Almost ten years ago the School of Oriental and African Studies, (SOAS) awarded me a small research grant to go to Tunisia with the aim of charting her growing relationship with the EU. Algeria, Morrocco, ultimately Libya joined an EU free trade deal to open markets and democratise instutions. Ten years on these initiatives have grossly failed in a hail of bloodshed and crack down. The countries of the Maghreb have been given the benefit of the doubt by France, the US and the UK because the Tunisian President Ben Ali – who took power in a coup d’etat in 1987 – have been prepared to use torture, rendition and execution to eliminate all opposition – liberals, communists, moderate islamists.
In 1999 I returned to Tunisia to visit various friends, but at Tunis airport I was held for 14 hours as a danger to national security and deported the following morning. This treatment caused me tremendous upset because all the Tunisian people I met during my academic project were unfailingly kind, anxious to know how a democracy worked and proud of their heritage from Greek and Roman times.
Reports that the French President Sarkozy has refused entry to France for Ben Ali are to be welcomed and would mark a shift in French policy compared to Mitterand and Chirac who were prepared to tolerate his one party regime.
Tunisia and her people need friends now not simply British tourists on cheap holidays in securitry-managed resorts and Liberal Demcrats like myself stand ready to help – provided my passport isn’t marked!
Ron Aitkin was a Lib Dem councillor in Haringey from 2002-2010.
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One Comment
Granted this piece would have been submitted a few days ago, but this was indeed the case and Ben Ali settled on Saudi. I doubt this was a sign of a virtuous policy on Tunisia by France – there previously had been Governmental suggestions of ‘lending’ French riot police to Tunis – than the realization that the ancien regieme was going (with 1.5 tonnes of gold) and that she should stay on the right side of the successor.
I wouldn’t describe Tunisia as a US backwater, though.
Out of interest, Ron, given that one father and daughter tag-team are at work with the National Front in France, what d’you think of Rashid and Yusra Ghannouchi?