On Habib Bourguiba of Tunisia

This is, perhaps, the only complete biography of Tunisia’s founding father in the English language. I certainly have not found any others, although there are plenty in French and (surely) numerous Arabic biographies as well. In this piece, Derek Hopwood is overall quite balanced. He recognizes that Bourguiba was crucial to Tunisian independence and the formation of the Tunisian state.

Written just a few years after Ben Ali took power, this book ends with the “unbolting of the statues” and the forgetting of Habib Bourguiba. It is funny looking back on Bourguiba’s Tunisia now, as Bourguiba has been—by and large—rehabilitated. Most tunisians recognize that he lost control in the 80s, but generally have a very positive view of him. Written so soon after Ben Ali took power, Hopwood is quite harsh. Above all, Hopwood finds that Bourguiba was rather narcissistic and was, at times, a bit of a megalomaniac. Nonetheless, Hopwood highlights what defined Habib Bourguiba. It seems to me that nothing impacted this man more than his relationship with his mother. It defined his relationship with both of his wives, his niece, his feminist policies, and his need to feel nurtured. Bourguiba’s unstable health also defined his entire life, not just his last decade.

I do think that Hopwood is a bit liberal with comparisons. When comparing Bourguiba to other “great men” (for better or for worse), he looks to Napoleon, Hitler, and Stalin. This is unjust and obscures Bourguiba’s real place in contemporary history. It may have been better to juxtapose him with his anticolonial contemporaries: Jawaharlal Nehru, Kwame Nkrumah, Léopold Senghor, Ho Chi Minh, Zhou Enlai, and perhaps even Boumedienne or Ben Bella.

Nevertheless, this is a good book on a relatively unknown character from an unjustifiably ignored country.