Habib Bourguiba of Tunisia: The Tragedy of Longevity

HABIB BOURGUIBA OF TUNISIA
Also by Derek Hopwood
EGYPT: POLITICS AND SOCIETY

RUSSIAN PRESENCE IN SYRIA AND PALESTINE
*STUDIES IN ARAB HISTORY (editor)
SYRIA: POLmCS AND SOCIETY
TALES OF EMPIRE
*Also from St. Martin's

Habib Bourguiba
of Tunisia
The Tragedy of Longevity
DEREK HOPWOOD
Fellow
St Antony's College, Oxford
Palgrave Macmillan
© Derek Hopwood 1992
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1992 978-0-333-57262-7
All rights reserved. For information, write:
Scholarly and Reference Division,
St. Martin's Press, Inc., 175 Fifth Avenue,
New York, N.Y. 10010
First published in the United States of America in 1992

ISBN 978-1-349-22179-0 ISBN 978-1-349-22177-6 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-22177-6
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Hopwood, Derek.
Habib Bourguiba of Tunisia: the tragedy of longevity / Derek
Hopwood.
p. em.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-312-07182-0
I, Bourguiba, Habib, 1903- 2. Tunisia-Politics and
government. I. Title.
DT3264.3.B6H67 1992
961.10S'l'092-dc20
[B] 91-26388
CIP
For Joanna and Christian
Contents
List of Plates viii
Preface ix
1 Early Days 1
Childhood & school, 1901-24 1
Poor student in Paris, 1924-27 22
2 Struggle for Independence 29

In Tunis until the first arrest, 1927-34 29
First experience of prison, 1934-36 40
Interlude of freedom, 1936-38 45
Under arrest a second time, 1938-43 48
Life abroad, 1943-48 59
Interlude of freedom, 1948-52 70
Third imprisonment and return home, 1952-55 72
3 Tunisia under Bourguiba 80

4 Decline and Fall 95
Removal 101
5 Bourguiba the Man 106
The Complexity of Bourguiba 106
Death, a lifelong obsession 112
Illness, the constant companion 117
All Tunisia's a stage 124
Family relations 129
The tug of Islam 136
To be Arab or French? 141
6 The Changing of Names, the Unbolting of Statues 144
Notes 149
Bibliography 155
Index 157
vii
List of Plates
The author and publishers wish to acknowledge the following
photograph sources and to state that they have tried to contact
all copyright holders; in any case where they may have failed
they will be pleased to make the necessary arrangements to the
first opportunity.
All photographs supplied by the Ministry of Information, Tuni-
sia, originally appeared in 'AI-Habib Bourguiba' published by the
Secretariat of State for Information and Guidance, in Tunis, 1966.
1 Bourguiba at Sadiki College, 1913, seated in the middle of the
front row (Ministry of Information, Tunisia).
2 Bourguiba, aged 20, with his father and brother (Ministry of
Information, Tunisia).
3 Bourguiba with Mathilde and Habib Junior (Ministry of Infor-
mation, Tunisia).
4 The lawyer, 1927 (Ministry of Information, Tunisia).
5 After imprisonment, 1936 (Ministry of Information, Tunisia).
6 Prison photograph, 1938 (Ministry of Information, Tunisia).
7 Disguised as a Libyan, 1945 (Ministry of Information,
Tunisia).
8 Chatting to Dean Acheson, 1947 (Ministry of Information,
Tunisia).
9 Crowds of welcome, 1955 (Ministry of Information, Tunisia).
10 A furtive tear, 1955 (Ministry of Information, Tunisia).
11 Lifted shoulder high, 1964 (Ministry of Information, Tunisia).
12 Aping Noel Coward? (Rex Features).
13 The private public figure (Cosmos, Paris).
14 The orator in full flow (Ministry of Information, Tunisia).
15 Bourguiba, brooking no argument (Rex Features).
16 Wasila, 1982 (Rex Features).
17 Bourguiba, arriving at the Elysee Palace in 1973 (Henri
Bureau/Sygma, Paris).
18 Bourguiba in power, Twentieth Anniversary of Independence,
1976 (R. Melloul/Sygma, Paris).
19 Statues are unbolted (DR).
viii
Preface
The history of North Africa has been very much a French preserve
until recently. The colonial background made this a natural state of
affairs. Archives, studies, books, journals and newspapers have been
(and often still are) in French and many Arab North Africans have
used French as their main language of communication. The best
library in the world for North African studies is in Aix-en-Provence
(where are also large colonial archival holdings) and most of the
best scholars studying the area are still French with some notable
Anglophone exceptions.
It was with some hesitation, therefore, that I dipped my toe into
this French sea - not entirely inexperienced, as my first work was on
Libya, where I lived for two years, and I have made numerous visits
to other Maghreb countries, particularly Tunisia. When casting
around for a suitable subject for a biography the name of Habib
Bourguiba sprang immediately to mind. In previous work I had
studied the heads of other Arab states and of Islamic movements
and the psychology of would be leaders held a certain fascination.
I wished to devote a whole work to the study of one man and of
Arab leaders Bourguiba seemed to hold great promise. In addition,
working on him meant that I would have to spend several months
in Aix-en-Provence.
There is a wealth of published material available on him, his
letters and diaries to his endless speeches. Few men have been
as determined to leave so complete a record of their life. There
are also many people alive who knew him or worked with him.
There is in addition quite a library of biographies in French, some
far too hagiographic, taking Bourguiba too literally at his word, but
providing, nevertheless, exploitable sources. In fact, if the latest by
Sophie Bessis and Sohayr Belhassen, an authoritative, inside and
detailed study, were in English there would be no need for the
present work. I happily acknowledge my great debt to them.
I have benefited from reading some of the many biographers of
world leaders, of Hitler, Nixon, Stalin, Napoleon and others, and
have tried to absorb their approach. In particular I liked the work of
Vamik Volkan and Norman Itzkowitz on Ataturk and, while I can-
not swallow their premises whole, many of their insights helped me
ix
x Preface
to understand Bourguiba much better. It is quite notable how many

features the Turk and the Tunisian had in common. For Bourguiba
himself I found the work of Bernard Cohen to be absolutely first
class and I am sure I have been much influenced by his mixture
of psychological and political analysis. My work is in no way a
full-blooded psycho history - I am not qualified to write such a
study - yet I could not be satisfied with a pure political biography.
This is a short work intended to be a clear introduction to the
life and work of the man, deliberately aimed at the generally
informed reader. No previous knowledge of North African history
is assumed. As I did not want this to be just a chronological political
history I pondered over the structure of the book. I am not sure I
have arrived at the best solution, a mix of straight narrative and
analysis by theme. This approach has meant some repetition which
is, I assure the reader, intentional and not a result of carelessness.
Finally, I would like to thank all those at the Institut de Recheches
et d'Etudes sur Ie Monde Arabe et Musulman in Aix who have been
so kind and so helpful, in particular the ex-director Andre Raymond,
the present director Michel Camau, the librarians Vivien Michel and
Marie-Jo Bianquis, and the secretary Noel Fourgan. There could
have been no more convivial place in which to work. The warmth
of their welcome matched the warmth of the climate.
DEREK HOPWOOD
1
Early Days
CHILDHOOD AND SCHOOL IN TUNISIA, 1901-1924
The wonder is that he hath endur'd so long.

(King Lear)
Extreme old age is a time for quiet reflection on the past when all
the burdens of life and action are laid down. The life reflected upon
may be real or imagined, the scope of achievement exaggerated, the
days of childhood confused with ideas of later years. Death, the
remaining certainty, is lived with daily as the ultimate experience.
It is no longer remote and no longer to be resisted. Is an old man of
great achievement who clings to power well beyond his capacity to
lead to be admired for his determination? Pitied rather, for there is
a natural rhythm to life and clinging blindly to power in old age is a
pathetic action which refuses to admit that there are always younger
men ready and able to take over.
In a photograph taken when President Habib Bourguiba was 86,
we see him held aloft on the shoulders of his aides. They hold
his shoes under the soles to steady him. Physically weak, he is
still amidst a crowd of admirers. 'Tunisia still needs me. I cannot
have stayed too long as I was elected president for life. No-one is
fit to take over. I have had to dismiss Mohammed Mzali, my prime
minister and friend, I have divorced the love of my life, Wasila, for
intriguing, I have had to send away my son. Who is there left to
trust? Is Tunisia ungrateful to the man who forged its history? I
have fought and suffered all my life for my people. When I die what
will they do without me?'
The mausoleum which Habib Bourguiba spent so many years pre-
paring rises magnificently on the edge of his birthplace, Monastir.
He had first planned it to be in Tunis dominating the old city
and then set his heart on Monastir. He rebuilt and changed it
1
2 Habib Bourguiba of Tunisia
continuously during twenty years as though he would tempt fate

by completing it. The death of Bourguiba had become integrated
into the life of his country and he manipulated the fear of a future
without him, after thirty years stressing the impossibility of coping
with the void left by him. The break did come, determined after all
not by the impartial hand of death but by men. In November 1987
he was taken out of his presidential palace, not to his mausoleum,
into house arrest in order to give way unwillingly to another. The
unthinkable had happened and in the following years Tunisia is
having to learn what it is like to live without the leader who
embodied his country for so many years. The Tunisians believed
they knew their man; most only knew the legend that he had
built around himself. He was for ever fond of talking of himself,
of embroidering the story of his past life and achievements until it
was hard to perceive the truth. At the end his increasing senility
cut him off from the people and country he loved. At the end it
was hardly Bourguiba the man who was ostensibly in charge. It
was Bourguiba the statue of the overwhelming public figure, which
could barely move of its own volition, which if cracked open would
reveal the ossified remains of the once great leader.
'I have at least left behind signs of how a developed Tunisia
should be. My mausoleum is set in thriving modern Monastir'
- a town of wide avenues, tended flowers, watered lawns. The
gleaming white concrete of luxury hotels and boutiques stands
against the crystal blue sea. The old town remains separate behind
restored ramparts and illuminated minaret, where tourists dare to
feel a frisson of the exotic in bargaining nervously and loudly for
souvenirs, as their guidebooks tell them they should. On arrival at
the airport they had been met with the dominating formal photo-
graph of Bourguiba, the man they took, if they noticed him at all, to
be the president. At the entry to the town a wall of palms shades the
palace where each year he celebrated his birthday, among his people
for whom he maintained a deep affection.
The tourists in urgent search of packaged sun, sea and entertain-
ment hardly care for such facts or recognize the place of Monastir in
the history of Tunisia. At the beginning of the twentieth century it
was a humble, dusty town, of fishermen, peasants and shopkeepers,
the world of Tunis and government far away. Verdant gardens
shaded by palms are separated by cactus hedges. The streets are
mostly large and well built unlike the maze of tortuous lanes in the
capital, Tunis, or in Sousse. The kasbah is surrounded by two walls
Early Days 3
armed with cannon and dominated by a tower. The houses are one
storied, white painted, often with blue doors, the interior courtyard
offering privacy from the outside world and shade from the dusty
heat of midday. There are a few shops scattered around, some stalls
clustered together in the old so uk. Olives, fish and wool form the
basis of what little industry exists.
Tunisia is small country, only 500 kilometres long and some 175
wide. To the north are fertile areas, to the south stretches the desert.
The capital, Tunis, centre of government, the upper classes and
cultural life, is near the northern Mediterranean coast; Monastir
lies in the Sahel (coastal) region, a fertile area of olives, palms and
wine growing stretching some 150 kilometres along the eastern side
of the country. The Sahel environment is the enemy of extremes,
far enough away from the aristocracy of Tunis and from the harsh
realities of the desert tribes. It was an area which became the nursery
for young Tunisian nationalists.
This is the Tunisia of the French protectorate, and the single
most important fact in young Habib Bourguiba's life. In 1881 the
French had persuaded the then Bey, a prince of little character or
'instruction', to sign a treaty allowing them to install a protectorate
over his regency, in practice signing away all independence. There is
a French resident-general who becomes foreign minister and has the
right to promulgate legislation after signature by the Bey. Tunisia
becomes a French-run colony. The French take up residence, obtain
land, and French becomes the language of government, higher edu-
cation, and culture. Churches and cathedrals proclaim the religion
of the occupiers without regard for local feeling. Tunisians feel
second-class citizens in their own country.
Through the dusty streets of Monastir at the beginning of this
century there idles a small boy sent by his father on an errand to
a local shop. He is dressed in a jellaba and the Tunisian red cap
(shishia). His errand done, he returns to his home in the quarter
where he lives with his parents and older brothers and sisters. He
is much younger than they and feels very much their servant. He is
not yet at school and plays with his friends on the beach, watching
the fishermen sailing in with their catch or the women washing
raw wool in the sea. There is nothing to distinguish him from his
companions, unless one can discern the rather intense look in his
piercing blue eyes, nothing yet to show that one day he will be the
leader of an independent Tunisia freed from French domination.
The small boy is Habib Bourguiba. His exact age is something
of a mystery, probably born in August 1901, although his official

birthday was celebrated as 3 August 1903. In those days exact
records were not always kept and Bourguiba rather vainly stuck
to the later date. He was born into a large family, the youngest
of seven children. He was the youngest by far, a difference of 22
years between his eldest brother Mohammed and himself and of 7
with his youngest sister. His parents were also quite old to have
had another child, his father 53 and his mother 40. All these facts
made a lasting impression on his development and he never forgot
them. His mother was naturally at the centre of his young life and
he remembered her with deep affection. She had thought herself
too old for further pregnancies when Habib was conceived and
he later related that she was so ashamed that she suppressed her
labour pains by biting on a towel. In his later memory he pictured
himself as unusual, unwanted and therefore struggling against the
odds even before birth. At least his mother was congratulated on
the birth of a boy although one sourcel claims that the mother
had wanted another daughter and that she used to wrap round
the young Habib the traditional veil of girls.
Fattuma bint Ahmed Khafasha at forty was worn out by eight
pregnancies from her first child at age eighteen. Her life was that
of most women of her time (and many today), hard and laborious.
Bourguiba remembered her constantly at work from dawn to night,
heavy washing for eight people, food for eight mouths, which
she served standing, not sitting or stopping. Couscous, the staple
food, came as wheat and needed endless grinding to produce the
small grains. Bread-making took long preparation. Water had to
be brought from the well. To earn extra money, she washed and
carded wool and was a skilled spinner and weaver. She was of small
stature, stooped through hard work, dressed in white, indomitable
yet tamed in the sense that she accepted without question her life
as a Muslim wife and mother. Her son witnessed her hard lot
and her early death deeply affected his later attitudes towards
the emancipation of Tunisian women. He loved her and yet had
this ambiguous attitude towards his birth and towards her. It was
difficult to be born so late, and as we shall soon see, to have to
be parted from her at a very tender age. Yet he remembered her
with affection and claimed that he could never think of her without
weeping.
Bourguiba's father, Ali, was a figure, more pathetic, and in a
different mould. His life had been shaped by 19 long hard years
Early Days 5
of service in the army of General Zarrouk into which he had been

enlisted against his will aged 14 in 1864. Tunisia at that time was
a province of the Ottoman Turkish Empire, although control from
Istanbul was very loose. The local dynasty of the Husaini Beys
exercised real authority. They had tried to modernize their country
in an attempt to keep it out of the clutches of a greedy France and
in so doing had run up large debts. The natural recourse of the
Bey was to impose heavy taxes which caused general discontent
throughout the country. General Zarrouk had been despatched to
pacify the population with an iron hand. Monastir had not escaped
punishment, nor had the Bourguiba family. Mohammed, Habib's
grandfather, was taken away in shackles. To save him the family
collected jewelry, silver and title deeds which they sent wrapped
in a sheet to the much feared General Zarro uk. He accepted the
gift, released Mohammed who returned home to bed, there to die
of shock. Zarrouk had noted young Ali, a solid 14-year-old with blue
eyes, as a good recruit and seized him for military conscription for
the next 19 years. He retired as sergeant major on a small pension a
rather broken man.
He was a tall, bearded, respected patriarchal figure in his white
burnous, embroidered jebba and red shishia but suffered from pov-
erty and from diabetes. He had been sheikh of his town quarter, a
position unpaid, other than by bribes which he refused to accept,
and a member of the Municipal Council. He had to eat special
food, mainly rice which Habib affectionately remembered being
summoned to share with him in his room. He had difficulty in
meeting his bills and sent his youngest son shopping for half a
litre of paraffin or a pound of rice to comer shop grocers whom he
knew might not object to offering a little credit. He was endearingly
eccentric, always sleeping with a sword by his side in case he were
attacked in the night. On his way home he would tap with his cane
on the wall of his house to warn his wife of his imminent arrival.
He did not, of course, help his overworked wife with the household
chores. Nor is he known to have helped with the shopping, often a
male undertaking in the Arab world.
Bourguiba claimed that his father had a great effect on him. He
had a certain pride in him, a sadness for his hard life, perhaps felt
resentment at the treatment of his mother. He was anyway soon
to leave him to live with a substitute father. Ali was determined
that his young son should not have to bear the burdens that he had
borne.
There were many other Bourguibas in Monastir, a large extended

family of paternal uncles, aunts, cousins and grandmother, in addi-
tion to brothers and sisters. Before Habib's birth they had all lived
together in one house, one family per room, and worse with only
one kitchen. This claustrophobic situation caused endless friction
and quarrelling. It seemed that the Bourguiba family was about to
explode. On one memorable day Ali took out and brandished his
sword, his brother cocked his gun; on another, one sister threw salt
into Fattuma's cooking pot. The sisters-in-law were jealous of her
large number of sons and determined to make her pay, vexing and
tormenting her. In another room lived old blind uncle Mohammed
who passed his day reciting the Koran. In such extended fami-
lies individuals are caught between the need to identify with the
family as a buttress against the outside world and the need of the
individual to assert himself. Emotions are trapped between seeking
support and sharing problems and the struggle for individuality,
all ending in such bickering and pettiness. The strongest can leave
this hornet's nest and start their own extended family. Ali decided
enough was enough and moved his family and his mother out, at
first into a rented house near the sea. It contained two rooms and
a small windowless kitchen whose wood fire had blackened the
beams almost to calcination. The floor was beaten earth. Just before
Habib's birth his father whitewashed the walls and bought a cradle,
a turtle shell to which he attached legs.
After one year he built his own house opposite an ancestral prop-
erty. It is not clear and has not been explained how, if Habib's family
was as poor as he later claimed, it was able to build a brand new
house. Was he again exaggerating the odds he had had to overcome?
Three brothers, confusingly called in Tunisian fashion, Mohammed,
Mahmoud and M'hamed, were away working and studying and
certainly sent back money to help. The grandmother had also sold
part of her heritage to help. The new house had three rooms, kitchen,
bathroom, well and courtyard, surrounded by a high wall which
both delimits the property and protects against the outside world.
A hot sun beats down into the enclosed courtyard, the outside world
seems to a young child lying in his cradle to be just a square of blue
sky. Here lived the Bourguibas and here were the surroundings in
which young Habib grew up. In addition to the influence of father
and mother and three eldest brothers working mostly away, there
were two sisters and grandmother, and brother Ahmed aged about
eight. The baby thus had four women to contend with. He was both
Early Days 7
spoiled and dominated by them. Apart from running errands he had

to pour water on his family's hands at mealtimes from an enormous
ewer and then he had to try to wash his own. He had to address his
brothers by the respectful title of sidi, his sisters by their names for,
although older, as women they were not superior.
His young life at home revolved around the kitchen and well
where much of the feminine activity took place. His grandmother
once chased him away from the kitchen, fearing that he was falling
too much under women's influence. Bourguiba related that when
young he was told not to sit by the side of women; he had to
fear 'the evil spell of women'.2 Yet he believed that because of his
contacts with the female elements in his family his mind and eyes
were opened to their position of inferiority. Perhaps too his nature
was softened and his well-known ability to weep stenuned from this
early situation. Bourguiba described himself as a vulnerable child
and he believed that his mother paid great attention to him as her
youngest and most sensitive offspring.
Outside the house there were the attractions of wandering through
the town or along the shore, bathed by the blue Mediterranean, or
listening to Arab story tellers intoning their long sagas night by night
leaving Habib so tense that he would lie awake trying to imagine
the next instalment. A joyous part of life everywhere in Tunisia
were the ceremonies held to celebrate circumcision, marriage, the
ending of fasting and sacrifices. They marked the passage of time in a
society which lived within its own closely-defined boundaries, onto
which the outside world barely impinged. Bourguiba maintained
throughout his life a simple joy in family festivals and he must
have remembered his first one, his circumcision. There he was the
centre of attention, dressed festively and surrounded by his people
- his family. How often in later life was this situation to be repeated
- with him the centre of attraction, surrounded by his family - his
people.
Habib did not start primary school in Monastir as he claimed
his family could not afford to pay the fees. At the tender age
of 6 (or officially 4) what was to be done with him? His father
took the momentous decision to send him away from horne to his
brothers in Tunis. Many unfeeling parents send their infants away
to boarding school at an early age and it is not hard to imagine the
latters' feelings of separation and bewilderment. At least there is a
tradition of brave parting and the comfort of hundreds of others in
the same position. How must the young Habib have felt, leaving
warm feminine comfort for the unknown rigours of the city and
fraternal discipline?
What influences had already been at work in Bourguiba's life
before he left Monastir? The core of a personality begins to coalesce
in childhood from age two to four or five, when the child's world is
his family and home-space, and when the mother is the dominant
figure. It is a time of battle for control between mother and child,
a battle for control of bodily functions when satisfaction is achieved
by the child in controlling his own body. It is a battle between
the child and his environment, an environment which includes
other people. In psychological terms it is the period to which one
regresses in later life, anal regression, when traces of basic crises and
early partly resolved conflicts persist. Anal regression can involve
the attempt to dominate others, together with an overwhelming
assumption of moral superiority to offset doubts about ones own
autonomy. This kind of regression is often seen in future leaders
who view life as a struggle to dominate others, a struggle based
on the absolute certainty of moral righteousness. Young Bourguiba,
in addition to the usual mother-child relationship, had to cope with
several substitute mothers to whom he had to relate, too many
which made it difficult to blend the different images of them and
resulted in a tendency to see other people in terms of black and
white, for or against him. In addition, there was the great gap in
age between himself and all others, his being put upon and used as
domestic servant; all of which led to the need to assert himself and
his own personality, to the need for independence and self-reliance.
Those dominated in early life may in certain cases, and with enough
determination, rebel later and assert their own will to dominate.
We can thus see in the young Habib the early makings of a person
destined to dominate, forced to assert himself in the face of many
superior adults, the foundation of the grandiose personality which
is at the root of all future leaders.
To Tunis
Today the journey from Monastir to Tunis takes an hour or two. In

1907 it was more lengthy and for a small boy quite an undertaking.
Habib Bourguiba was leaving home for the first time, not just on a
visit but being wrenched from his mother's side. Bourguiba was to
admit later that if he always shed tears at the mention of his mother
it was because he had had to leave her when so young. There is no
Early Days 9
mention of anyone looking after him on the 160-kilometre two-day

journey. It was all rather Dickensian and David Copperfield like. He
started from Monastir in a old diligence owned by a Maltese Carlo,
renowned for its delapidation and cumbrousness. It maintained the
connection between Monastir and Sousse, the nearest largish town.
Passengers in the carriage had to get out and push it up slopes and
then help to restrain its downward path on the other side. Only
the infant Bourguiba was allowed to remain inside. At Sousse he
took the train to Tunis, the narrow gauge line of the Bone-Guelma
Company, a journey of five or six hours.
Bourguiba was not only leaving a secure home, he was moving
into a new world unlike anything he had known before. It was the
capital, the seat of the French protectorate and government. It was
where the two worlds of French rulers and Tunisian ruled met. It
had been the capital of the Beys who had governed before the com-
ing of the French, a traditional Arab town of narrow, crowded lanes,
rising gently from the Porte de France to the Kasbah (government
buildings) at the top. In the streets were the white houses, often
looking inward to a cool courtyard, the small open shops grouped
together by trade, the spice market, the perfume sellers. In the centre
was the famous Zitouna mosque, a home of Islamic learning for six
centuries and one of the most prestigious in the Muslim world. It
was an enclosed, traditional world where few foreigners settled. It
still exists today, largely unchanged. French planners decided, as
elsewhere in North Africa, that they would leave traditional towns
untouched and build European style developments alongside. A
long straight boulevard leads from the square outside the medina,
once the Boulevard Jules Ferry (then Avenue Bourguiba), up to a
small 'place'. Along the broad tree shaded avenue were the head-
quarters of the French Resident-General, a theatre, the cathedral,
hotels, apartments, shops and cafes. Further out there were the
villas, parks and schools of the French settlers and administrators,
teachers and businessmen. The worlds could not be more physically
or symbolically separate. The broad straight street of French civili-
zation leads to and peters out in the maze of the Arab town, which
remains closed, secret, mysterious, almost impenetrable. There were
other places where the two met, sometimes in an attempt at mutual
understanding, sometimes in clashes and violence.
The French lived their own lives, as nearly metropolitan as poss-
ible - cafes, restaurants, lectures, theatre, seaside - a life typical of
colonial rulers. And the prospects of a good life had attracted many
immigrants from elsewhere, from Calabria, from Sicily, from Malta,

to work as builders or petty tradesmen. But the life of the native
Tunisians was on the move. An intellectual elite was growing,
educated both at home and in France, a small bourgeoisie was
flourishing in landowning and commerce, a new college (Sadiki)
had been founded to try to combine the best of European and
Islamic education. Educated Tunisians began to question the French
presence and to make demands for political reform and representa-
tion. In 1907 when Bourguiba arrived the stirrings of nationalism
were already to be seen and felt. .
Bourguiba's life is Tunis from 1907 to 1924 can be divided into
four stages: primary and secondary education in Sadiki College
(1907-1913-1920), a period of convalescence in Le Kef (1920-1921),
and study at the Lycee Carnot (1921-1924). They were stages full of
happenings and experiences during which he grew from the small
'orphan' into the young adult. The College, founded in 1875 by
progressive Tunisians, was one of most successful achievements of
the rule of Beys. It still exists today 3 at the top end of the medina
near the Kasbah, a building of domes and minarets, black and
white arches, a garden surrounded by galleries which house the
classrooms and dormitories for the boys. For six years, however,
Bourguiba was in the primary school and a day boy.
On arrival in Tunis M'hamed had taken his newly arrived brother
to his lodgings in the medina in a quarter where the commercial
bourgeoisie lived. The small boy had to settle down to a new life,
some parts of which he remembered with a great deal of bitterness.
M'hamed was very busy working as interpreter for the government
and studying for further qualifications in his spare time. This gave
him little time for his brother whom he left to the tender mercies of
his black servant girl, Dhawia. She quickly made Habib her own
servant and his life a misery, sending him out to the small shops
to buy a sou's worth of cumin or pepper, getting him to wash the
dishes and do other household chores, ordering him about with a
tyranny he never forgot. He was not unused to such work, but how
different the feelings of trying to please his mother and father from
those of satisfying the feared Dhawia. One day as he was trying to
get some water from a particularly stiff fountain one of the precious
sous fell and was lost. The house resounded to the shouts and
reproaches of Dhawia when he arrived back with the bad news. He
dreaded these confrontations. Bourguiba also remembered that he
was very poorly dressed and that he had to walk to school in shoes
Early Days 11
which let in water. He claimed that his pride forbade him to ask his
brother for a new pair. A streak of independence in the child's life
was being forced upon him. He had no-one to rely on or complain
to and in his bitterness and resentment realised that he had to rely
on himself.
In addition to a new home life Bourguiba had to learn to cope
for the first time with school life. He walked each day to the
College. In the primary section the boys began their basic studies
in Arabic and French, working up after six years to the Certificate
of Primary Study. Habib was by no means the first of his family
there. The father, with a great determination to educate his sons,
had already sent his four elder boys there and Mahmoud was still
in the boarding section. This achievement was remarkable as in
those days only some 12 per cent of Muslim boys received primary
education - compared with 84 per cent of European children.
Bourguiba immediately began to enjoy school, although he was
not an outstanding pupil. The Koran was taught by a professor from
the Zitouna Mosque in the traditional fashion of rote memorization.
Bourguiba wanted to succeed in this - later in life he would boast
of his complete recall - and his grave and humourless brother
Mahmoud insisted on testing him each Friday and Sunday, in
a way that terrorized him, shouting, bawling and even severely
beating the young child. Mahmoud later became mentally ill. To
her credit Dhawia would rush to the window to cry for help. In
this other Dickensian situation Bourguiba later asked why such
scandalous treatment, which scarred and traumatized him, did
not put an end for ever to his thirst for knowledge - wondering
aloud to his audience which was encouraged to recognize but an
early example of his iron will to suceed against all odds.
There exists a school photograph of Habib's class in 19lO. It is
like all such photographs, the boys in four rows, a stern, portly
and neatly bearded French master to the left, a more relaxed,
hands-in-pocket Tunisian to the right. In the middle of the front
row sits Bourguiba. He is one of the best dressed in smart jellaba,
shishia, and what are undoubtedly stout boots! He still has the
roundness of infancy, yet he sits slightly forward of his fellows,
his chin forward, his intense eyes looking away from the camera
into some distant future. It is a pose he was to repeat many times
in his life. (A photograph taken in 1959 is almost identical.) He
looks firm, decided, tense even, while his fellows seem almost to
loll around. One small fellow behind has risked putting his hand on
12 Habib Baurguiba afTunisia
Bourguiba's shoulder. Bourguiba later spoke of his classmates, how

some remained his friends, how others waged war against him, even
betrayed him.
One day his father came to visit him, the father who had said to
him that, whatever else he might do, he had to study hard to gain
qualifications to avoid the kind of life he had led. He was a turbulent
boy, complained the headmaster to Ali Bourguiba, but a serious
student. The father was relieved that there was only indiscipline
to complain of. Habib was not punished and had learned the lesson
that day that as long as you succeed much is permitted. This serious
student was beginning to revel in acquiring knowledge. Apart from
the Koran, there were the beginnings of Arabic and French literature
and, ironically, the Tunisian boys were introduced to the study of
the French revolutionary rights of man, in a colonial situation where
the dominated might well begin to wonder where their rights were.
It is reported that Bourguiba enjoyed the subject.
A small crisis arose in 1911 which might have prematurely ended
a promising life. During a cholera epidemic which killed the young
pregnant wife of M'hamed, he himself contracted the disease. He
went home to his beloved Monastir to convalesce and in a youthful
manner to assess his first four years away from home. He was still
only some 10 years old but already beginning to grow into a kind
of independence. He enjoyed the life of holidays at home, helping
again - this time more willingly - with the chores in the house, or
with the olive harvest outside, a very common activity for a child
of the Sahel.
As Bourguiba was developing his interests and knowledge in the
small world of the school, events were taking place outside which
began to influence his attitudes towards the colonial situation in
Tunisia. Even as a young boy he could not remain unaffected, while
not yet understanding the full significance of events. He wandered
around the capital one day watching the Zouaves (soldiers) of
the Bey in their long-tasselled shishias parading in the Kasbah
square. He would also on occasions watch the Bey getting out of
his carriage. What is one to make of the following passage from
Bourguiba's memoirs? '[1 saw the Bey] with blond hair and beard,
blue eyes, his chest covered in medals, the guard saluting him. How
times have changed since, because now it is that young boy lost
in the crowd who 35 years later receives all the honours from the
mili tary. ' 4
In 1911 the Italians attacked and occupied neighbouring Tripoli.
Early Days 13
They were seeking late in the day to grab the last remaining bit of
Arab territory in North Africa for their empire. The Tunisians were
incensed by this example of blatant colonialism and tension rose in
the capital. At the same time the French authorities had decided
to register the land of an Islamic cemetery, Jellaz, and transfer
its ownership from a Muslim trust to the Municipality. Many
Muslims in Tunis considered this an insult to the position of Islam
and they erupted into rioting on 11 November 1911. The French
reacted harshly and broke up the riots forcibly. Several Tunisians
were killed. Later another was accused of incitement and publicly
executed. Bourguiba did not see the latter event but he recorded it
in vivid detail and it clearly excited his revulsion. He claimed later
that the Jellaz riots were the events which triggered his opposition to
the injustice of the French colonial situation. The French took them
as an opportunity to clamp down on nationalist protest and imposed
martial law on the country from 1912 to 1921.
The year 1913 was a great watershed in Bourguiba's personal life.
In that year he gained his Certificate of Primary Study which meant
that he was exempted from military service - to the great relief of his
father - and at the same time he passed the entrance examination to
the Sadiki College proper (its secondary section). He would now be
a boarder with food and clothes provided, even a Turkish bath every
fortnight, and it freed him from the hands of M'hamed, Dhawia and
Mahmoud. It was to his mother's great joy to see her son succeed in
this way. He spent the vacation in Monastir and returned to Tunis
to start the term in September. It was a new world now of older boys
and more intensive studies. The headmaster was M. Bolon, a strict
disciplinarian of, according to Bourguiba, a yellowish complexion.
One day in November he appeared outside the classroom to sum-
mon Bourguiba. He was to tell him that his mother had just died.
She had been suffering from rheumatism and Bourguiba believed
that she was worn out from hard work and childbearing. He never
really came to terms with her death. In his memoirs he is overcome
with emotion.
'The death of my mother deeply upset me. I was marked by it in
an indelible way ... every time I go to meditate on my mother's
tomb I feel myself again a small child longing for maternal tender-
ness, and I, the indomitable man, can't stop myself weakening. I
ardently hope that when I'm called to God I shall find her again
in the next world, so that I can appease by her side this thirst for
motherly love which I have not quenched.'s
'Go and kiss your mother', said his father when they stood before
her corpse. Bourguiba kissed her cold forehead and felt the marble
touch of death. He noticed the scarf wrapped round her which,
eerily, was still there many years later when they transferred her
remains to the family mausoleum. The whole family mourned,
including the grandmother who had to endure the sorrow of see-
ing her daughter die before her. The habits of Bourguiba's father
changed after his wife's death. He no longer spent his evenings
with his friends at the cafe, chatting and listening to the storyteller.
He stayed at home, becoming much more of a recluse. He was to
outlive his wife by thirteen years.
Bourguiba was now to fill his mind with his studies at Sadiki. The
worlds he had glimpsed in the primary school opened before him,
particularly that of French literature. He was fortunate in a remark-
able teacher, M. Collieres, who had once when young shaken hands
with Victor Hugo; with the help of this devoted guide he immersed
himself in the works of Hugo, de Vigny, Lamartine, Rousseau. Les
chi1timents, La Jegende des siecIes, these and other works entered his
consciousness and remained there for the rest of his life. He often in
later years recited de Vigny's 'Death of the Wolf', the poem which
could well stand as the motto for his life's struggle.
If you can, by dint of being studious and thoughtful

Lead your soul to a high point of stoical pride.
Moaning, weeping and praying are equally cowardly.
He acquired a mastery of French grammar and composition

which, he claimed, he had no need to improve later at the Lycee
or University. He was gaining that deep insight into the minds of
his colonizers and a fluency in their language which he would use
both to understand them and to oppose them.
Arabic was in some ways the poor relation. A professor came from
the Zitouna to teach classical Arabic grammar and literature, late in
the morning when both he and students were tired. Yet he managed
to instill into Bourguiba a love of pre-Islamic poetry, the odes of the
Arabian desert, one of which he could also recite later at will. The
traditional teacher had little affection, perhaps understandably, for
the scarce works of modern Arabic then in existence.
Thus young Bourguiba was being initiated into two worlds at the
same time: one his own, Tunisian, Arab and Muslim, the second
the other's, French and Christian. It was the classical recipe for
Early Days 15
alienation, for that rootlessness which can befall the colonized

taught by the colonizer and which can lead to bitterness and
a total rejection of one world and a deeper identification with
the other. Bourguiba, remarkably, serenely, accepted both. In his
person he bridged the two civilizations in a way which he tried
later to introduce into Tunisia as a whole. He was to see the good
and bad in both sides, more clearly than most, and wanted to make
his country a meeting point where the good of both could co-exist.
The outside world was still impinging on the adolescent's con-
sciousness. The World War was fought a long way away, in France
and Egypt, Tunisia not part of it, yet it brought hardship to the
country. At each crossroads were posters urging Tunisian support
for a European war, food was in short supply and Bourguiba at
school had to eat a miserable stew of pumpkin and macaroni (how
soon his dreams of good food evaporated) or beignets at breakfast
which smelled of the ink from the newspapers in which they were
wrapped. His dreams of a smart uniform (jebba, bouffant trousers,
waistcoat, belt and shishia) also vanished, into a much plainer outfit.
Bourguiba took the extreme risk of complaining - Oliver Twist-like
- to Bolon about these conditions. 'You don't even have these
things at home,' replied Bolon. 'That doesn't give you the right
to humiliate us,' cheekily retorted Bourguiba, who immediately
expected to be struck down. 6 However, Bolon replied politely and
the incident seems to have been forgotten, just a youthful attempt
on Bourguiba's part to take up a grievance and to make himself
spokesman for others. He made it seem so in retrospect.
It was in this atmosphere of tension and relative deprivation that
Bourguiba took part in a national(ist) event which he remembered
ever afterwards - it was also an event which combined a uniquely
personal experience with one of wider moment. Bashir Sfar, a
popular and well-respected early leader of the Tunisian nationalist
movement, died in April 1917. His funeral was the occasion for
national mourning and Ali Bourguiba took his son to the cemetery.
There Habib remembered that his rather phlegmatic father shed
'warm tears' while tightly holding his hand. Ali never explained
why he had acted thus, though Bourguiba believed that through
his father's reaction he too felt the passions of nationalism rising
in him.
The year 1920 was approaching in which he had to pass his
examinations for further education. He reached the final year for the
diploma, hardworking yet not brilliant. One teacher thought a weak
constitution would hinder his study. He sat and failed the diploma.
Bolon decided to allow him, exceptionally, to retake the final year
when fate intervened, at the time it seemed catastrophically but in
retrospect with great good fortune. Cold weather and poor food
combined to undermine his health and he succumbed to a severe
attack of tuberculosis. He had to abandon Sadiki and, for the first
time, go into hospital. He left under the cloud of failure - with a
reputation for indiscipline - and illness put paid to his chances of
resitting.
The psychologist Erikson has described how most adolescents
pass through an identity crisis, a period when they are coming
to terms with their personality and when they have to find a
basis on which to build the rest of their lives. Some crises can be
aggravated by a spell of illness. All men and women by the very
process of growing up come face to face with their adult selves.
Those destined to be leaders often feel the crisis deeply and emerge
from it convinced of their future role, determined that come what
maya way must be found to establish themselves and to convince
the societies in which they live that only they are fit to lead. It is often
a long struggle but the truly convinced leader will not be shaken
from his goal. He is totally sure of himself and willing to sacrifice
ordinary comforts and achievements, friends and family, on the
way. There have been many examples of this type of personality
in history. Bourguiba was one of them. He had left Sadiki ill and a
failure. He returned from nearly two years of convalescence a new
man, determined to do well at the Lycee and to go to France to meet
the enemy on his own ground.
Tuberculosis was a common and serious illness and to recover the
patient needed long hours of rest and recuperation in as healthy a
climate as possible. By great good fortune Habib's eldest brother,
Mohammed, the nurse, was working at Le Kef, a town in northern
Tunisia near the Algerian frontier. It is a breathtaking site perched
high on the mountain side overlooking the plain where the old
houses huddle together. The narrow cobbled streets wind up to the
casbah at the cliff edge. Bourguiba's future wife, Wasila, was born
here. After a period in hospital it was decided to send Bourguiba to
stay with Mohammed, who was by far the most interesting figure
in the family. At 39, although only a nurse, the doctor in charge of
the hospital, apparently more interested in playing chess, left much
of the responsibility to him. He was well respected in the town and
loved by the patients. He was advanced in his ideas, wore European
Early Days 17
clothes, hated bigotry and favoured laicism, and openly lived with
an Italian mistress, a nurse Marie. She welcomed Habib into the
family and offered him the affection he so badly missed. Together
the two older people helped him through his illness, watching him
change from a pale, sickly adolescent into a strong vigorous man.
In Le Kef he could eat, sleep, play and organize his time as he
wished and he made full use of his stay. He learned to play cards,
he discussed affairs with the locals, he was taught horse-riding
by the spahis (soldiers) of the area, and perhaps most important
of all he learned to act. His brother had always been keen on
the theatre, founding drama groups, and in Le Kef he led yet
another. The importance of acting in Bourguiba's career cannot be
overstressed; it gave him self-confidence before an audience and he
learned the techniques of public speaking vital for any successful
leader - the pause, the climax, the gesture, facial emotion. Two
Shakespeare plays were produced - Hamlet and Othello - in which
a black actor played the roles of Hamlet's father and Othello. Was
the disdain expressed for the Moor, Othello, not apparent to the
young Bourguiba? He himself rehearsed in a play by Victorien
Sardou, La patrie, a dangerous work for the time which told of
the Dutch struggle for freedom from Spanish rule and which the
French eventually banned. The year 1920 was a period of nationalist
unrest after the war when the Tunisians like many other Arabs
demanded why the Wilsonian principles of self-determination could
not apply to them. In 1920 also the nationalists had founded the
Tunisian Free Constitutional Party, known always as the Destour
(constitution), because of its primary demand that Tunisia should
be constitutionally independent. The French were sensitive to any
whiff of nationalism and refused Mohammed's request to have the
ban on Sardou's play lifted. Mohammed, a diabetic, was so shocked
by this that he never acted again.
Bourguiba related that at about this time he had said to a close
friend in Le Kef: 'I love literature, I adore it. But I have another pro-
ject. I intend to join the Faculty of Law (in Paris) to struggle against
France.' Some writers have questioned whether he was not speaking
with hindsight. Yet, such a remark would be entirely consistent with
the thoughts of someone by then determined, even if partially sub-
consciously, on his future role. Another pointer - he remembered
that he wept while reading surreptitiously under the bedclothes
in hospital the pamphlet by Shaikh Thaalbi, La Tunisie martyre, a
passionate plea for Tunisian sovereignty published in 1919.
Bourguiba left Le Kef cured of his illness, strong and fit, and yet
he complained that poor food at Sadiki had stunted his growth, that
he was only 165 centimeters tall,S cm below the Tunisian average.
He was forever after conscious of his height, although Tunisians are
not tall in general and although small stature did not hinder the
wielding of leadership by others - Hitler, Stalin, Napoleon were all
short.7 More interestingly, Bourguiba revealed in a public speech
that he had only one testicle, one remaining undescended. The effect
of illness and physical disability on Bourguiba will be mentioned
later.
Bourguiba had decided that he wanted to go to France to study
law. Before that he needed to obtain the baccalaureat. He was
summoned in 1921 to a family council to discuss his future. He was
considered to be a failure. His sisters -in-law did not want to have to
support him and it was suggested he became a grocer's assistant or
an agricultural worker. Surprisingly, unmarried brother Mahmoud,
who had once beaten him so ruthlessly decided to take charge of him
and offered to fund his education at the prestigious Lycee Carnot,
surprisingly given his previous attitude and because Habib was not
considered an outstanding student after having failed his leaving
certificate. Carnot had been founded by the French authorities and
was reserved mainly for the sons of the French colons. It still
stands as the end of the ex-Avenue Bourguiba, a large yellowish
building with redbrick encadrements, looking, according to one
French writer, like a Second Empire barracks. 8 At the time it was in
a new quarter of the city and students stepped out of it into building
sites.
It was a school run entirely on French lines. Once there Bourguiba
determined to outshine the rest, he the rare Tunisian among so many
Europeans. If he could beat them at their own game maybe he would
one day be accepted as an equal in other fields. He was proud to be
addressed as Monsieur. With the new determination gained after his
stay in Le Kef he set to work and somehow he seemed already to be
a better pupil and the subjects were more to his taste; he decided to
abandon mathematics to specialize in philosophy in which he read
widely absorbing those ideas which attracted him, before deciding
to concentrate on moral philosophy.
He even felt confident enough to skip French lessons which he
found boring. He left school at 3 p.m., being able to do so because
a naive teacher called the roll only once at 2 p.m. and presumed
his students were still there one hour later. One was not. He often
Early Days 19
went off to the theatre which presented Arabic plays on Friday

