Tunisia : Where do you belong?

I grew up in Tunisia in the 80's and 90's in a small-sized town, middle-class family to western educated parents. My parents lived in europe for almost a decade before moving back to Tunisia and settling down close to their parents. As far back as I can remember, we always had our eyes turned toward europe and the western world in general (Thanks to the parents) while being at the same time very deeply rooted in Tunisian traditions (Thanks to the grandparents). This double identity of some sorts manifests itself at various levels in Tunisian society starting with the school environment.

The educational system at that time taught people Arabic and French concurrently starting in 4th grade and through senior year in high school. French was considered as necessary for scientific education. Throughout high school, all science classes are taught in French (Math, Biology, Physics, Chemistry, etc). Arguably, some people never catch the French-speaking train and end up falling behind whether by dropping out of school or by pursuing art&litterature majors in High School where most classes are taught in arabic. This dual system ended up producing a small number (10%) of perfectly bi-lingual high school graduates, a significant proportion of people who were only fluent in one language (arabic or french) and sadly a large percentage of people who were capable of communicating fluently in neither languages. To make matters worse in certain cases, English is taught starting in 10th grade. Other languages like Italian, German or Spanish are available for people who want to pursue them for extra credit in their high school diploma.

To accentuate this, the arabic dialect spoken at home and on the streets is a mix of Arabic, French and other imported words from Italian and Spanish. For exmaple, the word "kitchen" in Tunisian is "koujina" which is an arabisation of the italian word "Cuccina". This mix of origins for the day-to-day spoken language reinforces the sense of Melting Pot and reflects the migratory influxes which are at the heart of tunisian history (from Carthage to the Muslim wave in the 7th century and then later the Vikings and the Spanish inquisition exodus and finally, french and italian settlers in the 19th century). At the same time, this makes people notice that their daily language is not arabic as perceived by the rest of the world. Pick an average person from the middle east and they can't undertand two tunisians discussing a casual topic.

So as a summary, we have a population that does not belong neither in the european sphere because of language barriers (but also, and perhaps more importantly, cultural barriers, we'll explore that another time) nor in the Middle East or african spheres for the same reasons.

This dichotomy exposes some of the schizophrenia and identity confusion that is inherent in tunisian society: Are tunisians "arabs" in the middle eastern sense? Clearly not. Are they africans in the subsaharian sense? Are they european? Certainly not. Are tunisians "mediterraneans"? euh, I guess so!

That's the best affiliation that I can find for tunisians in general. The tunisian way of life is so much closer to the way people live in Beyrout, Palermo or Malaga than it is to Amman or Kuwait city.

I was so hopeful about the so-called "Barcelona process" back in 1995 which was supposed to bring peace to the region by addressing the delicate issues of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict (I hate it when people call this conflict the Arab-Israeli conflict because it is in reality not ...) and create a space where populations on both sides of the mediterranean could live together peacefully, coorperate and share the benefits of prosperity. This didn't happen and a new initiative was launched again last year by the President Sarkozy to little enthusiasm from all the involved parties. There is so much at stake in anchroing the maghreb (Tunisia+Algeria+Morocoo and someday Libya) to the mediterranean sphere instead of putting it in an inadequate box either with the rest of the african continent or the middle east at large.

This identity vaccum in the region is being filled today by imported identities from the middle east which do not correspond to historical values that tunisian society has. And the battle for our own identity is being lost everyday, satellite TV has too much impact on the population when no alternative solution is available ...