TUNISIA

Area: 63,170 square miles

Population: 10,175,014 (2006 estimate)

Capital: Tunis, pop. 1,660,300 - metro area, 699,700 - city proper, (2003 estimate)

Ethnic Groups: Arab-Berber (98%), European (1%), Jewish/other (1%)

Religions: Islam (Sunni) (98%), Christian (1%), Jewish/other (1%)

Languages: Arabic (official, commerce), French (commerce)

Literacy: 74% (2003 estimate)

Life Expectancy: 73 years

Industry: Phospates, petroleum refining, steel, chemicals, cement, mining, textiles, tourism

Export Crops: Fruit, olive oil, cotton

Food Crops: Wheat, barley, fruit

Tunisia is part of the region known as the Maghrib, from its Arabic name meaning "the West." The region also includes Morocco and Algeria. The earliest inhabitants of the present-day Maghrib were known collectively as Berbers (from the Greek barbaros, or barbarian), the name given to them by the Greeks and Romans. Today the Berber people prefer to call themselves Imazighen (Amazigh, singular), meaning “free men.” In the first millennium B.C.E., Phoenicians arrived and set up trading centers along the Mediterranean coast. In 814 B.C.E., Phoenician settlers led by Queen Dido founded Carthage (located near present-day Tunis), which developed as an important maritime trade metropolis in an empire that stretched from North Africa to the Iberian Peninsula, Sardinia, and Sicily.

The city-state of Carthage was the only ancient power seriously able to threaten the rise of the Roman Empire. Rome waged a series of devastating wars - called the Punic Wars - against Carthage for control of the Mediterranean that were spread over more than a century (264-241, 218-201, and 149-146 B.C.E.). In the Second Punic War, Hannibal, a Carthaginean general who did not lose a battle in 17 years, crossed the Alps on elephants and invaded Rome. In 146 B.C.E. the Romans finally defeated Carthage, which they renamed Africa and established as their first Roman Colony. The name "Africa" possibly originated from a Latin word Aprica (sunny), or a Greek word Aphrike (without cold), or a Berber or Phoenician word which meant "Ears of Corn." Whatever the origin of the new name for the region, nearly 700 years of Roman rule followed, and the region became known as the granary of Rome. Under Roman rule, Carthage became a center for Christian scholarship and the home of the Berber philosopher St. Augustine. Some of the Berber inhabitants converted to Christianity, for the most part joining the Donatist sect.

After the decline of the Roman Empire, the Germanic Vandals took over Carthage in 439 C.E., followed by the Byzantines in 533 C.E. When the Arabs swept into North Africa during the 7th century, an Islamic saint-crusader named Sidi Oqba ibn Nafi established the first Islamic city in the region at Kairouan (Kairwan), south of present-day Tunis, in 663 C.E., today considered the fourth holiest city of Islam after Mecca, Medina, and Jerusalem. The Arabs called the region Ifriqiya, an "Arabised" version of the name Africa. Although Islam spread through the region with relative ease, the Arab conquerors faced pockets of resistance from the Berbers. One of the great resistance leaders was the Kahina, a Berber queen who led her army against the Arabs, checking their advancement in Ifriqiya for over ten years. In 800 C.E., the Emir Ibrahim ibn Aghla founded the Aghlabid Dynasty which extended Arab rule over Ifriqiya, eastern Algeria, and part of Sicily for more than 100 years, and made Kairouan its capital.

After the political fragmentation of the Arab empire, Tunisia became part of the Moroccan empire of the Almohads. During the 13th century the Hafsid monarchy, Berber descendants of the al-Muwahhid Dynasty, rose to power, ruling from 1207 until 1574, a period of stability and great prosperity. Eventually, the Ottoman Turks defeated the Hafsids. During the 17th and 18th centuries, direct Ottoman rule developed into rule by a local elite descended from the Turkish militia who settled in the area, mixing in with the Berber inhabitants. By the 18th century they had produced their own national monarchy, the Husainid beys, who, like other regimes, emphasized trade and enriched the region through the production and export of olive oil. They also profited from piracy and protection money extracted from nations trading in the Mediterranean.