afternoons.
Thus he missed his French lessons but regularly came first or
second in the termly French composition. He received a white
report if first and a red if second and armed with these he would
dash off to show them to his brother Mahmoud who would be
sitting in the hairdressers or playing cards with friends in a cafe.
He would scarcely glance at the report and only murmur 'Good,
good' - implying: 'Carry on in this way and you will not let me
down.' Surely Bourguiba would have liked more encouragement
but his humourless, orderly brother was not the one to give it to
him. At least his father was still alive to learn of his progress. In
July 1923 Bourguiba passed the first part of the baccalaureat. He
now had proof that he was good as everyone else in class and yet
in the streets of his own capital he was still a second-class citizen.
Tunisians could not enter the Cafe Lorraine, the rendez-vous of the
local beau-monde in the Avenue Jules Ferry. It was also forbidden
to dogs, it was said. The biggest French dunce could drink coffee
there, not Bourguiba who felt the insult bitterly. It was something
he could not forget.
In the outside world of politics his life began to mingle with
national events. It was the beginning of a process of the identifi-
cation of a man and history - common to many leaders - which
led to a fusion and confusion of the two. Years later he would
say after lecturing in public on his achievements: 'I now hope
that you will know the history of our country after listening to
him who made it.'9 In April 1922 he took part in a demonstration
against the Bey's threatened abdication. Tunisians did not want
to lose this, however shadowy, symbol of their sovereignty and
marched to his palace to demonstrate their support. Suffering from
an abcess on his foot, Bourguiba nevertheless marched with them.
The French were deeply worried by this outburst of nationalist
fervour and in cracking down suspended a Tunisian newspaper.
Bourguiba immediately sent off a telegram to the Resident-General
in protest, signed in the name of several Tunisian colleagues, all
of whom refused later to sign the text, pleading one excuse or
another. Bourguiba was left alone: 'This was my first shock, my
first disappointment.'lo A shock perhaps, but a not unwelcome
early confirmation of the solitariness of the leader's role, a reminder
of that other poem of de Vigny, Moise.
During the vacation of 1923 Bourguiba and some fellow students
- including two whose names are to be remembered - Tahar Sfar

and Bashir Guiga - went on their first trip to Paris and France.
Their first venture into the colonizer's capital, Bourguiba did not
comment much, except to remember the sombre colour of the
walls. At home in Monastir on the beach he and his comrades
would discuss politics, the role of the Destour party, or philosophy,
declaim Arabic poetry, and the works of Stendhal, Lamartine and
Hugo. The year 1923-24 was to be his last year of Lycee and the
second part of the 'bac'. Entrance to university would depend on
success in that examination. Along with the natural sciences and the
study of three special authors, Hugo, Rousseau and Claude Bernard,
he had to write a thesis on moral philosophy. There was only one
other student in the class who could rival Bourguiba for first place,
a certain Augustin Barbe. 'I was counting, cost what it might, on the
first place.'ll Bourguiba won, the thesis being declared 'formidable'.
He had asked his brother and benefactor Mahmoud to come to the
oral examination, as did other students' parents, a sign of need and
of gratitude. Augustin came second and dropped out of history.
Bourguiba could now go to the Sorbonne, if he were financed.
Once again Mahmoud was there, not with very much, some 50
francs a month, not enough to live on, which would have to be
supplemented by working. Mahmoud had at first tried to persuade
his brother to go to Algiers University at which the other brother
M'hamed was studying. He refused, insisting that he had to go to
Paris in order to get to know France from the inside, its politics and
government. Only then could he begin the attack.
Bourguiba, self assured and grown up at age 23, now really left
the nest of home and motherland. At that age the young adult has
usually begun to know who he is, what he wants to do, with the
problems of childhood and adolescence mostly settled. Many of
the traits of the future leader's character were obvious by then,
fashioned by the experiences of the previous seventeen years. The
wrench of leaving home and family so early was the beginning of
this development, creating the need for self sufficiency. Early school
life in itself is a wrench and can cause psychological problems.
Bourguiba reacted in class with turbulence and unruliness, often
a sign of attention seeking where even the teacher's wrath is better
than being ignored. Bourguiba also sought friends in class, despite
the fact that students from the capital's bourgeoisie would mock the
rural accent of those hicks who came from the Sahel; yet it is not
uncommon for leaders to come from outside the main centre of their
Early Days 21
country - Stalin from Georgia, Hitler from Austria, Napoleon from

Corsica. Bourguiba would cherish those friends who stuck by him,
while railing against the many he felt had betrayed him. Consider
the following remarkable extract from his public lectures on his
life: 'Many of my comrades from primary school have remained
real friends. Some have distanced themselves from me for political
reasons and have waged a merciless war against me. I can see here
in the audience Shadli Khalladi who is smiling .... he was my class
mate - yet delivered against me a violent attack (in 1938) in the hope
of doing me down . . .. I wish that he would renounce somewhat
that inexplicable pride and superiority complex which have their
roots in that disdain for us hicks.'12
A strange public display of vindictiveness from the President of
the Republic (one wonders why poor Khalladi had bothered to
attend), what a long memory of slights. This same Khalladi had
also persuaded a wealthy Tunisian to finance the study in Paris of
a student other than Bourguiba, another slight to cherish. Bourguiba
would always demand total loyalty and devotion from friends and
followers, together with their acknowledgement that there could be
only one leader.
The separation from his mother was finalized by her death, part
of the process leading to his severe illness and failure at Sadiki. A
child who loses his mother feels that the world is unfair. A child who
is beginning to feel different and alone may want to try to change
that world - to begin to identify external problems with his own -
and to seek a substitute mother. We shall see how both Bourguiba's
wives were 'motherly' figures, yet the unrequited love for a dead
mother can easily be transmutted into love of the 'mother' nation,
the motherland and into seeking its love. Whenever Bourguiba in
later life wept at the mention of his mother he was both weeping
over her memory and for himself and his own suffering.
For a biographer tracing the developmental stages of an individ-
ual, Bourguiba's illness and convalescence are very coincidental. Yet
just at the time when the adolescent is going through a fairly sudden
disruption and fragmentation and subsequent gradual reintegra-
tion, when he is fighting his identity crisis, Bourguiba did go to
Le Kef an ill, pale, sickly youth, a virtual failure and came away,
according to witnesses, stronger, fitter, maturer and with his mind
made up on his future. There was near complete identification of his
own suffering with that of Tunisia (remember La Tunisie martyre)
and having cured the one it remained to fight to cure the other. He
felt the need to change the outside world for his own inner comfort.
And he graduated with a thirst for leadership, for dominating and
coming first, as he said - revealingly - 'cost what it might'.
He too learned the costs of leadership - being left alone to bear
the responsibility of signing the telegram to the Resident-General
- 'my first let-down' - and the feelings of injustice, of knowing
oneself to be better than those who dominate one's life. Bourguiba,
now virtually the complete Tunisian man, was to leave for France
to complete his French 'side' and to prepare himself, as he was
convinced, to fight for independence.
POOR STUDENT IN PARIS, 1924-27
In 1924 Bourguiba set out on the second great adventure of his life,
for Paris, the capital city of the loved - hated colonizer and the goal
of so many North African intellectuals. He boarded an 'old tub' in
Tunis for the short crossing to France, a poor student, travelling
fourth class, and then on from Marseille's St Charles station to
Paris, following the trail of many thousands of North Africans
at that time and to this day. Crossing the sea was crossing the
divide between the Arab world of French colonialism and the
world of French civilization itself, a divide and also a link in
the larger Mediterranean civilization. North Africans arriving in
Marseille feel a certain affinity with, yet perhaps not affection for,
the atmosphere of that provincial France which the French tried so
hard to recreate in their North African colonies. Travelling north,
away from the sunshine and light of Provence was towards a more
unfamiliar world, unfamiliar yet experienced through literature
and theatre, a place where Bourguiba was determined to immerse
himself thoroughly in French life and to probe the secrets of French
politics.
As the train steamed into the Gare de Lyon Bourguiba remem-
bered his previous visit to Paris as a schoolboy when he was jolted
by the gloom of the buildings, in striking contrast to the dazzling
whites and blues of Tunisia. But if its buildings were gloomy, Paris
was buzzing in the nineteen twenties, trying to shake off the bloody
memories of the horror of the Great War. It was the artistic centre
of the world, a magnet for artists, composers and writers. New
fashions, new trends, extreme escapist cults, were avidly adopted -
a time of the fox trot, surrealism, Picasso, cocktails - a new Babylon.
Early Days 23
The twenties were the 'mad years', the nights in Montparnasse were
tom apart by the sounds of jazz, the frenzied pursuit of pleasure:
Paris of the dark, of the sleepless nights of Montmartre; a Paris
of endless discussions in cafes on the Boulevard St Michel, of the
caf'concs of satire and politics. It would not be the world of the
young serious student from Tunisia.
There was too the other more serious world of french political
life. Bourguiba was there at an interesting time. A new government
had been elected in 1924, a coalition of radicals and socialists who
formed the Cartel des Gauches, dedicated to reform with a certain
belief in the ideas of President Wilson and the liberal principles
of the French revolution. The government was headed by Edouard
Herriot, president of the Council of Ministers, a popular radical
leader. The years 1924-27 saw a government of national union in the
best traditions of republicanism, a period when great things were
hoped for. It was this atmosphere which Bourguiba determined to
breathe in and which in the end influenced his political thinking.
The Wilsonian principles of self-determination raised the possibility
that peoples under colonial regimes peoples might one day gain
their freedom and Bourguiba adopted these principles with great
enthusiasm.
The father of this period of French socialism was Jean Jaures who
had been assassinated in 1914. He had created the socialist party
out of numerous sects and was a much admired leader with an
extraordinary gift for sympathising with all types of people. As
a philosopher he wanted to reconcile idealism with realism, logic
and common sense and on this basis he demanded a more humane
and liberal colonial policy. Under the regime of the Cartel des
Gauches and Herriot it was decided to honour his memory and
his ashes were transferred in 1924 with due pomp and ceremony
to the Pantheon, the lay temple of great Frenchmen in the Rue
Saint Guillaume. Young Bourguiba, standing on the pavement,
had come to watch the solemn procession of the ashes go by, led
by President Herriot, the funeral march playing. It was to make an
indelible impression on him. He became a fervent admirer of Jaures
and would later try to follow many of his principles, particularly in
the attempt to reconcile his strong idealism with a more pragmatic
realism, something which often set him apart from other Arab
leaders. And, even if he did not always adhere to its message, he
tried to adopt Jaures' motto as his own: 'To have the courage to go
towards the truth and to speak it.'
These politics and these politicians of 1924-27 deeply influenced

Bourguiba and remained etched into his memory. He studied the
functioning of the parties and often attended debates in the Senate
and Chamber. He met centre-left groups and absorbed their human-
ism, inherited from Descartes, Comte and Jaures. He tried to probe
beneath passing cultural and political fashions to the roots of the
more lasting traditions Of the France he admired - bourgeois, lay
and reformist. Sitting in the Luxembourg Gardens, he indulged in
endless discussions of these ideas with his fellow students.
In his study of political philosophy he preferred Renan to Hegel
for his greater humanity and he claimed particular affinity with
the ideas of Auguste Comte. He tried to apply a pseudo-Comtian
philosophy in his later political life, in his attempt to create a state
where moral transformation would precede advance in society,
where reason would be the superior element, where social feeling
would triumph over self-love, altruism over egoism, the kind of
state in which human prosperity would receive its most complete
development. Under the statue of Comte in the Sorbonne Bourguiba
read another motto - 'to live for others' - which he too decided to
adopt for himself as an expression of the aim of his life. He was later
to write that 'I have never at any moment in my political life thought
of myself, of my own interests, of my own skin'13 - all of which is
in a sense true, but is also the opposite of the truth. In living for
others a political leader is also living for himself, following his own
interests, pushed, however subconsciously, by the urge to dominate
and to put himself first. Bourguiba was deceiving himself.
He lived in Paris, a very hard-up student supported by his brother
and he could at first afford only the most threadbare lodgings, the
proverbial garret. He rented a room on the sixth floor of the Saint
Severin building near the Place Saint Michel. It had a low bed, a few
shelves, a sink covered with jagged glass, a dripping tap, a small
roof light opening up to the Paris sky. It was like many a cheap
Parisian hotel where impoverished North African students still live
and work today. He paid 150 francs a month for this garret plus
15 francs for the heating which sluggishly only reached the second
floor. In winter his room was glacial even under all his blankets.
One night he was so cold that he had to go and stay with a friend.
The thermometer registered below zero and under the bedclothes
he was breathing freezing air. The WC was on the landing, there
were no cooking facilities and no guests were allowed. He felt like
a thief whenever he returned there, creeping upstairs, making sure
Early Days 25
the treads did not creak under his feet. It was hard to take and some
students could not stand it. He tried to take encouragement from
remembering his father's words: 'Bear up, and go as far as you can
in your studies. '
In his memoirs Bourguiba, as usual, was eager to stress just
how much he suffered. There is some independent confirmation,
however. His good friend Dr Mahmoud Materi was in Paris at the
same time and remembered the cold and the short commons. 'Do
you recall - he wrote to Bourguiba - how often during the hard
winter in your small room I shared with you your meagre repast
of dry bread and olives sent from Monastir?'14 If his first year
was tough, things unexpectedly changed for the better. He had
been trying to get help from Tunisia, writing begging letters for
money which happily came through on two fronts. With the help of
a friend he obtained a scholarship of 1800 francs from Sadiki College
and received additional money from a rich Tunisian well-wisher.
He could now move to the University City where he rented a good,
clean room in the Maison Deutch de la Meurthe and he could afford
better food. He felt much happier and settled and could enjoy Paris
without undue financial worry.
Although he avoided the frivolous and probably expensive night
life he did taste some of the non academic and non political joys of
Paris. He cut quite a sophisticated figure. In a large brimmed felt
hat, light grey overcoat and long yellow scarf he walked endlessly
all over the city.Is 'I went out, I would go to a dance sometimes. I
learned the charleston but my grand passion was the theatre.' He
went little to the cinema; he adored the ComMie Fran~aise, the
Odeon and the acting of Firmin Gemier; he would sit through the
Cid of Corneille or Ruy BIas of Victor Hugo, just as in Tunis and Le
Kef he had lovingly followed the theatre. His Paris was that of the
unpretentious, little people who love the theatre, seats costing two
sous, the caf'concs, the street songs, the quarter round the Odeon
where fifty years later many Tunisians have settled, a quarter of
beignets, couscous and Arab pastries. Yet he was rarely seen at
Le Capoulade, the large cafe on the Boulevard St. Michel and the
headquarters of the Tunisians in Paris.
He had of course gone to Paris to study and he did work hard. He
wanted to read law in order to return to Tunisia to practise and he
signed on at the Faculty of Law and at the Sorbonne for the Institute
of Political Science. He passed his time between the Faculty and the
Sorbonne where he studied public finance and ended his time in
Paris in 1927 with the Certificate in Law and the Diploma in Political
Science with a specialization in international finance. He passed 17th
out of 190 candidates in the latter degree. He felt that once again he
had proved himself in equal competition with other students.
Mathilde
A small, pleasant woman, her chestnut hair tied back from a large,
gentle face, answered the doorbell. She was wearing mourning
which emphasized a serious yet confident appearance. On the
step stood Habib Bourguiba, a young unknown Tunisian student.
Mathilde Lefras was a war widow, 35 years old, whose husband
had been killed on Armistice day 1918. She worked in the Ministry
of Finance and lived near the Pere Lachaise cemetery in the family
house of the Lorrains on the ground floor, her sister above and
mother and brother on the second. Bourguiba had been given her
address by a teacher of French in Monastir who knew the brother.
On an impulse he had decided to pay her a visit. Mathilde seemed
pleased to see him and invited him in.
He stayed to dinner and soon they were seeing each other often.
Despite an age difference of fourteen years they got on well, eating
together and going out to dances. Bourguiba found her a lively
companion, perhaps too lively at times as she had strong views and
would often intervene in conversations with his friends. This led to
frequent quarrels but a strong affection developed between them.
Bourguiba described her as honest, an excellent housewife and very
religious. She gave him the love and affection of which he had so
long been deprived. The fourteen years difference made her more
of a mother figure, which perhaps Bourguiba was unknowingly
seeking, than a lover. A photograph of 1926 shows the two of them
with six friends, including Tahar Sfar and Bahri Guiga. Bourguiba
and Mathilde stand together at the back, she behind him with her
hand affectionately on his shoulder, he in shirt sleeves and in one
of his many incarnations, strongly resembling Charlie Chaplin.
Bourguiba entered with enthusiasm into French family life and
soon into Mathilde herself. The unlikely relationship was consum-
mated rather to his delight. His hernia and other affliction had led
him to worries about impotence and sterility. With Mathilde he
found himself a man, although sex did not playa great role between
them. Bourguiba wrote that he had not intended to marry Mathilde
as he was committed to the struggle against France. 'Mathilde
Early Days 27
accepted my proposal and was touched by my attitude. '16 The

Lorrain family was not so contented with the liaison. There was
gossip in the quarter about the widow Lefras and the young North
African. Bourguiba was sensitive to this and with money from his
friends Tahar Sfar and Bahri Guiga he arranged a pretend or 'tem-
porary' (as Bourguiba called it) marriage. They rented a carriage
and arrived at the Lorrain house as though returning from their
wedding. It is not reported what the 'religious, serious' Mathilde
thought of this subterfuge. Perhaps it satisfied the neighbours.
The coming together of a European woman and Arab man is
the ultimate meeting of West and East, and a not uncommon
occurrence. North Africans saw it as a way of dominating the
colonizer, of proving that the Arab did not have to be inferior to
the European, an assertion of Arab male rights. It was beating the
colonizer at his own game. Although it does not always work when
the couple returns to the Arab homeland, Bourguiba and Mathilde
did stay together for a long time. A telling coincidence - the family
name of Lorrain into which he had entered on equal terms was so
similar to the name of the Cafe Lorraine in Tunis from which he had
been barred as an Arab.
In September 1926 Bourguiba was spending the summer at home
in Monastir when he was called to his father's bedside. He found
him covered in sweat and very weak. His medical brother took their
father's pulse and said that the end was near. He died, as his son
Habib wrote, 'without him seeing me earn my living'P A second
blow fell when Bourguiba received a telegram from Paris with the
news that Mathilde was pregnant. He was stunned and she very
surprised - had they both believed him sterile? He returned to Paris
preoccupied with thoughts of his family to be. A Tunisian medical
student advised him to forget about her and go back home. It was
a fault of youth, he said, very common in France. To his lasting
credit Bourguiba rejected this suggestion and decided to stay with
the consequences of his actions, despite the fact that he knew that it
would interfere both with his study in Paris and the coming struggle
at home.
On 9 April 1927 Jean Habib (Habib Junior) was born. The couple
moved with the baby into a room in the suburbs where Bourguiba
had to prepare for his examinations. He was suffering from one of
his frequent illnesses but with the determination that he was to
show throughout his life he did work hard amid the paraphernalia
of a new baby and, as we have seen, did succeed. He then decided
to return to Tunis with his family to seek work as a lawyer. Mathilde

sold off her dining room but kept her bedroom in the building
in the Place du Leader where Bourguiba had lived with her. The
years in Paris were decisive in completing Bourguiba's intellectual
education. He had gained his qualifications and had seen French
political life at first hand. He had been deeply influenced by both
experiences which had laid the foundations on which to base his
future activities. He had become and remained a Francophile all his
life. He had now to integrate himself into Tunisian political life.
2
Struggle for Independence
IN TUNIS UNTIL THE FIRST ARREST, 1927 - September 1934
A student had left for Paris; a mature man with a 'wife' and family
returned to Tunis. The Tunisia that Bourguiba returned to was
different from that he had left. There were many more modem
buildings near the old town. The area of Belvedere was covered
with lawns and villas. Factories were springing up round Tunis,
la Goulette had become a large port. In the interior, towns such
as Bizerta and Sou sse had grown and new roads into the desert
had been built. In the Sahel area there were large olive plantations,
tuna boats left from Sfax and ship carrying phosphates from Gafsa.
Yet it was a colonial economy and there was a negative side.
The production of wine and wheat in France hindered the sale
of Tunisian produce. A fall in the price of olive oil had led to a
slump in sales and to debt and unemployment. Bourguiba could
see the streets of the new section of Tunis lit by electricity, while the
streets of the medina remained dark; rubbish was collected from the
new town, not from the old. It was an unjust system, symbolized by
the statue of cardinal Lavigerie, the man who had 're-evangelized'
the country, which had been errected in 1925 on the centenary of his
birth. It stood at the entrance to the medina brandishing a large cross
over the Muslim enclave threatening to dominate it.
As for every young man, the choice of career loomed, made more
urgent by his unexpected responsibilities. He first put things in
order by marrying Mathilde, who became a Muslim and took the
name Mufida ('useful'). The Bourguiba family did not take much
to her and were not prepared to help with accommodation. They
had had other ideas for a wife for Habib - a Tunisian girl of
good family - and a rather mature French lady did not at all fit
the picture. They were not to help her much later when she was
in need and Bourguiba in prison. The immediate problem was a
29
home and they found an apartment near the old town where they
lived until 1933. It quickly became a centre for visitors, often from
Monastir, where Bourguiba loved to preside over a tribe of friends
and relations. Their young son, known affectionately as Bibi, grew
up in this atmosphere, his father rather proud of him and caring,
while Mathilde, longing (hopelessly) for a little privacy, looked on
happily enough. They were to be a few years together of a kind of
family life which was more marked by the loneliness of separation,
with Bourguiba either away on political jaunts or enforced absence
in prison. Bibi remained their only child. Mathilde was then 37 years
old, long past the time of easy childbearing and Bourguiba did not
want to be burdened with additional family cares.
It was difficult for a young Tunisian lawyer to find a suitable
niche in the colonial atmosphere of the period. Law firms were
mostly French or Jewish and not too hospitable to an 'outsider'. To
qualify as a barrister Bourguiba had to serve a period of three years
in articles and he looked around for a welcoming organization. He
did find an office to work in but soon became discontented and left.
He moved about further until he was accepted by Maitre Sebault
where he stayed for one year more than the obligatory three. Yet
it was not the law which really held the young man's attention,
certainly not the routine cases of a law office. He slowly but surely
began to be drawn into his life's work, the role of leading Tunisia
into independence. He was seething against the many injustices
imposed by French colonialism and determined to fight against
them. A group of equally committed fervent nationalists came
together to discuss the political future of their country and ways
of combating the French. They included Dr Mahmoud Materi,
Bahri Guiga and Tahar Sfar, the friends from Paris whose names
recur throughout this story. Bourguiba soon showed his hand and
made himself known to the French authorities. In December 1928 he
attended a conference called by a cultural association to discusss the
tradition of the wearing of the veil by Tunisian women. There was
much discussion, chiefly over whether there was Koranic sanction
for the veil. Bourguiba remained silent a while. As a young nation-
alist he was expected to speak against the custom in the name of
progress and modernity. But no. In his very first political utterance
he took an individual line which marked him and his policies out.
His line was that the veil, although unaesthetic, was part of the
Tunisian personality and should be preserved temporarily.
Three points are important here. Firstly, Bourguiba is beginning
Struggle for Independence 31
to articulate his policy of 'stages' - a realistic approach to the

art of the possible. The veil could remain for the time being as
something distinctive, as something which separated Tunisians
from the French. It was useful in the struggle against the occupier.
When later he came to modernize society, the veil could be taken off.
Secondly, it was seen as a component of the Tunisian 'personality',
an idea which greatly preoccupied him. The French were angry.
Here was someone who spoke of the Tunisian personality as if
such a thing existed. There was only an amalgam of Arab, Muslim,
Jew, Maltese and others, they said. Bourguiba was convinced that
France considered Tunisia merely as part of the metropolitan area
and that consequently they were determined to stamp on any idea of
a Tunisian separateness. Finally, at the French Residency the debate
was heard of, Bourguiba's name became known and he was placed
under surveillance.
To spread these and other ideas bubbling in his mind he turned
to journalism. Writing in French he brought all the years of experi-
ence and education and the absorption of French civilization to
bear, using their own weapons against the colonizers. He was a
fluent and inspiring writer, lively and well-informed, and it is
clear that writing at that intellectual level and in that language
he was directing his message as much towards the French as the
Tunisians. He was not at the time attempting to influence the mass
of the population, peasant or urban, largely illiterate Tunisians. In
the period 1929-34 Bourguiba wrote over one hundred articles on
a multitude of subjects. His first in January 1929 was on the need
for gradual change, his stages. 'We must make progress, but make
it steadily. Evolution must occur, otherwise it is death. It should
happen without breakage or rupture in order to maintain our
personality in the future. For example, we have gradually adopted
the European suit and we have assimilated it. I want the Zitouna
mosque (the centre of Islamic teaching) to reform in order to lift the
intellectual level of our elite, to enable it to adapt to the demands
of modem life. The role of the elite is not to force things too quickly
at the risk of detaching itself completely from the masses which it
is charged to guide.'l
Bourguiba's other subjects, while always bearing in mind his chief
objective of freeing Tunisia from colonialism, include education,
famine, socialism, the economy, literature and even regular reports
on the theatre in Tunis. He often sincerely tried to accommodate the
French point of view, stressing that it was not French civilization
that he detested, only the French conqueror. 'Tunisians should be

a healthy and vigorous people who for the time being have been
forced to accept the domination of a strong state. Yet contact
with a more advanced civilization encourages them to forge ahead
resolutely on the path of progress towards a real regeneration, and
thanks to a judicious assimilation of the methods and principles of
that civilization they will inevitably realize by stages their own final
emancipation. '2
Bourguiba's tone was reasonably moderate in the beginning,
nothing really to worry the French, yet the political climate was
hotting up. Two celebrations sponsored by them underlined the
deep gap between the two sides and the crass thoughtlessness
of the dominant power. In 1930 French colonialism was at its
height in North Africa; in Algeria it marked the centenary of
the occupation; in Morocco the decree regulating relations with
the Berbers had been promulgated; in Tunisia a great Eucharistic
Congress was held to celebrate the 'revival' of the North African
bishopric in Carthage. The streets of Tunis were invaded by clergy-
men from all parts of the world and young men paraded around
adorned with Crusader crosses. A mass was held in the cathedral
of Carthage and the implications of the 'new crusade' were too
obvious to miss. Gymnasts, athletes, scouts and members of the
French Assembly all came at government expense. The 300 million
francs it cost caused even Paris to wonder if it was not too much.
For Tunisians it was too much. Bourguiba wrote that the people of
his generation forever kept in their memories the sight of young
Christians marching through the streets of Tunis carrying flags
bearing the words 'The ninth Crusade'. It aroused deep Muslim
resentment which reinforced the feeling of nationalist discontent.
And another French anniversary was celebrated the following
year - the fiftieth anniversary of the occupation of Tunisia. Nothing
could be expected more to insense nationalist feelings. Bourguiba
condemned it as a humiliating offence against the nation's dignity.
In this he was at one with his companions, Materi, Guiga and Sfar,
and all members of the Destour Party.
The Destour was founded in 1920 by Tunisian nationalists with
the aim of working for complete independence from France - the
first truly Tunisian political party. Its members were largely from
Tunis and the relatively affluent classes. Of the generation before
Bourguiba's they were the real force of nationalism at the time and
Bourguiba and company joined forces with them ... for the time
being. They used the nationalist newspaper La voix du Tunisien in

their cause, writing numerous articles in criticism of the French
regime. They were a new factor in the struggle. But behind the
outward appearance of co-operation Bourguiba was harbouring his
own feelings. In retrospect he called the Destour 'useless, just part
of the decoration'} He was chafing under other men's leadership
and longing to break free.
The journalists writing for La voix du Tunisien were one day
summoned to meet the Resident-General in his office - a worried
man, he wanted to exchange views with these young radicals, who
were a new and unwelcome voice in Tunisian politics. No common
ground was found and the French were to continue their heedless
path. Bourguiba spoke for himself in insisting that they had met
the Resident not as representatives of the Destour Party, but as
the elected voice of the people. He was already seeking a wider
legitimacy for himself and soon afterwards he decided to quit the
Voix and to branch out on his own with Materi, Guiga and Sfar.
In November 1932 they founded the newspaper L'action tunisienne
as their mouthpiece, more radical, independent of the older men.
Al though it began as a joint venture, Bourguiba soon began to assert
himself, to speak with authority, expecting the others to accept him
nominally as leader. At the time Bourguiba had no more claim to
leadership than they had, there were differences of opinion and
he was left to run the paper alone. He admitted that he could
not get on with them, an early sign of his need to dominate any
situation and impose his own terms. It was no doubt a sacrifice
for him as he had to abandon his work as a lawyer, in which he
had become established in his own office, and slave long hours on
the paper. 'I was up at 6 a.m. and only left when the newspaper
was ready at 1 p.m. '4 But he was enjoying himself, virtually alone
now, writing forthright articles, making his name, and if he felt he
was suffering a little then he was continuing the pattern of his life,
of further tempering in the furnace of experience. The tone of the
articles became harsher, the message harder, the struggle tougher.
'We have had fifty years of occupation, fifty years during which
France has brought to Tunisia a veritable state of war, based
solely on the law of the strongest, dividing the country into clans
ranged against each other in an implacable fight: the conquerors
against the conquered. Fifty years in which the conquerors have
clung desperately to the privileges which come from conquest,
while the vanquished have fought with all their might to demol-
ish them ... to install in the country a real peace which would
not be the legal consecration of a great injustice. If equality could
exist here there would be no more conquerors and vanquished,
only men seeking to live honestly by the fruit of their toil,
two civilizations seeking to complement each other, two nations
seeking to unite with the peaceful and strong bonds of economic
solidarity, to enable them to face the future mutually supporting
one another.'S
A clear enough philosophy - and one unacceptable to the French.

To the French who now gave the Tunisians another cause to
fight for and Bourguiba an opportunity to rally the people behind
him. For years the question of naturalization, of Tunisian Muslims
becoming French citizens, had been a touchy one. Tunisians who
had taken the step were considered by Muslim leaders to have
put themselves outside the pale of Islam. The nationalists saw the
whole process as part of a plot to francize Tunisia and destroy its
personality. The matter came to a head over the issue of burial, over
whether a naturalized Tunisian could still be buried in a Muslim
cemetery. The French authorities naturally wanted burial to be
permitted, some Muslim clerics were not strongly opposed, but
the population in general felt deep opposition and came out onto
the street in demonstrations. Bourguiba relished this situation and
admitted that he 'could not have hoped for a better opportunity.
I led the cause of non-burial and I defended the principle and the
honour of my country'.6 'I seized the occasion to rally the people
against this policy (of naturalization).'7 Bourguiba, jumping the gun
here, exaggerates in retrospect his role; the demonstrations were
more often spontaneous and there were others who took a lead
in opposing the policy. It is also questionable whether the issue of
Muslim burial really worried him, or was he being opportunistic?
As he admitted, he could not have hoped for a better cause. He was
quite carried away and the fervour of his articles increased to a (for
him) dangerous level. He wrote on 22 May 1933: 'Everybody has
protested against the fascist methods which we are getting used to
in Tunisia'S - and on the 26th, more in hope than expectation: 'Our
rulers and their eminences grises feel that they have not got long
left and that in a few days they will be brushed away like wisps
of straw. They are playing their last card. They want to finish well.
We will make sure that they end ridiculously.'9
On 6 May 1933 the Resident-General had signed the decrees,

known in nationalist mythology as 'extremely wicked' (super-
scelerat), which severely limited rights of expression and assembly
and legalized the immediate arrest and imprisonment of 'trouble-
makers'. On 27 May L'action tunisienne was suspended, and on 31
May the Destour itself was prohibited. Deprived of his mouthpiece
Bourguiba had to find another method of influencing the public and
of strengthening his position. It was to be his masterstroke - that
of going directly to the people, of meeting and addressing them
without the intermediary of newspaper or party. He felt constrained
by the presence of the Destour and could not wait to be rid of them.
He acted independently, heedless of their criticism.
The question of naturalized Tunisians came to a head in August
1933 over the case of the enforced burial of a child of naturalized
parents in a Muslim cemetery in Monastir. The subsequent mass
demonstrations alarmed the French now under a tougher Resident-
General who reacted strongly - there were many arrests, one dead
and several wounded. Bourguiba leaped in. Whatever happened in
Monastir was of direct concern to him. In his capacity as a lawyer
he led a group of notables from his home town to protest to the Bey.
He was acting on his own initiative, not having thought it necessary
to consult the leaders of the Destour. He found them stuffy and
unexciting and they thought him insubordinate and rash. It was
partly a clash of generations. They censured him and on 9 September
he resigned from the party. He could not tolerate criticism and in
seeking more freedom of action he also wanted any glory or renown
to redound to him and not anonymously to the party. Significantly,
he advised his colleagues not to follow his example. He had begun
his determined and lonely quest for supreme authority.
It is now that the real history of the young nationalist movement
begins, with an event enshrined in nationalis~ and Bourguibist
mythology. It is the turning point when the younger men broke
decisively with the older. Bourguiba and his companions, Sfar,
Guiga, and his brother M'hamed, decided on the spur of the
moment that they would talk to some 250 members of the Destour
in Ksar Hellal, a small town near Mahdia, to try to convince them
of the need for new policies and new leaders in the struggle for
independence. On 3 January 1934, a bitterly cold night, they all met
in an old oil press belonging to a Destour member. Bourguiba's
opponents stayed away but a group was left which engaged in
heated discussion until finally Bourguiba decided to address them
himself. To quote his own account: 'I held my audience breathless

till midnight with the power of my oratory. My legs were frozen up
to my knees but I did not falter. At the end I was lifted on men's
shoulders. It was a revelation to me as I had not known before
that I had such effective powers of speaking. My articles had had
a derisory effect compared to this speech which directly touched
the audience.'lO Bourguiba's message was that now was the time
for new, younger men to take over. He ended his speech: 'You here
tonight have to fight with courage and openness in the interests of
the country. You have to choose the men who will defend you, who
will take on the responsibility for the Tunisian cause, who will speak
in your name. We want to know if it is possible for us to continue
the actions we have begun with just one aim - the liberation of our
country.'ll Bourguiba had now found his metier, addressing his
people directly in colloquial Arabic, no longer writing in a foreign
language for an educated elite.
He and his companions had made a decisive break with the
Destour who had tried to warn off the people from meeting
Bourguiba with an apt quotation from the Koran concerning the
need to guard against wicked people bringing new information. The
dissidents responded vigorously from the Koran that God would
show them the truth. Bourguiba stressed in his speech that country
and party needed new men, the old were too weak to confront
the French. A resolution was passed dissolving the Executive of
the old Destour and a new Political Bureau was created to run a
new Destour. The party was born in March 1934. Bourguiba was
not yet sole leader; Dr Materi, the best known and respected of
the group, became president of the Bureau, the clever Bahri Guiga
assistant treasurer, Tahar Sfar, intellectual, passionate orator, assis-
tant secretary general. Bourguiba's brother became treasurer and
Bourguiba himself secretary general. They had enough dedicated
followers to create the New Destour, young educated men of the
1930s so different from the older guard of the 1920s. They rejected
the tutelage of their elders and called for more direct action.
Bourguiba was eager to lead, to stand out from his colleagues,
and he was prepared to put a great effort into achieving this. To
begin with he had to share the prestige with Materi, Guiga and
Sfar who were as well known as Bourguiba and who, with their
less abrasive personalities, caused less prejudice in some circles.
Bourguiba wanted to deepen and expand his contacts with the
people and for several months he embarked on a series of gruelling
tours around the country. ' I learned the importance of direct contact
with the people. Winter and summer without rest I was on the
road in my famous blue 6 cylinder Peugeot to rally them. '12 These
ordinary people were at first rather surprised that someone from
Tunis had taken the trouble to corne to talk to them. But they began
to be influenced by him and party cells began to be formed. 'I tried
hard to convince the people of the Sahel of my message. They
were obstinate, sectarian and very anxious not to criticize the Old
Destour. During (the hot summer) while the others were lying on
the beach I went all over Tunisia.'13 'I held a meeting once under
the leaden sky of Kairouan. I left immediately for another meeting
soaked in sweat. I drove the car with one hand on the wheel and the
other holding my shirt out of the window to dry. I put it on again
at the entrance to the next village. '14
A good friend whom Bourguiba had met in Paris, Felicien
Challaye, a socialist thinker, once accompanied him on his hectic
speaking tours. 'There was not a village where he did not speak
or visit the families one by one. We got up early, went to bed late.
But when I was getting ready to leave at crack of dawn we learned
that Bourguiba was already on his rounds and we had to meet him
somewhere else.'IS The nationalist movement had moved up a peg
in intensity. The French were on the alert. Tahar Sfar founded a
new paper in Arabic called al-Amal (action) in order to reach a
different audience. Bourguiba wrote for it and expressed himself
much more strongly than in French. 'Our people are suffering and
you (the French) are doing nothing to help us. We would be content
to sacrifice ourselves for the people. If they can gain happiness what
does our death matter? Death is anyway preferable to unworthily
giving up the fight. We remain convinced that our cause is just and
that sooner or later we shall end in triumph.'16
Such words together with Bourguiba's high profile were a red rag
to the French bull. It was about this time that Bourguiba earned the
title of supreme struggler17 - combattant supreme in French, the
good revolutionary fighter - and in Arabic al-mujahid al-akbar, the
greatest fighter in the jihad, the continuing fight of Muslims against
injustice, religious, national or social. He was no doubt happy with
this title, supreme, if it eliminated from the fight all competitors
for power. And his actions and speeches made in full knowledge
of French anger were leading to a confrontation which would be a
part of his progress to leadership. Suffering was a necessary step on
the road.
On 3 September 1934 Bourguiba was in Monastir in preparation

