patterns going back to colonial times to attempt to make sense of Tunisia’s recent history. Ultimately, Clancy-Smith argues that the source of Tunisian unrest is in large part a result of gradual “coastalization.” Essentially, “coastalization” is when the coastline becomes increasingly important to a state’s power at the expense of the hinterland. In Tunisia’s case, ‘coastalization’ began in the bey’s palace with the Bardo Treaty, allowing the formation of the French protectorate. Over time, the coast became a far more cosmopolitan place than it ever had been before, filled with French, Italians, Maltese, Tunisians, and more. However, ethnic Tunisians lost opportunities—agricultural and otherwise—to the French and Italians, who expropriated Tunisian land. At the same time, a tourist industry began to emerge and the cities of La Marsa, Sidi Bou Said, and La Goulette all quickly rose alongside Tunis and Carthage, moving power away from older centers like Kairouan.

As the tourist industry sped up, the Tunisian interior lost much wealth due to factors like urbanization (with people moving to coastal cities like Sousse, Monastir, Sfax, and Tunis). Moreover, climate change has hit the Tunisian interior particularly hard, as it lacks steady access to water resources. It is no surprise, then, that the Jasmine Revolution began in the interior city of Sidi Bouzid.

Clancy-Smith doesn’t say this all outright, but I do think she is onto something. She continues to argue that the “hinterland” came to function as Tunisia’s “other,” in contrast to ethnic minorities (namely Amazigh) in Morocco and Algeria or religious minorities (namely Copts) in Egypt. I am not sure whether the author is entirely correct, but her arguments are certainly worth thinking about.