‘A Victim of Sensible Planning’ : Tunisia Stable, Literate and Dissatisfied

This is a pretty place, without glitter or pretense. Whitewashed buildings with blue shutters reach out to the Mediterranean. Sidewalk cafes and displays of fresh-cut flowers line the downtown boulevards. In the glow of late spring, life is comfortable and unrushed.

The city and the country are in many ways the creation of Tunisia’s 82-year-old President Habib Bourguiba, who took power when the French left in 1956 and, despite the lack of natural resources, transformed this Arab backwater into a stable, literate nation that has enjoyed steady economic growth.

By spending as little as 2% of his gross national product on defense, Bourguiba was able to channel most of Tunisia’s resources into social services. Life expectancy has increased from 30 years to 55 years, 90% of the school-age children are in school, the literacy rate has reached 65% and in a typical year a third of the budget is allocated to education.

A Critical Look at Life

But the education Tunisia has provided for its young people has enabled them to take a critical look at their lot in life; and in the crowded cafes on Bourguiba Avenue, where educated but unemployed young men idle away their days and nights sipping coffee, the conversation tends to focus on a troubling topic: If the system cannot accommodate us, then surely it must be changed.

Unemployment runs as high as 30% in Tunisia, Western economists say, and underemployment much higher.

The agriculture-based economy has not expanded fast enough to provide the jobs required by the increasingly well-educated Tunisians. The admirable social services provided by the government have attracted too many people to the cities.

The government’s emphasis on agriculture has meant that Tunisia is susceptible to marketing and pricing standards set abroad, to the whims of nature and to other forces it cannot control.

“This is a government that has done everything right, and yet nothing is turning out exactly as it should,” said a Western economist. “Everything considered, Tunisia has a lot to be proud of, but the bottom line, I think, is that there is no blueprint of development that guarantees success in the Third World. In a sad sort of way, Tunisia has become a victim of sensible planning.”

The young people, whose riots over food prices in 1984 were widely viewed as an expression of dissatisfaction with the government, complain that politicians are no longer responsive to the individual, that creativity is stifled by what is in effect a one-party system, that there are too few opportunities and too much corruption.

The older generation responds to the young people’s restiveness much as American parents did in the turbulent 1960s. Look at what we have built, they say. Can’t you be thankful for that? Do you want to risk losing it all?

But in Tunisia, per capita income is $1,200, and about 40% of the 7 million people live at or below the poverty line defined by the United Nations. Sixty percent of the population is under age 20 and 75% under 26.

‘Worth Listening To’

“If the young don’t see the system accommodating them, then why shouldn’t they want to change it, and change it dramatically?” a Western economist asked not long ago. “I just hope that the older generation learns the lesson we did in the States 15 years ago--that your children are worth listening to.”

There is irony--and perhaps vulnerability--in the fact that few other Arab countries have adjusted so well to the demands of the modern world. The Bourguiba government is not repressive, and it is short on rhetoric. Relatively few Muslim women wear the veil; polygamy has been prohibited since 1957. There is a human rights organization here, the first in Africa. Islam here has been a force for moderation, not a vehicle for fanaticism.

But these are the accomplishments of another generation, and almost everyone agrees that President-for-Life Bourguiba has stayed too long.