for a meeting in el-Djem. The old family house was empty and
Bourguiba decided to spend the night there. He wandered from
room to room with the feeling that, although silent, it was over-
flowing with a life of which only he was conscious. He was confident
and openly met his friends. He passed the night in his room with
a friend at the threshold to guard him. He was tired and slept like
a log. Outside, cars without lights were parked near the ramparts.
This quarter of the town had been discreetly encircled. Early dawn
and there were noises and movements in the courtyard. Bourguiba,
awake, was told that the French had come to arrest and exile him.
The house was surrounded and resistance or escape was out of
the question. Outside, waiting, were the gendarmes and an army
captain. Bourguiba's sister and her husband came running over in
tears. Bourguiba ordered them and a growing crowd of supporters
not to resist. They should be calm and strong and salute him when
he was taken away. He was now the actor centre stage. 'I shall be
dignified. I have done nothing wrong. Iam fighting for my country.'
The crowds grew and the police became impatient. Bourguiba was
led away through his people, the woman ululating. He was pushed
into a car with three gendarmes, one armed, and was driven off into
his first period of exile and imprisonment.
By this time Bourguiba has shown most sides of his character,
a mature man of over thirty, poised on the threshold of his life's
work. He was determined to be a leader, with all the attributes of
that determination, an unshakeable belief in the right to assert his
own will and to dominate others. As he had written very early: 'I
am ready to guide the masses more surely with a much greater
chance of a better future.' It was at this time he came to know the
works of Nietzsche, 'a great philosopher whom I have learned to
appreciate and with whom I personally sympathise very much'.18
What did he particularly find attractive in such a philosophy? The
need for a new man to bring in new values, who can stand like a
giant amongst pygmies (in Bourguiba's case raised on other men's
shoulders), the will to power in individuals who change history.
Did he see in Zarathustra the great lonely man who breaks down
old values and replaces them by new? He displays no doubt that he
is the right (and only person) to guide the nation. He wants to be
recognised as such and does all he can to distinguish himself from
his fellows. Thus he split with the Old Destour and then with his
younger colleagues on the newspaper. He needs to feel excluded,
even to suffer, so that he finds the necessary energy to leap into the
unknown, to pass into the next act.
His concept of 'suffering' comes out clearly in his memoirs. His
colleagues are sunning themselves on the beach while he is sweating
around the country to proclaim his message. He is prepared to talk
until midnight although his legs are freezing. He is arrested alone,
going forth as to a wedding, to an intoxicating rendez-vous with
the loneliness of exile. Bourguiba analyses himself and his role
quite frankly, particularly in letters to Madame Challaye whom he
uses as a sympathetic confident. He writes to her: 'Your "poor and
courageous friend" is always prey to cares and terrible fatigue and I
really need a heart of iron - which I have - in a body of steel- which
unfortunately I do not have - to hold on. In the worst moments
of tiredness and moral distress I just need to reread your letters
to regain my courage, telling myself that I need great faith and
complete sacrifice of my life for this kind of undertaking. Then I
feel my heart beat more strongly. No more lassitude. The future
seems bright and I cheer myself with the thought that my life will
have been of some use.'19
It is a happy suffering, a necessary part of becoming the supreme
fighter. The other side of the coin is an inability to understand or
love others and a demand of total allegiance. Those not for him were
considered to be against, and in the future he would quickly tum
against former friends whom he considered had betrayed him. He
was already known for towering rages and for his ability to inspire
awe and even fear. This desire for devotion could sometimes lead
to pettiness against those who fell short of his expectations. During
his visit to Ksar Hellal at the time of breaking the fast of Ramadam
in the evening his opponents refused to offer him even a glass of
water. He never forgot or forgave the sinning people. He enjoyed
making them uncomfortable: 'I let slip no occasion to remind the
people of Ksar Hellal of their lack of courtesy.' But self-centredness
and pettiness were combined with a great love of his country. It was
for Tunisia that he was prepared to suffer and make sacrifices. This
is the thread running through his life and it is a positive feature in
the lives of self-centred leaders.
The great discovery of this period was his ability to relate to the
masses through direct contact with them and through his powerful
oratory. A torrent of words was to flow from him, words linked
with gesture, facial expression, emotion or sarcasm in the voice,
the arms and hands punching the air in emphasis. He would frown
and threaten, smile and cajole, the stem father or the affectionate
parent. He could inspire his listeners to identify with him and with
his ideas. He brought all his histrionic skills to bear, his love of
acting, to the great role of his career. He strode the stage in his many
parts, dependent on the acclaim of the audience, lifting them above
themselves to accept his message. Discovered thus early, his ability
to communicate was to be one of the rocks on which he founded his
career.
FIRST EXPERIENCE OF PRISON, 1934-36
The car bore Bourguiba ever further south in the intense heat
towards the the deserts of Tunisia; seated between two gendarmes,
he watched the countryside become drier and dustier, so different
from his native Sahel. At midday in good French tradition they
stopped to eat. After lunch one of the gendarmes fell asleep, the
other remained silent with his eyes fixed on the back of the neck
of the driver. Bourguiba could not sleep. He continued to watch
the arid desert close round them, the sky metallic white, the land
dry and burned brown, a few rocks in the distance around parched
bushes, the dusty road. They reached Medenine the last town before
the Sahara. The car slowed in the group of miserable dwellings. A
few tents, some children who ran off squealing. It was here that
the famous Southern Military Territories began. No trees, the heat
a furnace.
Bourguiba got out to be met by Colonel Sigonet, the local com-
mander. A tremendous weariness overtook him. He glanced at the
gendarmes and cheered up. They look even more weary than he.
To his great surprise awaiting him were three fellow agitators, his
brother M'hamed, Dr Materi and Yousef Rouissi.
They had been arrested a little earlier. Others were to join
them later, all destined for desert exile. Thus thrown together
relations were to become tense, the inevitable strains worsened
by Bourguiba's insistence on dominating his fellows. The trend
of his thought is made clear by his first reactions at Medenine.
'In a moment I forgot my own situation and thought only of my
comrades. None of them was, I knew, built physically or morally to
withstand the rigours which were about to descend on us. I knew
their life style and their devotion to family life.'20 Rouissi he found
the most downcast, taken from his bed and still in his pyjamas.
Colonel 5igonet told Bourguiba that he was to be sent on to Kebili,

the others to separate destinations. Bourguiba, who was wearing a
jebba, took off his trousers and gave them to the unfortunate Rouissi
who, it is related, preserved them long after and showed them with
pride to visitors. Once again in the car, Bourguiba was taken further
south to Kebili, a down-at-heel vilage of a hundred squat houses
next to a palm grove. In the square stood the Office of Native Affairs.
Bourguiba was met by the local commander, Lieutenant Thivenet,
quite an old man with sunburnt face and large nose. He had two
stripes and was wearing bouffant trousers. Rather curtly he said:
'So it's you, Bourguiba.'21 He was then told that he could practise
locally as a lawyer on condition that he reported to him each day.
Bourguiba's philosophy at this time is summed up in two mes-
sages he sent to his brothers. 'I am unhappy, but I still have
hope; I shall always hope. What makes me unhappy is not exile
or isolation, nor illness, it is inactivity. lf despair ever enters my
heart, I won't survive because my life will have no more rea-
son.'22 And a little later: 'Remember that the real leader keeps
his faith intact when the world around him has despaired. He
must stick it out, die nobly (echoes of 'The Wolf') if necessary
rather than crack shamefully in inactivity, just waiting for clem-
ency from the French.'23 This admirable side of Bourguiba came
to the fore during his exile. He also wrote to the Resident-General
explaining his attitude towards France and exile. He sought better
relations with France but he was not prepared to give in. He
mischievously quoted Victor Hugo's poem on the exile of Napo-
leon III in England which quite remarkably reflected his own
feelings.
I accept this bitter exile, even if it is endless or unlimited

Without seeking to know and without conSidering
Whether someone one thought stronger has cracked
Or whether several are leaving who should have
remained
lf there remain ten of us I will be the tenth;

And if only one remains that will be me.
Bourguiba could have added another strikingly relevant passage

from the same poem.
I will not bend. Without a complaint on my lips,

Calm, mourning in my heart, disdaining the herd,
I will embrace you in my grim exile
My homeland, my altar! Liberty, my banner.24
'Am transferred brutally to Kebili. Climate really excessive. Place

very isolated. Morale still high.'25 Thus Bourguiba informed the
world of his exile. Faithful Mathilde tried to visit him regularly
and was always concerned about his health and welfare. After one
visit she wrote to Madame Challaye:
My husband has been thrown down here like a dog. After I

visited the captain at Medenine a few more humanitarian steps
have been taken; now he has a room with a window, a bed and
a mattress. Since last Friday he has been running a fever. I set
out with my little Habib and we have been here since Saturday.
I hope to God that my little one does not get ill. There are no
vegetables here which are what my husbands need to eat. How
long is this life going to last? ... How hot it is and there are so
many flies I cannot concentrate.
A big kiss from my little devil who seems better able to
acclimatize himself than either his mother or father.26
A new telegram was despatched 3 October 1934:
Transferred Borj-Leboeuf, health excellent, morale iron -Stop- Do

not lose your heads -Stop- We are entering the decisive phase
question of life or death -Stop- main thing is to behave well and
to react -Stop- know how to make major decisions and to make
them respected -Stop- order, discipline, courage - Habib.
So Bourguiba wrote to the Destour's Political Bureau in Tunis.

During his exile in Kebili anti-French disturbances had occurred
in the country and Bourguiba himself had engaged in political
discussions with his companions and with local Tunisians. These
developments had enraged the French who were convinced that
the Destour was still intriguing against them. The Resident-General
decided to send the ringleaders further south where, he hoped, they
would be too isolated to cause trouble.
During one of Mathilde's visits to Kebili Bourguiba had a pre-
sentiment that he was about to be sent further away. He kissed her
goodbye and hugged Bibi who then waved from the window of the
old bus, and moved over to let his mother 'give to Bourguiba one
of her beautiful calm smiles'P
His presentiment proved right. Once again in the night he found
himself in a car with guards taking him south. No road, just a track,
a few palms, a few tents. The car lurched along, sometimes sticking
in the sand. Bourguiba sweltering between his taciturn escort. It
was the most arid part of Tunisia and after two hours drive the
car reached the end of the track, lost in the wasteland the military
outpost of Borj-Leboeuf where there were only goumiers (local
recruits) and French soldiers. This desolate spot was named after
a French aviator who had crashed and died nearby.
In a small dark office Bourguiba was received by a meharist
(camel corps) officer, Captain Mathieu, who told him that he had no
rights to receive any visitors and was forbidden daily walks. He was
lodged in a small dirty dark room, cold and draughty at night, with
the ceiling falling in. The floor was of cement, the walls of stone. He
was allowed to see no-one in this room. He was closely guarded by
rough soldiers who delighted in addressing him as 'you bastard!'
Bourguiba suffered greatly in these conditions. His susceptible
health caused great concern to Mathilde who was able to visit him
briefly, a journey of 1300 kilometres for one hour. Bourguiba wrote
warmly that she showed no distress, but an indomitable courage
'which I had always known in her'.28 He was right about her
courage, perhaps she did not show any distress, but she was also
very worried about him. She wrote to Madame Challaye that 'he has
just had angina. I found him very thin, tired and without appetite.
Happily I was able to send him some food, otherwise he could die
of hunger. He has such weak lungs, I am afraid. He cannot wash in
a bucket, even of warm water, for fear of congestion. We have just
sent him two litres of strong eau de Cologue to rub on his body.'29
While poor Mathilde was worrying about her husband he made
all kinds of demands on her, particularly to send him food. His
appetite seemed to return and he took charge of cooking for his
colleagues. He would kill a lamb and make a couscous, while
the primus stove sang in the back room. He enjoyed being cook,
a homely touch which was perhaps appreciated, although one of his
meals gave them all dysentery. From Mathilde he demanded 'pasta,
a box of ovomaltine, a flask of orange water, a flask of Kruschen
salts' - all the usual prison fare. He thanked her for the fish 'which
arrived in a very good condition', for the plums, but the biscuits
were without salt. 'You must be more careful for they were really
tasteless. '30 His final request was for a hot water bottle.
There is no doubt that Bourguiba did suffer in exile. His health
was weak and he lost weight. A photograph at the time shows a
drawn, bearded figure, the romantic pallor of suffering on his face.
He was a man suffering more than a little willingly, determined to
come through more strongly than his colleagues. If they suffered,
he would suffer more; if they endured he would endure with more
fortitude. If they gave in, he would not. This attitude often made
him unbearable to his colleagues. Legend has it that Bourguiba was
already the leader, the only one to resist the temptation to give in to
the French authorities. But colleagues were equals not his disciples.
Their discussions over which policy to follow often became violent
and Bourguiba, who could not stand contradiction, would throw
fits of anger, shouting at the top of his voice, tearing his clothes
and kicking objects.31 Perhaps partly real hysteria, perhaps partly
faking, an actor trying to captivate his audience. His expression
became haggard, his eyes rolled, his comrades feared the worst.
They could not stand it, in particular Dr Materi who hated the
shouting, and they moved apart from him, leaving him isolated
and shunned. Bourguiba in his memoirs claims they all betrayed
him in a cowardly, ignominious fashion. They only wanted peace
and quiet and were prepared to come to terms with the French.
One day General Azan the Commander-in-chief came to lecture
them. They were all agents of disorder who had to be prevented
from causing trouble. Guiga and the others blamed Bourguiba for
his activist methods and they agreed to promise Azan moderation
in future. Bourguiba totally disagreed. On 15 April 1935 they had a
meeting to which Bourguiba was not invited. He came nevertheless
and argued with them and annoyed them. The upshot was a letter
to Azan in moderate terms stating that they were not anti-French.
Bourguiba reserved his position in a separate message to his sup-
porters, claiming that he alone was resisting the colonizers. His
version was that 'they all wanted to go home. I never knew such
infamy. Their spinelessness passed understanding. I preferred to die
in this desert rather than renounce my ideals '.32 He was now hardly
on speaking terms with his comrades.
In fact they had not given in and Azan refused to release them.
To Bourguiba's shame only his brother M'hamed defected, the strict
unbending brother in Tunis who had overseen his education. He
was released in September 1935. M'hamed blamed Bourguiba for
dragging him into the whole affair. Bourguiba remained prostrate

for several days and then he fell ill. He called M'hamed's letter
renouncing political activity 'shameful'. In a way the one defection
brought the others together and stiffened their resolve. Slowly the
ice melted and Materi and Bourguiba began to talk again. According
to Bourguiba: 'I pointed out to him the results of standing firm.
Because he listened to my advice we became like brothers.'33
Mathilde continued to worry about both her husband and her
son. She pleads with Madame Challaye to try to get Bourguiba
transferred to better conditions. 34 She feels desperate and alone.
'Excuse me madame, if I go on so much, but I am so alone. I fear

most for Si El Habib. I am afraid of all the traps laid for him. His
nature is far too frank. I want all the men to come home to their
families.
My little man has failed a bit this month. He is fifth in the class
instead of second. I have neglected him and the little devil has
taken advantage. He misses his father very much whom I have
not seen for five months.
The new commander at Borj Leboeuf is very severe. He threat-
ens the men with his riding whip. One punishment is to make
them push a wheelbarrow full of stones in the desert. The guards
report conversations and try to stir up trouble. Bourguiba was
arrested for watching the soldiers exercising. The lieutenant
shouted at him to move away. 'We haven't yet had orders to
fire on you but that will come'.3 5
In the outside world Tunisians continued to demonstrate against

the French occupation. In March 1936 a new Resident-General was
appointed, Guillon, of leftist leanings who wanted to negotiate with
the exiles. He revoked measures restricting personal freedom and in
April the captives were allowed to leave Borj Leboeuf, Bourguiba
first to the island of Jerba where he met Guillon, who recommended
him not to hold any more public meetings, and then home to his
family. The first ordeal was over.
INTERLUDE OF FREEDOM, 1936-38
Bourguiba was greeted with relief by his family on his release; they
did not know that it was to be only a short respite. Mathilde in
particular was delighted. His sister told him that he had brought the
French to their knees. 'No, replied Bourguiba, I have not done that,
but neither have they brought me to my knees.'36 He threw himself
once again into feverish political activity, refusing to give any
promises to the French that he would be less active. His colleagues
criticized him for going too far too quickly and for inviting certain
retaliation. Bourguiba was quick to exploit his past martyrdom as
though he had been the only one to suffer, and with his black beard
and thin body he looked the part. While the old politicians were
unhappy with him, anew, young generation of nationalists from
schools in Tunisia or from university in Paris were more willing to
follow him in his confrontational approach.
At the same time, however, there was hope of compromise. In
France a left-wing government under Leon Blum had come to
power and it had given promises at least to talk to the Tunisian
nationalists. Bourguiba went over to Paris to test the water. He was
to meet Pierre Vienot, undersecretary in the Ministry of Foreign
Affairs. He was accompanied by Charles-Andre Julien, then and
for many years a leading French authority on North Africa, who
kept a note of that encounter: 'Bourguiba went into the meeting as
tense as a pole, walking mechanically. He came back transfigured.
That a great man such as Vienot had listened to him and understood
him seemed to Bourguiba a historic consecration. The outlaw had
become the intermediary. Nothing was decided but the symbol was
enough for that day.'37
In Tunisia the French settlers fought bitterly to block any moves
to give Tunisians the slightest concessions. The situation in the
country became tense as hopes had risen, only to seem to be
dashed. In September 1936 Bourguiba was back home trying to
explain the situation. He teamed up with a young colleague later
to become notorious, Salah Ben Yousef. He was too a man of action,
courageous, unscrupulously ambitious, with a love of pleasure and
money. He was to rival Bourguiba in his ambitions and bore with an
ill grace the role of second-in-command. Together they went to talk
to the Resident-General in an attempt to wring some concessions
from him. He was willing to go some of the way but not far enough
for Bourguiba and his supporters. It was the usual clash of young
nationalists demanding more than the colonizers were willing to
concede. Although Bourguiba was ready to pursue his policy of
stages there seemed to be no time on either side for compromise.
Discontent spread among the population and strikes broke out. The
settlers feared the loss of their rights, the Tunisians were frustrated
by the lack of progress.
Bourguiba in this situation was doggedly trying to build up a
central position of leadership. In July 1937 one of the old founders
of the Destour party, Abdelaziz Thaalbi, returned to Tunisia from a
stay in the Middle East. He was a respected and popular figure and
returned to a great reception. He was a natural leader who wanted
to reunite the old and new Destour. Bourguiba immediately felt the
threat to his own po&ition. He went around the country stirring
up opposition, making his own case, and disrupting meetings
addressed by Thaalbi. This determination to maintain his leadership
brought out an unpleasant side of his nature, his will to gain the
upper hand at all costs. In September at a meeting to be addressed
by Thaalbi, Bourguiba's supporters arrived, many of them armed,
branding Thaalbi a 'dictator, traitor, stooge', and firing at his
car. Miraculously he escaped although his chauffeur was killed.
Bourguiba denied that the intention had been to kill anyone, but
he still sent out his toughs to disrupt public gatherings. Thaalbi
got the message and gave up any attempt to hold more meetings.
Bourguiba had gained the upper hand through intimidation which
he would continue to use all his life if he felt it necessary. He was
keen to organize his disciples into militants, not too unlike fascist
gangs, in order to make his will prevail.
In June 1937 the Blum government fell and the French attitude
hardened. Negotiations were put aside. At a congress of the Neo-
Destour in October debate raged over policy options. The older
members favoured moderation, the young were radical and activist.
This latter was also Bourguiba's line although he still favoured
a policy of stage by stage progress. The country seemed ready
for more violent action. Against demonstrations the French were
beginning to react viciously and Bourguiba was furious. He began
to confront the French in words spoken and written. 'If blood does
not flow on Tunisian soil we will never regain our liberty.'38 He
moved around the country calling for action and the party followed
him. Then at the crucial moment once again Bourguiba fell ill. The
demonstrations continued while he was at home away from the
action. On 4 April 1938 Salah Ben Yousef was arrested and Dr
Materi, after another mass protest, told Bourguiba, still at home
on his sick bed, that the Resident-General was willing to negotiate
terms with the protesters. Bourguiba in his enfeebled state, even
feverish, was furious and shouted that if no blood had flowed they
had achieved nothing. This was not at all to the more moderate
Materi's way of thinking. Bourguiba's demand was, however, soon
to be realised.
On 9 April 1938 another demonstration was mounted in the capi-
tal after the arrest of more militants. A large crowd formed outside
the Palace of Justice where one of the militants was to be brought
before the judges. The angry demonstrators were met head on by
armed French troops. Some of the crowd were also armed. Shots
rang out. Members of the crowd fell, mortally wounded. Others fled
to escape the fusillade. The firing continued indiscriminately until
some forty39 Tunisians were killed and dozens wounded. Bourguiba
had his massacre. Was that what he wanted or could he have urged
restraint? Blood did not bring liberty. Quite the contrary. That day
a state of siege was proclaimed. Bourguiba ordered that the bodies
of those massacred be placed in the main square outside the foreign
consulates as proof of French inhumanity.
Bourguiba was still in bed when the midnight call came. Bibi was
asleep beside him. Once again his house was surrounded by police
who broke in and began a systematic search. All private papers were
seized and Bourguiba himself arrested. The police Commissioner
invited him to accompany him. A doctor there assured him that
his medical treatment would be continued in prison. Bourguiba got
up, dressed and (in an odd aside which he himself relates)40 went
into the bathroom with the Commissioner to put on his hernia belt.
On leaving Bourguiba wondered whether he should wake Bibi to
say adieu (not au revoir). He decided to do so, fearing he might
never see him again. ' Do your studies well' were his parting words,
recalling those of Bourguiba's own father. Bourguiba was led away
from his family once again.
UNDER ARREST A SECOND TIME, 1938-43
Mathilde bore with fortitude her second experience of separation.

She suffered financially too. In the market in the old city traders
tried to help. They would lower their prices for her or surreptitiously
hand back in change larger amounts than she had given them. They
respected her as the wife of the now famous Bourguiba. He had been
taken first to the Civil Prison with his colleagues and then with their
hands chained to the Military Prison. The prisoners in the depth
of despair felt sure they were being taken to execution. Bourguiba
remembered saying to the others: 'If they lead us out to be shot

do not wear blindfolds. You are defending the Motherland.' They
were not shot, but prepared for cross-examination before a trial.
Bourguiba was pushed into Cell 37, cold and damp in April. A door
closed, a second, the darkness was suffocating, the bed the concrete
floor. Bourguiba lay thinking of the many Tunisians who had been
killed in the demonstration. He promised himself wildly that if he
came out alive he would reply bullet for bullet. On 12 April 1938 at
5.30 p.m. Bourguiba was brought before the prison commandant in
handcuffs for interrogation. There began a cat and mouse game, a
psychological set piece between a tough, intelligent, cunning French
officer, de Guerin du Cayla, military officer of justice, examining
magistrate in the military tribunal, and a tough, intelligent, cunning
French trained Tunisian lawyer - a drama every bit as gripping as
those in Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment or Kafka's Trial. It was
a battle of wits and intimidation in which all Bourguiba's activities
and those of his comrades in the Destour were passed through a fine
toothcomb. The published verbatim report: of the interrogations runs
to over 700 pages.41 The first cross-examination took place in April
1938 and the last on 14 February 1939.
De Guerin took Bourguiba laboriously through a long series
of documents, speeches and letters and questioned him in detail
on what he had meant by certain statements. He rather oddly
insisted on trying to show that Bourguiba had an unreliable and
dislikeable character. Odd because the proof he used was some
letters exchanged between Bourguiba and a young cousin in 1926.
A quotation gives the flavour of some of the exchanges between
Bourguiba and De Guerin.
Question (De Guerin): In order to know the motives of a

person it is often necessary to get to know his character. Your
character is clear from some letters seized in your office and
which came from your cousin Zouiten.
Answer (Bourguiba):I have a cousin Zouiten who is a doctor.
Question: Did he write to you?
Answer: Yes, but I broke with him in 1926 for family reasons.
I did not know that these letters were still in my office.
Question: On page 114 we read a phrase from this cousin:
'Take yourself off to another department. In my house we
don't cultivate bad herbs. In any case don't make things worse
by keeping my letters '. Why did you keep them?
Answer: I didn't think I needed to obey an order given by

him.
Question: You would have done better to obey, for these
letter illuminate your character in a most reliable way coming
from a close relation, a cousin.
Answer: These letters date from 1926, when because of the
rupture between us, he was not qualified to appreciate my
character.
Question: That is your opinion for we read on page 197 that
he backs your idea of asking for the hand in marriage of his
sister Shedlia and he encourages you. He writes 'I think your
suit is going well'.
Answer: Its true that she had been in some way kept for
me but I had never asked for her hand or made any official
approaches.
Question: It is profoundly regrettable (a phrase used by de
Guerin whenever he thought he had caught Bourguiba lying)
that on page 108 there occurs the phrase of Zouiten, 'My father
says that your brothers have asked for the hand of Shedlia on
your behalf'.
Answer: I never asked anyone to make this approach.
Question: You don't accept orders, you don't ask anyone to
do things for you, and these are two qualities your cousin sees
in you when he writes on page 109: 'You are too conceited
and too thin-skinned'. And page 110: 'How much more I
would like you if you got rid of your self-conceit and your
desire always to look for mischievous intentions between the
lines'. 'I am waiting for a Bourguiba, but a sincere one, a
new Bourguiba, if I may say, a franker, modest, spiritual
Bourguiba.' 'You don't know much. Pretentiousness is a hor-
rible ill. Humanity learns modesty. You have a wonderful way
of feigning'. There's then your character laid bare by your
cousin.
Answer: As far as these letters are concerned they are from
a cousin, older than I with whom I had long discussions on
all sorts of subjects and he was often irritated if my personal
ideas didn't fit with his. He was irritated to see that he had no
influence on my intellectual development. 42
This exchange had a great effect on de Guerin and deeply influ-

enced his view of Bourguiba. He went on through long days to
probe him on many topics. 'What are the aims of the Destour?' 'If
you support a Franco-Tunisian rapprochement why did you lead
the struggle against naturalization?'
Question: You said to a public gathering 'France sucks our

blood. Be always determined to fight, to bear prison, even to
die'. What have you to say?
Answer: I could never have said 'France sucks our blood'. It
is a crude phrase which means nothing. It is not my habit to
speak in such images and in a coarse manner.43
A little later de Guerin quotes to Bourguiba a newspaper article

in Arabic ostensibly written by him in which the phrase 'a country
ruined by misery and whose blood has been sucked by a group
of fortunate foreigners' occurs.44 Bourguiba cannot wriggle out of
this so easily and tries to explain that blood really meant substance
and that the translation was incorrect. De Guerin cites many more
articles which Bourguiba either denies having written or claims that
they have been misinterpreted. One reason for some of the mis-
understanding is that Bourguiba, writing in Arabic, was addressing
a different audience, using more inflammatory language, often quite
natural in Arabic, which did not sound very reasonable in French.
Question: Why were you and your comrades sent in exile to

Borj Leboeuf?
Answer: I think probably because of the propaganda tours
we made in the country.
Question: Do you attribute your exile to such a small matter.
You have completely lost your memory. You instigated riots,
demonstrations, racial hatred. You wanted to change crowds
into revolting hordes. You just need a group of helpers or
even one person shouting 'God is great' to make a crowd
mad, or furious, so that it causes destruction, sets fire and
cuts throats. You also encouraged others in 1934 not to pay
taxes or do military service.
Answer: I deny it absolutely.45
De Guerin constantly tries to trap Bourguiba into incriminating

himself, Bourguiba consistently sidestepping or denying accusa-
tions. 'You criticize France so much, claiming we have done nothing
for you at all. We see clearly that at present the value of your feelings
for French is equal to zero.' 'You undertake a campaign of blackmail

against France, first discreet and then more orchestrated, a move-
ment of threats and incitement.'46 De Guerin quotes Bourguiba's
article of 10 April after the bloody demonstration of 8/9 April 1938
which claimed that 'no reconciliation, no arbitration is possible'.
Question: If, after reading this, you still claim to bring people
together, to get rid of hatred we may as well give in.
Answer: I was beside my self because I could hear the
shooting.
Question: So while hearing the guns you turned out a more
violent article in order to calm the people down?
Answer: I couldn't calm people in my article which was only
to corne out the next day, but I tried to calm them down by
sending my driver to inform Mongi Slim and I know that
Mongi tried unsuccessfully to calm the demonstrators but he
was hindered by the commander, Couthures.
Question: Always the same tactics: to attribute to your-
self some merits which disappear as soon as we look more
deeply into things. We'll read you the declaration of Captain
Couthures: Mongi Slim came to me and said: 'You see what's
happening, Captain. They're shooting on all sides.' Couthures
wanted to drag Mongi Slim outside the barricade to lead him
in front of the demonstrator but he didn't want to and took
advantage of a moment's inattention on the part of Couthures
to get back in his car and drive off. There then is your hero, as
courageous as all his comrades in a moment of danger.
On other occasions Bourguiba either suffered or faked Reagan-like

lapses of memory when he did not want to face facts produced by
de Guerin.
Question: You attack the gendarmerie in your speeches. You

are reported to have said that the hands of the police still drip
with the noble blood of the martyrs of liberty who have been
savagely massacred.
Answer: I don't remember having spoken in those terms and
I don't remember who made the summary of my speeches.47
Question: You were present at the meeting in November 1937
to discuss a general strike. You say that no pressure was to be
exerted on those who did not want to strike. The minutes of
that meeting state: It was decided to pursue propaganda more

actively by persuasion or if need be by terror, without recourse
to force, and to take the names of those who would not support
the strike. Curses would be pronounced in mosques against
those who refrained from striking. You said the Neo-Destour
never used curses in mosques. We have proof to the contrary.
Answer: I do not remember being present at that meeting for
I would have protested against such curses.
Question: You have often made fun of your fellow accused
who have lost their memories and you do the same.
Answer: Perhaps I made a short appearance at the meeting
and the secretary did not note when I left.
In addition to the interrogation of Bourguiba himself, his col-

leagues were closely questioned and de Guerin worked hard to
drive a wedge between them. They did not need much persuasion
to speak against Bourguiba. They complained about his dubious
methods, the double language in which he addressed France and
the Tunisian masses, his recourse to strong-arm methods. Materi,
Guiga and Sfar did not renounce the Destour but they did reject
Bourguiba. He was naturally furious and in his memoirs again
calls them traitors, cowards and faithless. Why did they react in
this manner? Fear of prison? Spinelessness? Resentment against
Bourguiba's domineering attitude since their joint imprisonment
had come to the surface. They were leaders in their own right
and felt they were treated as underlings. To them Bourguiba was
suicidal in his confrontations with the French.
On occasion de Guerin would confront Bourguiba with a col-
league, trying to get the one to deny the other. Bahri Guiga was
brought into an interrogation during which the two of them main-
tained different lines or had different recollections of events.
Question: Bourguiba says that at the Congress of 1937 the

Political Bureau was in total agreement; Guiga says there were
two tendencies.
Guiga: I maintain my affirmation.
Bourguiba: I affirm that no deviational tendencies were
shown.
Guiga: I maintain that in the Bureau there were two blocs!
Question: In December 1937 did you have entire confidence
in your friend Guiga?
Bourguiba: At that time I did not have complete confidence

from a political point of view because I could not exactly
follow his intimate thoughts which varied ceaselessly.
The co-accused were also questioned individually and at great

length, Guiga, Materi, Sfar and several others. At last it was all over.
To Bourguiba de Guerin said: 'This long interrogation is finished;
have you anything to add?'48 Bourguiba jumped at this opportunity
to justify himself.
I affirm once again that at no moment did we have the idea of

trying to overthrow the regime or the government. I affirm that
at no moment did the idea of organizing a riot enter our minds.
As far as I am concerned I have struggled and suffered to defend
these ideas (of conciliation and a balanced solution) against all
fanaticism. For them I have sacrificed my freedom, my health, my
happiness. I am ready to sacrifice my life for them; their triumph
would be at that price. I have nothing to add.
De Guerin remained totally unconvinced to the end. In a long

ruling he detailed the crimes of which they all stood accused. For
Bourguiba himself: 'Habib Ben Ali Ben Hadj Mohamed Bourguiba,
38 years, lawyer in Tunis, prisoner: charged with provocation to
racial hatred, inciting the population to murder, pillage, arson,
attacks against the rights and powers of the French Republic in
Tunisia, publication in bad faith of false news, plotting against the
security of the state.'49
The others were accused in similar terms. With heavy irony
de Guerin detailed all the activities of the Neo-Destour as seen
from the French point of view. Great attention was paid to the
demonstrations of 9 April in an effort to prove the serious nature
of the activities of the accused. The French were convinced that
the Destour members had actively encouraged the riots, although
de Guerin wrote that each of the accused had claimed that he had
tried to calm the anger of the demonstrators.
These declarations prove once more how little credit one can
attach to their words. They did nothing to stop the riots. The
cowardice of these militants may to a certain extent explain why
they kept their dist,mce from the field of battle. They are very
Strugglejor Independence 55
ready to preach the necessity of sacrifice to others, but are very

anxious not to risk their own lives. Bourguiba heard the shooting
and took care not to leave his 'sick-bed' to place himself at the
front of the demonstration. He played his usual part for he
awaited the moment so carefully prepared beforehand to exploit
a 'victory'. His state of health, so miraculously improved at the
moment of his arrest that night, cannot alter things. The song of
triumph he composed on hearing the fusillade (i.e. the article in
L'Action) speaks much for his mental state at that moment and
for the projects he was nourishing. 50
The report went on to criticize the methods used to wriggle out

of situations. 'As for the inflammatory words they are said to have
uttered, if they are grave words they deny having said them or
accuse witnesses of lying, or do not remember them, or contest
their meaning and give them a very harmless interpretation.'
De Guerin was prepared to believe very little the accused said,
unless it was when they were accusing each other. A verdict was
very predictable. On 10 June 1939 Bourguiba and nine S1 others
were found guilty of fomenting a plot against the security of the
state and of planning to act through a conspiracy. These were grave
charges liable to the death penalty. Other charges were dismissed.
The interrogation had been the first step in the judicial process.
The matter was passed to the court in Algiers for further action.
An interesting addition to the verdict was an individual note on
Bourguiba himself. All de Guerin's prejudices come out in this
paper, which also shows how Bourguiba came across during his
long interrogation.
He is depicted in letters written by one of his cousins, a doctor,

as an unyielding character, unamenable to advice, conceited,
touchy, defiant, a juggler with words, a coward, very clever
at dissimulating. He is, however, the most intelligent of all the
leaders, one of the most violent, one of the most relentless against
France and the French and also the most ambitious. His motto
is 'boldness is the best way to gain respect and make yourself
feared'. He has gained the most credit with the masses. He is the
master, the great struggler.
He has confessed in a letter of 1925 that he had always sup-
ported a well conducted offensive policy, using a menacing,
even violent tone, while always remaining dignified. He does
not seem to have much logic in his ideas, but he is never short
of an argument.
And so on, detailing his words and actions for page after page, a
clever analysis of his character, a lot of which Bourguiba would not
have disagreed with.
The convicted men had suffered quite an ordeal and some of them
at least were convinced that they were to be executed. It seems that
de Guerin had sworn to send Bourguiba to the scaffold. They were
taken to the civil prison where Bourguiba was put in a condemned
cell, but as the French report says, on a deferred sentence. The
French were holding their fire, almost as if they knew they had to
continue to co-exist with Bourguiba. His conditions in prison were
improving when outside events took a hand. The second World War
broke out in September 1939. He was transferred to the penitentiary
of Teboursok. On his way there he felt sure once again that he was
being taken to his execution. On arrival he was put into solitary
confinement. He received his mess tin through a grill in the door.
The war changed everything. German, Italian, American and
British armies were to fight on Tunisian soil and with the fall
of France in June 1940 no one could be certain about the future
of the French possessions in North Africa. Mussolini, possessor
of neighbouring Libya, was casting greedy eyes on both Egypt
and Tunisia. It was even suspected, almost certainly incorrectly,
that Bourguiba had made approaches to the Fascist dictator in the
hope of gaining support against the French. As will be seen later,
Bourguiba was most careful to avoid committing himself to the
Axis side in the war. He would put no trust in Italian promises of
independence and at heart believed in an Allied victory.
The leaders of Vichy France did not want to leave their 'trouble-
makers' in Tunisia where the Free French or other undesirables
might interfere and so transferred them to the mainland. They
were shipped via Bizerta to Marseille on 26 May 1940 on L'Alycon,
a French naval anti-torpedo boat. They were imprisoned in Saint
Nicholas fort, the grim building standing at the entrance to the
Old Port. According to Bourguiba their reception was horrible. The
junior officers made most of them strip (though not Bourguiba),
searched and beat them with whips and belts. They were then
put into a gruesome cell, seven of them, which Bourguiba called
a dump into which rubbish was thrown. They had to sleep on
rat infested straw and t11e rain dripped on to them. These awful
physical conditions led again to strained relations amongst the men.

