On Tunisia

I was really excited to read this book, but I was not thoroughly impressed. In short, Safwan Masri’s argument is that Tunisia is the success story of the Arab Spring. Although its situation was precarious with the resurgence of Ennahda following the Jasmine Revolution, the Tunisian people managed to cobble together a coalition government that minimized Ennahda’s Islamist tendencies and built a secular, seemingly enduring democratic government. Masri looks into the past—both distant and recent—to find the origins of liberal attitudes among Tunisians and ultimately argues that Tunisia has always been a pluralistic society oriented simultaneously towards the Orient and Occident, allowing it to transform itself in recent years.

To me, this argument seems short-sighted. Masri is absolutely correct when he says that Tunisia has been far more successful in democratization than other Arab countries, but this does not mean liberal democracy is a foregone conclusion. The reality on the ground is that the Tunisian economy is in shambles. Certainly, it is better than other countries in the Arab world, but university professors barely make enough money to support a family of four (so they’re leaving the country for better paid positions), students are orienting themselves to primarily Italian and French universities to continue their education, and unemployment is generally rampant. Without some degree of prosperity, Tunisians will doubtlessly lose faith in democracy and look to other forms of governance (as far as I can tell, this is already beginning to occur).

Moreover, there is widespread distrust of the police. When I was in Tunisia earlier this summer, my phone was stolen, so I went to the police to report it. Two of my friends heavily urged me to ask the police if I needed to “pay for their services,” as corruption is widespread. Indeed, people frequently lowered their heads when walking where police were posted (and, in truth, they seemed pervasive). I was told one story about a boy who was wrongfully detained by the police and spent years in prison. His mother begged the police to let her see her son, but they would not. Eventually, it came out that the boy was killed and buried in cement as construction was being done on roads. I don’t know if this story is entirely true, but I do think that it illustrates the attitudes people have of police. Without the idea that the police (and, by degrees, the state) work for the general population, true democratization is impossible.

In any case, the book is structured incredibly strangely. Masri divides the text into three parts. In the first part, Masri tells the story of the Jasmine Revolution. In the second party (~100 pages), Masri traces the “origins of Tunisian identity” from the formation of Carthage to independence. In this section, he emphasizes the importance of reformist strains of thought (after all, was Ibn Khaldun not born in Tunis?), but seems to leave out the larger picture and other political and intellectual developments taking place at the same time as reformist strains. In the third section, Masri begins with a short history of Tunisia under Habib Bourguiba before analyzing the three pillars that makes Tunisia “unique.” To Masri, these pillars are secularism, feminism, and education. Masri finds that Tunisia is unique in the Arab world for its secular, feminist, and educational policies. He may very well be right, but this section, if it were to be of any use, must be deeply comparative. Masri throws some punches at his native Jordan, but he fails to sustain a comparative analysis of Tunisia with its Arab neighbors.

Perhaps he falls into another trap that he mentions at the beginning of the book. Masri argues that Tunisians, when comparing themselves with the rest of the world, do not use the Arab world as a reference point, but instead look to Europe and the United States. Although the book may read as more chauvinistic had he done so, Masri may have better luck looking at the style of liberalization that has taken (and is taking) place in Tunisia in comparison to Europe—both eastern and western. After all, Tunisia today seems far less liberal than nations like France or Germany, but much more liberal compared to nations like Poland, Hungary, and Serbia.

Nevertheless, Masri’s writing is easy to read, and the book goes by quickly. It offers a bare-bones history of Tunisia, but for those with serious interest would have better luck looking elsewhere (I recommend Kenneth Perkins’s History of Modern Tunisia and Philip Naylor’s History of North Africa).