Building up a nation state and modernizing society (1956-64)

After Ben Youssef went into exile in Egypt, the national government under the leadership of Habib Bourguiba started the implementation of programs to achieve total sovereignty and modernize society. The state’s policy in this phase included various aspects: political and social, social and cultural, and educational.

a) Political

Three things were accomplished:

- The beylical system was abolished and a Republic proclaimed on 25 July 1957. Habib Bourguiba was appointed President while awaiting the coming into force of the new Constitution

- On 1 June 1959, the Tunisian Constitution was proclaimed. Its text was written as a synthesis of specific Tunisian cultural and social features and progress made in modern legislative thought in the developed countries

- The military evacuation demanded by the Tunisian Government since June 1956 finally became a fact when Bizerta was evacuated by the French forces on 15 October 1963, after an unequal battle resulting in a terrible number of Tunisian deaths – between 1,000 and 5,000 dead, according to various versions..

The main national institutions, such as the internal police and outside security forces, the magistracy, information, the diplomatic apparatus and the administration, were ‘Tunisified’. New bodies were created, for example governors and delegates. The French civil servants were replaced by Tunisian civil servants.
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b) Economic

Overall, the Government was to a great extent successful in laying down the foundations of a viable national economy. There were sizeable achievements, such as gaining monetary independence by creating on 19 September 1958 a Tunisian issuing institute, the Central Bank of Tunisia, and by introducing on 18 October 1958 a Tunisian currency – the dinar.

The Government also managed to reduce the country’s economic dependence on France. The most important step was the nationalization, by the Law of 12 May 1964, of land held in Tunisia by the French colonists, which covered almost 800,000 hectares.

c) Founding a modern society, and a cultural revival

The state immediately started to unify and develop new laws. It promulgated a number of Codes, the most important from the social and historical point of view being the Code of Personal Status of 13 August 1956. This pioneering Code, designed as a contemporary interpretation of the Koranic text, particularly as regards the abolition of polygamy, was in tune with international human rights treaties and with the need for women to participate in all fields of public life.

The independent state was fully aware that the modernizing of society could only be protected from possible future risks and challenges by guaranteeing a hard core of progress based on modern education and culture.

In order to fight illiteracy, the rate of which was extremely high at that time, and to train a new generation of people that would be educated and able to live in their time without feeling alienated, the Law of 4 November 1958 was promulgated to introduce a new, modern, unified, free and universal form of schooling.

Despite the fact that the aim of universal education set by the educational reform was not attained within the expected time, because of rapid demographic growth and the phenomenon of failing and having to take the same courses again, the results were generally positive. There were schools everywhere, even in the furthest areas of the country or the most cut off regions. Education offered a wonderful means of social promotion and a solid platform for putting a modern cultural project into effect.

The independent state threw itself into a modernising cultural project whose aim was to have the idea of the ‘Tunisian nation’, one forged in history and that had acquired its ‘personality’ over time, take root; this made it a nation that was constantly open to different influences, wherever they came from.
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* Destourian socialism, 1961-1970

The dates of 23 March 1962 and 2 March 1963 marked a turning point in the history of independent Tunisia. On 23 March 1962, ‘Destourian socialism’ was born when the Neo- Destour’s National Council proclaimed its adoption of socialism. As for 2 March 1963, on that day the Neo-Destour adopted the one party system. These two decisions showed that the independent state led by the Destour Party was now solely and uniquely responsible for the country’s economic, social and political destiny, like the totalitarian regimes that had appeared in eastern Europe aftre the Second World War. Private initiative was reduced to a minimum. All political activity outside the structures of the Destourian Party was banned. The development of civil society was interrupted by the overlapping, pushed to its furthest limits, of the Destour Party and all other organisations and associations.

The choice of socialism as the economic doctrine of independent Tunisia was decisive in its choice of the single party system, which was precipitated by the failed plot hatched by the low-ranking officers, former resistance fighters, and former supporters of Ben Youssef. And thus an autocratic, totalitarian system was born. This system, fed by the secret power struggles for the succession which was constantly being postponed, was to linger on for 25 years.

The minister Ahmed Ben Salah was the main beneficiary of the regime’s new choice. He devoted himself to pushing through his economic and social programme, strongly supported by Bourguiba, the political class and civil society, but remaining free from all control and thus unaccountable.

He was finally confronted by a number of obstacles, to the point where Bourguiba found it impossible to continue to protect him, especially when the forced collectivisation experiment ran into deadlock. Its failure was officially recognised. The socialist policy was abandoned and Ben Salah disowned. The Republican Council, then the highest executive body, decided officially to abandon collectivisation on 2 September 1969. Ben Salah was sacked and thrown out of the Socialist Destour Party on 9 November 1969 after being brought before the High Court for trial.
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I. Economic opening, political tension and a succession of crises (1970-1988)

After a period known as the ‘pause for reflection’ that gave rise to a wide debate all over the country, Bourguiba chose Hédi Nouira, known for his unconquerable opposition to collectivization, as Prime Minister.