With the Ottoman Empire in decline by the 1830s, North Africa was destablized by the imperial ambitions of the French, who invaded Algeria in 1830, partly in retaliation against the Barbary Coast pirates who attacked European ships and disrupted trade. In spite of heroic efforts on the part of Tunisian ruler Ahmad Bey, his successor Mohamed Bey, and Prime Minister Khair al-Din to remain autonomous in the face of European imperialism, France invaded Tunisia from Algeria with an army of 30,000 in 1881 and declared a French Protectorate in 1883. By the turn of the century, French settlers had appropriated some of the most fertile farm land and began phosphate mining in the south. However, since they never exceeded 7% of the total population throughout the period of French control, they exercised relatively minor influence over Tunisian religious and cultural life.

Almost immediately, reformist social movements started lobbying for greater Tunisian participation in government and better access to Western-style education. In 1920 the Destour Party demanded a constitutional government ensuring equality between Tunisians and French settlers. When the bey championed the party’s cause two years later, the French threatened to shut down the movement with military force. In 1934 Habib Bourguiba, a Sorbonne- educated lawyer, formed the Neo-Destour Party, which became highly successful at mobilizing populist support for national liberation. In 1938 the Neo-Destour Party was outlawed and Bourguiba and other leaders were arrested and deported to France. In 1942 during World War II when Germany occupied both France and Tunisia, Bourguiba was released. Despite his refusal to support the Axis powers, he was allowed to return to Tunis. After the war, the French returned to power. After waging two years of guerrilla warfare against the French, Bourguiba and his liberation movement eventually forced France to grant autonomy to Tunisia in 1955.

In 1956 Tunisia became an independent constitutional monarchy headed by the last Husainid bey with Habib Bourguiba as president of the National Assembly. In 1957 the bey was deposed and Bourguiba was elected president of the new republic. In the 1960s and 1970s Tunisia followed an enlightened path of moderate socialism and campaigns for social justice, women’s rights, and education, which transformed the small nation into one of the most literate and progressive in Africa. Bourguiba limited military spending and allocated most of the national budget to education, agriculture, and health. Some critics, however, saw Bourguiba’s legal and social reforms as an affront to tradional Islamic law and custom. Others noted Bourguiba’s extreme measures to consolidate his own power and his growing intolerance for political opposition over the years. After driving his opponents from the Socialist Destour Party, the only legal political party, Bourguiba was named president for life in 1975, at the age of 72.

After ruling for thirty years, Bourguiba was deposed in 1987 by Prime Minister Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, who declared him mentally unfit. Ben Ali was formally elected president in 1989 and reelected in 1994. He won 99.44% of the vote in 1999 and 94.49% of the vote in 2004. Although other political parties are legal in Tunisia, they have little power against the governing party, the Constitutional Democratic Rally (RCD). The Islamic Fundamentalist Movement (Ennahdha) is banned because political parties of a religious or linguistic nature are illegal.

Tunisia is a leader in the Arab world in promoting the legal and social status of women. Women were granted full legal status in 1956 which allows them to run and own businesses, have bank accounts, and seek passports under their own authority. Since 1956 polygamy has been outlawed in Tunisia. Parents are required to send their daughters to school. Today 50% of university students are women. The government also supports a family planning program that has successfully reduced the population growth rate to just over 1% per annum, contributing to Tunisia’s economic and social stability.

SOURCES:

Appiah, Kwame Anthony, and Henry Louis Gates, Jr., ed. Microsoft Encarta Africana: Comprehensive Encyclopedia of Black History and Culture. CD Set. Microsoft Corporation, 1999.

Crowther, Geoff, et al. Africa. Oakland, California: Lonely Planet Publications, 1995.

Fischer, Jan Otakar. "Tunisia's Holiest City," The New York Times, September 22, 1991.

Mazrui, Ali A. The Africans: A Triple Heritage. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1986.

Oliver, Roland, and Michael Crowder, ed. The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Africa. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1981.

“Tunisia,” Lycos Infoplease.Com. http://infoplease.lycos.com/ipa/A0108050.html, 2007.

"Tunisia History," http://www.tunisiaonline.com/hist/hist.html,January 2, 1997.

Compiled by Mary Holmström and updated in February 2007.

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