Long arguments erupted, particularly about the probable outcome
of the war. Some of them wanted the Axis to win, while Bourguiba
stubbornly believed that Hitler would lose eventually.
After fifty days the prisoners were transferred to what Bourguiba
calls a cage, small dungeons in which were incarcerated two pris-
oners at first and then one individual. The only toilets were slop
buckets, and there was a small yard where they could take the air
for a quarter of an hour a day. They stayed for more than two
year in Marseille as conditions gradually improved. The Tunisians
living in the city were allowed to visit them and bring news and
food. Mathilde and Bibi settled nearby and visited Bourguiba who
seems to have borne the strain with great fortitude. On one occasion
Mathilde had made some approaches on her husband's behalf in
an attempt to improve his conditions or to secure his release. This
infuriated him. He wrote angrily to her: 'If you do not want to
offend me, you must in future desist from all direct or indirect
approaches to anyone. Do not forget that you carry my name and
therefore you have charge of my honour.'52 Bourguiba wanted no
favours which might have sullied his reputation or have suggested
that he was not able to stand prison. Poor Mathilde was deeply
hurt by the letter and unable to understand why her help was not
welcome.
The long days of imprisonment dragged tediously by, enlivened
by the occasional visits and gifts of food. The prisoners knew
nothing of their future and were able only to have infrequent
discussions. The hard life had an effect on them all and they
could but wait on events. The decisive factor was the occupation
of Vichy France by the Germans in 1942. The Vichy authorities
wanted to keep their captives out of German hands and secretly
moved them to Montluc Fort in Lyon. There they were kept in the
officers' quarters by the French in the hope that the Nazis would not
find them. The Italian German Armistice Commission was combing
the area. In November 1942 German troops had entered Tunisia and
things looked black for the prisoners. They were transferred from
the rather public gaze in Lyon to the more obscure Fort Vancia in
the department of Ain outside the city, where it has been suggested
that the French gave orders to dispose of them. The Vichy made
the fundamental error of putting the men in a room with barred
windows which could be seen from the street. Patrolling German
soldiers saw them standing at the windows wearing red Tunisian
felt caps. The next day, 16 December 1942, the cell door opened and
there stood a German officer in the black and silver uniform of the
5.5. It was none other than Klaus Barbie, the 5.5. commander, the
Butcher of Lyon, who had opened the cell door to release the weary
captives. They were taken away and were very well treated by the
Germans. Bourguiba had mixed feelings about the welcome by the
Nazis and had to play his cards very carefully. At least they were
free and could look forward to returning home.
Bourguiba now entered a period of his life that was on unfamiliar
terrain. He had had hitherto in his adult life a clear enemy in the
French. They were the colonizers to be fought and expelled. All his
education had prepared him for a confrontation with the French,
their culture and system. For the time being things had changed.
It was no longer France alone he had to deal with, and in any
case which France should it be - Vichy or Free? The Germans had
entered the scene and Bourguiba was under few delusions about
their policies towards 'inferior' peoples. The Italians were there too
and Mussolini had strong ideas about a new Roman Empire. An
independent Tunisia was not part of the plans of the Axis powers.
Bourguiba remained unconvinced of an eventual Axis victory, but
being under their control he had to tread warily. Across the sea the
Allies were advancing and it was quite possible that Tunisia would
soon be in Anglo-American hands.
His German 'liberators' took him first to a camp in Chalon-sur-
Sa.one and then back to Lyon to the Hotel Terminus where after
months of deprivation there were baths, and mirrors in which he
saw his emaciated face with hair and beard turned white. He was
summoned to Gestapo headquarters where he was questioned by an
5.5. officer in mufti, Bourgau, on the activities of the Neo-Destour.
He was not badly treated despite the unpleasant nature of his
surroundings and of his interrogator. He was first told that he
would be going to Berlin (where there were other Arab leaders) but
Bourgau received counter orders to take him to Nice to hand him
over to the Italians. Few make the leap from a rat-infested prison
to the most luxurious hotel on the Riviera yet it was in the Hotel
Negresco that the dishevelled group of Tunisians was lodged. Baths
once again and then lorry to Ventimiglia and train to Rome. There,
no end to royal treatment as Bourguiba was put up in the Respighi
palace and treated as a head of state.
Bourguiba realized what was afoot as his Italian hosts began to
try to persuade him to stay and adopt their cause. During talks he
cannily held them at arm's length on the excuse that only the Bey
of Tunis was empowered to negotiate and then only after independ-
ence. There were other Arabs in Rome happy to collaborate, whom
Bourguiba claims to have warned, and the Fascists cannot have
much relished the stubbornness of this small Mussolini lookalike.
Eventually they decided to let him return to a Tunis still under
Axis control, not before insisting that he gave a talk on Radio Bari.
This posed another problem for Bourguiba. He could not say what
he really thought nor criticize his hosts. Some commentors have
claimed that his talk was compromising and hostile to the Allies.
Bourguiba remembered that he thanked the Italians and warned of
grave events to come in Tunisia. Much seems to hang on memory
and on the interpretation of certain phrases.53 One the whole it is
fair to believe that in the circumstances Bourguiba did not give in
to Italian pressure and that he, unlike other Arabs, did not support
Axis propaganda.
LIFE ABROAD, 1943-48
The plane carrying him back to Tunis had to force-land in Cape

Bon in the north of the country. It soon became known that the
exile had returned and an excited crowd came to greet him. It
was a foretaste of a later triumphal return, although this time
he was walking into a mare's nest. It was April 1943 and the
Germans had occupied Tunis. Bourguiba was made welcome, while
remaining wary of too close an embrace. The Nazi Ambassador
invited him to talks and offered him money to help restore the
fortunes of the Destour party. 54 Bourguiba courteously refused,
preferring to hold aloof. Just as well: on 8 May Tunis fell to the
Allies.
On that day Bourguiba, hearing British tanks approach, ran away
from his Bureau, once again fearing arrest, this time for collabora-
tion, and hid himself in the maze of the old town. He was right to
do so, as the French had not forgotten him though the Free French
who returned should, in their own struggle against tyranny, have
been more sympathetic to the struggles of others. But they were just
as determined to hold on to their empire whether it was in North
Africa, Syria and Lebanon or the Far East. The honour of France
demanded nothing less. Bourguiba immediately issued a manifesto
urging Franco-Tunisian cooperation even at a time when the French
were brutally reoccupying the country. His words are really rather
remarkable.
This war, if it has brought the French many disappointments and

catastrophes, has at least had the merit of showing them who are
their real friends, those, who during these testing days, have
obstinately refused to despair of France. There is no example
in history of the head of a party, maltreated as I have been on
the orders of certain Frenchmen, deceived in his most cherished
affections, staying loyal to France and refusing to play the game
of her enemies when they had just brought him the thing men
hold dear above all - freedom. But that is in the past. Today we
must stand side by side with France. Without France there is no
security.55
The French Resident-General sent by de Gaulle, General Juin,

retained old suspicions and ordered legal proceedings to be started
against Bourguiba. In despair, and perhaps against his better judge-
ment, Bourguiba looked around for an ally: not the British, imperi-
alists with their own empire; perhaps the Americans who still clung
to Wilsonian principles and who were fighting a war, although it
was not so clear to their allies, to put an end to empires. The US
consul in Tunis bore the unlikely name of Hooker Doolittle and it
was to him that Bourguiba turned. They had dinner together and
discussed Tunisia's relations with the French. The consul showed
himself interested in Bourguiba's plight and promised to help,
although he admitted that he could not prevent the French from
arresting him in the street if they so wished. Nor could he go as far
as to annoy his French allies. Doolittle was as good as his word and
went to see General Juin who told him all about the bulky police file
that was held on Bourguiba. The consul stressed that Bourguiba had
in a sense wiped his slate clean by issuing such a strong manifesto in
favour of Franco-Tunisian co-operation. Juin reluctantly agreed and
allowed Bourguiba to settle his affairs with the police and accepted
that he had the strong protection of the United States.
The French were not entirely sure how to treat the members of the
Neo-Destour at this time. They had been leaderless with the arrest of
Bourguiba and his colleagues and political activity had almost come
to a halt during the war. In the presence of the Anglo-Americans
the French could not be too oppressive yet Bourguiba felt himself
blocked. He was not allowed to make any speaking tours and
almost lost interest in politics. For a time he returned to his law

office.
Enter Wasila
One day soon after his return to Tunis he was visiting his sister-in-
law when there walked into the room a 30-year-old woman whom
Bourguiba had met once much earlier. She was married with one
daughter and was, in the words of two Tunisian women writers,
beginning to spread, but not to thicken, and had an obvious assur-
ance about her. Heavy eyelids veiled the looks she gave, implying
malice or complicity. She enjoyed arousing men's interest by this
ambiguity which might lead to a conquest. She used her charm to
enter worlds which otherwise appeared barred to her. Her marriage
to a petty official in Tunis had given her little satisfaction. She was
looking for greater things and saw in Bourguiba a way to achieve
them. This rather remarkable woman was Wasila Ben Anunar. 56
In Wasila's own words:
I first met Bourguiba in 1927 when I was 15 and he came to visit

a cousin of mine. I hid behind a door as one did in those days.
He said: 'Women should show themselves to the leader as to a
doctor.' He paid no more attention to me then. Perhaps I was too
thin to seduce him. I often saw him later in my father's office.
'Who is this man who is always so hurried?' I asked.'He is a
very intelligent chap. You'll see, he'll be spoken of one day.' In
1943 I went to welcome Bourguiba back and he kissed my hand
in front of everyone.57
Bourguiba on seeing Wasila was thunderstruck. It was instant

love. Bourguiba said that she reminded him of his mother. Mathilde
was forgotten and, as he complained, how could he deal with grave
problems of politics when trapped by such an irresistible passion. 58
He remained totally smitten. He often thereafter visited Wasila in
the house of his niece. It was a new experience. He was fond of
Mathilde and had married her largely from a sense of duty. She was
the mother figure he had been seeking and she had stood loyally by
him during their long separations. She complained bitterly to their
mutual friends of this affair; Bourguiba left them to comfort her. He
also left Bibi, who perhaps looked too much like his mother, in her
care. With Wasila life was more tempestuous, passion and storms,
during a long liaison lasting over forty years. They were to marry
later, although Bourguiba claimed that he never forgot Mathilde's
loyalty and visited her regularly to the end of her life.
It was little wonder then that Bourguiba paid scant attention to
politics but after a year of (political) inactivity he began to ask him-
self whether he should try to interest the wider world in Tunisia's
case. In Alexandria, Britain had in 1944 just given the go-ahead for
the formation of the Arab League. Should he go to Egypt to meet
fellow Arab leaders rather than fruitlessly linger in Tunis? Would
pressure from elsewhere force France's hand. Despite the obvious
reasons for staying he nevertheless asked the Resident-General for
permission to leave the country. This was refused and he had to
think of ways to escape, not so easy as he was under continuous
close surveillance and to calm any suspicions he pretended to settle
down to legal work again.
Flight to Egypt
Bourguiba's flight to Egypt on 26 March 1945 has become legendary

in the story of his life. In his memoirs he gives a detailed account of
the difficulties he faced during a journey under the very noses of the
French police and the British army. The disguises, the exhaustion in
the burning desert, the afflictions are all lingeringly described over
the hundreds of kilometres covered. There is no doubt that he did
suffer during the journey but were the French and British really so
incompetent as to let him slip through their fingers? Had they not at
least closed an eye to his escape? It is understandable that national-
ists should delight in the fact that the French were hoodwinked. But
others point out that the British must have agreed to his crossing the
length of Libya and that perhaps the French were not too sorry to
see him go, that it was all a charade. It is also reported that Mrs
Doolittle, the wife of the US consul then in Alexandria, helped to
make arrangements for the trip.59 After all, leaders in exile are
usually less effective than those agitating at home. Wherever the
truth may lie the events of the flight are fascinating and best related
on the basis of Bourguiba's own colourful account. 60
He was to his credit very worried about Mathilde and Bibi
who were to be left alone yet again. He sold his olive grove
and other properties in Monastir and gave the proceeds to his
brother Mahmoud to use to look after them. He then started to
put down a smokescreen. He left for Hamman-Lif to the south of
Tunis as the Resident-General had refused to allow him to travel to

Monastir for the wedding of a niece. On his arrival at Hamman-Lif a
French police inspector asked him rather brusquely 'What about this
journey to the East then?' If the police knew so much already would
they not have stopped him there and then? Bourguiba wondered
what they were up to and to try to put them off the trail returned
home to Tunis and then back to Hamman-Lif where he spent the
night at a fellow militant's house. He was determined to go on to
Monastir for the wedding and next morning took a train to Sousse.
No-one stopped him at the station and on the train he was surprised
to find his elder brother and his son and a group of College friends.
The train was packed, full of happy students going home for the
Easter break. He was now beyond the limits of his legally permitted
travel, yet again at Sou sse station no-one stopped him. He jumped
into a waiting taxi and ordered the driver to speed off to Monastir.
The family was overjoyed to see him as they had refused to
celebrate the marriage in his absence. But the hunt was on. The
local headman was awaiting him with a group of gendarmes. They
begged him to return to Tunis. He refused to do so before the
wedding and promised to leave the next day. After the ceremony he
set out for the capital in his old Renault accompanied by his brother
M'hamed and, for some reason, the gift of a very large conger eel -
perhaps to put the following policemen off the scent. They stopped
at Enfida for lunch, despite the presence of the gendarmes who were
trailing them all the way.
On arrival in Tunis the slightly comic aspects of the affair take
over. His brother got out of the car taking the large eel with him,
but a moment later gave Bourguiba half. Bourguiba was met by
Salah Ben Yousef who told him he had to leave immediately.61
He went back to his brother's house and lay down quite dazed
and not knowing what to do. Around him life was going on as
usual. Mathilde was working, Bibi was telling him a story, his
secretary gave him some letters. He looked at them all without
seeing, listened without hearing. Should he tell his wife and son
of his plans. He decided not to and left abruptly. Mathilde watched
him go. She waited a few moments, her eyes fixed on the door that
had just closed. Perhaps she knew or suspected something.
It was 9 p.m. The car was left outside the house by the pavement
and stayed there for nine days, attracting the attention of the police
who seemed to think that as long as it was there so was Bourguiba.
He slipped out making for Wasila's house in the hope of seeing
her for a moment. But he decided not to stop in case his resolve
weakened. He went on instead to meet Salah for dinner. He gave
all his papers to him as he was now a clandestine wanderer, he
gave him charge of his wife and son and his orphan nieces. At
the station Bourguiba asked Salah to bear witness that he was
leaving at his request, abandoning everything without hesitation
or weakness. He did not want history to believe that the strong
man was weakening or faltering. They parted. Bourguiba boarded
the Sfax train where awaiting him was Khalifa Hawas, a militant
and boatman from the Kerkennah Isles off southern Tunisia who
had once taken food to the prisoners in Marseilles. The plan was
to sail from Sfax to Libya, at the time under British occupation, and
then take the coastal route which ran all the way from the Libyan
frontier to Egypt and Alexandria.
Through the night the train bore them southwards and dawn was
breaking as they arrived in Sfax. They walked unmolested through
the streets of the small port to the house of another friend, Habib
Ashour. There Bourguiba was to spend the day, dressed in a kadroun
(a garment worn on the Kerkennah Isles) a shishia and a large scarf.
It was a disguise of sorts. Bourguiba passed the time in one of his
favourite occupations, cooking. At nightfall they left the house for
the harbour where a small fishing boat was waiting to take them
to Kerkennah. (At this stage in his public lecture Bourguiba makes
the telling point that in his opinion the whole expedition thus far
had been a plot hatched by Salah Ben Yousef who was planning
his elimination. He had made suggestions to the ship's captain to
abandon him at the Libyan frontier. Bourguiba comments that this
was the gravest plot against his life from which he ever escaped -
probably a ploy to blacken Salah Ben Yousef's name posthumously.)
The boat slipped out of the harbour passing alongside, according to
one report, the patrol launches of the sleeping customs officers.62
When they reached the Kerkennah Bourguiba anxiously pressed
the captain to leave again as soon as possible to keep the French
guessing. But there was no wind for four days to fill the sails. Back
in Tunis things were hotting up. The French police had finally begun
to suspect the abandoned car outside Bourguiba's house and that all
was not well. They began a search for him in the city and even
visited Wasila's house which they are reported to have ransacked.
Had he then escaped under their noses? Nationalist writers are
sure that the French Resident-General was recalled because of this
blatant failure. 63
Back on Kerkennah the wind rose on the fifth day and they headed
off for the Libyan coast. They spent a day and night at sea, with the
wind continually pushing them back towards the Tunisian shore
and local police posts. The captain and crew struggled valiantly
with oar and sail to get them away from the coast. By 10 o'clock
that night they reached Libyan waters where they put in. Hawas
went off to look for a guide to take them to Tripoli. None could be
found that night and they then had to wait until the next day. They
set sail once again and by now Bourguiba was beginning to suffer.
He claims that his poor health dates from this time, although his
constitution must have been gravely weakened by the long periods
of imprisonment and the poor food, his original tuberculosis. He
contracted an extremely vicious carbuncle which was torturing
him and the travellers had little food. They had to stay at sea all
day and by evening Bourguiba ordered them to land come what
may. Fortunately, their man was there, a local Arab who claimed
to know the area. They set off on foot still some 60 kilometres from
their destination of Tibouda inside Libya. Bourguiba was exhausted
and his boil hurt atrociously. He was too tired even to ride a camel.
He admitted that he was reaching the limit of his endurance, and,
hard for him swallow, that 'like all men my physical resistance had
its limits '.64
The British were believed to be keeping a close watch on the
area and the fugitives had to plod on. Bourguiba was now almost
beyond consciousness, aware only of his legs mechanically putting
one foot before the other. They arrived at a sandy spot when the
guide announced fecklessly that they were lost. Bourguiba was too
tired even to react normally to the stupidity of the superhuman
effort he had agreed to. They wandered around for a long time
until bckily they struck Tibouda where they found a tent to rest in.
Bourguiba fell into an exhausted sleep. When he awoke he changed
into Tripoli dress, long baggy pants and a large veil. They set off
again, onto Zawia, to Tripoli, and by autocar to Misurata and along
the wide stretches of the Gulf of Sirte. At Mussolini's triumphal arch
marking the frontier with Cyrenaica (known to all British soldiers
as Marble Arch) the bus was stopped by British officers and the
passengers made to get out and to place their bundles at their feet for
verification. Bourguiba managed to escape these formalities which
points to the fact that, despite the disguise, the British knew very
well whom they were dealing with and were not under orders to
apprehend him.
On reaching Benghazi they took the train to Derna where

Bourguiba had an introduction to a guide who would take him
across the Egyptian frontier at Sallum (although the actual frontier
post was much nearer to Alexandria). He was now in an Arab
country, which was theoretically independent, where he would
have to deal directly with the Egyptian authorities. At the frontier
post it was made clear that to pass through he would have to grease
the palms of the guards. In his pocket were just 150 piastres. The
Egyptian officer insisted that Bourguiba needed a travel permit and
demanded a statement. He refused all explanations and Bourguiba
felt that he was bound soon to be returned to the French. He was
allowed to send a telegram to friends in Cairo asking them to
intervene. The frontier guards remained very suspicious of the
dishevelled Tunisian and sent him along with various smugglers
and others to a nearby camp. Finally, and much to his relief, he was
packed off to Cairo to be interrogated by the Frontier Services.
He arrived in Cairo on 27 April 1945 just one month after leaving
Tunis. He was set free for a day and he went off to find his old
teacher friend from Monastir, Mounier-Pillet. He did not recognize
the very dirty Arab standing at his door. 'Pierrot!' cried Bourguiba.
'Habib?' queried Mounier-Pillet. He took Bourguiba into his house,
where he bathed and was given new clothes. Next day he was
rearrested and taken to see the Secretary-General of the Ministry
of the Interior who received him courteously. He confirmed that
he would be allowed to remain in freedom as long as he did not
engage in politics. Bourguiba replied that he had come only to fight
the French.
Life in Cairo
Bourguiba was a bit of a fish out of water in Cairo. British influence

was paramount, although the upper classes still delighted in pre-
serving a French veneer, and the Arab leaders were to him a new
breed, some from North Africa, but mainly Egyptians and Arabs
from the Near East. The problems of little Tunisia were not very
important to them and he did not want his case to be confused with
the cause of pan-Arabism or North African unity. Nevertheless, he
was there and he tried to use his time fruitfully. The final defeat of
Nazi Germany in May 1945 meant for the whole Arab world a new
beginning, the intensification of a bitter problem, and for post-war
France the need to consider the future of its overseas territories.
Bourguiba's chief concern in Cairo was to make the case for

Tunisian independence as widely known as possible. He received
people, he spoke at meetings, he issued propaganda and set up
or joined political organizations, contrary to his promise to the
Egyptians. He met and became friendly with Cecil Hourani, a
Lebanese of British nationality working for the Arabs, who was
helpful to him later and after independence was to become his
advisor.65 There were also Algerians and Moroccans in Cairo and
together they established a committee for the liberation of North
Africa (from the French). Before them Bourguiba defended the
cause of a separate Tunisian identity. It was the smallest of the
three countries and he fought to prevent it from being lost in the
greater world of the Maghreb. He did not have an easy time mixing
with other leaders of equal or greater reputation. He felt ill at ease if
he was not dominating and, as one of his colleagues commented, in
general he found it difficult to work with those who did not submit
to his leading role. There were also ideological disputes. He wanted
to negotiate with the French; the others wanted direct confrontation,
armed if necessary. He even got to know the French ambassador
well and they discussed at length the possibilities of compromise.
He was asked to prepare a memorandum on the future of Tunisia
which the embassy sent to Paris. The other North Africans accused
him of being in the pocket of the ambassador.
He does seem to have gained a certain reputation in Cairo, how-
ever. An open letter from him to the Arab League was published
in an Arabic journal in which he made a strong case for Tunisian
independence, bitterly criticising the French colonial government.
He signed the letter as president of the Destour. The journal was
fulsome in its praise of him, the only person who could speak in the
name of the Tunisian people who acted under his orders, the creator
of a renaissance in Tunisian life. The journal added that the French
had sent agents to E!:''Ypt in a foiled bit to assassinate him.66
His relations with other Tunisians were also tense. He was
dependent on them for money and he was always complaining
of being hard up. Salah Ben Yousef sent money three times to
Bourguiba at the beginning of his stay but the supply soon dried
up. This worry over money particularly irritated him as he believed
he was representing Tunisia abroad, making all the sacrifices, and
so should be supported unconditionally. He tried hard to keep his
contacts with Tunis close in case it became a situation of 'out of
sight out of mind'. When his companion Hawas was leaving Cairo
for Tunis Bourguiba gave him three messages to deliver: 67 love to

Wasila, hello to Bibi, and an order to Salah Ben Yousef to assassinate
someone in the French administration so that in any ensuing tension
Bourguiba could become more active and prominent. No notice was
taken of this last message.
In June 1946 with other Tunisians to Cairo came Habib Thamer,
a fellow, younger militant who too had studied in Paris. Together
they established a branch of the Neo-Destour but their relationship
rested on a knife edge. Bourguiba felt that his wartime experiences
had established him as the natural leader of the party, even when
abroad. Other party members hotly denied him undisputed lead-
ership. Bourguiba complained that Thamer held too tight a control
of the party purse strings, keeping him short of funds. Thamer was
a more gentle and controlled character than Bourguiba and they
would have clashed on the grounds of opposed characters if on
nothing else. Bourguiba was becoming notorious for his outbursts
of extreme rage which he often utilized to underline his point of
view and cow others. Yet he was living under a strain, often feeling
unwell, and missing both Wasila and his family. At one point he
rashly embarked on an affair which Wasila got wind of, and rushing
to Cairo, ostensibly on a pilgrimage to Mecca with her husband, she
put an end to any burgeoning relationship.68 And while perhaps he
was not missing Mathilde personally, he longed for a close family
life. He wrote to Bibi: 'Tell yourself that life is always struggle. Only
those succeed who have followed a tough apprenticeship from their
early youth. I long to come back to the family atmosphere. Love of
family has always been my weakness and I feel a nostalgia for it,
made all the more painful as my inexorable destiny condemns me
to solitude and separation.'69
Although Bourguiba had been to meet other Arab leaders outside
Egypt, at the end of 1946 he thought that the time was ripe to travel
to the United States to make contact with the newly established
United Nations Organization. His friend Hooker Doolittle, consul in
Alexandria, issued a visa for him which embarrassed the US author-
ities in their relations with the French who eventually allowed him
to travel on French documents. He had an awful twenty-day voyage
to New York, the only passenger on a Dutch cargo ship, and arrived
in December 1946 without an overcoat to find it snowing, feeling
very ill and hungry and knowing no English. A friendly Tunisian
immigrant met him and looked after him. He was, as usual, short
of money and had to rely on the generosity of others. He was not
allowed to address the UN, the French would scarcely have permit-
ted that, but he went around speaking to Arab ambassadors trying
to put forward the Tunisian case. He again met Cecil Hourani who
was directing the Arab Office of Information and who, as Bourguiba
writes, did a great job of introducing him to influential personalities
and perhaps more importantly paid his bills. He introduced him
in Washington to Dean Acheson, US Undersecretary of State, with
whom Bourguiba was photographed, a not unimportant status
symbol, which also annoyed the French. Bourguiba had made
himself known in a wider circle outside the French and Arab worlds
and although he could have achieved nothing more concrete, he had
made his case.
His return to Cairo was a shock. An augury of trouble was the fact
that his aeroplane was forced to land in France because of engine
trouble. Fortunately it was near the Swiss border and a short bus
ride took him into neutral territory. Back in Cairo in March he
found that his position of authority had been deeply eroded. In
Tunisia since his flight political affairs had not stood still. Other
movements and other leaders were coming to the fore. Salah Ben
Yousef was gaining influence and Farhat Hashed was leader of
a strong trade union movement, the General Union of Tunisian
Workers. Bourguiba watched despondently. His militant 'friends',
as he calls them, decided to relieve him of financial responsibility for
the Bureau in Cairo. They had made the party no longer beholden to
him. His colleague Habib Thamer was the bearer of a letter bringing
the bad news. Bourguiba wrote bitterly: 'Have I run the risks of the
desert and faced all the dangers of my dangerous journey in order
no longer to be anything in a party which I created and to which
I have dedicated my life, suffering exile, abandoning my family,
sacrificing my possessions? I received the note from Habib Thamer
when I was in bed ill. I later forgave him. '70
Not all was lost. Salah Ben Yousef, despite his personal ambitions,
still needed Bourguiba as president and came to Cairo to ask him
to remain. Bourguiba was raging and called the whole atmosphere
one of treachery and hypocrisy. At a party congress held in Tunisia
on 16 October, contemptuously dismissed as a 'fake' by Bourguiba,
called by others that of Dar Slim, in which Salah Ben Yousef played
a leading role, Bourguiba was sharply criticized without anyone
actually suggesting that he be removed. But he had had enough.
He felt powerless and accused his tormentors of wanting only a
life of dances and parties.71 He believed that the partial success
he achieved in exile had been bought at too high a cost, that of

becoming marginalized at home.
While these parochial events were taking place, a catastrophe for
the wider Arab world had occurred, one that was to obsess it for the
rest of the century. In May 1948 the state of Israel had been founded
in Palestine on land previously Arab. The attention of the Arabs was
firmly fixed on this tragedy and Bourguiba felt that his case before
the Arab League could only drop further into the background. He
decided that his place was at home. He had been away for four and
a half years. His 'friends' were furious and tried to stop him. The
French embassy also tried to dissuade him from returning. He was
adamant and conceded that the French would arrest him on return
if they so wished. Those militants who supported him gave him a
warm welcome on his arrival at Tunis airport on 8 September. The
French did not arrest him, however, and allowed him to keep his
passport.
INTERLUDE OF FREEDOM, 1948-52
The welcome cheered him, but he had to face many problems threat-
ening his own position. He did not yet feel strong enough to chal-
lenge Salah Ben Yousef and his supporters; his own ground was not
secure although he complained bitterly about the alleged corruption
of Ben Yousef and his acolytes. He particularly objected to Mongi
Slim occupying his office and collecting money in Bourguiba's
name.72 For the time being he resorted to his tested method of
reassuring himself of his popularity, that of renewing his contacts
with supporters outside the capital. He set off on another of his tours
crisscrossing the country, speaking himself hoarse and losing his
voice for several days (a little earlier he had had his tonsils removed
while in Paris). He boldly visited areas where the French had
forbidden him to hold meetings. He enjoyed exciting his listeners,
sensing the power he held over them. Even so, in some areas he had
to admit that his reception was quite cool.
It was not in Tunisia, however, that decisions would be made.
Only in Paris could he really influence policy and it was back to his
second home that he decided to go in April 1950. It was he more
than any other Tunisian leader who could speak with conviction
to the French government and to French intellectual circles. Even
if his views were not accepted he was at least listened to. He took
Mathilde and Bibi with him, stayed in a good hotel (no longer an
unheated tenement) and delighted in going to the theatre. A new
French government had come to power under Georges Bidault
with Robert Schuman as foreign minister. It was not a strong
socialist government as that of Attlee in Britain committed to
Indian independence, but in June Schuman raised the possibility of
Tunisian independence. Bidault soon amended this to the possibility
of internal autonomy. France was finding difficulty in coming to
terms with the new world in which the imperial powers were now
eclipsed by the superpowers (and she had still to suffer a disastrous
defeat in Indochina and a long war in Algeria). In addition, the
government had to take account of the demands of the European
population in Tunis determined to retain and expand its privileges.
Nevertheless, Bourguiba persisted with his negotiations, trying to
implement his policy of stage by stage progress and was willing to
accept pro tem a period of internal autonomy.
Matters did not move in the same way in Tunis, where a new
government had been formed to negotiate with the French in which
the Destour was officially represented by Salah Ben Yousef. All
negotations seemed to be stuck and the population's repressed
frustration broke out. The trades unions called strikes and dem-
onstrations which were each time put down brutally with several
deaths. The French had no answer but a policy of shortsighted
repression. Bourguiba's moderation was getting nowhere and he
decided once again to make a world tour to publicize Tunisia's case.
This time he could speak as head of a political formation which was
participating in his country's government. He could talk to Nehru
and Sukarno, to the leaders of the trade union movement in the
United States (where President Truman got to hear of him) and to
King Abd al-Aziz of Saudi Arabia whom he asked for money to fund
an armed struggle. Although he received little financial support, the
idea of armed resistance was a significant change and a sign of the
growing anger with French immobility.
In the meantime other Tunisian leaders had gone to Paris to try to
break the deadlock. Bourguiba peppered them with telegrams full
of advice and offered to come back to help. Although not invited,
he nevertheless arrived and was met by young Tunisian militants
in Paris who were under the spell of his personality. Among them
was Mohammed Mzali, then a student, and destined to become one
of Bourguiba's last prime-ministers. He was in his element again
surrounded by admirers and rode into Paris in their bus rather than
in the officiallimousine. 73 Bourguiba's presence failed to break the

deadlock; after a few days the French abandoned negotiations and
on 15 December 1951 issued a note in which the offer of autonomy
was withdrawn and continuing French participation in Tunisian
affairs was underlined. The French attitude had hardened in the
face of strikes and demonstrations and the demands of the local
settlers. Positions were being assumed by both sides which would
lead to violence and repression. Bourguiba was confounded and
claimed prophetically that a new era had begun which could only
lead to tragedy.
The Tunisians returned home despondently and the French sent
after them a new Resident-General with an iron fist and the resonant
name of Jean de Hautecloque. He arrived on 13 January in a naval
cruiser welcomed by a strong military force. The message was clear.
Demonstrations took place in which more Tunisians were killed and
injured. A congress of the Destour was announced and promptly
banned. The inevitable then happened and a few hours later came
the police roundup. Bourguiba and fifteen fellow militant were
arrested. The congress still took place secretly.
THIRD IMPRISONMENT AND RETURN HOME, 1952-55
The first period of Bourguiba's third imprisonment was not too

hard. He was lodged in a comfortable hotel in Tabarka on the
Algerian border. The tough de Hautecloque in banning Bourguiba
showed an unexpected touch of humour. He 'courteously' invited
him 'to reside in a tourist site whose development has justified the
construction of a hotel where the head of the Neo-Destour can at his
ease speak to the world and direct his party,?4 He could telephone
Wasila who was living in Paris at the time. The police had come to
arrest him on the morning of 18 January. He was expecting it and as
he said ruefully, it was the third time that it had happened to him at
home, in Tunis or Monastir, in the morning. He hoped it would be
the final one and that it would not last too long - he was away for
two and a half years. During his absence the political scene changed
radically and for the most part he was only able to observe from afar.
This did not prevent him from continuing to make declarations and
from trying to influence events. He was detained with several other
militants, some of them were allowed to remain in Tunis eventually
to join the government, while his great rival Salah Ben Yousef was
sitting cosily in Paris, never, according to Bourguiba, having spent

a single day in prison.
The official aim of French policy at this period was to work
slowly towards internal autonomy but the path was stoney and
long. Some impatient men on both sides were opposed to com-
promise and took matters into their own hands. De Hautecloque
continued his policy of repression against strikes and demonstra-
tions. The Tunisians refused to negotiate unless their demand
for sovereignty was accepted. The French authorities in Tunisia
quickly lost patience and applied a policy of outright military
force in an army operation cynically termed ratissage, combing
the country for rebellious opponents. The policy was put into the
hands of a non too gentle general, Carbay, whose troops in their
combing committed atrocities against men, women and children.
A well documented report speaks of pillage, rape and killing in
the area of Cape Bon. It was a self-defeating operation which
soured relations and led to the growth of armed Tunisian guerilla
forces.
A volatile political situation in Paris hindered progress. A certain
young member of the French government, Fran<;ois Mitterrand,
drew up a plan for the future of Tunisia. In it he recognised
the country's sovereignty and proposed French participation in
a number of political and economic projects. When most of his
ideas were rejected he resigned from office. The French government
substituted a kind of co-sovereignty which the Tunisians rejected
in turn. They were convinced that only force would make the
French change their minds and put forward acceptable proposals.
Bourguiba issued clear instructions on the need for armed strug-
gle. There developed bands of fellaghas in the countryside, armed
to attack the French whenever possible. Most of these guerillas
were militant members of the Destour, or rootless ex-soldiers no
longer enrolled in the French army, or even ex-brigands, mainly
younger men attracted by the excitement of clandestine fighting.
Their leaders, also young, were elected by the fighters, and groups
formed haphazardly throughout the country. Their arms were often
old rifles abandoned by the European armies during the Second
World War. They were not going to rock the French forces but like
most guerilla groups could cause trouble with sabotage and hit and
run raids. Also, as is usual with such groups, much energy was
wasted in fighting other Tunisians accused of being collaborators
and traitors. One result was the fonnation of a French settler counter
organization, the Main Rouge, which engaged, not without official

sanction, in reprisal operations.
In this tense situation Bourguiba and some of his colleagues were
taken further away from the action. In March 1952 a military plane
flew them down to Remada in the extreme south of the country
near to the Libyan frontier. Another desert outpost of torrid heat
in summer and blinding sand storms when the scirocco blew. So
far away from urban centres, the food the prisoners were given was
bad, the meat mostly old goat, no fresh fruit or vegetables, and food
parcels arrived a week late with their contents ruined. Bourguiba's
health began to suffer with severe attacks of enteritis and vomiting.
To try to keep fit he went for daily walks in the desert in the
baggy trousers of a Tunisian soldier and motorcyclist's goggles to
keep the sand out of his eyes. With his colleagues including some
younger women they tried to keep their spirits up. Bourguiba gave
lectures on (his role in) the development of the national struggle
thus far.
In May the French decided to isolate Bourguiba and transferred
him to the island of La Galite, a bare rock off the Tunisian coast
near Bizerta. There he lived alone in a half ruined fort. It was
his hardest time as a prisoner and at times ill and depressed
he could not help feeling pessimistic. The humidity and damp
immediately affected his bronchial tubes, weakened by previous
illness. In addition he had to climb up and down numerous steps
to take his meals with the fishermen, all of which increased his
hypertension. By July he had to take to his bed and the authorities
became alarmed. A doctor was summoned who diagnosed inflam-
mation of the lung, perhaps a hangover from his tuberculosis. He
was racked with coughing and more vomiting. He was now really
afraid for his life. The doctors did not recommend any change in
his condition and he was convinced that he was being left there
to be broken or to die. He wrote to Mathilde and Habib Junior
and to his friends: 'While being resolutely optimist as to the final
outcome of our struggle I think that we shall still have to face hard
tests. '75
In October a motor torpedo boat arrived bringing an official with
an offer to end his exile if he agreed to remain quiet and inactive. He
was promised that he might see Wasila who was living in Paris. He
refused the offer outright adding that he would lose the respect of
the woman he loved if he agreed to such terms. As he wrote to her
a little later in January:
Strugglejor Independence 75
I have lived six months without a word from you. How have I
managed? Only the certainty of your love, the certainty that I
occupy a special place in your heart has given me strength to
bear up. My God, why do I love you like this, with this passion
which nothing can weaken. My passion for you lights my life and
since I have known you my life has been illuminated.76
The next day he wrote:
M. Duluc, the French doctor came to see me and said I could go to

France if I agreed to certain conditions. I said no. He said I would
be able to see you and during dinner he pushed his enquiries as
far as my sexual life, my unsatisfied needs and the repercussions
on my nervous equilibrium of my forced continence.
I said absolutely not. My love lifts a man above the smallness
of immediate interests and ordinary sensual pleasures. Love of
this woman has forbidden me to agree to such bargaining. I do
not like these things, not to mention the scandal there would be
in Tunis and the pain it would cause to the mother of my son for
whom I feel the greatest respect.7 7
This same Mathilde had come weekly to Bizerta to meet the ferry
to La Galite in the hope that she might be able to put a parcel
on it for her husband. Once or twice she was allowed to do so
and once she and Bibi were allowed to visit him for three hours.
Bourguiba's mood oscillated between hope and despair. In March
he wrote to Wasila: 'This morning I am going to drop politics and
its worries. It wears me out, it ages me (you will be frightened to see
my hair turned white) and gets us nowhere.' Yet a few days later
he was up again: 'Perhaps I have been a little too pessimistic. '78
But his hard life continued. The news of the death of his brother,
Mahmoud, who had helped him to attend the Lycee Carnot and
the Sorbonne and who had become mentally ill at the end of his
life, made his isolation worse. Heat and electricity were scarce. In
March 1953 he learned that another brother M'hamed had died. He
missed home and family life. He wrote to Bibi who was about to sit
his law examinations: 'I pray that you succeed and go on to a career.
All I hope is that before I die I will see my son found a home with
a Tunisian girl and have children who will clamber onto my knees
as their father did twenty years ago.'79
In May Bourguiba fell and twisted his spine. In bed again with
fever he felt that death must be close. His iron will and determi-
nation pulled him through. An old French friend who had known
him before the war visited him on the island. He commented that
Bourguiba's hair had whitened, his wrinkles were deeper, but still
the same intense blue-grey eyes, sparkling with youth, the same
resolve, the same vigour. 8o
The French had meanwhile been forced to rethink their policy.
A new Resident-General had been appointed in September 1953 to
carry out a new, more conciliatory policy. One result of this was
Bourguiba's transfer in May 1954 to another island, La Croix off the
south west coast of Brittany, and to much better conditions.
Brittany with its grey stone villages, its green fields and
everchanging skies was in stark contrast to his other prisons. He
lived in a villa, ate in a hotel, received newspapers and was free to
wander around. This did wonders for his constitution and morale.
The locals seemed perplexed to see this visitor from the other side
of the world. His stay there was brief. On 17 June after the French
disaster at Dien Bien Phu in Indochina a new government took office
under Pierre Mendes-France. He was convinced that French colonial
policy was in urgent need of rethinking and as far as Tunisia was
concerned he wanted serious negotiations to be started at once. He
also realized the importance of Bourguiba to such negotiations and
on 17 July Bourguiba was transferred to the grandly named Cha.teau
de la Fert~ near Montargis, some 100 kilometres from Paris. His
imprisonment was in practice now over. Streams of visitors of all
kinds came out to see him and he felt himself close to the centre of
things and of greater use as a negotiator.
On 31 July 1954 Mendes-France went to Tunis and in a speech in
the presence of the Bey promised that the country would soon be
given internal autonomy. At last the way was open to a satisfactory
conclusion to the years of struggle. Bourguiba was beginning to
feel some satisfaction, rewarded for the sacrifices he had made,
not yet fully home but certainly on the way. Hard bargaining
had to follow and negotiations began in August with a Tunisian
government which included Destour members, Bourguiba himself
still officially on the fringes. He was now in Paris, however, and
no important decisions could be made without his approval. The
official negotiators had continually to look over their shoulders for
the nod of approval of the man in the background. Mendes-France
made a personal appeal to him to try to stop the fellagha campaign.
He agreed to try and the fighters eventually laid down their arms.
(It was tragic for France that at that very time, November 1954,
the much longer, much more traumatic waf in Algeria broke out.)
It had been a bitter struggle in which some 400 Tunisians had lost
their lives.
A hiccup was caused by the fall of the Mendes-France government
in February 1955 but his successor Edgar Faure was committed to
the same policies. Bourguiba fretted and worried in Paris. He was
concerned over the reactions of Salah Ben Yousef, now in Geneva,
who was opposed to anything less than full independence. He
constituted a rival centre of power which Bourguiba had to watch
very carefully. His day was made in April when M. Faure asked
to see him officially in the Matignon. He had now arrived, received
at the centre of French power by its recognized leader as head of
the party, as a putative head of state. On 22 April the protocol
for an agreement between the two countries was signed. The final
convention on internal autonomy was signed by Faure and Tahar
Ben Ammar, the head of the Tunisian delegation. Bourguiba was
not there.
He was not there, yet he embodied the final achievement and
it was for him to claim the glory. A group of rejoicing Tunisians
accompanied him on 30 May to the Gare de Lyon in Paris to board
the train for Marseille. He told to them that he bore no bitterness
towards the French and that the future of Tunisia would largely
depend on co-operation. The train bore him south back to the
Gare St Charles where he was met once again by a crowd of
jubilant supporters. They lifted him shoulder high on his way to
the port to board the Ville d'Alger for Tunis. He was accompanied
by his son Habib and a delegation of militants and journalists. As
a final gesture of goodwill he sent a wreath to the commandant of
his former prison, Fort Saint Nicholas, to be laid on the memorial
to the war dead.
The morning of the first of June dawned misty and calm over
the sea which gave promise of a warm Mediterranean day. In the
distance the coastline of Tunisia could be made out. Into view came
the startlingly white villas perched high above the blue sea of Sidi
Bou Said. But even that view was outshone that day. Sailing into
the Bay of Tunis came an amazingly motley collection of small
craft, tugs, fishing boats, feluccas, all burdened with passengers
clinging to mast or bridge and bedecked with flags and banners
proclaiming 'To our father, our brother, our president, the Supreme
Struggler'. Bourguiba stood alone on the bridge, savouring his hour
of triumph, arms aloft, waving his white handkerchief, his eyes full
of tears. He had emerged from the mist, almost from the sea, giving
promise of a new birth. His destiny would bring him into complete
congruence with his own image of himself as leader and saviour of
the country.
For two days crowds had been pouring into Tunis to swell the
welcome. The Neo-Destour had been active behind the scenes. On
the quay were waiting officials, of government, of party, of womens'
organizations, militants and ordinary people. Bourguiba stepped off
the ship to a tumultuous welcome. He greeted the awaiting crowd,
among them the son of the Bey, and reserved an especial embrace
for the widow of Farhat Hashed,S! the tears streaming down his face.
She had had to suffer more than he. In the Customs shed he climbed
up to make his first speech of the new era. He spoke of triumphing
in the struggle, using the pronoun 'we', Bourguiba and people,
embodying the people, or Bourguiba seeing himself as the people
and speaking for them. 'We have never given in during twenty
years of struggle. We substituted confidence, a spirit of sacrifice
and self-denial for despair and resignation. One has come to prefer
death, to humiliation.' Then a quotation from the Koran, looking to
the future: 'God only changes people who change themselves.'
'We have learned the lessons of sticking together. We must do
so more than ever. Such are the virtues thanks to which we are
able to know such an exultant day, which justify our aspirations
towards better tomorrows and allow us to view perspectives of
peace, prosperity and happiness.'s2
This day was to become known as the Day of Victory, when
Bourguiba celebrated the legitimacy he drew from the people. It
was they who gave him position, power and prestige. He spent
the next four hours amongst them, on horseback, in a car, on their
shoulders, in the new and old cities, wearing a scarf given to him by
the dockers of Tunis, and a large sombrero worn by the horseman of
the tribe of Zlass which made him look rather like a comic Mexican
bandit.
Mathilde had not been at the port to welcome him, ostensibly she
was ill, but together with Habib he went to visit her at home. We do
not know anything of the emotional tension of that meeting. Did he
thank her for unswerving, devoted help, was Wasila the unspoken
threat in the background? Officially Bourguiba reported that he told
her that they were now taking the first step, to which she replied
that he had always spoken of first steps and that they had never
finished. 'This time the first step will lead us to independence',&3

