Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, October/November 1998, page 64

A Country Report on Tunisia

Tunisia Still Going Its Own Way

By Richard H. Curtiss

Since winning its independence from France in 1956, Tunisia has always gone its own way. A small country of fewer than 10 million people, its natural resources are its mild climate, beautiful scenery, broad beaches, fertile rain-fed agricultural land in the northern third of its territory, and some of the most significant archeological and historic sites in North Africa.

By contrast, its two much larger neighbors, Algeria with more than 30 million inhabitants and similar topography, and Libya with more than 6 million inhabitants but largely lacking arable land, each have vast deposits of petroleum and gas. Yet, incredibly, Tunisians have longer life expectancy and a higher per capita income than their oil-rich neighbors.

Politically, the contrasts are equally striking. Tunisia’s first president, Habib Bourguiba, was the first to suggest that the Arab world would someday reach an accommodation with Israel based upon the U.N. partition plan of 1947. More than a generation later when that accommodation began with the Oslo accords, Tunisia was one of four Arab League members, along with Egypt, to open economic relations with Israel. Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali also was quick to freeze those relations when Israel reneged on its Oslo accord commitments.

Similarly, while both of its larger neighbors have had border and political disputes with their other neighbors serious enough to lead to armed hostilities, Tunisia has remained on good terms with all countries of the region. Tunisia even provided the headquarters for the Arab League when it relocated from Egypt after the Camp David agreements, and also a headquarters for the Palestine Liberation Organization after it was driven out of Lebanon by Israeli forces.

Tunisia’s political moderation contrasts sharply with the civil strife tormenting Algeria and the United Nations sanctions causing such hardship in Libya. Tunisian political stability has been reflected in its superior social, educational, health and living standards.

When the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs presented a 30-page special report on Tunisia in its November/December 1996 issue, that report attracted more mail than any of the other one-country reports presented over the past few years. Laudatory mail focused on Tunisia’s ability, despite the absence of abundant energy resources, to continue raising its living standards. By contrast, critical mail seemed to hold Tunisia to ideal political and human rights standards not yet attained by any country in the Arab world.

Now, two years later, after a visit to Tunisia by Washington Report news editor Delinda Curtiss Hanley, we’re braced for more of the same. Our news editor focused upon three aspects of contemporary Tunisia: its efficient development of tourism into a major employer and principal source of foreign exchange, its leadership in putting into practice equal rights for women not only in the workplace but in all fields of human activity including marriage and inheritance and, more controversial, a political system in an almost completely Muslim country based solely upon secular law.

For those not familiar with Tunisia, we think our coverage will be not merely enlightening, but astonishing. From those already familiar with Tunisia, we’ll await not only your reactions to our current coverage, but your own insights on this ancient land where the armies, the religions and the cultures of the Middle East, North Africa and the Mediterranean have met and blended for 4,000 years to produce unique, charming and stubbornly independent contemporary Tunisia.