The new Government quickly took a number of steps and measures to wipe out the aftermath of collectivization and to rehabilitate the private sector and give a boost to the economy, now central to the Government’s concerns for the entire decade of the 1970s, with a corresponding neglect of social, cultural or educational concerns.

1. Economic achievements and weaknesses

The 1970s were marked by the priority given to the economic profitability of the state’s investments and by the neglect of the social aspect. This period was also marked by a basic change concerning the foreign debt growth rate, with industry counting increasingly on imports (spare parts, machine tools). Laws were passed to encourage foreign investors. In less than 20 years, the rate of debt compared to GDP went up from 21.8% in 1962 to 45% in 1981.

Despite some undeniable imbalances recorded in the 1970s (between the various branches of economic activity, between the private and public sectors, and between national and foreign capital), the decade saw a reaffirmation of the priority of economic output and profitability, which necessarily caused a growth in the rate of production and the achievement of a true economic upturn, especially during the early 1970s, due to a rise in the price of hydrocarbons (Tunisia thus producing an exportable surplus) and a succession of rainy years. As soon as the price of oil and the rainfall stopped being favorable, the negative effects of the liberal choices came to light, particularly at the social level.
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• A host of crises

The 1970s were strewn with fairly severe crises, mostly resulting from the mismatch between the choice of liberalism (economically) and the one party state (politically), plus other factors that were specific to each crisis. Among these crises were:

- The Tunisian university crisis

This consisted in the rising discord and tension that peaked during the events of spring 1968, and the university’s experiencing a deep crisis which nearly compromised its very existence and its scientific and cognitive heritage in the 1970s and up to the mid-1980s

- Clashes with the UGTT

The crisis culminated when a general strike was called for 26 January 1978. The strike did take place. The call gave rise however to clashes between the forces of law and order and the demonstrators, and led to the intervention of the Army. Many people were left dead and wounded.

- Crisis in the autocratic system

The autocratic system ran into trouble in the late 1960s, due to the isolation of the leadership, the narrowing of horizons, the closing to people with critical ideas of all channels of expression, and the marginalizing of a great number of skilled people. The crisis worsened when a struggle for succession broke out after Bourguiba’s first heart trouble, on 14 March 1975. Manifestations of political opposition multiplied after this with Bourguiba’s continued refusal to grant political pluralism, or to accept any idea of the autonomous development of civil society. Many political movements flourished in the 1970s, with very diverse names, callings and ideologies.

The autocratic system was unable to adjust to this new political situation. It merely wore itself out catching up with events, with instant reactions and solutions that papered over the cracks, without ever believing that it should make the transition to a multi-party system, in harmony with the local and international spirit. This gave rise to successive explosions – once with the January 1978 crisis, and then again two years later, in January 1980, with the armed rebellion in the Gafsa region, orchestrated by a group of expatriate Tunisians with Arab nationalist leanings, supported by foreign parties. The result of all this was an unproductive period and Hédi Nouira’s retirement from politics, for health reasons.

• Legacy, and series of disillusionments (1980-1987)

Unlike the 1970s, when the economic requirements had priority over social considerations, the state was now paying most of its attention to educational and cultural issues. Political stances now responded to this side of things, and the activities of political groups acting under the cover of religion mushroomed.

This situation, unique in the history of contemporary Tunisia, had two results:

- a stifling socio-economic crisis that nearly crippled the foundations of the state in the year 1984-5, when all the balances became seriously dysfunctional. The general crisis that followed (1985-6) was one of quasi-bankruptcy, and total collapse

- a political instability made worse by the fight over the succession, which, because of religious extremism, very nearly had the most harmful effects on the stability and security of the state.
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• The fight for succession

There were many parties involved in this struggle; its manifestations were diverse and its victims many. The race for power was not restricted to the ministers only but involved all the elements that made up the political class and civil society.

Over those twenty years, the pretenders to the succession made use of all the means and artifices to hand to win the struggle and eliminate their unwelcome adversaries, particularly by trying to get close to Bourguiba and win his trust by outrageously glorifying his person, thus enshrining the personality cult and the personal power that Bourguiba wished to cling on to for as long as possible.

In the collective memory of the Tunisians, Bourguiba will be remembered as the man who did a great deal for Tunisia, who led the nationalist movement with brio and wisdom, who founded the modern Tunisian state, who carried out historic reforms such as making education universal and emancipating women, and who bequeathed to posterity an exceptional legacy, especially in the social field.