he assured her.
Bourguiba was almost there, not yet at the summit of power, not
the undisputed leader he had to become. He had struggled so long
and singlemindedly, had given many of his best years to the fight,
often living in appalling conditions. He had not suffered alone.
Many militants had suffered with him. But he had suffered for one
purpose only - to come out on top in order to exercise that power
which he firmly believed was his. He had to wait until 1955 when
he was no longer young - 54 years old - and when he had had no
experience of governing, no apprenticeship. He was thrown in at the
top as were so many of the leaders of the Third World of the period.
They had not been trained by their short-sighted European masters
and had to learn on the job. Because of this and because of the lack
of established institutions much time and energy were wasted on
personal rivalries on a non-institutional basis and in the never end-
ing search for means to legitimize and perpetuate - in some cases
to eternalize - their rule. Bourguiba had a fairly strong party behind
him, he did not have a military career to draw on. He did have the
legitimacy of an unrelenting struggle and of an already established
bond with his people. It was these people he now wanted to lead, to
forge in his own image, to develop their personality into the vision
he had of it, liberal, rational, progressive, perhaps not totally secular,
but all those qualities he had learned from a French education fused
with a basic Tunisian-ness, African, Arab, Cathagenian and Islamic.
A daunting task in a small, poor, relatively undeveloped country.
Nevertheless, Tunisia was the country which fate had given to
Bourguiba and it was there that he had to try to fulfil his destiny.
3
Tunisia under Bourguiba
This is not a political or economic study of Tunisia (others have
written on these topics)1 nor is it a political biography, the kind
which is more interested in events and trends and places the
central figure within them. This is an attempt to study Bourguiba
the man, his character, his reactions and motivations. This is best
done by theme. However, to follow those events to which Bourguiba
reacting or which he set in train an outline of the history of the
period between 1955 and 1987 is necessary.
Bourguiba had first to try to remove any rival centre of power
capable of offering opposition or of diminishing his stature. The first
rival was personal, Salah Ben Yousef. The second institutional, the
beylicate. Ben Yousef was the only man who posed a real challenge
to Bourguiba. They had been companions for many years but had
never liked each other. Neither was prepared to come second and
both were equally ambitious and talented. In an interview with
a French friend of Bourguiba Ben Yousef declared frankly: 'No, I
never want to be second to Bourguiba.'2 Although Bourguiba half
believed that Ben Yousef had already plotted against him during
his flight to Egypt he was prepared to welcome him back to
Tunisia as a colleague. Ben Yousef returned in September 1955 from
three years' exile, determined, however, to supplant Bourguiba
despite the attempts at reconciliation. It was a fundamental clash
of personality. Ben Yousef believed that Bourguiba had no political
principles and was too flexible, while Bourguiba believed his rival
to be too dogmatic. The latter went round the country, denouncing
Bourguiba's policy of gradualism, posing as the champion of instant,
complete independence and of extreme Arab nationalism and Mus-
lim intransigence. Ben Yousef was not alone and was able to appeal
to certain sections of the population who for one reason or another
were opposed to Bourguiba. At one time bullets flew as Ben Yousef
had persuaded some fellagha to fight on his behalf.
Bourguiba in his turn travelled around denouncing Ben Yousef,
80
Tunisia under Bourguiba 81
while still trying to persuade him to change his mind. He invited

him to come to a party congress in November to explain his policies.
He refused and according to Bourguiba financed an attempt against
his life. It failed, said Bourguiba, because no gunman dared fire
against him. Ben Yousef was expelled from the party and fled
the country secretly in January 1956, never to return. In January
1957 he was sentenced to death in his absence. Bourguiba was left
triumphant.
He now felt he could tum to France to put pressure on her to
renounce the last remaining privileges. A new government under
Pineau and Mollet recommenced the discussions. Bourguiba joined
in with gusto, the end now finally in sight. The French were more
likely to concede, they had too much on their hands in Algeria,
and after Bourguiba had had a long, obviously convincing discus-
sion with foreign minister Pineau, the latter phoned him to say:
'That's it. France agrees' - agreed, that was, to full independence,
although a military base was retained in Bizerta. On 20 March the
independence document was signed, not in Bourguiba's presence
as he was still without an official position. 'I was shut up in some
obscure office. God knows, however, what I had paid to get this
result. '3 On that same day Tunisian independence was proclaimed
amid great rejoicing and on 25 March a constituent assembly was
elected. Bourguiba was now chosen as president of the council
(prime-minister) and for the first time had an official post.
At this point in his memoirs Bourguiba makes the incredible
statement that, although he was now head of the government, 'At
no point had I envisaged taking over supreme power. I said I was a
man of struggles and jails, not of honour and protocol'.4 Of course he
was pressed to take over. Of course he accepted. Did anyone believe
what he was saying? Did he? Independence for him was a personal
consecration, the opportunity to realize his ambition of implanting
his own image on his country.
There still remained the obstacle of the beylical dynasty, officially
ruling the country. Bourguiba held many personal grudges against
an institution which had put his grandfather in chains and forced
his father into military service. Although on occasions certain Beys
had been popular in the national struggle, they were not held
in great affection and were largely irrelevant to the new coun-
try, and certainly to Bourguiba's plans. Thus on 25 July 1957 the
National Assembly voted to abolish the beylicate and to establish
a republic. The Bey and his entourage were told to depart and
the example of Egypt was followed in allowing them to leave

unmolested.
Bourguiba is now supreme. A constitution is drawn up under
which a president is to be elected by universal suffrage for a five
year term renewable three times. Bourguiba is the only candidate
and in 1959 is elected with 92 per cent of the votes. He adopts the
trappings and pose of a president. He has a palace in Carthage
and a staff and courtiers befitting. He sits at a large desk in
his office and through the window the blue Mediterranean sea
sparkles off Carthage. The mirror over the fireplace is garlanded
with photographs of himself at different stages of his life. In his
official portrait, in evening dress, he wears the state orders around
his shoulders, gloves in one hand and the other resting on the con-
stitution. The look in his eyes is still that of the small boy at school
gazing into some distant future. It is the portrait seen in shops,
embassies, government offices and airports, so familiar to arriving
and departing tourists. It is the sign that this man is in power, and
no other portrait hangs next to his. It is also an interesting version
of the face that has gone through so many vicissitudes, no longer
ravaged or romantic, but full, imperious and determined. He is still
without an escort as Mathilde, even become Mufida, Tunisian and
Muslim in 1958, cannot really be first lady of an independent Arab
state. Bourguiba has decided on divorce, despite all the support she
had given him during his blackest days. As a condition of divorce
she insisted on retaining the name of Bourguiba and wanted to be
buried wherever her son would be buried. It is ironic that it was
Bourguiba who was responsible for bringing in better conditions for
Tunisian women and making divorce more difficult. The conditions
were agreed and the divorce carried through, although to the end of
her life Bourguiba visited Mathilde to discuss old times. Perhaps she
realized that she could never have been his first lady. In April 1962
Bourguiba married Wasila some 19 years after their first passionate
encounter.
Bourguiba had much to do in the early years of his regime. The
French had run the country, under the fiction of beylical authority,
when in fact they had made the decisions largely to their own
benefit, leaving untouched the traditional laws and customs which
affected the majority of the population. Bourguiba had to tread
warily as both in the traditional and legal spheres there were
many strongly-held attitudes. Both impinged on the sensitive area
of Islam. Bourguiba was bound to clash with the traditionalists as
he undertook to revolutionize Tunisia into his concept of a modern

state.
He first wanted to abolish the old administrative set-up and this
was accomplished in a rapid series of measures - the promulgation
of a personal statute, the abolition of the system of religious endow-
ments, the introduction of a secular legal system in 1957 - this last
a clear sign of a break with the past and one following a pattern set
by other Muslim countries.
Bourguiba was particularly concerned with the position of women
and his interest in the problems of their daily lives had been clear
from his earliest childhood. He felt deeply for the hardships they
had to endure and this genuine concern was strengthened by his
experiences of the greater equality and freedom of European women.
It would be surprising if Mathilde had not spoken her mind on this
subject. He attacked the fundamentals by abolishing polygamy and
simple repudiation. Divorce was taken into the courts with equal
rights and marriage against the will of the wife was forbidden.
Women were given the vote and the right to stand in elections.
All these were revolutionary changes. If one now expects to see
in Tunisia women traffic police and members of the forces, women
working naturally in universities, shops and offices, mixed classes at
school, then the situation of poorer women, who often seem ground
down by their lives, is due more to their economic circumstances
than public will. It is very significant that the two Tunisian women
authors of the biography of Bourguiba end their work with a tribute
to his attitude towards the emancipation of women. 'No modernity
is conceivable without it. For thirty years he tried to make his
fellow-citizens share this attitude.'s They are not sure that he
fully succeeded but believe that Tunisia is in advance of other
Arab Muslim countries.
Another distinctive feature of modern Tunisia is its educational
system. Bourguiba valued education above all, indeed his own
career from small town boy to graduate of the Sorbonne was the
incentive to give all members of society the same opportunities.
Tunisia is one of the most advanced Third World countries in this
field and one of its most impressive (and touching) sights is the
gaggles of chattering small children all in uniform, even in remoter
areas, making their way to school in the morning. Many villages
boast a new school building. The enthusiasm continues through the
system and French universities still welcome Tunisian students.
It was as though the whole of Tunisia became a classroom for
Bourguiba the leader. Following the example of Atatiirk he wanted

to educate his people into new ways and new mental attitudes.
He wanted to ensure that his policies were carried through and
he would endlessly lecture the nation on radio and television,
introducing reforms, taking an interest in all aspects of life. He
even took an interest in marital quarrels trying to settle them on
television rather than in the courts. His speeches in these areas run
to many volumes.
The religious sphere is a minefield for any would be reformer in
a Muslim country. Bourguiba knew the value of religion in Tunisian
life, yet he did not want it to hinder reform or petrify attitudes. Islam
reaches so far down into society, far beyond the overtly religious,
that it is very difficult to change attitudes just by introducing lay
reforms. Atatiirk, a thorough going secularist, discussed this in
Turkey and although Bourguiba was not a believer he was no
Atatiirk either. In fact he once wrote to his son after a visit to Turkey
that Atatiirk had tried to do too much too quickly. Bourguiba used
quotations from the Koran to underpin his ideas if he thought they
would help. There is a reservoir of such quotations in the mind of
a Muslim which he would recognize if used by Bourguiba to help
to authenticate new ideas. Bourguiba accepted that Islam was the
religion of the state but he did not want to be tied down by all its
precepts. He impatiently underestimated the strengths of traditional
beliefs. He once tried, and failed, to alter attitudes towards the long
fast of Ramadam which he considered a wasted month when too
little work was done. And Tunisia, like other Arab countries, has
had to face in recent years an upsurge of Islamic feeling to which
Bourguiba was vehemently opposed.
If Bourguiba had taken to heart lessons from French history his
favourite must have been Louis XIV's ['etat c'est moi. He did not
distinguish any longer where he ended and the state began. He
wanted to control and influence everything that took place, and
because he could not literally oversee everything he wanted to
build institutions and a bureaucracy which would be subservient to
a strong state. Ministers who headed departments reported directly
to him and he gave them directives on policy. This whole structure
can be called Bourguibism, a very personal method of running the
state. Because Tunisia is a small country his rule became even
more personalized than elsewhere where a strong ruler has tried
to impose his own system. He was supported by the Neo-Destour,
the one party holding together its members under its acknowledged
leader. Unity was particularly necessary after the split caused by

the dissension of Salah Ben Yousef. If it did not happen of itself
Bourguiba was quite prepared to use coercive measures. He had
to rule without the possibility of contradiction and firmly stepped
on signs of dissent. The trade unions were shackled in 1957, and he
eliminated all those who had been associated with Ben Yousef in the
attempt to kill him. Tunisia was far from being a police state - that
was against Bourguiba's nature - yet opposition was not tolerated,
largely because he could not admit any disagreement with his ideas
and policies.
As far as the economy is concerned Bourguiba did not have fixed
ideas. He sought a strong Tunisia, economically self reliant, where
poverty was eliminated and in which his policies for change would
prosper. No strict Marxist, he allowed the country to develop rather
liberally, popular in the outside world - mainly Europe - for its
moderate policies. He was opposed to Ahmed Ben Salah, leader of
the trade unions, who supported much more radical socialist aims.
Ben Salah, young, intellectual, a born orator, was able to hold sway
over large audiences with his personal charm and magnetism. He
was a natural leader who wanted to use the trade unions as the
means of emancipating Tunisia. A possible rival to Bourguiba? Cer-
tainly Bourguiba kept a tight rein on the union movement viewing
it as a threat to the party. But Bourguiba, if he held grudges against
possible rivals or those he thought unfaithful, could nevertheless
tum to them when convenient. In 1962 he chose Ben Salah to
direct the economy and he allowed him to flirt with socialist ideas.
He agreed to introduce central planning and to experiment with
co-operatives. Notable growth did follow and Tunisia benefited
from the upsurge of the seventies. In 1964 Bourguiba excited by
these developments even changed the name of the party to the
Socialist Destour Party and for a time was committed to making
a success of the socialist experiment. It was a period when socialism
was being introduced elsewhere: for example in Egypt where under
Nasser it was at its height.
Bourguiba wanted to keep his relations with France on an even
keel, both because he had promised to do so and because it was very
much in Tunisia's interests. The situation was complicated by the
Algerian war raging next door. The French were engaged in a eight
year long struggle to crush the Algerian National Liberation Front
(FLN). Bourguiba, a dedicated nationalist, could not but support
the Algerians, allowing them to flee across the frontier or to train in
camps on Tunisian soil. This infuriated the French who condemned

any help to the Algerians as an unfriendly act. They errected an
electrified fence along the frontier and claimed the right of hot
pursuit. Bourguiba was trapped, his opponents in Tunisia pressing
him to greater action, the French threatening retaliation. The French
military base in Bizerta was an obvious source of potential conflict.
Salah Ben Yousef, seizing an opportunity to needle Bourguiba,
argued from Cairo for the expulsion of the French and, to make
matters worse, he was supported by the FLN. In February 1958
the French air force in Algeria caused an uproar by bombing the
Tunisian village of Sakiet Sidi Yousef during the morning market.
Some 80 people including children were killed.
Bourguiba was incensed, both at the loss of life and the treachery
of France. He immediately demanded the evacuation of all French
troops from Tunisian soil and sent a complaint to the UN. Matters
remained in stalemate for a long period but by 1961 crisis point was
reached. Bourguiba had been to France to negotiate, unsuccessfully,
with de Gaulle and went to Washington to try to gain President
Kennedy's support. Ben Yousef was encouraging any of his sup-
porters still remaining to rise up against Bourguiba. In Algeria a
period of great tension with the French settlers actively opposing
the efforts of General de Gaulle for peace misled Bourguiba into
action. De Gaulle curtly refused to evacuate the base and Bourguiba
coolly decided to force the issue, seizing a chance to outbid Ben
Yousef. In July 1961 thousands of demonstrators massed in Bizerta
and aided by inexperienced Tunisian troops tried to take over the
base. The result was a massacre. During two days perhaps as many
as five thousand Tunisians were killed, both soldiers and civilians.
Bourguiba was shattered by the losses but his was the moral
victory. He stood higher in the Arab world, accepted by Nasser
as a true fellow nationalist, and in the eyes of the world French
prestige had suffered. In July 1962 France finally agreed to Algerian
independence and in October 1963 completed the evacuation of the
base in Bizerta. She had finally admitted that an empire in North
Africa was no longer feasible. The Algerians had won. Bourguiba
and the Tunisians had won, all after great sacrifices.
In the autumn of that year on a day of drizzle, the grey sky merged
into the grey waters of the lagoon, thousands of people converged
on Bizerta. The Destour had organized a great reception. Bourguiba
was there to receive their plaudits, flanked by Ahmed Ben Bella
from Algeria and by Gamal Abd al Nasser from Egypt. Bourguiba
1. Bourguiba at Sadiki College, 1913, seated in the middle of the front row.
2. Bourguiba, aged 20, with his father and brother.

3. Bourguiba with Mathilde and Habib Junior. 4. The lawyer, 1927.
5. After imprisonment, 1936. 6. Prison photograph, 1938.
7. Disguised as a Libyan, 1945. 8. Chatting to Dean Acheson, 1947.

9. Crowds of welcome, 1955.
11. Lifted shoulder high, 1964.
10. A furtive tear, 1955.

12. Aping Noel Coward?
13. The private public figure.
14. The orator in full flow.

15. Bourguiba, brooking no argument.
16. Wasila. 1982.

17. Bourguiba, arriving at the Elysee Palace in 1973.
18. Bourguiba in power, Twentieth Anniversary of Independence, 1976.

19. Statues are unbolted.
was delighted to be accepted by his fellow Arab leaders, now

proved to be a real nationalist capable of standing up to a foreign
power.
Bourguiba in the aftermath of Bizerta also took the opportunity to
rid himself of his 'turbulent' opponent. He met Ben Yousef briefly
in March 1961 in Switzerland in an unsuccessful attempt to win
him over. On 12 August he was assassinated by two Tunisians in
his hotel room in Frankfurt. The two had pretended to be army
officers who were prepared to kill Bourguiba and had gained access
to Ben Yousef. They shot him once in the ear and fled by plane
from Germany. Bourguiba made it clear that he approved of the
action, may even have ordered it and noted with satisfaction in his
memoirs: 'Thus was Tunisia rid of this viper.'6 Bourguiba was rid
of his greatest rival and others drew the lesson that it was dangerous
to oppose the leader. In December 1962 a coup by disgruntled army
officers was nipped in the bud and its perpetrators shot. The Com-
munist party was banned, and trades unionists and students who
wanted a little room to manoeuvre or criticize were made clearly
aware that it was not their place to do so. Bourguiba could bear no
limits to be set to his power and the longer he exercised it the less
willing he was to share.
He was continually concerned with his modernizing policies,
still making his speeches, talking on radio, interesting himself in
all aspects of the country, exercising his authority with a certain
discretion and following policies applauded as moderate in the
West, all of which made him popular and accepted. He seemed to
be the most approachable of Arab leaders, particularly compared to
the charismatic and overwhelming figure of Nasser, who irritated
Western governments. Tunisia was a small country which offered
no threats, the leader sensible and moderate (De Gaulle said that
Tunisia was too small for the ambitions of its leader). In 1965
Bourguiba made a speech criticizing Nasser, the hero of Arab
nationalism, for the lack of realism in his policies. It was Bourguiba,
the Sorbonne-trained lawyer mocking the dreams of the Egyptian
soldier on the basis of logic and reason, distrusting the flights of
Arabic rhetoric. He saw too clearly all its dangers and shook the
Arab world in March 1965 when he dared to suggest that it would
be more profitable to negotiate with Israel on a realistic basis than
bombastically to prepare for war. This approach gained him great
respect in the West, but bitter criticism in the Arab world.
In 1967 Bourguiba was 66 years old, the age when ordinary men
want to retire and put off the burdens of office. Politicians may stay
longer. He had then been in power for eleven years, a long period for
a democratically elected politician, not so long for a dictator at the
head of a one-party system - Nasser ruled for 18 years, Asad in 1991
had been at the top in Syria for some twenty-one years. Bourguiba
certainly had no intention of retiring, yet 1967 can be regarded as
the beginning of a very long end. In March he suffered a heart attack,
the herald of intermittent illnesses of different kinds which while not
permanently disabling began to affect the performance of his duties.
1967 was also a year which fulfilled his earlier warnings, the year
of the disastrous defeat of the Arabs by Israel, made more unbear-
able by the unrealistic expectations beforehand. It was confidently
expected that the time was ripe for the elimination of the Jewish
state. In June Tunisians took to the streets to demonstrate solidarity
with other Arab states. The demonstration took on anti-American
and anti-semitic aspects in hostility towards the policies and ideas
of Bourguiba who was both pro-American and liberal towards the
Jews of Tunisia. For the first time young people had come out onto
the streets against him rather than in support.
In January 1968 one of Bourguiba's ministers, Ahmed Mestiri,
a collegue and confidant, spoke out against a policy which was
causing widespread discontent and hardship in the country, the
progressive, sometimes enforced, collectivization of all sectors of the
economy. He was voicing an all too general opposition? The people
were angry against a too powerful administration and Bourguiba
sensed the weakening of confidence in his policies and a dislike of
the socialist experiment. Ahmed Ben Salah who had first introduced
these ideas to him and convinced him of their validity was made
the scapegoat. Quite brutally Bourguiba blamed him for all the ills
arising from the policies and added the charge of 'plotting'against
him. This was more than enough for him to be sacked. Bourguiba
was ill in Paris when the crisis really broke. He returned to Tunisia
in June 1970 (the fifteenth anniversary of his return in 1955) and
despite his fatigue gave a speech on his arrival in an attempt to rally
the country behind him. He used all his skill as an orator, playing on
a range of emotions, from the serious to the ironic, from the reason-
able to the sentimental. Blatantly disregarding the truth he asserted:
'Ahmed Ben Salah almost divided the nation, but I am still here.
The leader must be honest and loyal and yet can sometimes make
mistakes.' Bourguiba then adopted a tone of repentance: 'Because
I am a man I am subject to error. I made a mistake. I say this in all
modesty. I beg the pardon of the people, especially those militants

who have suffered ... I know they will pardon me when they are
convinced of my good faith. I was misled by a man who lied. '8 The
people of the countryside accepted his words that the hated policies
would now come to an end or be greatly modified. Ben Salah was
arrested and imprisoned, and then tried in a quite unfair manner.
He was allowed to defend himself but no defence witnesses were
allowed - not a procedure Bourguiba had learned in Paris? He was
sentenced to ten years in prison, a lighter sentence than Bourguiba
had wanted. It is probable that outside pressure had contributed to
the shorter term. His friend Mendes-France had warned Bourguiba
not to tarnish Tunisia's image.
Was Bourguiba losing his grip? He gave up his country-wide
speaking tours, either because he felt too ill or because he no
longer needed or sought that intimate contact with his people. It
was a dangerous move as it cut him off from them and made
him the more remote in his palace. Now he usually pontificated
through the media and gained his knowledge of the pulse of the
country through those who told him only what they wanted him
to know. His illnesses also isolated him. He had often to travel to
Switzerland and the United States for treatment, suffering, although
it was strictly forbidden to mention the fact, from manic depressive
psychosis. His entourage were becoming familiar with tempestuous
outbursts of rage followed by a retreat into himself. In 1970 he left
the country for six months in the hands of his companion from the
1930s, Hedi Nouira,9 who was known for more liberal tendencies.
During this period Tunisia experienced a number of political
crises, some in a sense brought on by Bourguiba himself. The more
he tightened his control the more those who had been grown up
under Bourguiba and had been educated to think for themselves
resented his dictatorial methods. He fell more under the influence of
a number of intimates at the palace, including Wasila, who wanted
no diminution of his (and her) power. In the Destour party there
was growing concern about the lack of democracy in public life and
institutions and some members were not afraid to voice demands
for greater liberalization. Bourguiba turned a deaf ear to these voices
and expelled the wets from the party. As he grew older he found
it increasingly difficult to tolerate even the slightest criticism of
himself and his policies.
A strange incident, still not entirely explained, is that of the
abortive union with Libya in January 1974. A scapegoat was found
for this debacle - Mohammed Masmoudi, a close companion of

Bourguiba since 1950 when he was head of the Destour group
in Paris, then Minister of Foreign Affairs. Bourguiba had been
extremely ill and dangerously unstable during the preceding year
or so and his ministers felt trapped both by his incapacity and
overawed by his fearsome rages if they displeased him. Masmoudi
was an active minister, looking for ways in which to enlarge
Tunisia's influence, usually with Bourguiba's encouragement and
approval. Union between the states of North Africa was one goal
which seemed logical and desirable, despite the deep rivalries and
differences between the individual countries and their leaders.
Relations between Tunisia and Libya had been rather cool since
the very young colonel Kaddafi had overthrown the ageing King
Idris in 1969. Kaddafi, impetuous, mercurial and volatile, soon
began chasing dreams of union with whomever would listen to
him. Bourguiba was always wary of schemes he thought unrealistic
and possibly to Tunisia's or his own disadvantage. Yet strangely the
siren-song of Kaddafi caught his attention, surely with the thought
that he would be able to dominate any future union and bring
Kaddafi round to his way of thinking.
Kaddafi asked for a meeting with Bourguiba on the island of
Jerba in January in order to discuss an important matter. The two
arrived on the island and the Libyan leader immediately asked
for a tete-a-u~te, to the disquiet of Bourguiba's entourage who
were concerned about his physical weakness and about what the
energetic Kaddafi might lead him into. After only three-quarters of
an hour alone the Libyan colonel announced to the waiting officials
that a treaty of union had been signed and that Bourguiba was to
be the president. The 'treaty' had been signed on a piece of hotel
notepaper and written out by Kaddafi. No-one present protested
against this staggering method of procedure, Masmoudi stood by
and applauded as it was he who had originally supported the idea
of union. Even more surprising was the fact that the distribution of
ministries had also been decided, the plum jobs all going to Libyans.
Bourguiba gave a short speech in favour of unity, which he saw as
a crowning achievement to his career and perhaps leading to even
greater things. No sooner had the treaty been formally signed by
the two leaders in the hotel than the Tunisians began to worry
about its implications. Had they moved too quickly, had they
ignored constitutional procedures? The Libyan leader could act as
he wished, Bourguiba had certain legal constraints.
The prime-minister, Hedi Nouira, urged Bourguiba to reject

the union, while Masmoudi tried to push him the other way.
Uncharacteristically Bourguiba did not know which way to tum.
He was taken aback by the reaction in the West to what was seen as
a mesalliance between a young, irresponsible soldier and the wise,
moderate, pro-Western president. Had he committed a blunder?
He decided to sack Masmoudi as a sign that not everything was
cut and dried and gradually he succumbed to the arguments of
other ministers and of Wasila that the union could not go through.
Bourguiba and Kaddafi met again in Geneva where the latter was
made to realize that the scheme was dead and buried. What had led
Bourguiba to act so precipitately? Had he been tempted by visions
of glory, had illness and age clouded his reason? He turned on his
loyal colleague Masmoudi, blaming him for the signing of an unreal
treaty. Bourguiba had shown himself frail and unrealistic and he
laid the blame on another. He never really forgave Masmoudi.
According to Mzali's open letter: 'You have not ceased being angry
with him, accusing him in addition of causing your illness. In a
speech you called him a rotten schemer, who enriched himself with
commissions. He called you in return the "Supreme Actor" and
said that royalty had returned to Tunisia when you were elected
president for life. '10.
The Tunisians wondered at the actions of the old man. Where was
he leading them? The young who had grow up since independence
were fretting at the bondage imposed on them by the ageing presi-
dent. They had no say in affairs and yet had been educated to think
for themselves. Bourguiba supported the United States and they did
not like US policy in Vietnam. They objected to the growth of a new
rich class when they felt themselves underprivileged and deprived
of a means of expression in the system they wanted to reject. The
state reacted harshly to signs of opposition and many young people
were arrested, tried and condemned to imprisonment, accused of
belonging to an illegal organization or of defaming Bourguiba.
Now into his seventies Bourguiba looked around for ways of
consolidating his rule even further. He could not bear the thought
of ever having to stand down from the presidency and at the 1974
congress of the Destour he made it clear that he wanted to be elected
as president for life of the party and the republic. Put to a vote he
was reelected with over 99 per cent of the votes and then nominated
president for life. It was a recipe for a disaster which took a long time
to materialize. He was now responsible to no-one and as an absolute
monarch, uncrowned king, he reigned over his country. He quoted

Franco and Tito as examples of other geriatric leaders. He developed
the cult of personality, with his statues,l1 his palaces, his regular slot
on television of his meeting this or that visitor or giving this or that
order. News became merely the latest directives that the president
had issued. Party members, journalists, officials all tried to prevent
presidential criticism from falling on their heads. Bourguiba would
telephone the author of an article or the producer of a programme
which had annoyed him. Those around him learned how to please
him and to minimize his displeasure. In the end almost everybody
failed him in some way and was dismissed, often after suffering
public insult and humiliation.
Those he favoured temporarily enjoyed some of his prestige. He
would give power to relatives, to people from his home town,
to his son and particularly to his wife who became an unofficial
vice-president, known as 'la presidente'. During this period it is
crucial to understand the role of Wasila, who since their marriage
had always been influential at his side, but who, since his relative
incapacity, had spread her wings and extended her voice into many
of Tunisia's affairs. She had no official position and acted only with
the weight of the president's authority at her back. It was joked that
the only great man in the country apart from Bourguiba was Wasila.
She had her network of information, greater it was rumoured,
than that of the Ministry of the Interior, and it was personal and
informal, maintained largely on the telephone, which she would use
constantly even to other Arab leaders abroad. At the height of her
influence it was unwise to oppose and he who tried usually lost.
With the prime-minister Mzali she played in a troika of power,
familiarly known to Tunisians as a BMW - Bourguiba, Mzali and
Wasila. Her skill lay in her understanding of her husband, rarely
crossing him directly, anticipating, suggesting, and if thwarted
retiring for the while. Again it was said that the only effective
opposition in the country was Wasila. She was believed to make
and unmake governments and households, tie and untie intrigues
and alliances and kill careers and fortunes. Whether strictly true or
not, at times of incapacitated government such rumours flourish
and such power can be exercised.
She once gave an interview to the /eune Afrique12 magazine during
which the telephone often interrupted her. One one occasion it was
to be told that Colonel Kaddafi had unexpectedly arrived at the
airport. She immediately took over, ordering the Minister of Defence
to meet him and making certain that his entourage was disarmed at
the airport.
In one area she expressed views which were diametrically
opposed to those of her husband - on the succession. At the
time of the interview she was seventy, active and intelligent, and
she saw that Bourguiba could not last much longer - 'He will not be
able to direct the country from his tomb' - and suggested a change
in the constitution whereby a successor would be democratically
elected after his death. Bourguiba was infuriated when he learned
of this interview and it was one reason for her later loss of power.
Only he would nominate his heir. When President Leopold Senghor
of Senegal retired Wasila had asked her husband: 'Why not you?'
'Never,' he replied, enraged. A visitor to Carthage had once simi-
larly said that her father, the prime-minster of Syria, had known
when to retire. The response was equally glacial. Wasila had this
clearer view of the facts of political reality. Although Bourguiba was
in a sense directing affairs, he should have brought younger people
into the government to ensure continuity and she believed that his
work would only be assured after his death by a democratically
elected president. She regretted the lack of younger members of the
Destour party and deplored the absence of their enthusiasm. To her
the party should be like a father who kept telling his children that
he had procreated and nourished them and that they must now leave
home. She did not fear the 'after-Bourguiba' and promised that she
would retire after he had gone.
In such an atmosphere it was inevitable that trouble would come
sooner or later. In the seventies the country had been prospering
economically under the more liberal policies of Hedi Nouira after
the problems of the socialist experience. A developing industry
spawned a strong trades unions movement, the very thing that
Bourguiba had stamped on in his earlier years. The unions tended
to attract opponents of the regime as one of the rare forums for
their opposition. In 1978 a general strike called against the gov-
ernment led to violent clashes in the capital. The army was called
in to restore order and some strikers were killed and hundreds
wounded. One hundred and fifty unionists were sentenced to terms
of imprisonment.
Such were the signs of Bourguiba's growing incapacity and of
the ironic result of having led the country to maturity and of
being unwilling to face the consequences of a thinking, educated
and critical population. Imprisonment and killing were only the
negative answers of an impotent man, who was now sicker than

ever. He spent several months in Germany undergoing treatment
before returning in January 1979. Kaddafi and Boumedienne both
visited him when ill, believing that the end was nigh and that
arrangements could be made for the succession - each to his
own advantage. A year later they organized a commando attack
on Gafsa carried out by Tunisian troops trained in Kaddafi's Libya.
Bourguiba was deeply taken aback by this unfriendly act and he
threw off his illness temporarily and united the country around
him against this outside threat. He struck back and the leaders of
the attempted coup were all condemned to death. Strangely this
shock to the system had an effect in other ways and demonstrated
how a totally fit Bourguiba might have ruled the country. Nouira,
the prime-minister, was ill and Mohammed Mzali took over, not yet
sixty, intellectual (he had for many years edited a literary magazine)
and of liberal bent. It seemed that Bourguiba had learned a lesson
and that the country would be set on a new road.
4
Decline and Fall
I am a very foolish fond old man

Fourscore and upward, not an hour more nor less;
And, to deal plainly,
I fear I am not in my perfect mind
(King Lear)
It is impossible to pinpoint the beginning of such a long period of

decline as marked the last years of Bourguiba's reign. The nineteen
eighties are a convenient enough stretch of time to deal with and
one event in the decade, the appointment of Mohammed Mzali
as prime-minister on 23 April 1980, is a point of departure. This
was taken as a sign of hope at the time; a man with known
liberal tendencies would perhaps be the one to rescue the ship of
Bourguiba from the wreck to which it was headed. He wrote the
cynical eyewitness account1 of his period in office until dismissal in
1986, which caused a stir when published both for its bitterness and
for the startling revelations of court intrigue. Zain al-Abidin Ben Ali
has also spoken briefly of the atmosphere and events of the period
and both Tunisian authors witnessed some of the salient events.
The politics, economics and development of the country take back
seat to the comings and goings, the intriguing and emotions in the
palace at Carthage - Bourguiba fiddling while Tunis burned, or the
insouciance of a Borgia court.
He was then in his eighties, an old man by any standards,
wracked by illness and senility. His face was waxen, his eyes
glassy behind dark spectacles, his cheeks the colour of parchment
as are those of the very old. He still made his customary gestures,
but they now were hesitant and weak. Outside he habitually wore
his black overcoat with the inevitable while scarf. Hatless, he would
walk with the aid of a stick, or lean on the arm of an aide or be
balanced precariously on their shoulders, while being firmly held
95
under the soles of his shoes. In his sudden fits of rage he would
hurl insults all around, the sweat glistening on his forehead, after
which he would subside exhausted. It was as though only the shell
of the great man remained, or worse that only his less positive
qualities had stood the test of time. As the end approached his
devotion to Tunisia gradually narrowed down to a devotion to
himself. He became remote from the people, withdrawn into the
isolation that comes before death, the retreat into self before retreat
from the world. At the same time there occurred the sanctification
of the smallest, as well as the most important, events surrounding
him. Each night on television he made a pathetic spectacle, or at
his desk, an ancient man unable to look at his watch and to talk
of anything but his youth. Tunisia was enmeshed in his person and
image, awaiting the death of a leader of unending longevity.
His daily life was simple and routine. He rose early at six and
would instinctively tum on the radio news to hear the formulaic
reports of his doings and signings. Lunch was taken at midday.
He ate quickly and hated being kept waiting. After a siesta until
5 p.m. he would take a regular walk in the grounds with his
entourage, moving quickly, sometimes outpacing the younger ones.
His doctors visited him daily and he followed a strict diet with no
drinking and no smoking. His favourite food was the ubiquitous
couscous or rice, the liking for which he developed from sharing his
father's dish in childhood. Dinner was at eight, followed perhaps by
a little reading - or being read to - and bed at 9 p.m. One of his
guests at the palace has related that he kept strictly to meal times
so that he could watcll the news on television at the same time.
This always began with pictures of himself and he would shout
to those at table, 'Look! there I am', and he would clap like a child,
and expect his guests to join in. But in this time of senile decline he
was still able to look at projects, discuss diplomatic moves, enjoy
appointing and dismissing, and miraculously he would sometime
be extremely lucid and would evaluate situations as of old.
Mohammed Mzali bitterly relates the problems he had with
Bourguiba in trying to introduce some form of liberalization into
the Tunisian system, the first steps of which was to be the freeing
of political prisoners. Each time he had to negotiate Bourguiba's
signature for their release. As Cardinal Richelieu had once written
to Louis XIII: 'The two square feet of your table are far more difficult
to conquer than an empire.'2 He wanted Bourguiba to allow some
pluralism into politics as it was not necessary, according to Mzali,
Decline and Fall 97
for him and the Destour to obtain 99 per cent of the vote each time. A
majority of 70 per cent or less would have had sufficient credibility.
Mzali had to fight hard to persuade Bourguiba to include this idea in
his speech to the party congress of April 1981; yet even when other
parties were allowed the elections, as we have seen, were rigged in
favour of the Destour. Mzali's struggle was always an uphill one
and he slowly became disillusioned both with his task and with
Bourguiba's character.
It was a very uneasy relationship as in addition to the problems
of being prime-minister he had to face the tantrums of the old man.
He believed he had been trapped into accepting the rigged elections
by 'embraces, lyrical flights of oratory, tears, the hand supposedly
proffered, the rages. I now acknowledge with heavy heart my
ignorance of certain theatrical devices, certain stage tricks'.3 When
Ahmed Mestiri, the colleague of Mzali and leader of the Democratic
Socialist Movement, was arrested in April 1986, Mzali had to plead
for his release. 'But with what spite you started to refuse, crying
and ranting. At last with bad grace you agreed to release him.'4
The prime-minister then warned Mestiri's brother to hide Ahmed
in case Bourguiba changed his mind under the pernicious influence
of his niece and his usual table companions.
Mzali undoubtedly showed considerable courage in standing up
to Bourguiba's rages and in dealing with his unpredictability. 'Each
day I met problems caused by you, fantasies which came to inhabit
your mind in the space of a moment, caused by a single word, just
one allusion.' Bourguiba lived in a 'torpeur peopled with shadows
and nightmares, an old man beating his fists and dismissing minis-
ters. Like Lear he tried to order his succession after a siesta, but there
is no dauphin as death does not exist. So as the ultimate combat
approaches the supreme combatant refuses to lay down his arms.'s
When prime-minister Mzali was overruled or when Bourguiba
made decisions without consulting him his position as premier in a
presidential system was impossible. If he were docile then he would
be considered loyal, if active he risked being called disloyal, but
when 'nepotism and irrationality are added to the mixture ... '6
- for once Mzali is left speechless. Dismissals were commonplace,
particularly on the days known as 'Monday's games of skittles'
when heads tumbled, Mzali claimed for inane reasons; one 'you
could no longer bear to see, another's features reminded you of
the heavy ghost of Salah Ben Yousef, another forgot to wear his
sash of office at an official function, yet another spoke only of
the struggles of his father (Farhat Hashed) and forgot those of

yourself. '7
On two occasions Bourguiba acted quite independently, to Mzali's
disgust. During the latter's absence troubles broke out in the Univer-
sity among students clamouring for greater democracy. Bourguiba
unsympathetically issued an edict 'to take a firm hand'. Mzali on
his return complained that Bourguiba was out of touch with young
people who would no longer tolerate the kind of authoritarianism
behind 'the thrust of his jaw in his office or the blow of the rifle
butt in the street'. Worse, during the riots caused by the raising of
the price of bread - a move by Mzali to try to halt the economic
slide - Bourguiba acted alone in cancelling the increase, taking all
the praise, leaving the blame for others.
Mzali fought hard for those causes which he believed crucial to
the well-being of society, for example the freedom of the press.
As an ex-journalist he had many friends in the profession and he
tried to intervene on their behalf when threatened by thunderbolts
from Bourguiba. He had difficulty in persuading him to accept
even a limited freedom. 'You were very angry in October 1981
with the journal Le Milghreb which had published a photograph
of Ahmed Mestiri. I tried to calm you by saying that even if he
were in opposition he was a patriot. We remember your irony, your
sarcasm when you parodied the members of the editorial committee
of the journal.'s 'You have an allergy towards the press. When Le
Phare published an article in March 1981 on the militants other than
you in the struggle for national independence you telephoned me
in anger: "Have you read Le Phare? Suspend it immediately!"'9
Mohammed Mzali was but one of the players in the last act.
Wasila was there but losing her influence and once she had gone
Bourguiba seemed to have no-one left to cling to for stability. He
had known her for forty-three years by 1986 and she had provided
a strong point of reference in his life. Without her Bourguiba drifted
more than ever, prey to his whims and to the ideas of the last person
to have his ear. People around him no longer had any policies and
were mainly out for their own ends. Those who showed fight were
sent away and it was Said a Sassi, his niece, Mzali and one or two
others who were left to hold sway.
The crisis with Wasila came soon. Bourguiba was showing some
fight against widespread corruption by eliminating some of those
suspected of being involved. In January 1986 Wasila and Habib
Junior (now 59) went to plead with Bourguiba for a friend of theirs
Decline and Fall 99
accused of corruption. They went into his private room where he

was still dressing. They tried to put their case and he fell into a
towering rage. 'Out! scheming woman,' he shouted at Wasila and
brandished his walking stick at Bibi. 10 They beat a hasty retreat and
Bourguiba gave orders to forbid them further access to the palace.
He then signed a decree stripping his son of all his functions - he
had been a special adviser to his father. Wasila was beside herself
and fell ill. She tried on several occasions to get Bourguiba to retract
- somehow she managed to get to his bedside again - but it was
too late. She acknowledged defeat and in April left to take a cure
abroad. He continued to persecute her from afar, ordering Tunisian
plain clothes police watch her house in Paris. She had been clever
enough to make some financial provision for her new life.
Mzali now believed that he had removed the last obstacle to his
succession. The canny Bourguiba forstalled him. It was still only the
president who had the power to name his heir. He learned of his
dismissal on the television news on 8 July 1986. His last meeting
with Bourguiba was relaxed. The latter rose, slowly and painfully
as usual, to shake his hand. His only reproach was that Mzali
had introduced too much arabisation into the educational system
- several years before when he had been Minister of Education. He
was placed under close surveillance but managed to escape into
Algeria - disguised, theatrically, in a grey shopkeeper's tunic, a
shishia and large false moustache. The Algerians allowed him to
leave for Switzerland where he wrote and spoke openly about the
imbroglio in Tunisia. Bourguiba was furious when his favourite
newspaper Le Monde gave publicity to the Open Letter. Bourguiba
sent emissaries to ask him to calm down and he agreed to do so.
In August Bourguiba decided to divorce Wasila. He took his name
from her and all her privileges. He acted as a Muslim husband
would in a country where the wife has few rights, quite contrary
to the liberal personal code he had introduced so many years earlier,
a sad sign if needed of the collapse of his integrity. He later accused
her of infidelity. He was destroying all that he had built up - no
captain honourably going down with his ship, or the blind Samson
in his rage, more the petulant child smashing to the ground his castle
of bricks.
The new prime-minister, Rashid Sfar, son of Bourguiba's old
colleague Tahar, was honest and colourless and at a loss to know
what to do. The opposition press was banned, there was little
public debate, only struggles for influence. Bourguiba's entourage
consisted of nonentities jockeying to keep their places. Saida ruled

the roost. She was no Wasila, in fact she was rather dim, but she
guarded access to Bourguiba. She was the final mother figure in
his life and the most unlikely. Bourguiba hardly seemed senile any
more, only a child again. They played piggy-back together and in a
startling newspaper interview she confessed: 'In him I see my uncle,
my father, my leader, my child. When I am in his bedroom watching
over his rest and his health, I find myself going back over the years
to when I was watching over my babies. I had six children. With
him I laugh, have fun, I joke. He corrects my bad French because
I mispronounce words and he teases me.' Saida confirmed that she
was 'first of all a mother hen. I am a simple woman, come from the
people'.ll
Mzali had great fun in getting his own back in print. He singled
out three members of the gang that ran the palace - Sassi (Madame
niece), Mansour Skhiri and Hedi Mabrouk - and nicknamed them
the Duenna, the bullyboy, and the crook.
'The Duenna. By her existence alone she revives the Corneillian12
debate, where illiteracy and vulgarity fight for pre-eminence. This
mad chaperone loses no opportunity to ridicule you and the country
before intemational opinion, calling you her baby. '13
She particularly irritated Mzali on one occasion by phoning in
an over-excited voice to tell him that her uncle was angry about
something he had written in a speech condemning the Israeli air raid
on the PLO headquarters in Tunis. She wanted the condemnation to
be written out. 'Your tragedy, Mr Mzali, is to believe in co-operation
with the Arabs and to continue to support the Palestinian cause
when it is only Israel which can help us.' And 'My uncle and I do
not like the Arabs and even less (your policy of) arabisation'.14
'The Bullyboy (Mansour Skhiri, an eminence grise and boss of
the palace). With bristling moustaches and the tinted glass of his
spectacles, he only knows one way of treating delicate problems, by
battering them down and acting like a roadmender (he was once a
minor engineer), but he is too mediocre for the post he occupies. He
is no more than a stone-crusher or power-hammer.'
'The Crook, (Hedi Mabrouk who was head of the Foreign Office).
He has a carnivorous smile and bottomless duplicity and is useless
as a courtier to Bourguiba. Hedi Mabrouk, with the stealthy step, the
slimy manner of a country parson, the unctuous talk of Tartuffe. He
it is who prepares the press articles for Bourguiba (as he pronounced
French excellently), who savours the preparation of a trap as much
Decline and Fall 101
as he savours the sugary sweets he is so partial to. '15 Around these

three grovel a brood of walk-on parts, a grotesque gallery of players
escaped from the Co media dell' Arte.
REMOVAL
If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well

It were done quickly.
(Macbeth)
Rarely can a group of highly placed officials have been so merci-

lessly lambasted outside fiction. The serious ministers were trying
hard to administer the country which was yet again facing economic
problems and a fall in living standards. Popular discontent was, to
Bourguiba's horror, increasingly being expressed in militant Islamic
terms by Muslim activists. They were a threat to everything he held
sacred, his rational humanism, female equality and Westernization.
He conceived a visceral hatred for them and they retaliated by
preaching directly against him. He determined to crush them,
preferably from the top down. The man he appointed to lead
the campaign was an ex-policeman and Saint-Cyr trained soldier
known for his tough yet moderate attitude, Zain aI-Abidin Ben Ali.
He had been Minister of the Interior since April 1986 and Bourguiba
trusted his efficiency. The Islamic movement (MTI) was becoming
ever more active, financed, it was rumoured, by Iran and believed
by Bourguiba to be seeking to install an Iranian-type state in Tunisia.
A big demonstration in the centre of the capital in April 1987 was
quickly suppressed. Bourguiba encouraged Ben Ali to be ruthless
in clamping down; he was willing to go so far but believed that
unnecessary force would be counter-productive. Even so he was not
too gentle and his vigorous actions enhanced his own position in a
government of a weaker brethren.
One feature of Tunisia which sets it radically apart from all
other Arab countries (excepting to a lesser extent Morocco) is its
strongly developed tourist industry. With a reputation for stability
and moderation, blue sky and sea, sun and sand, reasonable food
and wine, tourists buzzed in their thousands on package holidays
to the white hotels of Hammamet, Monastir and Sousse. Tourist
buses took sightseers to the mosques of Kairouan, the markets of
old Tunis, the Roman ruins of el-Djem or the marvellously typical
blue and white village of Sidi Bou Said. Employment was given to
thousands in the industry and everything depended on a continuing
sense of security.
The season was at its height in August of the hot summer of 1987.
Bourguiba was in his palace at Monastir and as usual bathed in the
sea each day - in front of the television cameras to prove that he
was fit and well. On the night of the second four bombs exploded
in tourist hotels, injuring fourteen holidaymakers. One went off in
Monastir, the ultimate insult to Bourguiba.
Ben Ali tried to calm a violently angry old man who knew that
the bombs were the work of Islamists. He wanted all of them
arrested and sentenced mercilessly. Arguments raged between him
and those who supported softer measures and in practice wanted
the law to take its course. The MTI threatened revenge if any of
them was executed. The trial opened in late August of 90 militants
and leaders accused of plotting against the state. Bourguiba argued
for the harshest punishments, particularly for Rashid Ghannouchi,
the leader, whom he saw as a threat to his achievements and to his
very image. It is painful that Bourguiba, the lawyer and one-time
upholder of due legal processes, should now argue for them to be
bypassed.
The verdict of the court - a tribute to the judges' fairness - was to
condemn seven to death (five in their absence), some to hard labour
and fourteen were acquitted. Bourguiba was outraged, particularly
as Ghannouchi had escaped the death sentence, pressed for a retrial
with harsher judges and blamed the prime-minister for the fiasco.
Ben Ali and others argued strongly that the sentences should stand
and that justice had to be seen to be done.
The events of the summer and the aftermath of the trial weighed
heavily on what was left of Bourguiba's consciousness. He could no
longer enforce his will and for the leader that was intolerable. He
reacted with insults to his ministers, uttered in a frenzy and in the
most hurtful manner. After one such humiliation the prime-minster,
furiously resentful, determined to resign. He consulted Ben Ali who
was by then convinced that Bourguiba had to go. He was now
totally incapable of governing. In an interview in 1988 Ben Ali
tactfully explained the awful problems of working with an ever
more incoherent Bourguiba.
I had the feeling in 1984 that Bourguiba was no longer in full

possession of all his facuIties. I would see him every morning
and during our interviews he would forget decisions taken the

previous day, be surprised at nominations for which he had
taken the initiative, go back on arrangements already put into
operation. I suffered because I was an obvious Bourguibian. Who
was not. I can even say I adored Bourguiba. But from 1984 on I
understood that I had to save Bourguiba from himself, in spite
of himself, against himself. Others just awaited his death and
disputed the succession. For a patriot it was unbearable, even
dishonourable.
Bourguiba, overtaken by age and illness, hostage to a disrepu-
table entourage, had let himself adopt a political behaviour which
would menace the foundations of the modem state he had spent
so long building up. Faced with many crises, the country was no
longer governed or governable. There was a need for change but
no-one dared to make a move against him in case the whole of
society collapsed.1 6
There were very few flashes of the old Bourguiba left - in an

article in March 1987 he was still quoting his motto taken from
Auguste Comte - 'to live for others' - but Ben Ali had decided to
think the hitherto unthinkable. The founder of the modem state of
Tunisia had to go.
Bourguiba favoured Ben Ali as the strong man to deal with the
Islamists and signed his own abdication warrant by appointing
him prime-minister on 2 October. Ben Ali began his premiership
by arresting more Islamic militants. It was suggested that the time
was now ripe for a retrial in order to obtain the harsher sentences
Bourguiba so desired. Ben Ali knew that if he went too openly
against Bourguiba's will he would be dismissed and could not,
therefore, no longer prime-minister, legally take over as president.
lf on the other hand he agreed to a retrial and many were hanged
he felt sure that the promised reprisals by the Islamists would
be carried out. He was forced into the position of having to act
quickly.
He first presented his new government for approval to Bourguiba,
who hardly glanced at the names and agreed. Overnight his
entourage got to him and tried to shipwreck Ben Ali's proposals.
Bourguiba was made to believe that the list was unacceptable and
told Ben Ali so the next morning. He begged him to reconsider -
unsuccessfully. Saida dramatically threw herself at his feet, crying:
'You have signed, uncle; you nominated Ben Ali, you cannot do
what you're doing.'17 With no more ado he struck her with his
walking stick. Ben Ali left the palace in despair.
This was on the 28 October. Matters began to move apace.
Bourguiba eventually accepted the new government but began
to have doubts about its leader. Why was he not moving more
swiftly against the militants? Should he not sack him and appoint
his faithful historian, Mohammed Sayah? Saida at last acted sensibly
by warning Ben Ali of these latest presidential thoughts. Another
cause for urgency was the knowledge that the trials had been fixed
for 9 November.
Ben Ali retired to his office and began to plan a coup - with the
military precision he had learned at Saint Cyr. The palace at Car-
thage would be surrounded at night by loyal troops, telephones cut,
leading supporters of Bourguiba arrested, the presidential guard
neutralized and the palace occupied. And that was how it happened
on the night of 6-7 November, the new date to be celebrated in
Tunisian history. Everything went according to plan and no blood
was spilt. Troops overcame the one guard who tried to prevent them
from entering the palace. The building was taken over, Sayah and
the entourage arrested. Bourguiba remained sound asleep. Other
soldiers went in search of Bibi who refused to open his door to them.
He was arrested and taken rather brusquely away in a replay of one
of his father's arrests. He was soon released, however. Bourguiba
remained sound asleep.
Now Ben Ali moved to have the matter made constitutional. The
president for life could only be removed on the grounds of total
incapacity. There was no doubt of Bourguiba's incapacity and a
number of doctors agreed to sign a medical certificate - 'We
affirm that his state of health no longer allows him to perform
the functions of his office' - all written in perfect French. Ben Ali
now had constitutional backing to remove the father of Tunisia -
an ultimate parricide. It was five o'clock in the morning and Ben
Ali recorded the news of the overthrow for the radio.
The enormous sacrifices made by the leader Habib Bourguiba,

first president of the republic, with his valiant companions,
for the liberation of Tunisia and its development cannot be
numbered. However, faced with his senility and worsening state
of health, based on a medical report, national duty obliges us to
declare his absolute incapacity to carry out any longer the office
of president of the republic. We, therefore, take over with God's
help the presidency and the command of the army ... we are
entering together a new era. IS
The unthinkable had happened, in the best possible way - no

bloodshed, no violence, no suffering. Tunisians were entering the
new era which they had awaited so long and for which they
were quite unprepared. But one can always get over the death of
a father.
Bourguiba awoke early as usual and as usual switched on the
radio for the news. Oddly the habitual encomium was missing.
Saida was the first into his bedroom in the morning. She too
was bewildered. At 6.30 a.m. Ben Ali's recorded statement was
broadcast. The old man was stunned, unbelieving - 'Zain al-Abidin
president, but I am president '. Then he cannot react any more. Those
around him are embarrassed and silent. He dresses and is told that
he has to leave on 10 November. 'But Carthage is mine' - 'No it
belongs to the state for the use of the president.' He will be taken
to a house in Mornag, centre of the wine growing area south of
Tunis. He is beginning his journey home. His servants and Saida
can go with him. He walks slowly from the palace leaning on his
aides. When told that the helicopter is ready he says: 'But I have no
official programme today.' 'No, you have to leave.' 'Oh yes that's
true', he murmurs.
5
Bourguiba the Man
THE COMPLEXITY OF BOURGUIBA
Few world leaders have been as eager as Bourguiba to expose their

innermost feelings and sufferings to their people at large. Few great
political leaders of the twentieth century have been so transparent
and have fought so strongly to demolish the barrier between the
public persona and the contradictions as a man. In speech after
speech, in lecture and talk, he gave amazing details of his life
and his motivations, all with one aim - so to integrate himself
and his life history into the history of the nation that his role
could never be written out. Everything was done to underline the
importance of his actions while at the same time belittling those of
others. History was being continually rewritten around Bourguiba
by Bourguiba, published in massive series of speeches and studies
of the growth of the national struggle until few Tunisians could
have remained unaware of the smallest detail of Bourguiba's role,
real or imagined. In 1973 he decided to give a series of lectures on
his life at the Institute of the Press and Information Sciences as part
of one of the courses. For three months every Friday members of
the govemment, officials, students and teachers were summoned
to listen to the president talking about himself. The talks were
rebroadcast on radio and television and later published.
The purpose of the lectures? 'To get to know better the personality
of the man who had forged the history of the nation.' There was
a complete identification between man and history and he was
the only reliable recorder. 'You should know the personality of
the man who led' the movement of national liberation. 'I hope
you will know better the history of our country in listening to
the man who made it. /1 This complete identification of country,
period and leader is not unusual but rarely has it been raised to
such a blatant pitch. Some leaders stamp the period of rule with
106
Bourguiba the Man 107
their name, Stalinism, Thatcherism; Bourguibism meant as much

and more, so completely did his personality and ideas dominate
Tunisia. Abroad it was Bourguiba who was known. Tunisia without
him would have counted for little.
The effort to rewrite Tunisian history in his own image stemmed
from his determination to be at the very centre of the making of
that history, to be the leader of the people and to brook no rivals.
Throughout his life he demonstrated all the traits which betray
the character and characteristics of the self-absorbed, self-centred
leader who believes himself to be a unique man, above all others
preordained to lead. 2 His early life was patterned to produce such
features. At a sadly early age he was separated from his mother and
all the security which that represented. His brother and his servant
could never make up the loss and he had to become self-dependent.
He grew up seeing his world as unkind, a world which deprived
him of the things natural to the life of a child. Added to this feeling,
as he grew older, he realized that the world was unjust, there were
rulers and ruled, privileged and deprived, and that he was deprived
and underprivileged in comparison with the French colonizers. He
felt this injustice of colonialism deep within himself and from an
early age determined to try to redress the balance. Having to be
so self-reliant he came to believe that he could alter things himself
and developed an inflated and grandiose self-concept. He believed
he was unique and endowed with the right to exert his will.
Children with this grandiose idea of self grow up to be excessively
self-engrossed, overdependent on acclaim and on the need to attain
power. They strive towards their goal without understanding the
characters and motives of others around them, even those loyal and
willing to help. They tend to see those around them in black and
white, as admirers or traitors. Psychologists describe adult life in
terms of regression, that is acting in later life under the influence of
events in children and adolescence. Regression is a way of reliving
over and again episodes in earlier life and is not absolutely abnor-
mal. Earlier unresolved or partly resolved conflicts always persist
into late life. The stage to which one regresses is most often the one
in which the greatest conflicts remain unresolved. In Bourguiba's
case this was the time of his early separation from his mother.
His seemingly childish behaviour could stem from this separation,
his tears and his tantrums, behaving like a spoiled child in prison
camp when he could not get his own way, isolating himself and
'sulking'. This type of behaviour by the child-man stems from the
phenomenon of anal regression and the anal individual often tries to

dominate with his overwhelming assumption of moral superiority.
The basic purpose of his striving for superiority is to offset his
chronic sense of shame and doubt about his own autonomy and
self-esteem. 3 Young Bourguiba developed two basic senses of his
self: one was the deprived, dependent, emotionally hungry person
who was always ready to shed tears at the mention of his mother
and who always sought his brother's approval of his school work;
the other was the self-sufficient character who determined to be
first in his school examinations 'come what may'. He wanted to
personify the words of his favourite poet de Vigny in MOise: '0
Lord, I have lived powerfully and solitarily.'
And all through adult life these features developed, matured
and hardened. His belief in his mission never wavered nor did
his conviction that he was the only man fitted to lead. The longer
he lived the less inclined he became to relinquish any authority. All
around him he saw traitors who had to be punished and his exercise
of power became more isolated and solitary. As early as 1973 at the
end of his course of lectures he was saying: 'God has given me the
grace to live. In my remaining years I want to educate the young to
assume their responsibilities. On 4 November I shall start my fourth
term as president, my last if the constitution is not changed. I should
then retire to Monastir but I know the people will not let me. '4
It is ironic that when once talking about the leadership of others,
Bourguiba should have betrayed himself quite so openly. He was
speaking of a time when Salah Ben Yousef exercised considerable
power: 'Experience has shown that the concentration of power in
the hands of one responsible person, however honest and upright,
has its dangers.'s The lesson to be drawn was not the obvious one,
however.
He often spoke and wrote on the responsibilities of leadership,
sometimes from prison when he felt isolated, always implying that
only he could bear up to the lonely burden of authority. He tried to
draw some legitimacy for his leadership by claiming to be the heir
of other great figures in Tunisian history. He said more than once
that Jugurtha, the Berber general who in the 2nd century Be tried
to revive the Berber kingdom, was one of his ancestors and that he
was the new Jugurtha who had succeeded after 2000 years. He also
felt affinity with the early great Carthagenian, Hannibal, who had
led his country to victory. Once Bourguiba was in Turkey and asked
to be taken to visit the tomb of Hannibal. No-one was exactly sure
where it was and he was shown a tumulus on the other side of the
Bosphorous. Bourguiba went up to the mound in silence, looked at
it for a while and, to the amazement of his hosts, burst into tears.
'This is how people treat their great men, another proof of their
lack of gratitude' - a renowned general who had died in exile. 6
Although Bourguiba should perhaps have remembered the words
supposed to have been said to Hannibal by one of his officers: 'You
know how to conquer, but do not know how to profit from your
victory. '7 The third great Tunisian to whom Bourguiba pays homage
was Ibn Khaldun, the Arab historian, from whom Bourguiba took
his feeling for the rhythm of events which enabled him to bear up
during periods of illness or exile, waiting for better things. A statue
of Ibn Khaldun in Tunis now replaces that of Cardinal Lavigerie
which had caused such offence to Muslim feeling.
Although at times Bourguiba pretended that he did not seek
supreme power, it is abundantly clear that he did and that he looked
upon it as his destiny and upon himself as worthy of it when it came.
'Leadership without risk or danger would be open to pusillanimous
persons who have no heart to confront those testing times when
one must return blow for blow'. Solitude was both a prelude to
and a part of power. 'My inexorable destiny has condemned me to
solitude and exile; life is a continual struggle. Only those succeed
who have had a hard apprenticeship'. There was something rather
noble in Bourguiba's theoretical concept of leadership and in his
early days he was prepared to make sacrifices in order to achieve it.
To his brother from exile he wrote: 'The real chief is he who keeps his
faith, who still believes when all around have despaired. Once must
hold on, finish nobly if necessary rather than surrender shamefully
in inaction. It is up to us to show that they have reckoned without
the guts of the Bourguibas '. This combination of Kipling and de
Vigny might well have been more often borne in mind by Bourguiba
at the end of his reign and particularly the moving words of one of
his favourite poems, 'The Death of the Wolf' by de Vigny.
Carry out your long and heavy task with vigour

On the path to which fate has summoned you,
Then afterwards, like me, suffer and die without a word.
His early writings do underline the necessity of suffering even if

one does not live to see the fruits of victory. 'In the field of society it
is rarely given to him who sows to see the harvest' and 'We would
be content to sacrifice ourselves for the people. What does our

death matter if the people can gain happiness?'8 Whereas Bourguiba
acknowledges the selfless side of leadership - 'I have never at any
moment of my political life thought of myself, my interests, my own
skin' - he was also adamant that the urge to rule excluded any too
soft feelings for those seen as rivals or obstacles. He was chosen to
rule and he would follow Nietzsche in believing that morality was
nothing more than the instinct of the herd, in that there was a need
for the new man who stood like a giant among pygmies, who stood
above ordinary morality.
The absolutely essential factor in any leader's search for power is
the link he establishes with the people he wishes to lead. Without
them he is as nothing, and no great leader has not at one time
inspired some affection amongst his people. It may have only been
of short duration but for some continued acclaim by the people
becomes their very life blood. Bourguiba made great play of his
links with the people which he carefully built up in the beginning
during his constant speaking tours around the country. A genuine
bond was created with those ordinary people who believed in him
and in his message, many thousands of humble Tunisians. At the
Ksar Hellal meeting he first stressed the unity that was necessary
between leader and led: 'The nation will not hesitate to join those
men of action whom it has been awaiting a long time. The voice of
Tunisia will henceforward be heard' - my voice speaking on your
behalf.
Bourguiba, the student in Paris, claimed the motto of Comte -
'to live for others' - as his own and he later wrote: 'The people
are with me because I live only for them and they occupy all my
thoughts.' This was self-deception; it would be truer to say that the
motivating factor in his life was the will to power which could only
be achieved if the people were ready to be dominated. In giving
himself to them it was to satisfy himself. It is not impossible to
see in the love Bourguiba showed to his people a substitute feeling
transferred from his lost mother. Certainly the relationship is often
expressed in family terms, father and sons, love for children. When
still young, Bourguiba surreptitiously read La Tunisie Martyre, the
famous tract on Tunisia's sufferings under the French, and he wept-
his well-known reaction to the memory of his mother now combined
with sorrow for his suffering nation.
And Bourguiba like any parent wanted to educate his chil-
dren-people into a better life, as did Atarurk (father Turk), who
wrote in his diary: 'I will make them rise to my level. Let me
not resemble them; they should resemble me.'9 In the early days
Bourguiba was likewise the great educator of his people, talking to
them directly as leader-father, encouraging, blaming, inculcating.
As he grew older and more ill the direct links weakened, but
great stress was still laid on them by his fawning collaborators.
'The Destour party and he are rather the same thing and one can
identify with the other'. His official historian, Mohammed Sayah
wrote: 'Bourguiba has a pact with the people which is almost
mystical. He thinks of them as a person, a friend, a companion,
a well-loved child to discuss things with, and the people retum
this feeling.'lO To the end Bourguiba lived on the acclaim of 'his'
people, acknowledging them almost mechanically, and if at one time
he toyed with the idea of a multiparty system it was only because
he wanted all the parties to support him.
The would-be leader intent on power usually pursues his aims
so singlemindedly that he irritates or leaves behind those comrades
who are not fired with the same all consuming passion. The leader's
own ambition is secondary to relationships even within his family
as all his energies are concentrated on his goal. Time must not be
wasted, life is a frenetic race. Bourguiba was so despondent in
prison, where he was condemned to inaction, that he wrote that
death was preferable to doing nothing. From exile he wrote to his
brother Mahmoud in 1934: 'I am unhappy but I still hope. I will
always hope. What makes me unhappy is not exile or isolation -
it is inactivity.' And in his letter to the Resident-General Peyrouton
from the same exile he explained: 'I have always been seduced by
action and by struggle, even when it is unequal, as long as it is for
justice and right.'
In the single-minded climb to power the would-be leader elbows
aside those in his path and is prone to see treachery and betrayal
on all sides. The narcissistic person typically sees others as plot-
ters and betrayers. Bourguiba had this characteristic to the n-th
degree. Honest disagreement was hypocrisy, lack of commitment
was treachery. Those Bourguiba regarded as traitors and cowards
were alienated from him by his tempers and self-centred wild deter-
mination which seemed disturbingly suicidal. Bourguiba demanded
loyalty from them but gave none in retum. He wanted his views
to prevail and would stand no contradiction or disagreement. It
was well known that Hitler demanded of his associates that they
accepted wholeheartedly his line; there could be no disagreement
and contradiction was insufferable to him. The once close associate

of Bourguiba, Ahmed Ben Salah, later turned on him and wrote:
'Bourguiba is full of complexes, and is hung-up. His complexes
explain everything. He has more character than personality; that
is why he lies so often. 'II Perhaps Bourguiba realised something
of this when he told one interviewer that 'One can not build
with hate, vengeance and rancour. The real struggle (jihad) is
against one's bad instincts' and that although 'at each ordeal I
was betrayed, I forgave and kept their friendship to death'. In fact
few really turned against him, Salah Ben Yousef was one who did,
the others lost confidence or went their different ways. To Bourguiba
'It is always a question of irresponsible people who lack courage
and determination and who are incapable of pursing an action to
its final conclusion'.12 'One must be terribly strong not to despair
of one's compatriots who wish to benefit from the fruits of one's
work but who recoil from all sacrifice.' At Borj Leboeuf he had no
time for those comrades who wanted to go home to their families
and accused them of infamy and spinelessness. But he was content
to be left to suffer alone. During his trial it was he who stood up
to the interrogators, while his colleagues 'all denied him in a show
of cowardice, desertion and treason'. By the end of his rule his
isolation was deliberately brought about, as one by one he got rid
of his closest collaborators, his prime-minister Mzali, his son Bibi,
his long-serving secretary and confident Laouti, and his wife Wasila.
Isolated, no longer trusting anyone, Bourguiba felt threatened and
insecure. He tried to errect barriers around himself in order to keep
at bay the threats he perceived to his position. He felt betrayed by
those he had trusted and his increasing dogmatism and certainty
that he alone was right were a sure sign of his paranoid feelings. In
the end he had only himself to rely on.
DEATH, A LIFELONG OBSESSION
Death is an acquired trait.

(Woody Allen)
The biggest irony of Bourguiba's life was its very length. It was a
life in which he set out from the beginning to outface death, daring
it to strike through his many illnesses and miraculous recoveries,
his sufferings in prison and exile, his challenge to longevity by
taking on the presidency for life at the age of seventy-four. Death

was a constant companion and continuous illness a preparation for
it ... and yet he lived through it all. More than most, though, he
thought about death, was influenced by it and prepared himself
for it.
As events of childhood mark us for the rest of our lives for
Bourguiba it was the early separation from his mother which
marked him. Separation at such a tender age was a kind of death, the
unbearable removal of a loved one from his immediate experience,
which brought home to him the realization that in the adult world
life was fragile and easily disturbed. He had to face life without his
mother and while this inevitably made him more self-reliant it also
made him very sensitive to suffering and able to identify with the
losses that others suffered. And in the coming together of external
events and internal reactions that marked so much of his life, instead
of standing by helplessly, he was usually able to react positively by
determining to overcome the causes of both external and internal
suffering. He saw sufficient suffering in the daily life of Tunisians
under a colonial situation to convince him that the struggle to free
them was of greater import than his own suffering and even his own
death.
In 1911 Bourguiba had contracted cholera, a dangerous and often
fatal disease, and he had to follow a very strict diet to try to
overcome its effects. For a hungry boy of ten this was torture and
he felt famished. One day he was attending the funeral ceremony
of M'hamed's young wife and, bored and hungry, crept off into the
room where the food was prepared and waiting. The sight of the
dishes of couscous overcame him and he literally stuffed the food
into his mouth. This was too much for his weakened system and
he was choking to death when his medical brother, Mohammed,
rushed in and saved him in extremis by making him vomit. Rescued
at the last minute, in Monastir the doctor prescribed a bath in ice
water, the drastic remedy of the time, into which Bourguiba was
plunged. Horrid, he remembered, but he lived. This incident is
vividly brought to light in his memoirs some sixty years later,
proof of the deep effect it must have had on his consciousness,
and by making it public he underlined the fact that Tunisia had
come so close to losing him. Future leaders relish confirmation of
their special calling after surviving especially dangerous situations,
confirmation of being a chosen man.
Public death first came to Bourguiba's notice in 1911 when Tunis
was in uproar over an attempt by the French municipal authorities

to register the land of the Muslim cemetery of Jellaz which was, in
Islamic law, an inalienable religious trust. The population feared a
takeover by the French against all religious tradition and reacted
strongly to a report that entry to the cemetery was forbidden. A
crowd rushed to force an entrance, soldiers blocked their way,
stones were thrown and a murderous volley in reply caused several
dead and wounded. The whole town rose in revolt and strong
repression followed. Bourguiba recalled these events 13 as the first
real shock to his growing awareness, created by the death of people
demonstrating in a just cause. The French arrested those believed
to be the instigators of the riot and a year later one of them was
publicly decapitated in a city square. Bourguiba was not present
but he reports with horror that it was common knowledge that
several Frenchmen there had 'applauded the horrible spectacle of
the last convulsions of a headless body, swimming in the flood of
its own blood'. The population was stunned at such brutality. For
Bourguiba this public death contributed to the growth of his feelings
of resentment. 'I felt revolt growing in me. '14
Death was further integrated into the young boy's consciousness
when the separation from his mother in this world was made
irreversible by her death. It was another trauma to which he devotes
much space in his memoirs. He kissed her cold forehead in a
farewell which he believed would be only temporary. Years later
he would visit her tomb and in very old age go as often as he
could to the family mausoleum in Monastir where she was buried
with her husband. He movingly and genuinely remembered her in
public. 'On the tomb of my mother I feel I have become a child again,
longing for the motherly love which I miss. I hope ardently that
when I am called to God I shall be able to find her in the other world
in order to quench by her side my thirst for maternal tenderness.'15
The death of the person closest to him, and yet apart from him,
increased his sense of self-reliance and likely turned his thoughts
to the external situation as he was internalizing her death.
His father continued to live alone and Bourguiba felt that he grew
quite close to him. The personal and the public mixed once more
some four years later, again at the Jellaz cemetery, in an event
which Bourguiba chose to single out from a period of general
tension. Bashir Sfar had been a leading Tunisian figure in the very
early days of the nationalist movement and was popular amongst
young and old. A large crowd gathered to attend his funeral in
April 1917 and Bourguiba's father who was visiting Tunis took his
son along. His father held his hand and, much moved, wept warm
tears according to Bourguiba. 'He was obviously a patriot but never
mentioned it. The tears of my father marked me although I did not
ask why he wept. '16 Bourguiba believed afterwards that the event
had strengthened in him a strong feeling of patriotism.
Events in Tunisia contributed to the formation of Bourguiba's
ideas in the context of Islam, nationalism and colonialism. It was
in Paris that his mind was opened to the wider world of French pol-
itical life and thought. It was an event connected with death, how-
ever, which he remembered as having marked him most deeply.
Bourguiba had barely arrived in Paris when he was able to witness
the solemn transfer of Jean Jaures' ashes to the Pantheon. The young
Tunisian watched transfixed as the solemn procession passed in the
street led by President Herriot. He preserved this memory in his
mind as a salute to a great and influential man and when Bourguiba
came to plan his own funeral the earlier one was in his mind. His
body was to be taken in solemn procession from Carthage to Tunis
amid national and international homage, and then to Monastir
accompanied by the grieving nationP
When he returned to Tunisia, fighting as a young nationalist,
Bourguiba had found an ideal cause to rally behind and on which to
centre the opposition of the nation against the French - the policy of
naturalization. In 1933 the citizens of Bizerta demonstrated violently
against the burial of a naturalized Tunisian in the local cemetery
and the Muslim religious authorities declared such burials illegal.
Bourguiba seized the affair as a great rallying cry for a crusading
journalist and as a unique opportunity to make his name known.
It certainly marked the beginning of a greater French awareness of
him, taking more notice of him and the other nationalists. The matter
ended by allocating separate parts of the cemeteries to naturalized
ci tizens. He wrote in his memoirs: 'I could not have hoped for better.
I led the cause of non-burial and I had defended a principle and the
cause of my country.'18 Coincidence certainly that the cause which
made his name was linked with death and burial, but a significant
coincidence.
By this time he had thoroughly taken the bit between his teeth,
a future leader risking all for his cause. He wrote in 1934 of his
happiness to sacrifice himself for the people and to die rather than
surrender. Dangerous words welcoming martyrdom, yet not quite,
as at the same time, he added that the cause was just and that
'sooner or later we will end by triumphing'19 - the paradox of the

leader ready to sacrifice himself wanting to live to see his cause
succeed. Soon to be imprisoned in Borj Leboeuf his actions there
seemed to his companions to be suicidally determined, determined
not to compromise with the French, to remain alone and suffer poor
food in harsh conditions. 'I preferred to live and die in that desert
than to renounce my ideal. '20 They, stronger in health than he, were
not prepared to hold out come what may. To Bourguiba's disgust
they preferred the comfort of family hearth to defiance. His letters
at the time are full of the need to hold out ... to the end if necessary.
If he came through alive, his methods had been justified, his case
strengthened. 'It is not enough to be courageous facing death, a
political sense and a strategy must also be present'.21
During the following imprisonment Bourguiba was certain at one
point that they were about to be executed. He and his companions
were taken with hands chained to the military prison. He tried to
encourage the others with rather ambiguous advice: 'If they lead
us out to execution, do not wear a blindfold. You are defending the
motherland. '22 Later from Fort Saint Nicholas in Marseille, he wrote
a letter to Habib Thamir which sounded very much like a last will
and testament, convinced again that he was about to be executed by
the Vichy French.
But he did survive, emerging with the conviction that it was
his destiny to lead Tunisia. Lesser men might have succumbed.
His greatest error was to believe that once installed in power the
Tunisians would never be able to do without him. He did not
quite believe himself immortal, but he was not to know in 1955
that he would still be president in 1987. He tempted fate and led
Tunisia to the edge of chaos by insisting on being elected for
life in 1975 when already seventy-four years old. From then on
it was the death of Bourguiba which became integrated into the
life of Tunisians, who became obsessed with a barely imaginable
future without him. It was inevitable that political time came to be
reckoned indefinitely. There was no longer a fixed term of office and
Bourguiba used this uncertainty to circumscribe the activities of his
critics and opponents, of his would-be heirs.
If a part of him was wanting to rule indefinitely, another was
transfixed with the idea of death. He wanted to ensure his immortal-
ity as part of the living nation he had created and which he wanted
for ever to be indebted to him. 'Bourguiba is mortal, Bourguibism
will live for ever,' he once said, and watched with dismay his
successor Ben Ali tampering with the edifice. Just to make sure that
he would not be forgotten he would build a magnificent mausoleum
for all to see and visit. Unlike Lenin or Atatiirk who left it to others
to plan their last resting place, Bourguiba was planning his for at
least twenty years before being forced out of office. First to be built
overlooking the old city, he settled on a site in Monastir and for
many years he had it built and rebuilt, superstitiously not wanting
to tempt fate by completing it. As Mzali wrote with an unusual flash
of humour: 'You spent wildly on your mausoleum, a project which
has buried tens of milliards of centimes. '23 There it stands with its
twin soaring minarets and magnificent tiled forecourt. Mathilde
and his parents lie there awaiting him. He would visit it as often
as possible during his final days in Monastir gazing upon it, with
what thoughts in mind we do not know, as he had earlier daily
contemplated in the palace in Carthage the coffin he had especially
commissioned for himself.
Perhaps a traditional faith was reawakening to him in those final
days, a faith that was deeper in his soul and more necessary than the
humanism and moral philosophy he had once studied so eagerly.
He had once or twice expressed a belief in an afterlife where he
would again meet his mother. Death would curtail his actions, but
not his historical mission. In March 1973 when discussing methods
of succession he said: 'That is my opinion. I offer it to you and I
assume responsibility for it in this world and in the beyond.'24 Or
to the brother from whom he was separated: 'Here below or in the
next world we shall meet again. '25
ILLNESS, THE CONSTANT COMPANION
There is a remedy for everything except death.

(Cervantes)
lf the fact of death was an ever present feature of Bourguiba's

life, illness touched him ever more relentlessly and determined
the rhythm and scope of his activities. No leader has integrated
his illness more fully and publicly into the life of the people. We
have followed the life and death struggles of other leaders - for
example, the heart attacks of President Eisenhower - but illness has
usually been a fact to keep secret, to minimize in order to keep rivals
at bay and to maintain public confidence. Hitler was continually ill

from 1935 onwards but felt that any sign of sickness would be fateful
to his image and refused even the simplest medical examination. 26
Bourguiba on the other hand was usually very open - not entirely
as we shall see later - and in his memoirs he stresses the effects that
illness had at various periods of his life.
His attack of cholera in 1911 left him very weakened, bodily
unprepared for the deprivations which followed during the First
World War. At Sadiki College Bourguiba resented the cold and the
poor conditions and most of all the lack of nourishing food. This
he complained stunted his growth and kept his height down to
1.65 metres, a full five centimetres short of the average height of
the Tunisian male. This would hardly have been of great import
in a population of relatively small men if Bourguiba had not
wanted to stand head and shoulders above his fellows. It bothered
Bourguiba, why otherwise mention it in public - and it made him
more determined to stand out, academically at first and politically
later. Is it that some smaller men are thus driven? Hitler, Stalin
and Napoleon27 were also of small stature, yet De Gaulle, equally
driven by ambition, towered over Bourguiba. Bourguiba at least
felt aggrieved that he was thus discriminated against by nature,
although his stature was mostly likely hereditary and not caused
by lack of food.
Another feature of his youth, also probably caused by illness,
deeply affected him - his testicular ectopia. Again this was men-
tioned by him during his public lectures and caused quite an
embarrassed stir in Tunisia and elsewhere. Such frankness made it
difficult to know whether to snigger or sympathize. In Bourguiba's
words when rejoicing over the birth of his son, he revealed that
he had been suffering 'from an intimate drama which it has been
impossible for me for a long time to reveal. I had reasons to think
that I was sterile, I had in effect only one testicle. It happens that
one or both testicles retract and move up into the lower stomach.
At the time I knew nothing at all about this taboo subject. I was
very unwell from this kind of illness. I tried to cure myself; I lay
on my back and with the tips of my fingers exercised continual
pressure in order to push down the displaced organ. One day,
bearing it no longer, I went to the Sadiki hospital, but I took
fright and ran away. I became convinced then that I must be
sterile.'28 Although the birth of Bibi disproved this, concern over
his sexual virility remained. This not uncommon state can be
caused by several factors and may be congenital. The one testicle

will reduce the number of sperm produced but not cause sterility.
It was discovered on exhumation that Hitler also had one testicle.
He had a very passive sex life and only married Eva Braun on the
day of his suicide. Napoleon on the other hand had a reputation as
a great lover and yet at his post-mortem it was found that he had
very small external genitals, the size of a boy'S. His reputation was
mythical and it might have been part of his failure to achieve perfect
sexual satisfaction leading to psychological reaction which made
him the man he was. 29 The psychologist, Alfred Adler, propounded
his theory of organ inferiority, that boys with organ deficiency can
suffer from a deeply felt sense of inferiority. Therefore, 'they wish
to surpass all others, to accomplish everything alone. Insatiable and
lusting after power they demand proofs of love without ever feeling
satisfied'.3D This is not very far from Bourguiba and his worry over
virility caused by organ deficiency. It may be coincidence. But it is
at least possible that worry over virility can lead some men to want
to prove their manliness in other areas, in becoming a hero to their
people.
Bourguiba blamed the war, together with his resulting weakness,
for the serious attack of tuberculosis which smote him in 1920. He
was personalizing a distant external event and taking some of its
suffering upon himself. This close identification of external and
internal cause and effect typifies the ambitious leader. Bourguiba
made it repeatedly through his life. In 1920, strangely, his illness
could not have struck at a better time. The opportunity for rest,
activity and reflection coincided with or was the reason for the
change from the failed schoolboy into the confident young man
who returned to enter the Lycee Carnot, determined to succeed
by coming top of the class, with all that that implied in terms
of future achievement. This illness set him up for the future and
eased the passage through his identity crisis. Yet his constitution
had been weakened and the conditions of life until independence
were rarely such as to allow much time for rest or recuperation. His
prison conditions ranged from the dank and cold cement floor of a
bedless cell to the stifling, dry heat of a remote desert outpost. He
was aware of the demands he was constantly placing on his body
and knew there were limits, although on occasions he showed an
almost superhuman endurance. His body was tested to its very
limits, even sometimes it seemed beyond, and he was always ready
to carryon. His capacity to bear up was quite remarkable. In the
demonstration in Tunis in support of the Bey in 1921 thousands

marched all the way to his palace in La Marsa, Bourguiba amongst
them limping badly because of an abscess on his foot.
His afflictions made themselves known at different times. When
he was arrested one early morning, before being taken away he
had to go into the bathroom to put on his hernia belt. The police
commissioner accompanied him. During his march through the
desert to the Libyan frontier he suffered abominally from a boil. He
was so weakened and tired that he stumbled on automatically, no
longer caring or knowing where he was headed. As he had to admit:
'I was reaching my end. My physical resistance had its limitS.'31 To
Madame Challaye he had written in 1934: 'I am always prey to
worries and terrible fatigue. I need really a heart of iron - which I
do have - in a body of steel which unfortunately I do not have.'32
During the first ten years of independence Bourguiba was at the
top of his form, enjoying the fruits of his struggle and delighting
in office. Illness does not seem to have been a factor during this
period and is not mentioned. In 1967 at the age of sixty-six he
had a serious heart attack, to the shock of the nation. His chief
colleagues were called immediately to the palace where they found
a distraught Wasila. The doctors said, however, that the danger had
passed, but that in future he would have to be careful. Many men
at 66 after a heart attack long for retirement. Bourguiba's vitality
was such that he was back at work within a week, obviously tired
yet determined to carryon. He had a second attack in 1979 and a
coronary in 1984 brought on by viral hepatitis. It was incredible that
his body could take so much and yet not succumb. He must have
been very fit to have been so ill. Mentally he could not now cope
so well and after each attack he retreated further into himself, into
the solitude of a disturbed mind. His afflictions were not yet at an
end. In 1989 he was operated upon in the Charles-Nicolle hospital in
Tunis for a double prostate. He returned home afterwards and next
year appeared on television, frail yet upright and able to walk.
If Bourguiba's life was a series of devastating illnesses, it was
also a series of amazing recoveries. In the aftermath of the first
heart attack his health suffered again, particularly during the years
1969-71. 'These two years of illness have weakened the general
state of my health.' He was as poorly as ever and this time there
seemed little hope of recovery. ln January 1971 President Lyndon
Johnson offered a plane to take him to the Walter Reed hospital
for treatment, where Eisenhower and others had been. The trip
started badly - the plane was delapidated and not very well fitted
out. Bourguiba was furious and thought he was not being treated
as befitted his dignity. They arrived late at night and Bourguiba
was put in a room where he could not sleep because of the noise
of the air conditioning. Sleeplessness infuriated him and when his
companions ran to answer his call they found him ranting against
the conditions he had to endure. No longer on his last legs, he was
complaining about the ugliness of the nurse. They could not calm
him and at one in the morning they had to carry him out to the
Tunisian embassy. Days later he was being treated at a clinic in
Geneva. His friends were stunned. Had he really been so ill, had
he recovered miraculously quickly or had he for some reason been
pretending? The doctors in the States diagnosed his complaint as
premature senility and stated that it would be difficult for him to
resume office. Bourguiba was incensed at the verdict which he
found insulting and improper.
He also recorded that it was the treatment in Washington which
had nearly killed him. The doctors 'examined my brain, eyes,
abdominal organs and liver. All was good except me! I still had
insomnia and I nearly left this world.'33 A nurse had given him a
dose of medicine at ten times the required strength. Fortunately, as
before he vomited and saved himself.
After five months' absence Bourguiba returned to Tunisia, to the
amazement of all, back to the top of his form. He seemed to have
teetered on the edge of the grave. He boasted: 'These two years
of illness have weakened my physical health but not at all my
mental faculties which have remained intact (a refutation of the
verdict of premature senility!). There have been many discussions
over a successor to me. The least I can say is that they have been
premature. I shall continue. '34 On two later occasions he was given
up for lost and recovered. In 1978 he was taken off powerful drugs
which were seen to be devastating him. A new treatment left him
a totally changed man and to general unbelief he started his work
again. His third heart attack in 1984 floored him. But even aged 83
he was able to recover and regain his previous condition, not a new
man but one able to take some part in affairs.
The Hidden Affliction
In Paris a well-known psychiatrist accompanies to his door a

bearded man wearing a bowler hat. They have just finished the
latest in a series of consultations which have continued since 1969

to try to curb the manic depressive psychosis of the patient - Habib
Bourguiba. He is trying to hide his affliction from the outside world,
insisting that the psychiatrist is really a neurologist and that he is suf-
fering from nervous depression. Manic depression is not uncommon
and is hereditary - Bourguiba's brother Mahmoud became mentally
ill. The rhythm of the disease is well known and fits very well into
the pattern of Bourguiba's life. The clinical description illuminates
dearly aspects of his actions. When a maniacal attack comes on
the patient plans great projects, believes he can do anything and
thrusts all objections aside as though difficulties do not exist. He is
infuriated by the least opposition and without cause can pass from
laughter to tears, from generosity to malevolent aggressiveness. He
can suddenly show a brutal attitude to those he usually treats with
respect. During an attack words can pour out, anecdotes are related,
schoolboy memorization of speeches or poems come to the surface
almost automatically and are recited for pleasure. In the depressive
phase he loses the taste for life, his mind is invaded by the sadness
of boredom, regrets and despair. There seems to be no future and
death the only solution. He may become suicidal. He loses weight
and sleeps badly.35
This is all so typical of Bourguiba. His first manic depressive
attack stunned those around him and his wife dashed for help.
Until then he had been well enough known for his outburst of
tempestuous rages when crossed and for floods of tears almost
to order. Even when young he had been stubborn and could be
devastatingly angry. His colleagues in Borj Leboeuf had found his
tempers and his nerves irritating beyond bearing. When the real
illness struck all mention of it was forbidden. He went abroad for
treatment of 'nervous disorders' or he fell into a 'deep depression'
after the affair with Ahmed Ben Salah. But those close to him had
to cope with the reality, not knowing when attacks would come and
having to try to understand their cause. Between two crises on one
occasion he suffered so violently that he begged a visitor to put an
end to his suffering by killing him, and then a little later was able to
joke with those around him. Living with such a sufferer i.s difficult
enough, for those having to cope with someone who is also trying
to run his country there are even greater problems.
A curious coincidence in this affair is that the psychiatrist treating
the president also worked at the St Anne's hospital in Paris which
Bourguiba, when studying psychology, had visited many years
earlier as a student to observe the mentally disturbed patients

there.36 How strange that some of these paranoiacs believed they
were Napoleon or some other great historical personage. Their
mental illness made the world unbearable and by assuming the
character of Napoleon they wanted to be able to change it and their
life with it. Is this very different from what political leaders try to
do? How narrow is that line between madness and greatness.
As Tunisians lived with the thought of Bourguiba's eventual
demise, so his illnesses became integrated into their life, and his
personal afflictions intermingled with public events. From 1969
onwards Bourguiba spent much time abroad for long periods of
treatment and the country had to live with the strange fact of the
leader's prolonged absences, wondering whether he would recover
from the latest illness and in what state he would return. For all
those years they had no routine pattern to their lives and they
existed in an atmosphere of tension and expectation. Bourguiba
himself quite naturally made his illnesses affairs of state. Thus
he was able to say quite unblushingly: 'We have been through
many crises. The gravest for the life of the party and the state
has been the illness which has tested me and from which I have
suffered for nearly four years since 1969. I did not think I would
survive to see the triumph of the cause to which I have dedi-
cated myself. '37 He laid the blame for one of his illnesses on the
unpopular policies of Ahmed Ben Salah trying to divert censure
away from a sick man. He claimed that during the fiasco of the
union negotiations with Libya he was also ill and that consequently
Mohammed Masmoudi should bear the brunt of the blame for their
failure.
His first heart attack in March 1967 changed the attitude of the
country towards him - was he mortal after all, perhaps his policies
could be questioned, his attitudes criticized? It was a coincidence
that the Arab defeat of June that year came so soon afterwards. It
was not a coincidence that Tunisians now felt able to demonstrate
in the streets against Bourguiba's pro-American policies. His illness
had given them a measure of release.
Despite everything his will remained firm. In ending his bio-
graphical lectures he expressed the hope - almost a certainty - of
living ten more years to witness the anniversary of the centenary of
the imposition of the French protectorate and the fiftieth year of the
Neo-Destour Party. ' I shall be eighty one. Many live to that age, and
so shall I unless I have further heart attacks. '38
ALL TUNISIA'S A STAGE
By day in the heat of the sun and at night by moonlight a file

of Tunisian workmen, each balancing a basket of cement on his
back, is moving to and fro on a new concrete construction rising
by the seaside in Hammamet. It is June 1964 and they are helping
to build an open-air theatre in the gardens of the Cultural Centre
to a deadline in July when the opening production is planned -
a performance of Othello in Arabic. An Egyptian actor will play
Othello, a Lebanese Desdemona and Tunisia's leading player Iago.
A new translation into simple Arabic has been specially prepared by
a Tunisian scholar. Here by the blue Mediterranean under starfilled
skies the Moor will be closer to home than usual - his name a
corruption of the Arabic Atallah - and wearing a blue cloak cut to
a Mauritanian pattern will be a familiar figure to an Arab audience,
to whom the right to kill a wife suspected of infidelity would not
be too unfamiliar.
The theatre, the brainchild of Cecil Hourani, is being built with
foreign and Tunisian money under the patronage of the president. It
will be the first of its kind built outdoors, not to the classical pattern
but more in the shape of a shell. It is a symbol of Bourguiba's abiding
interest in the theatre and he came to open it officially. OtheII039 was
an interesting choice with its racial overtones (Othello the 'old black
ram', 'the Barbary horse') and it was one that Bourguiba had seen
several times before in his youth. His love for the theatre is fittingly
commemorated in Hammamet.
Bourguiba must have grown up with the theatre in his blood and
have heard his older brother Mohammed talking about it from an
early age. He is was who had founded and directed a theatre group
- 'Arab Chivalry' - which was active before the First World War.
Theatre was not very common in the Arab world at this time, unless
produced by foreigners, and Mohammed a very unusual man.
Unfortunately we are not told how his interest was first awakened.
One group already existed in Tunis called aI-Adab ('Letters') which
was rather aristocratic and performed at the Municipal Theatre, The
Chivalry group played at the Rossini Theatre. The actors of both had
been trained at the Egyptian troupe school of Qardahi founded in
1909 and on his death split into the two associations. Bourguiba
reports that both gave great productions although they had prob-
lems with local actresses who were largely illiterate and had to be
taught to read and write. Acting for women at that time was rather
daring in the Arab world and the word actress synonymous with
ill-repute. The two companies40 gave well produced performances
of plays which another of Bourguiba's brothers took him to see. He
remembers several Shakespeare plays, Merchant o/Venice - perhaps
influencing him in his sympathetic attitude towards Jews - Romeo
and Juliet, Othello - and Hamlet, although Bourguiba cannot have
been very impressed with the indecisive musings of the Dane, not
at all his kind of hero. They also gave plays based on Arab themes,
the love story of Majnun and Layla, or the story of Saladin, the great
Arab hero who expelled the Western Crusader colonizers - much
more to Bourguiba's taste.
During his convalescence in Le Kef one of the activities which
diverted him was again the theatre. The same brother was there
and as official drama groups were banned during the war they acted
their own plays. It is not quite clear where the actors came from as
Bourguiba mentions further performances of Hamlet, and Othello
with a young black teacher playing the leading role. The piece which
most deeply affected him - and one in which he had a part - was
Victorien Sardou's La Patrie, in Arabic called Shuhada al-Wataniya-
'Martyrs of Patriotism'. This was a title likely to catch the attention
of the touchy French authorities, as it dealt with the Dutch struggle
against Spain for independence. Period costumes were bought in
Marseille and there was a cast of fifty actors. Bourguiba's moment
of glory was not to be. The authorities banned the performance as
the dangerous words' Long live liberty' were to be spoken on stage
- echoing the fear of the long tradition of the power of the spoken or
sung word as in Schiller, Goethe, Beethoven or Verdi.
Back in Tunis at the Lycee Carnot Bourguiba went to the theatre
as often as possible. On Friday afternoons they would perform plays
in Arabic and one particularly held his attention, L'Aiglon of Rostand
which tells the story of the unhappy fate of Napoleon's son in exile.
It was not just the theme which interested him. He had fallen for the
leading actress of the time, Habiba Messika, who obviously made
a great impression on him. She is mentioned on three separate
occasions in him memoirs.
Bourguiba the student in Paris was hard up, living in threadbare
and freezing digs, and yet spending his last sou on a cheap seat in
the theatre, for now it was his chance to see the French classics he
so admired. Not for him the Paris of the smart night life and the
jazz set. 'My great passion in life was the theatre.' He went to the
ComMie Fran<;aise and to the Odeon where the plays he liked and
remembered were those with noble heroes; the figures of the Cid
in Comeille's play, a Castilian leader in Spain who defeated the
Moors; Ruy Bias, the Spanish valet of noble heart who dies of love.
He particularly admired the acting of Firmin Gemier the leading
actor of the period, friend of Herriot and noted for roles such as
Shylock.
Bourguiba preserved his love of the stage and of declaiming verse
throughout his life. This latter was a way of self gratification in front
of an appreciative audience, what show-business always has been.
Mohammed Mzali remembers Bourguiba declaiming in Paris some
of the vengeful verses of Victor Hugo against Napoleon Ie Petit -
'but you know what happened to him!' gloated Mzali. He also heard
him reciting the inevitable 'Death of the Wolf' both on the stage and
in his salon to foreign guests and asking after they had gone: 'Did I
sparkle? Did I slay them?'41
This harmless love of the drama and of exhibitionism led
Bourguiba naturally to the use Tunisia as his own theatre and
to his performing centre stage to an adoring public. His life was
set up to be one long dramatic act. His role was in the play called
history. As he once said to an audience of actors: 'Dramatic art is
one of the most important branches of cultural activity and one of
the most important means of popular action. I loved the theatre in
my youth and I went first out of curiosity. I then saw how developed
countries made it an expression of their civilization. Like you I went
on the stage and I know what an actor feels like facing the public. The
theatre has no doubt helped me in public life and taught me the art of
persuading crowds. '42 He was trying to persuade crowds to develop
and change their personality into the modem age. Personality is
derived from the Latin persona, the mask once worn by actors to
hide and change their own personality.
Whether a person off the stage is playing a role is often difficult
to distinguish. Bourguiba did not make much of a distinction
between sincerity and subterfuge. Good acting was not his least
trump card and he played it for all he was worth. He could
summon up tears with ease - whether speaking of his dead mother
or talking of negotiations for independence with an embarrassed
Mendes-France or informing the American ambassador of his dis-
tress over the Israeli bombing of the PLO headquarters. He could
enter into those devastating fits of anger which both annoyed and
cowed those present. He enjoyed observing the impression his rages
made on others. He was not different from one of his heroes,
Napoleon, who was subject to violent outbursts of rage and wept

readily.
Role playing in life can have curious side effects. The player may
no longer be quite aware who he really is, whether his natural reac-
tion to people and situations is to put on a show or whether there is
a real person still underneath. Bourguiba was always certain, how-
ever, that his lifetime's role was to be the star. Could he be described
as a Pro spero struggling with the difficulty of self-mastery? Or a
Lear struggling with the difficulty of self-knowledge and old age.
Or a Macbeth, tragic figure at the end, of negative greatness, self-
destroying? Assuredly not his beloved 'Wolf' - 'Like me suffer and
die without a word.' Physically he adopted a bewildering number
of poses, sometimes deliberately, at others involuntarily. A study
of the many photographs of him is revealing. A police shot shows
him gaunt faced, almost unrecognizable, the camera caricaturing a
professional revolutionary; after a period in prison he comes out
long haired and bearded, a romantic pallor betraying the romantic
egoism beneath; in Paris with small 'tache and black hair is he aping
Charlie Chaplin; on one occasion he is sitting at a piano in smoking
jacket a la Noel Coward. When haranguing the crowd, his chin
thrust forward, a little Mussolini. Swimming in the sea in extreme
old age he could be Mao; his favourite pose the imperial portrait as
state president. In another picture we see him gazing wistfully at the
tall immaculate figure of the young President Kennedy, the contrast
emphasized by the differences between the wives, Jackie Kennedy,
svelte, simply dressed; Wasila motherly, sadly overdressed.
Bourguiba himself throughout his period of office dressed with
refined respectability, double-breasted dark suits, later with a dark
overcoat and an eternal white scarf. To emphasize his Tunisian
heritage he would often wear a jellaba over his suit with his tarbush
- mingling two civilizations - and sometimes carrying his sprig of
jasmine, rather theatrical and rather too large for good taste. His
facial equipment ranged through his life from a small to a large
moustache, from a beard to a clean shave.
A large part of the actor's reputation depends on his skill in the
use of words. The actor usually delivers the words of others in an
effort to persuade the audience to believe in a character and a
situation. The orator speaks his own words in order to persuade
his listeners to accept his policies and follow his ideas. Bourguiba
was a master orator. His words were emphasized with gestures and
an extremely expressive mobility of his face. His arms would be in
constant motion, holding out his hands, clenching his fist or pointing
his finger in emphasis or accusation. In one picture we see him,
brow furrowed, arms outstretched, hands spread out, thumb raised,
displaying an immaculate six inches of white shirt cuff. His voice
was often raucous, sometimes broken, sometimes oversharp. His
audiences would laugh or cry, be indignant or guffaw with him.
There was a distinction between the formal speeches he gave at
international and other meetings in perfect French, and those to his
Tunisian audiences in near colloquial Arabic. Then he would use
Arabic words and phrases in a new way, giving expression to new
concepts recently coined. In Arabic he would speak without notes,
although he would have given the subject much thought before-
hand. He would wander from topic to topic, mixing reminiscences
of his life and career with incantation, explanation, lecturing and
preaching. He used his speeches to talk to the Tunisian people
about each problem, each event, ever trying to influence them. He
would scold laggards over and over, laud progress and denounce
inefficiency and error. He was devoted to the carrot and the stick,
praising or blaming, smiling or scowling, menacing or helping.
Bourguiba revelled in the effect he had on his audiences, that
sense of the power of persuasion. He first felt this, he said, at
the Ksar Hellal meeting. 'I held the audience breathless, mastering
them with the power of the spoken word. It was a revelation for
me. I had not known before that evening that I had such an
effective gift of speaking. My newspaper articles had had a derisory
effect compared to that of my speech which directly influenced the
listener.'43 He was fascinated by this theatricality of his speeches.
When put into official and printed form the discourse and practice
of the Destour party tended to become fossilized, often the fate
of any liberation movement which gains power. Yet Bourguiba's
spoken word long remained vibrant and vital. It was only after he
gave up his direct speaking in 1974 that his words became repetitive
propaganda. When he became president for life he became less
ready to speak, only occasionally breaking his silence as for example
when he spoke on television in a successful effort to quell the bread
riots of 1984. His image had by then become fossilized, repeated
endlessly on the television screen.
As Bourguiba the actor went through life certain incidents stand
out for their dramatic impact, as though ordinary events as lived
by Bourguiba became more intense, if not in reality then in a
retrospective glow. On each occasion Bourguiba was centre stage.
For physical endurance nothing could surpass the flight to Egypt

which had everything - tension, suffering, romantic background,
supreme hero who succeeds against all the odds. His trial too was
pure theatre. In its published version it is set out as a play, each
scene beginning with the setting and dramatis personae, each char-
acter given a speaking part. The judge was a master of interrogation,
playing with his captives, and Bourguiba often holding his own,
replying calmly and at length as though hoping his words would be
preserved in print. The summing up by the judge is a masterpiece
of climax and we are left breathlessly awaiting the verdict as in any
courtroom drama.
Bourguiba believed the different stages of his life to be marked
by drama, by events which in some way added to the growth
of the faith in himself, in which he played a leading role. Such
events were highly symbolic in his development and he accepted
them as signs confirmatory of his role. One such was his interview
with Pierre Vienot, undersecretary of state for Foreign Affairs in the
government of the Popular Front. Bourguiba was in Paris in 1936 for
his first meeting with the French authorities, a meeting which would
mark a turning point in his career. Charles-Andre Julien was to take
Bourguiba into the meeting and beforehand he described him as
'tense as a pole, walking mechanically'. Inside it was as though he
had ascended the mountain or had seen the Holy Grail. 'He came
back transfigured. That a great man such as Vienot had listened
to him and understood him seemed to Bourguiba to be a historic
consecration. The outlaw had become an interlocutor. Nothing was
decided but the symbol was enough for that day.'44
A final twist to the tale of Bourguiba and the theatre: a play
written by a leading Tunisian playwright, Izz aI-Din aI-Madani,
entitled Martyrs of the Motherland, tells the symbolic story of the
leader of a theatrical troupe who has become too old to direct it any
longer! And Mzali describes the last years of the court of Bourguiba
as a play derived from the Comedia dell 'Arte, containing all its
characters from Harlequin to PantaIon.
FAMILY RELATIONS
Bourguiba's early memories of life in Monastir are coloured by the

fact of his being part of a large family. The extended family engen-
ders a feeling of solidarity amongst it members, more especially
if they share the same house built in Arab style, inward looking
and closed to the outside world. Each member is a psychological
extension of the other, drawing support and emotional sustenance
from each other. They share problems, protect the family honour
and present a unified front to the world. However, not everything
is always rosy. Individual members and sub-groups can often
feel the need to assert themselves, to establish a more distinct
identity and this surfaces in constant bickering and nagging, fits
of jealousy and anger. Bourguiba experienced the whole range
of family tensions. As the youngest he took last place, yet as a
boy he had natural advantages. The influence on him of so many
other women was important, and his child-mother unit had to be
extended to include multiple 'mothers', sisters, aunts, grandmother.
This was not always easy. His mother's sisters-in-law were jealous
of her having so many sons and the arrival of little Habib was the
final straw. She would have to pay for this' godsend' and they vexed
and tormented her so much that Bourguiba's father was forced to
move and rent a separate house.
Young Bourguiba observed the lives of the women in his family
and with his sensitive nature he remembered the burdens they
had to bear. His grandmother lived with them as she had been
divorced by her husband for once serving him a cold meal. He
saw the others, uneducated, slaves to endless household duties
and with very few rights of their own. He said that his mind had
been opened, his eyes unblinkered by seeing their sad fate and he
vowed to change their situation when he had the opportunity. He
was proud of his achievements in this field and felt in the fact
of the emancipated Tunisian woman who was happy to be so,
the posthumous satisfying of his mother. One of the things that
worried him at the end of his life, when out of office, was the fear
that Zain al-Abidin Ben Ali was not as feminist as he and that to
satisfy the demands of the Islamic militants he might backtrack
on some of his progressive legislation. Bourguiba wanted to see
educated, emancipated Tunisian women playa full part in society,
enjoying equal rights. His attitude to family life was ambiguous.
He had married from necessity and in some senses saw his family
as an added worry when he was so occupied with the national
struggle. He despised those colleagues who, he believed, wanted
to surrender in order to return to the bosom of their families. He did
not allow such thoughts to influence his attitutes. Yet he was happy
to see Mathilde and Bibi on their visits to him and to use them as
suppliers of food. He did once write to Bibi in the following terms:

'I'm burning to get back to the family atmosphere; love of family
has always been my weakness.'45 A real weakness? - for family life
to him had often meant a continual stream of relativess, visitors
from Monastir, or the entertaining of fellow militants - far from the
private, intimate family life of Mathilde's dreams.
Bourguiba's relationship with his mother has been touched on
many times already. She had a decisive effect on his life from setting
the emotional tone of the family to 'betraying' him by sending him
away from home so early. A memory of this 'betrayal' remained
when, later, he was so ready to accuse others of betraying him, and
often equally ready to forgive, if not forget. She also influenced the
way he related to other women later in life. She was almost past
childbearing when he was born - forty years old - and Bourguiba
considered himself a veritable catastrophe for her, and he was thus
used to wives and mothers being older people. And he missed her
and throughout his life sought to replace her and - feeling guilt for
being angry over his early forced separation and for her hard life -
he was concerned to placate her. His tears were the sign that he had
not forgotten her.
His relationship with his father was shadowy. He relates the one
or two personal memories of him - being asked to share his meal
of rice with him, insisting that his son study hard to make progress
in the world, or being satisfied with his school report - but he
associates him more with the less personal history of Tunisia. He
had had to serve long years in the army against his will and his
father before him had suffered and died from harsh treatment. It
was to ensure the freedom of Tunisians from such experiences that
stimulated Bourguiba to take up the struggle for independence. And
to underline this it was with his father holding his hand that he had
his first feelings of patriotic fervour.
Bourguiba was more indebted to his brothers than to his father
for their part in his life. The one saw him through his education in
Tunis and in Paris, the other helped him through a vital period of
convalescence. He admired them and was grateful, even when he
believed they had treated him too harshly, and he felt let down
when his brother M'hamed 'cracked' in captivity. In Bourguiba's
eyes he wrote the 'shameful letter renouncing political activity' in
order to return to his family. He wrote bitterly to another brother:
'I have written a decisive letter to Si M'hamed. I said all that I had
to say in order to extricate my responsibility and our honour. Will
he be up to it all? I doubt it. Alea jacta est!'46 His brothers did not
playa great role in his later life. Mahmoud fell mentally ill, the one
member of the family openly to suffer this fate rather than brother
Habib.
With Mathilde Bourguiba was able to establish a relationship
giving him a base from which to launch himself into journalistic
and political activities. Nowhere in his writings does he give any
hint that he found the marriage a burden or that he regretting having
stood by her when she was pregnant. She was rather austere by
nature, serious and friendly, and being fourteen years older than
Bourguiba almost old enough by Tunisian tradition to be his mother.
Did she represent 'maternal tenderness' to him? If so, it did not
prevent them from sleeping together. An excitement for a young
Tunisian student to be taken into the bed of a respectable French
lady; for Mathilde genuine friendliness and a relief from the solitude
of widowhood. Theirs was not a passionate relationship and sex did
not playa great role, and yet Bourguiba was eternally grateful to
her for bearing his child and proving that he was a man. Although
gentle, Mathilde had firm ideas and was not afraid to express them
- to the annoyance of Bourguiba. At meals with Tunisian friends
they would air their differences and few occasions ended without
a quarrel.
When the couple moved to Tunis Mathilde remained devoted to
him. She had a hard life financially and in being separated from
him. She worried constantly about his health and made endless
efforts to get food to him. She wrote to Madame Challaye in 1934:
'I am so alone, I fear so much for him.'47 Bourguiba, if sometimes
a little irritated by her concern, constantly showed his affection and
gratitude. He addresses her in letters as 'Very dear Mathilde' and
ends with 'I kiss you warmly'. In later years, despite their divorce,
he publicly expressed his gratitude and affection for her. 'She never
tried to discourage me in my activities and when I was deported
she continued to look after my house and my son. I had anyway
warned her that I would have to devote my life to the struggle.
I have pleasure in paying homage again to her loyalty. All the
militants respect her. She is still alive (1973) and I visit her regularly.
I decorated her with the order of Bourguiba (no doubt one of the
many orders he gave her),.48 After her death his verdict: 'Peace be
on her soul. I am grateful to her' - and she lies buried in the family
mausoleum.
Bourguiba had mixed fortunes as a father. His only son had been
unexpected and by the time Bourguiba and Mathilde had set up

home in Tunis she was over thirty-seven years old and perhaps
too old to have any more children, even if they had wanted them,
and he married Wasila when she was fifty. Bibi remained his only
child and he had a disturbed childhood. He could not be Tunisian
under French law and had to have an additional French first name,
Jean. His father complained that 'After stealing my country, France
has stolen my son.'49 He was just seven when his father was first
arrested and deported and was left alone in his mother's hands -
how different from Bourguiba's experience. He missed his father
and saying goodbye was difficult when he and his mother had
managed to obtain permission to visit him. His health, with physical
weakness inherited from his father, was not good and as Mathilde
wrote: 'My son has great need of attention for he has a fragile
constitution and he misses his father very much.' 'He is nervous
and thoughtful and suffers from the long absence of his father'.50
Bourguiba would occasionally write to try to cheer him up. From
age eleven to sixteen Bibi again found his father in prison, back
for two years and then away in Egypt from eighteen to twenty
two. He was brought up by his mother almost single-handedly
and Bourguiba feared that he had grown up to be too much like
her. An interesting light is thrown on Bourguiba's relationship with
his son and with his own father, the weakness of the father visited
on the son, by an anecdote about pain related by Bourguiba. He
never forgave a nurse who told that he had shouted out during an
operation. She had known his father and said: 'The fire has only left
a few cinders.' Bourguiba retaliated fifty years later when he related
the same of his own son. Bibi in his tum became an ordinary father-
marrying a Tunisian as his father wished - and, also as he wished,
providing him with three grandchildren.
Bourguiba in power, though, never had much time for him. He
had the name certainly, but he did not have the same ambition or
breadth of vision. He enjoyed the privileges of his position and the
pleasures of life too much to engage in a singleminded pursuit of
power. He was ambassador in Rome, Paris and Washington and
with his name and a deal of charm and approachability had been
a great success. He had to leave office in 1971, when he had suffered
paralysis of one side of his body, and after recovering took up
banking for a while. His father called him in as his special adviser
in 1977 and he worked devotedly and quietly at his side, without
being in any way appreciated. He was neglected by a Bourguiba
uniquely preoccupied with himself and Bibi had learned to keep

silent. Working in the palace he had to live side by side with Wasila
whom he greatly disliked, considering her both the usurper of his
mother's place and a vulgar intriguer. On occasions they attempted
to work together in an effort to save Bourguiba from himself, trying
to prevent him from degrading too much his image and that of the
regime in the last years of his power. They received no thanks for
their efforts.
As Bourguiba's grip on himself deteriorated he treated those
around more viciously. He cared nothing for his grandchildren and
they would spend months without seeing him. It never occurred
to him to invite them or to ask about their health. In the end he
turned against Bibi, brutally dismissing him in January 1986. He
said of him: 'Bibi, he's a ninny'. Mzali vividly describes scenes
between father and son. 'You quarrelled with Habib Junior, going
so far as to blaspheme against his mother. You insulted him, he
was almost sixty years old, slapping his face and showering him
with abuse of his mother, her person and her faith. I asked you
why you acted so harshly against him and you replied. "He has
shown himself to be with Wasila and has defended other people as
corrupt as she is'''.51 Bibi did not seem to bear a grudge against the
old man. After his dismissal he - and the grandchildren - still went
to see him regularly and it was he who persuaded his father to vote
for Ben Ali as president.
Wasila remained devoted to him for forty-three years and she was
seventy-four when he divorced her. Bourguiba had left it very late
to fall in love and because of circumstances they could marry only
nineteen years later, all in all a rather fraught relationship. After
the first years of enjoying being by his side as first lady she had to
endure the whims and caprices of an ageing man and the later years
were marked with rows and threats of divorce. Wasila remained her
own woman and would not give up her intellectual independence.
To the end she tried to protect him and wanted him to herself,
seeking to chase any potential rivals away from the palace. She
succeeded twice and finally failed when Said a, his niece, took her
place.
Bourguiba might have seen something of his mother in Wasila, yet
it was the niece who was to look after him in extreme old age as a
substitute mother. She had waited twenty years for the opportunity
to move into the palace. It was not sexual attraction, at least not on
Bourguiba's part, but who can decide what are the emotions of a
middle-aged woman who wants to care for an old man as if he

were her child; to cuddle him, to play games with him? Nearness
to Bourguiba's power attracted her and once he was out of office he
lost his attraction.
Bourguiba was no great lover or sexual athlete in the mould of
Abd al-Aziz Ibn Saud or John Kennedy. He had the one passion
in his life and rumours of one or two affairs or attractions. A
psychologist might claim that he was too attached to the image of
his mother to stray very far away, a prime example of hypertrophied
filial piety. Bourguiba believed that as far as women were concerned
one had to maintain bourgeois values by restricting one's amorous
life. When he wanted to criticize his rival Salah Ben Yousef he did
so by accusing him of having a guilty sexual relationship with an
artiste in an attempt to belittle him in the eyes of the public. And
he made a surprising comparison many years later at the time of
the Israeli raid on the Palestinian Headquarters in Tunis which the
United States had signally failed to condemn. He told the American
ambassador - with tears in his eyes - that he had the feeling of a
man full of love for and confidence in his wife who learns one day
that she has been deceiving him assiduously!
In his youth he admitted only to two slightly amorous episodes.
He related that after his mother's death he fell in love with a pretty
neighbour in Monastir Zohra Zouiten, but that his grandmother
chased her away with blows of a palm branch. She did not want him
bewitched by her charms. There was also, it seems, to have been an
arranged marriage with another Zouiten daughter, Shadlia,52 when
fate intervened in the shape of Mathilde.
On another occasion on holiday in Monastir in 1925 the Bourguiba
brothers decided to put on a performance of the play Lucretia Borgia
translated by Mahmoud. The heroine was played by Bourguiba's
heart throb, famous beauty Habiba Messika and he played her son.
Greatly daring, he asked her to kiss him on the stage, not maternally
on the forehead, amorously on the mouth. 53
Wasil a was keen to keep him on the straight and narrow in later
life. She it was who rushed over to Cairo when rumours of an affair
reached her sharp ears. She it was who hustled Nadia Khatush out of
the palace when the old Bourguiba began to take an undue interest
in her. Nadia was an official of the Destour Party and the wife of
a lawyer, a good example of emancipated Tunisian women. He
liked to have young pretty women about him in old age and he
would often pat their cheeks. Wasila was on the watch and would
interrupt too close tete-a-tetes. Doctors remarked on his amazing

return of libido after a heart attack and Bibi and Wasila for once
combined to hinder him from putting it to use with Nadia. Another
incident unites illness and pretty women. In Washington in 1971 he
was infuriated at being treated by a nurse he considered ugly. He
insisted that she be replaced by two much more pretty attendants.
The last example of Bourguiba's attitude towards women and
family is rather disgraceful. He had adopted a young illegitimate
girl, Hajet, many years earlier under a law of adoption that he
had instituted. In 1987 in the midst of his destructive tendencies
he decided illegally and cruelly to 'disadopt' her and even to take
from her the name of Bourguiba.
THE TUG OF ISLAM
Bourguiba was the creation of two separate and distinct cultures, the
lslamic-Arabic-Tunisian and the lay French. Many Muslim Arabs
who have been educated in the West have had a similar disorienting
experience and have had to come to terms with it in their own
lives. Bourguiba had a greater problem. In addition to integrating
his double culture into his private life he had also to attempt to
integrate it into the life of the state. Few other Arab leaders have
been so thoroughly and profoundly immersed in French lay culture,
felt so comfortable in it and have yet understood the traditional
values of their own society. Other leaders, such as Abd aI-Nasser
or Hafiz al-Asad have been almost entirely the products of their
own cultures. This posed particular problems for Bourguiba. He
had carefully to balance the ideas he had for the development of
Tunisian society with the possibilities of moving that society too
far ahead or too quickly against its will, the balance between what
he wanted to do and what he could do.
There are two currents of Islamic life in Tunisia, as in most Arab
countries, currents which differ but are not mutually exclusive or
antagonistic and both derive from a strong Islamic faith. There is
the learning and tradition of the mosque based on the study of the
Koran, the life of the Prophet and all the scholarship derived from
them, including the commentaries and works of the great Muslim
writers, al-Ghazali, Ibn Sina, Ibn Khaldun, and countless others.
This stream of learning is often maintained in one central mosque,
in Tunis the Zitouna, where scholars and preachers are trained to
pass on their knowledge to following generations. In such a tradition

emphasis is laid naturally on continuity rather than innovation, on
authority rather than openness to new ideas. Modernizing leaders
have often regarded these scholars of the mosque as opponents of
the reforming policies they wish to introduce and have had to tread
very carefully in confronting them.
The other current of Islam is a more popular form, widespread
amongst the population and deriving from a mystical tradition min-
gled with less orthodox beliefs. Belief in the powers of local saints,
activities and festivals connected with their tombs, superstitious
faith in curing barrenness or effecting marriage are deeply held,
particularly in rural areas, and are frowned upon by the ulama
(scholars) as unorthodox or even non-Islamic. Nevertheless they
are integrated into people's lives and are a source of comfort and
security, so much so that they have become part of the personality
of Tunisian society.
Both currents of Islam are of great importance in cementing
society together with shared values and traditions and nationalist
leaders have recognized that Islam is an important element in
mobilizing the people. The members of the old Destour tended
to use the language of Islam which was symbolic and evocative,
quoting where possible the Koran to support their ideas. These
would be familiar to many people and would immediately give a
certain legitimacy both to the ideas and their proponents. When the
old Destour felt threatened by the new, vigorous members they used
a Koranic quotation to warn people of the danger. 'If a delinquent
slips amongst your ranks, be careful that you do not let him get
round you with deceitful words.' Bourguiba in his opposition to
the old Destour objected to this resort to the traditional and wanted
to turn the people towards new and more dynamic attitudes. But he
recognized the value of Islam in his struggle. He realized that the
issue of naturalization was in the people's mind an attack on the
traditional values of Islam and seized on their fears as a means both
of putting himself forward and of mobilizing them behind him.
The notorious Eucharistic Congress of 1930 and the descent of
thousands of young 'Crusaders' into Tunis was seen as another
assault by Christianity on the land of Islam and showed Tunisians
that in reply they must unite behind the banner of religion.
Bourguiba was too sensitive a political animal not to be aware of
the strength of this feeling although he would never ride the wave
of public resentment in the name of Islam alone. It is significant that
later in life the title he bore of Supreme Combattant is in Arabic

al-mujahid al-akbar - the greatest struggler and mujahid has the Islamic
connotation of the person who fights the jihad, the struggle to convert
either peacefully or by force of arms if necessary the unbelieving
world to Islam.
Bourguiba himself was agnostic by inclination and lay by forma-
tion. He very neatly, and not a little over-confidently, once answered
the question whether he believed in God: 'I have decided to deal
with this question thus: if God exists he must be pleased with
me. If he does not exist then I am quite pleased with myself.'54
Nevertheless, he would often invoke God's name when speaking
either self-consciously or in a more natural manner. He escaped,
he said, several assassination plots but 'God has spared us'. 'I
have done much for Tunisia. God has given me the grace to live'
were the words to summarize his achievements. He seemed to have
some belief in the next life as he mentioned his hope on several
occasions of meeting again those he had been close to in this world.
A manner of speaking perhaps but deeply ingrained. Equally his
firm conviction of the 'inexorable destiny' which had ordered his
life of leadership and suffering comes more from the Islamic notion
of pre-destination than an adherence to the rational process of a
Descartes. And when he describes how his colleagues had betrayed
and abandoned him at Borj Leboeuf he comments bitterly that that
happened after they had all sworn on the Koran to stick together.
As Bourguiba did recognize the important role of Islam in
Tunisian society he was obliged to move circumspectly in intro-
ducing reform. Standing in his way were the custom and inertia
of centuries which had led men to accept retrograde aspects of
Islamic law and the stereotyped thinking of the Zitouna mosque.
He had written early in his career on his policy towards the mosque:
'Reform must come gradually. 1want the Zitouna to reform in order
to raise the intellectual level of our life, to enable them to adapt to the
demands of modern life by accepting an appropriate culture'55 - in
other words to abandon those outmoded and conservative concepts
which hinder reform. Bourguiba resented the power of Islam in the
country, both intellectual and popular, which in his view prevented
him from introducing a lay state after the example of de Gaulle and
the fifth republic.
As he could not fight directly he had to join and determined to
use the positive aspects of Islam to introduce reforms by building
on accepted traditional values. He would mobilize the positive in
order to adapt and improve. All the time he would stress the
application of reason in the use of Islam, drawing on those past
thinkers he considered sympathetic for his cause, al-Ghazali with his
support for a tolerant acceptance of competing claims, Ibn Khaldun
with his concept of the rhythms of life and the improvement of
civilization. He supplemented this with a concern for a rational
approach derived from Descartes, which recognized the fragility of
human reason. In this way he wanted to recreate the vitality of Islam
he believed had once existed with its facility to adapt. He followed
a double strategy - adapting religious thought to the demands of
the present and improving conditions in society so that the people
would be less dependent on religious practices and superstitions.
He could not push too hard, he was no Atatiirk. He admired
much that he achieved, but he believed he had tried to do too
much too quickly. Men had to be persuaded that change was
advantageous, not forced to move unwillingly and in a direction
which could later be reversed. He believed that man was in a state
of continuous creation and that human nature could be improved
given the right treatment. He was following the ideas of certain
European philosophers on the perfectibility of man rather than
Islamic concepts of predestination, although he did use a Koranic
quotation to back him up: 'God will not change the condition of men
unless they change their attitudes of mind.' Bourguiba adhered to
his basically lay approach and in one quotation revealed perhaps
more than he had intended. 'Tunisia does not at all deny its past
of which Arabic is the expression, but it knows that thanks to a
mastery of French it can participate fully in the culture and life
of the modern world.'56 The clear implication is that Arabic (and
Arabic is the language of Islam) is not the medium for full entry in
the modern world.
Bourguiba had success and failure in his attempts to introduce
reform into the Islamic system. On taking power he almost immedi-
ately moved to introduce a reformed personal code and to integrate
Muslim lawyers into a unified state system. Some religious judges
resigned in protest against these moves. Polygamy was outlawed
and divorce made less easy for the husband. 'We are conforming
to the precepts of the Koran', said Bourguiba. 'Our decision in
this matter contradicts no religious texts.' The new laws were,
however, condemned by most members of the religious tribunals
and several of them were made to resign. 'Like you I am a Muslim',
retorted Bourguiba, 'I respect this religion ... but through my
functions and responsibilities I am qualified to interpret religious

law.'
He next moved to reform the religious education system. The
primary Koranic Schools were made free and the teachers paid by
the state. The secondary sections of the Zitouna were gradually
integrated into the national system and the mosque itself became
the faculty of religion in the university. Again this was not accom-
plished without opposition from the traditional religious leaders.
He was unsuccessful when he tried to confront head on the
observance of the month long fast of Ramadan. In most Muslim
countries this fast is strictly observed both religiously and in a
social sense when the breaking of the fast is the occasion for great
celebrations. It is a month when production drops, schoolchildren
fall asleep in class and tempers fray. Bourguiba believed that a
developing country could not afford to 'waste' a month in this
way. He quoted the Prophet as saying that the fast could be broken
if a man was fighting his enemy. 'I tell you that administrative
and school timetables will not be altered for Ramadan. I am only
interpreting the letter of the Koran. If you are not convinced you
are free not to follow me. '57 On one famous occasion he drank a
glass of orange juice on television to make his point. Although
there has until recently been a more liberal attitude in Tunisia
towards the fast, in this he was not followed. There was some
bitter opposition and in demonstrations in Kairouan, a stronghold
of religious conservatism, several were killed and injured.
Commentators favourable to Bourguiba have all been at pains
to stress that he never was inimical to Islam and have attributed
to him sentiments that he did not quite possess or might have
disapproved of privately. Mohammed Sayah, devotedly collecting
his master's speeches and chronicling the history of the national
movement, quoted Bourguiba as saying: 'Man only achieves in and
through the religious dimension. Man is only complete if he lives
under the regard of God.'5s But Bourguiba surely would add that
religion is in the realm of man's personal life and that it is the state
which has the ultimate responSibility for man's happiness, and the
state was Bourguiba. He encouraged the sanctification of the state
through the medium of Islam and although Islam was officially the
religion of the state this did not mean that all its laws and actions
had to conform to precepts of Islamic law and the Koran. It was
the demands of the Islamic fundamentalists for this to be the case
which particularly infuriated Bourguiba. He rejected all arguments
in their favour and sought to persecute them mercilessly. He was

infuriated for at least two reasons: their appearance meant that there
were still some Tunisians who totally rejected his approach to the
development of their country and if they ever came to power they
would attempt to reverse many of the things he had achieved, thus
changing his Tunisia to theirs.
TO BE ARAB OR FRENCH?
Just as Bourguiba was wary of the extremism of some Muslims he

was also wary of the extremes of some of his fellow Arab leaders.
By instinct he thought them wild and unrealistic. He distrusted the
demagoguery of a Nasser and did not want to be browbeaten by
his Arab brothers. He had suffered too much to want to deliver his
country to them. If the Arab nations acted foolishly he treated them
as immature. Tunisia had to be itself before giving itself to others,
yet there was no escape from geography. It is a part of the Arab
world, albeit of the western region and different from the eastern.
History had added to geography to define the Tunisian character.
Bourguiba claimed Jugurtha as an ancestor and between the two
were centuries of accretions. One admirer of Bourguiba went far
in describing this process: 'Bourguiba is the deepest identification
between man and history, people and nation.' History was 'one
thousand years of Carthage, four centuries of Rome, a hundred
years of Vandals, a Byzantine interregnum, the Arab conquest,
Berber resistance, three centuries of the Ottomans, three quarters of
a century of French occupation'. Bourguiba was a mixture of these
influences with 'the Berber love of liberty, Carthagenian audacity
and cleverness, Roman logic, Arab faith and sentimentality, Turkish
rigour and French nationalism'!59 The whole becomes a synthesis
which is Tunisian. While it is unnecessary to go back quite so far
in stereotyping national characteristics it is certainly true that the
Tunisians are different from the Egyptians or Iraqis, although all are
Arabic speaking.
Bourguiba's sense of being different led him to look at Arab prob-
lems from a less involved stance than those more closely concerned.
Thus he was able to say the unsayable about the Israeli-Palestinian
problem and was execrated for so doing. To be proved correct so
much later was little consolation. His people were unwilling to
follow and demonstrated their pro-Arab feelings in 1967. He was
allowed back into the fold in a spectacular way when it was agreed
to move the Arab League headquarters to Tunis after the Camp
David accords. But Tunisia has usually trodden carefully in inter-
Arab affairs, despite the aberration of the abortive Tuniso-Libyan
union and later attempts at greater North African unity.60
Bourguiba's reluctance to become too involved in Arab affairs
stemmed partially from his close indentification with France. He
once admitted that 'We are indebted to France for a great part of
our personality and culture. '61 It is questionable whether an Indian
or an Egyptian would say the same of England. Of himself he said:
'This Arab is Frenchified to the tips of his fingers, a living example
of assimilation. '62 He had acquired from his stay in Paris an undying
affection for France, bourgeois, reformist, lay France, and he wanted
to instil those values into Arab Muslim Tunisia. It shouldt:::llter
resolutely on the path of progress, experiencing a real regeneration
thanks to the judicious assimilation of the methods and principles
of French civilization'.63 There should be 'two civilizations seeking
to complement each other, two countries seeking to unite through
pacific and solid ties of economic solidarity to face the future mutu-
ally supporting each other'.64 He wanted to maintain bilingualism
in Tunisia so that the people should have access to a modern culture
and civilization. Bourguiba incarnated this fusion; it was not so easy
for others to follow him absolutely. If they did, they had to do so
slowly. 'We must progress steadily. Evolution must occur otherwise
it is death. It must happen, though, without breakage or rupture so
as to maintain in the future our personality as a unity. '65 He gives
as an example the gradual adoption of the European suit which has
largely been assimilated. He did not want to abolish the veil too
quickly in case it caused the rupture he had warned against.
His belief in France led to several political difficulties. He main-
tained it throughout exile and imprisonment and fairly brutal
treatment. He always differentiated between French civilization
and the actions of certain Frenchmen. He was put to the test
on the outbreak of the war of liberation in Algeria. He wanted
France to act as he craved, as the romantic champion of freedom
adhering to the principles of 1789, abjuring the depths of repression
and torture. He was placed in a very difficult situation and could
not but co-operate with the Algerians, to the open annoyance of
the French and of de Gaulle. There was no meeting of minds when
they met in 1961. Bourguiba had hoped to be listened to and to be
treated as an equal. De Gaulle could barely conceal his annoyance.
Bourguiba was offended and was driven to avenge himself in the

battle of Bizerta. It took two years for relations to return to a more
even keel.
Bourguiba was too deeply imprinted with French culture ever
to tum irrevocably against France. The key terms in his discourse
are realism, dialogue, personality and action. The first three come
from the French intellectual heritage, the fourth has Islamic roots.
All these are overlaid with the thick layer of humanism which he
absorbed from his contacts with centre left groups in Paris. He saw
that the nationalism he would fight for later had the same roots
as French civilization. He plunged with gusto into French culture
at the Sadiki and immediately conceived the affection for Victor
Hugo which he never lost. In him he found the prophet of justice
and equality, the judge of the oppressors and the fighter for the
oppressed, the visionary of infinite imagination. How taken aback
the Resident-General Peyrouton must have been to have Hugo
quoted at him in an appeal for tolerance and liberalism in a letter
from a young Tunisian deported for agitation. Apart from his love
for de Vigny, the other authors who Bourguiba believed influenced
him are all philosophers. It is Descartes and Pascal, Rousseau,
Comte, Renan and Bergson to whom he pays homage. From them
we can see his ideas of a positive striving by man towards an ideal,
in a world where there is a place for grandeur and aspiration.
6
The Changing of Names,
the Unbolting of Statues
I have done the state some service and they know't.

(Othello)
Names are changed; the Place Bourguiba becomes the Place du

7 Novembre, Avenue Bourguiba becomes Avenue Principale, the
Socialist Destour Party the Democratic Constitutional Rally. The
statues of Bourguiba in Gabes, Sfax and Kairouan are unbolted
and taken away; the mounted horseman in the Place d' Afrique is
transferred to La Goulette and in its place is put - symbolically or
as a reminder? - a clock. Thus the past is obliterated, out of sight
out of mind. The simple changing of a name, the simple dismantling
of a statue are deemed to carry all the weight of history away. No
statue of Bourguiba, no Bourguiba.
While President Ben Ali was engaged in putting Tunisia on to
its new road, encouraging political pluralism, greater freedom of
the press, more tolerance, and abolishing the life presidency (no
president over 70), non-Bourguiba was living in Momag pining
for Monastir. Hardest to bear were loneliness and isolation. Only
his niece, servants and nurses lived with him. His son could visit
him regularly, as could his heart specialist who would bring him
newspapers. Bourguiba was lost in the forgiving vagueness of
old age, not complaining too much, sometimes giving orders to
imaginary courtiers. He missed the landmarks of his daily life in
Carthage, particularly his visit to the coffin which he had had made
years earlier. He would gaze at it for some time, prefiguring his last
resting place. Time pressed heavily and he would urge any willing
visitor to read for him his favourite poems or works of history, for
Saida was a poor reader.
He followed events outside intermittently, fuming against some
144
The Changing of Names, the Unbolting of Statues 145
of Ben Ali's decisions, his clemency towards the Islamists, the

rehabilitation of some of his old enemies such as Dr Materi, and
allowing the widow of Salah Ben Yousef to return - all moves
beginning to undo the pattern that he had woven for Tunisia. Saida
eventually became bored with a life which was not at all what
she had planned and flew off to France. Bourguiba became more
agitated in his desire to return to his birthplace. He wrote again to
Ben Ali for permission who sent him birthday greetings in August
1988. He no longer feared the old man and, feeling more secure,
could eventually agree to his request. He gave his assessment of
Bourguiba in the interview of September 1988: 'The fate reserved
for Bourguiba is that of a man who has been part (already history is
being rewritten) of our history, the father of modern Tunisia, whom
we have saved from the shipwreck of old age. He has his servants
and doctors, newspapers, radio and television. He wants to finish
his days in Monastir and I have agreed.'l
In October a car took a seemingly contented Bourguiba incognito
back to Monastir. The driver was startled to hear him in the back
reciting long passages of Victor Hugo, de Vigny and Rostand. 2 The
black limousine bearing the old man home was very different from
the ancient diligence which had carried the little boy away eighty
one years earlier. The car skirted the old town, for he was not going
to live in the family house, past the holiday hotels to the residence
of the governor who had been encouraged to move elsewhere. It
had been luxuriously converted by Mansour Skhiri, when he had
been feathering his nest as governor. An old, old man had returned
home. His life had come full circle. Would he have said, with Samuel
Beckett, that all his life he had been on his way to his mother?
Bourguiba is happier now, in a quiet life of short walks in the
streets - perhaps reliving boyhood incidents - siestas, being read
to, visiting the family mausoleum as often as he wishes where his
parents and Mathilde are buried, even seabathing. Some friends
ask that he may be given more freedom to go where he wishes,
to receive whom he chooses. He wanted to see Sayah again, and
even Wasila forgetting that only he had wanted the divorce. She
did not go.
Ben Ali, although secure in the presidency, wanted to allow the
people a free choice in elections, to confirm what would be a
foregone conclusion. More, it was hoped that Bourguiba would vote
publicly for him, sealing the changeover in a peaceful, co-operative
and final manner. Bourguiba refused until his son Bibi managed to
persuade him. So on 2 April 1989 the Tunisian public saw on their

screens the small, frail old figure, dressed as ever in dark overcoat,
white scarf, tarbush and dark glasses, walk unsteadily to the polling
station. Holding his ballot paper he whispered: 'I vote for my son
Ben Ali and for the list of my party' - the final severing of the bond
and an act of magnanimity as well.
His life continued and he survived another serious operation for
prostate trouble in July 1989. He seemed indestructible. He still felt
a prisoner, ironically untried and unsentenced, and demanded of
Ben Ali whether he was free or not. In a state which observes the
law he should be tried if there was a case against him. The president
decided on detente and when Bourguiba was on a visit to his doctor
in Tunis on 12 May 1990 he invited him to visit Carthage. Once
again, on 13 May, the Tunisians saw the old man on their screens,
this time in the company of his successor.
President Zain al Abidin welcomed him on the steps of the palace
and warmly embraced him. He asked after his health and then led
him by the hand inside where they chatted for twenty-five minutes.
They discussed whether Bourguiba was a free man or not.
Bourguiba: Then I am under house arrest?

Ben Ali: No, no, Mr President (courteously using his title).
You are free to move about. You can receive whomever you
wish. Only, I am responsible for your security.
Bourguiba: I am free to go around in the governorate of
Monastir?
Ben Ali: Even outside; you can go where you wish.
Bourguiba (insisting): Then we agree I can go where I want
and receive whom I want?
Ben Ali (smiling): Yes.
In thanking the 'new president' Bourguiba was careful to remind

Ben Ali that he was the second president.
"I am the first' he insisted.
EPILOGUE
Can we judge the lives of great men by ordinary standards? Are

normal values and yardsticks too petty, too constricting? How do
we judge someone who claims to have a unique grasp of the truth
The Changing of Names, the Unbolting of Statues 147
and to feel himself uniquely fitted to impose his views on others?3

The task is more difficult when the leader puts himself above
criticism and beyond democratic means of removal. If he eliminates
rivals or disrupts people's lives can he answer that the ends justified
the means? Should his private life be looked at separately from his
public achievements? As a flawed human being does his exposure
to public gaze in the pursuit and exercise of power magnify his
flaws? Perhaps it is too early to assess the life and work of Habib
Bourguiba. It is said that only history can judge the value of a work
of art, that only the worthy endures. What will history preserve of
Bourguibism?
He remained at the helm for thirty-two years - much longer
than many4 - and too long for anyone man. But one cannot write
such a lengthy period out of the history of a country. One cannot
conveniently ignore it or dismiss it as one long disaster. We have to
take Bourguiba in terms of his own high aims and therewith assess
his achievements.
He wanted to transform Tunisia into a modem, developed
Westward-looking state. We have seen how he expressed the highest
motives behind these aims, influenced by European liberal thought
and Muslim tolerance. He began immediately by modernizing those
aspects of law which he felt to be retrograde and by undertaking
the emancipation of women. He also set in train a large scale
modernization and expansion of the educational system. For much
of this he will be remembered. He will also be remembered for the
leading part he played in the struggle for independence. He was
devoted to the concept of the nation which he wanted to fashion
in his image and to be respected throughout the world. Tunisia is
a small country which could never force its way militarily onto the
world stage. It had to make its voice respected through the ways of
moderation and reason, and Bourguiba for long was known as the
voice of moderation and reason. Bourguibism was for long known
as the policy of reasonableness and moderateness.5
The idealistic Bourguiba was seduced by the irrestibile charms
of absolute power. He eventually found it impossible even to con-
template relinquishing power voluntarily. He could not 'suffer and
die without a word'. No man can bear the burden of a presidency
for life. Age and time take their toll and which politicians do not
become stale, repetitious and lacklustre after even ten years in
office? For absolute leaders, as time progresses, the pursuit of a total
identification of the state and their person becomes all consuming
- to the exclusion of much else. Statues and buildings are erected,

the name, the face and the leader are omnipresent, the least action
and word sanctified and all too often the leader is obsessed with his
posthumous reputation. Bourguiba fell prey to all these temptations
and his greatest mistake was to believe that he was indispensable,
that he would be able rationally and profitably to guide the country
until the end of his life. His devotion to his country was consumed
entirely by his devotion to himself. The foolishness of being elected
president for life added to the aura of power but numbed the COun-
try into a brainwashed acceptance of the irremovable. Other leaders
have ended their days in exile (Napoleon), in flames (Hitler), a few
actually in harness (Franco), or perhaps, like Abd aI-Nasser, died
young enough to preserve a reputation fairly intact. If in the history
of the development of the world at certain times strong leaders are
needed to lead a movement of renewal or a breakthrough into a new
era then absolute rulers will always appear who claim an absolute
certainty of the truth and an absolute belief in themselves. Perhaps
the world cannot do without them. Certainly the world has to suffer
under them.
Notes
CHAPTER 1: EARLY DAYS
1. B. Cohen, Bourguiba. Le pouvoir d'un seul. Paris, 1986, p. 53.

2. Cohen, p. 50.
3. I remember in the 1980s watching a very old man preside at
prizegiving day at Sadiki. It seemed endless until finally Bourguiba
was helped to his feet to mumble a few words.
4. Ma vie, mes idees p. 59 by Bourguiba. The lectures which he gave in
1974 on his life and achievements. His chronology is wildly out. It
must have been at least sixty years later.
5. Bourgiba, Ma vie, mon oeuvre, p. 30.
6. S. Bessis and S. Belhassan, Bourguiba. 2 vols. Paris, 1988, 1989, vol. i,
p.25.
7. The late president of Romania, Nicholai Ceausescu, a short man,
refused to allow himself to be photgraphed standing next to taller
leaders. They had all to be sitting!
8. A. Pautard, Bourguiba. Paris, 1977, p. 60.
9. Ma vie, mes idees, p. 75.
12. Ma vie, mes idees, pp. 27-8.
13. Ali El Ganari, Bourguiba. Le combattant supreme, Paris, 1985, p. 93.
14. F. Garas, Bourguiba et la naissance d'une nation. Paris, 1956, p. 61.
15. Bessis, i, p. 39.
CHAPTER 2: STRUGGLE FOR INDEPENDENCE
1. Articles de presse, pp. 5, 11, 12. L'Etendard, 11 Jan. 1929.

2. Articles de presse, p. 25, La voix du Tunisien, 23 Feb. 1931.
5. Articles de presse, p. 209 L'action tunisienne, February 1929.
6. Ma vie, mes idees p. 106.
7. Ibid., p. 105.
8. Articles de presse, p. 370 L'action tunisienne, 22 May 1933.
9. Ibid., 26 May 1933.
10. Ma vie, rnes idees, p. 112.
11. Quoted in Bourguiba's Ma vie, mon oeuvre, in French. The speech was
extempore in Arabic and one has to question how close to the original
is this printed version.
149
150 Notes to pp. 37-61

13. Ibid., p. 121.
14. Ibid., p. 120.
15. Bessis, i, p. 68.
16. Articles de presse, p. 379; al-Amal, 30 August 1934.
17. Some authors assert that it was a few years later the title began to
be used regularly.
18. Ma vie, mon oeuvre 1934-1936, p. 66.
19. Letter to Mme Challaye, 8 May 1934 quoted in Ma vie, mon oeuvre
1934-1938, pp. 65-66.
20. Ganari, p. 81.
21. Ganari, p. 82.
22. Begue, p. 55.
23. Ma vie, mon oeuvre, p. 136.
24. Hugo, Ultima Verba from Les eMtiments.
26. Ibid., p. 122-3.
27. Ganari, p. 96.
28. Ganari, p. 102.
29. Ma vie, mon oeuvre, pp. 139-40, 153.
31. How reminiscent this is of Hitler who likewise could not bear
contradiction and would react in fearsome rages.
32. Ma vie, mon oeuvre, pp. 139, 140.
34. Ma vie, mon oeuvre, letters to Mme Challaye, pp. 175, 176.
35. Ibid., p. 198.
37. Cohen, p. 81.
38. Bessis, i, p. 83.
39. Estimates vary wildly. Bourguiba claims that 200 were killed.
40. Ma vie,mes idees, p. 155.
41. La procis Bourguiba, 9 avril 1938. 2 volumes. Tunis, 1970.
42. Procis, vol. 2, pp. 80 f.
43. Ibid., p. 55.
44. Ibid., p. 72.
45. Ibid., pp. 89 f.
46. Ibid., p. 152.
47. Ibid., p. 190.
48. Ibid., p. 310.
49. Ibid., p. 313.
50. Ibid., p. 371.
51. One source mentions 18 others. Bessis, i, p. 90.
52. Begue, p. 56.
53. Garas, p. 130.
55. Quoted from Petit Matin by Garas, p. 131.
56. See Bessis, i, p. 101.
57. Jeune Afrique, 28 July 1982.
Notes to pp. 61-89 151

59. Bessis states that the French knew of this and the fact is recorded in
their archives. Bessis, i, p. 117.
60. Ma vie, mes idees, p. 220ff.
61. The role of Ben Yousef in encouraging Bourguiba so strongly to
leave Tunisia and thus be away from the centre of political affairs
seems suspect in the light of the later struggle for power between
the two men.
62. Garas, p. 154.
63. Ganari, p. 205.
65. Cecil Hourani, An unfinished Odyssey; Lebanon and beyond. London,
1984, p. 98.
66. AI-Ikhwan al-Muslimun nos. 16 and 29,1945.
67. Bessis i, p. 111.
68. Strangely, a British official who knew Bourguiba in Cairo remembers
meeting him with a 'Madame' Bourguiba.
69. Garas, p. 160.
70. Rous, p. 186, Ma vie, mes idees, p. 247.
72. Slim was an astute politician; from a upper bourgeois family of Greek
origin, he took naturally to politics by tradition. He was to work
in the political bureau of the party and was popular amongst the
militants. Later to become Foreign Minister.
73. Bessis, i, 133.
74. Cohen, p. 86.
75. Garas, p. 243.
76. Ma vie, mon oeuvre 1952-6, p. 334.
77. Ibid., p. 335.
78. Ibid., p. 347.
79. Garas, p. 247.
80. Rous, p. 46.
81. He had been assassinated by the Main Rouge.
82. Discours, vol. i, pp. 1,3.
CHAPTER 3: TUNISIA UNDER BOURGIBA
1. See The Bibliography.

2. Rous, p. 51.
3. Ma vie, tries idees, p. 327.
4. Ibid., p. 331.
5. Bessis ii, p. 252.
6. Ma vie, tries idees, p. 338.
7. Mestiri resigned as Minister of Defence and Bourguiba sacked him
from the party.
8. Rous, p. 92.
152 Notes to pp. 89-111
9. Very French by culture, he had been a law student in Paris where

he was head of a Destour group. Later he participated in the trade
union movement as representative of the Destour. He was one of the
thinkers of the party and published many articles on its policies
10. M. Mzali, Lettre ouverte ii Habib Bourguiba, Paris, 1987, a bitter expose
of life under Bourguiba by the disgruntled ex-prime-minister. To
Bourguiba's fury Masmoudi was later appointed Libyan (sic) ambas-
sador to the UN.
11. One Western visitor to Bourguiba was shown into the library in
Carthage in which was a large table covered with small equestrian
statues of the president. 'Which to you like best?' asked Bourguiba.
One was to be chosen for the centre of Tunis.
12. Jeune Afrique, 28 July 1982.
CHAPTER 4: DECLINE AND FALL
1. M. Mzali, Lettre ouverte ii Habib Bourguiba.

2. Mzali, p. 29.
3. Mzali, p. 29.
4. Mzali, p. 59.
5. Mzali, p. 128.
6. Ibid., p. 34.
7. Ibid., p. 64-5.
8. Mzali, pp. 35-6.
9. Ibid., p. 42.
10. Bessis, ii, p. 209.
11. Mzali, p. 72. quoting La Suisse, 22 May, 1986.
12. Corneille, the classical French playright who portrayed the conflict
in the human soul between duty and passion.
13. Mzali, p. 72.
14. Mzali, p. 108.
15. Mzali, pp. 74-75.
16. Nouvel Observateur/Le monde, 9-15 September, 1988.
17. Bessis, ii, p. 234.
18. Bessis, ii, pp. 240-1.
CHAPTER 5: BOURGUIBA THE MAN

2. This section is based on Volkan & Itzkowitz.
3. See Lowe, Growth of personality, pp. xxii, xxiii, 73.
5. Rous, p. 98.
6. Bessis, ii, p. 81.
7. Cohen, p. 25.
8. Articles de presse, p. 379.
9. Volkan, p. 104.
Notes to pp. 111-135 153
10. Discours, i, pp. xvii, xviii.

11. Cohen, p. 62.
13. Ma vie, mes idees, p. 17-18.
14. Ibid., p. 18.
16. Ma vie, mes idees, pp. 23-24.
17. Bessis, i, p. 41.
19. Articles de presse, p. 379.
21. Rous, p. 210.
23. Mzali, p. 117.
24. Cohen, p. 194.
26. Manvell, p. 125.
27. Napoleon was 5 feet 6 inches tall.
28. Bessis i, p. 46.
29. F. Richardson, Napoleon, bisexual emperor, London, 1972, p. 55.
30. Quoted in ibid., p. 81.
34. Bessis ii. p. 106 (adapted).
35. Taken from Cohen, p. 150.
36. Ma vic, mes idees, p. 51.
37. Rous, p. 181.
38. Ma vie, mes idees, p. 353-54.
39. I remember attending a party given for the cast by Cecil Hourani who
was director of the Cultural Centre. (After his help to Bourguiba in
Washington he had summoned him to be his special adviser). The
lively cast was draped on the staircase around the courtyard of his
impressive Ottoman house. The talk was about the critical success
of the production.
40. After the war they rejoined forces to form the Arab theatre.
41. Mzali, pp. 139, 140, 143.
42. Rous, p. 155.
44. Cohen, p. 81, quoting Julien.
45. Caras, p. 160.
46. Ma vie, mon oeuvre, p. 142. 'The die is cast', misquoting Suetonius in
Julius, 'Jacta alea est.'
48. Ibid., pp. 162, 63.
49. Hourani, Odyssey, p. 103.
51. Mzali, pp. 121-22.
154 Notes to pp. 135-147

54. Cohen, p. 196.
55. Articles de presse, p. 11 .
56. Cohen, p. 199.
57. Bessis, ii, p. 18.
58. Discours, i, p. xxxiv .
59. Rous, p. 10.
60. At the Arab summit conference held in Cairo in August 1990 to
discuss the Iraqi annexation of Kuwait, Tunisia was the only state
to boycott it, although a pro-Iraqi demonstration was allowed in the
capital.
61. Discours i, p. 303.
62. Salem, p. 72.
63. Articles de presse, p . 5.
64. Ibid., p . 209
65. Ibid., p. 5.
CHAPTER 6: THE CHANGING OF NAMES,

THE UNBOLTING OF STATUES
1. Nouvel Observateur/Le Monde, 9-15 September, 1988.

2. Bessis and Belhassen record this fact. Who told them is not stated,
nor, if there was only the Tunisian driver, whether he would
recognise so much classical French literature. It would not, of course,
have been at all out of Bourguiba's character.
3. The use of the masculine here does exclude the possibility of won-
dering about Britain's first woman prime-minister.
4. Franco stayed for 39 years and Salazar of Portugal for 36.
5. At a lunch for the visiting Tunisian foreign minister the British for-
eign secretary said that Tunisia was valued as a voice of moderation
in the Arab world.
Bibliography
Allman, J. Social mobility, education & development in Tunisia. London, 1979.

Begue, C. Le message de Bourguiba; une politique de l'homme. Paris, 1972.
Bessis, S. and S. Belhassen Bourguiba. 2 vols. Paris, 1988, 89.
Bourguiba, H. Articles de presse 1929-34. Tunis, 1967.
Bourguiba, H. Discours, 1955-65. 20 vols. Tunis, 1974-81.
Bourguiba, H. Ma vie, mes idees, mon combat. Tunis, 1977.
Bourguiba, H. Ma vie, mon oeuvre, 1929-33; 1934-38; 1952-56. Textes reunis
et commentes par M Sayah. 3 vols. Paris, 1986-87.
Bourguiba, H. Le proces Bourguiba, 9 avril 1938. 2 vols. Tunis, 1970.
Bourguiba, H. La Tunisie et la France; vingt-cinq ans de lutte pour une
cooperation libre. Tunis, 1954 (newspaper articles and speeches 1933-54.)
Bourguiba, W. 'Pour la premiere fois Wassila Bourguiba parle'. Jeune
Afrique, 22, 1125, Paris, 1982.
Cagnat, R. Voyage en Tunisie. Paris, 1894.
Camau, M. La Tunisie. (Que sais-je?) Paris, 1989.
Camau, M. La Tunisie au present; une modernite au-dessus de tout soup~on, by
M. Camau and others, Paris, 1987.
Cohen, B. Habib Bourguiba; Ie pouvoir d'un seul. Paris, 1986.
Erikson, E. H. Young man Luther; a study in psycholanalysis and history. New
York, 1962.
Findlay, A. M. Tunisia, by A. M. Findlay and others. (World Bibliographical
Series, 33.) Oxford, 1982.
Canari, A. el, Bourguiba, Ie combattant supr€me. Paris, 1985.
Caras, F. Bourguiba et la naissance d'une nation. Paris, 1956.
Hourani, C. An unfinished odyssey; Lebanon & beyond. London, 1984.
Knapp, W. Tunisia. London, 1970.
Lacouture, J. Cinq hom1tl£s et la France. Paris, 1961 (includes a profile of
Bourguiba.)
Ling, D. 1. Tunisia; from protectorate to republic. Bloomington, 1967.
Lowe, C. R. The growth of personality; from infancy to old age. Harmondsworth,
1972.
Manvell, R. and H. Fraenkel, Inside Adolph Hitler; a study in psychoanalysis
and history. New York, 1962.
Mazlish, B. In search of Nixon; a psychohistorical enquiry. Baltimore, 1973.
Micaud, C. Tunisia; the politics of modernisation. London, 1964.
Moore, C. H. Tunisia since independence; the dynamics of a one party govern-
ment. Westport, Conn., 1982 (reprint of 1968 edition).
Mzali, M. Lettre ouverte a Bourguiba. Paris, 1987.
Pautard, A. Bourguiba. Paris, 1978.
Perkins, K. J. Tunisia; crossroads of the Islamic & European worlds. Boulder,
Co., 1986.
Richardson, F. NapOleon, bisexual emperor. London, 1972.
Rossi, P. Bourguiba's Tunisia. Tunis, 1967.
Rous, J. Habib Bourguiba. Paris, 1984.
155
156 Bibliography
Rudebeck, 1. Party and people. A study of political changes in Tunisia. Stock-
holm, 1967.
Salem, N. Habib Bourguiba, Islam and the creation of Tunisia. London, 1984.
Sharafi, M. Wuzara' Burqiba. Tunis, n.d.
Stephane, R. La Tunisie de Bourguiba. Paris, 1958.
Toumi, M. La Tunisie de Bourguiba aBen Ali. Paris, 1989.
Tunisia. Area handbook for the Republic of Tunisia. 3rd edition. Washington,
D.C., 1987.
Tunisia. Le Neo-Destour it l'epreuve du pouvoir, 195~64. Tunis, 1984.
Tunisia. Le Neo-Destour et Ie Front PopuIaire en France. 2 vols. Tunis, 1969.
Tunisia. Le Neo-Destour face it la deuxieme epreuve 1938-43. 3 vols. Tunis,
1970.
Tunisia. Le Neo-Destour face it la premiere epreuve, 1934-36. Tunis, 1969.
Tunisia. Le Neo-Destour face it Ia troisierne epreuve, 1952-56. 3 vols. Tunis,
1979.
Tunisia. Pour preparer Ia troisieme epreuve. 3 vols. Tunis, 1972-3.
Volkan, V. D. and Itzkowitz, N. The immortal Ataturk. Chicago, 1984.
Index
Acheson, Dean, 69 brother), 6, 11,20, 62, 75, 111,
L'Action tunisienne, 33, 34 122, 132, 135
al-Adab, 124 Bourguiba, M'Hamed (Habib's
Algeria, 32, 67, 76, 81, 85-6 brother), 6, 10-14, 29, 63,
al-Amal,37 75,132
Atatiirk, Kemal, 84, 111 Bourguiba, Mohammed (Habib's
Azan, General, 44 brother), 4, 16, 113, 124
Bourguiba, Mohammed (Habib's
Barbie, Klaus, 58 grandfather), 5
Ben Ali, Zain al-Abidin, 95, 101-5, Bourguiba, Mohammed (Habib's
117,130,144-6 uncle), 6
Ben Ammar, Tahar, 77 Bourguiba, Wasila (Habib's wife),
Ben Ammar, Wasila see Bourguiba, I, 16, 61, 68, 74, 75, 89, 92-3,
Wasila 98-9, 120, 134-6, 145
Ben Bella, Ahmed, 86-7 Britain, 59, 60, 62, 65
Ben Salah, Ahmed, 85-6, 88,
112,122-3 Cairo, 65-70
Ben Yousef, Salah, 46, 47, 63-4, 67, Cartel des Gauches, 23
69,71-2,76,80-1,85-7, 108, Carthage, 82, 75, 117, 146
112,145 Challaye, Felicien, 37
Bernard, Claude, 20 Challaye, Madame, 39, 42-3,
Beys of Tunis, 3, 5, 9, 12, 76, 78, 45, 120
81-2,120 Chateau de la Ferte, 76
Bidault, Georges, 70-1 Chivalry Group, 125
Bizerta, 86, 115 Collieres, Mo, 14
Blum, Leon, 46, 47 Comte, Auguste, 24, 110
Bolon, Mo, 13, 15, 16
Borj-Leboeuf, 42-5, 112, 116, 122 Descartes, 139
Boumedienne, Houari, 94 Destour Party, 32, 35-7, 47, 137
Bourgau,58 Dhawia, 10, 11
Buorguiba, Ahmed (Habib's Doolittle, Hooker, 60, 62, 68
brother), 6 Duluc, Mo, 75
Bourguiba, Ali (Habib's father), 4,
5,12-15,25,27,114-5,131 economy, 10, 29, 85, 93, 98, 101
Bourguiba, Fattuma (Habib's education, 83, 140
mother), 4, 7,8, 13-14, 21, 107, Egypt, 65-70
114, 130-1 Eucharistic Congress, 32, 137
Bourguiba, Jean Habib (Jun-
ior), 27, 28, 30, 42-3, Faure, Edgar, 77
45,48,57,61-3,70, 75, fellagha, 73, 76, 80
77, 98-9, 131, 133-4,
136, 145 Garbay, General, 73
Bourguiba, Mahmoud (Habib's Gaulle, General de, 86-7,142-3
157
158 Index
Gemier, Firmin, 25, 126 Main Rouge, 73-4
Germany, 57-9 Mabrouk, Hedi, 100-1
Ghannouchi, Rashid, 102 Madani, Izz aI-Din, 129
al-Ghazali, 139 Marseille, 56, 77
Guerin du Cayla, 49-56 Masmoudi, Mohammed, 90-1,123
Guiga, Bashir, 20, 26-7, 30, 32-3, Materi, Mahmoud, 25. 30. 32-3, 36,
35-6,53-4 40,44-5,48,53-4, 145
Mathieu, Captain, 43
Hamlet, 17, 125 Mendes-France, Pierre, 76, 89
Hammamet, 124 Messika, Habiba, 125, 135
Hannibal, 108-9 Mestiri, Ahmed, 88, 97-8
Hashed, Farhat, 69, 78, 98 Mitterrand, Fran.;ois, 73
Hautecloque, Jean de, 72, 73 Mollet, Guy, 81
Hawas, Khalifa, 64, 65 Monastir, 1,2,3,6, 7,9, 12-13, 20,
Herriot, Edouard, 23, 115 35,62-3,145
Hourani, Cecil, 66, 68, 124 Morocco, 32, 67
Hugo, Victor, 14, 20, 41-2, 143 Mounier-Pillet,66
Mzali, Mohammed, 1, 71, 91-2,
Ibn Khaldun, 109, 137, 139 94-8,117
Islam, 82, 84, 101-2, 136-41
Israel, 69, 88, 100, 142 Napoleon, 118-9
Italians, 12, 58-9 Nasser, Gamal Abd al-, 86-7
naturalization, 34, 35, 115, 137
Jaures, Jean, 23, 24, 115 New (Neo) Destour, 36, 42, 47,
Jellaz cemetary, 13, 15, 114 53-4,60,67-8,71-2,76,77,81,
Jugurtha,108 84-5, 60, 67-8, 71-2, 76, 77, 81,
Juin, General, 60 84-5, 90-2, 97, 111, 128
Julien, C.-A., 46, 129 Nietzsche, F., 38, 110
Nouira, Hedi, 89, 91, 93-4
Kaddafi, Colonel, 90-2, 94
Kebili, 40-2 Othello, 17, 124
Kerkennah, 64
Khalladi, Shadli, 21 Paris, 20, 22-5, 70-3, 76-7, 115, 126
Khatush, Nadia, 135-6 Pineau, Christian, 81
Ksar Hellal, 35, 39, 128
Qardahi,125
Lamartine, 14, 20
Lavigerie, Cardinal, 29 ratissage, 73
La Galite, 74 Remada, 73-4
La Groix, 76 Resident-General, 3, 9, 19, 22, 33-4,
Lefras (Bourguiba), Mathilde, 41-2,45-7,60,62,72-3,75,111
26-30,42-3,45-6,48,57,61-3, Rouissi, Yousef, 40, 41
70,75,78,82, 131-3, 145 Rousseau, J. -J. 20
legal reform, 83, 139-40
Le Kef, 16-18,21,125 Sadiki College, 9, 11-16, 25,
Libya, 12, 62, 64-5, 90, 94, 35,118
120 Sahel, 3, 12, 29, 37
Lycee Carnot, 18-21 Sakiet Sidi Yousef, 86
Lyon, Fort Montluc, 57 Sardou, Victorien, 17, 125
Index 159
Sassi, Saida, 98, 100, 104-5, Thamer, Habib, 67, 69, 116
135,144-5 trade unions, 71-3, 85, 93
Sayah,~ohammed, 104, 111, Tunis, 9, 10-14, 29 and passim
140,145
Schuman, Robert, 70-1 United States, 60, 68-9, 71, 91, 121
Sebault, ~aitre, 30
Sfar, Bashir, 15, 114 Vichy France, 57, 58
Sfar, Rashid, 99 Vienot, Pierre, 129
Sfar, Tahar, 20, 26-7, 30, 32-3, Vigny, Alfred de, 14,20, 108-9
35-7,53-4 La voix du Tunisien, 33
Sigonet, Colonel, 40 women, position of, 83, 130, 139
Skhiri, ~ansour, 100 World War I, 15
Slim, ~ongi, 52, 70 World War II, 57-60, 62, 64-6, 68
Sorbonne, 20-26
Sousse,9 Zarrouk, General, 5
Stendhal, 20 Zitouna mosque, 9, 11, 14, 31,
138,140
Tabarka,72 zouaves, 12
Teboursok,56 Zouiten, Shedlia, 50, 135
Thaalibi, Abdelaziz, 18,47 Zouiten, Zohra, 135

Habib Bourguiba of Tunisia: The Tragedy of Longevity

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HABIB BOURGUIBA OF TUNISIA

Also by Derek Hopwood

EGYPT: POLITICS AND SOCIETY

*Also from St. Martin's

First published in the United States of America in 1992

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

2 Struggle for Independence 29

3 Tunisia under Bourguiba 80

6 The Changing of Names, the Unbolting of Statues 144

to understand Bourguiba much better. It is quite notable how many

CHILDHOOD AND SCHOOL IN TUNISIA, 1901-1924

The wonder is that he hath endur'd so long.

continuously during twenty years as though he would tempt fate

of a mystery, probably born in August 1901, although his official

of service in the army of General Zarrouk into which he had been

There were many other Bourguibas in Monastir, a large extended

spoiled and dominated by them. Apart from running errands he had

Today the journey from Monastir to Tunis takes an hour or two. In

mention of anyone looking after him on the 160-kilometre two-day

immigrants from elsewhere, from Calabria, from Sicily, from Malta,

Bourguiba's shoulder. Bourguiba later spoke of his classmates, how

If you can, by dint of being studious and thoughtful

He acquired a mastery of French grammar and composition

alienation, for that rootlessness which can befall the colonized

went off to the theatre which presented Arabic plays on Friday

- including two whose names are to be remembered - Tahar Sfar

country - Stalin from Georgia, Hitler from Austria, Napoleon from

POOR STUDENT IN PARIS, 1924-27

These politics and these politicians of 1924-27 deeply influenced

accepted my proposal and was touched by my attitude. '16 The

to return to Tunis with his family to seek work as a lawyer. Mathilde

IN TUNIS UNTIL THE FIRST ARREST, 1927 - September 1934

to articulate his policy of 'stages' - a realistic approach to the

that he detested, only the French conqueror. 'Tunisians should be

being. They used the nationalist newspaper La voix du Tunisien in

A clear enough philosophy - and one unacceptable to the French.

On 6 May 1933 the Resident-General had signed the decrees,

himself. To quote his own account: 'I held my audience breathless

On 3 September 1934 Bourguiba was in Monastir in preparation

FIRST EXPERIENCE OF PRISON, 1934-36

Colonel 5igonet told Bourguiba that he was to be sent on to Kebili,

I accept this bitter exile, even if it is endless or unlimited

lf there remain ten of us I will be the tenth;

Bourguiba could have added another strikingly relevant passage

I will not bend. Without a complaint on my lips,

'Am transferred brutally to Kebili. Climate really excessive. Place

My husband has been thrown down here like a dog. After I

A new telegram was despatched 3 October 1934:

Transferred Borj-Leboeuf, health excellent, morale iron -Stop- Do

So Bourguiba wrote to the Destour's Political Bureau in Tunis.

dragging him into the whole affair. Bourguiba remained prostrate

'Excuse me madame, if I go on so much, but I am so alone. I fear

In the outside world Tunisians continued to demonstrate against

INTERLUDE OF FREEDOM, 1936-38

UNDER ARREST A SECOND TIME, 1938-43

Mathilde bore with fortitude her second experience of separation.

remembered saying to the others: 'If they lead us out to be shot

Question (De Guerin): In order to know the motives of a

Answer: I didn't think I needed to obey an order given by

This exchange had a great effect on de Guerin and deeply influ-

Question: You said to a public gathering 'France sucks our

A little later de Guerin quotes to Bourguiba a newspaper article

Question: Why were you and your comrades sent in exile to

De Guerin constantly tries to trap Bourguiba into incriminating