Tunisia's Man of the Hour:
IRVINE, KEITH
Profile of Habib Bourguiba Tunisia's Man of the Hour By Keith Irvine ONTO THE thick carpets of the elegant Hotel Matignon, off the Parisian Champs Elysees, stepped? one fine Spring day—a...
...He has a passion for newspapers, which he devours voraciously...
...From Brittany and Chantilly he followed every turn of the struggle for independence, remaining constantly in telephonic touch with the other Neo-Destour leaders...
...He was placed in complete isolation in a Tunisian military prison...
...Good humor is a keynote of his personality...
...he was handed over to the Italians as a possible tactical weapon against the French...
...Nicholas at Marseilles...
...His family was of Libyan origin and his father, before being axed by the French, was an officer in the Tunisian army...
...So we have never trusted them...
...In Paris his life was filled with study and discussion...
...An enlightened Moslem and a liberal democrat, basing his support upon the strong Tunisian trade-union movement, Bourguiba's aim, should he come to power, will be first and foremost to make Tunisia independent in fact as well as in title...
...He was placed in a guarded house at Tabarka but the French, uneasy in their minds, moved him from place to place...
...In America he established contact with the CIO and the AFL...
...He will face many problems, including famine conditions among his people...
...He also emerged as a forceful orator and, eventually, became the most powerful and popular speaker in the country...
...But this good luck did not hold...
...Frequenting the libraries, living near the Boulevard St...
...Perhaps as a result of French propaganda, Americans often experience qualms of foreboding regarding the alleged growth of Communist influence in North Africa...
...In between bis stretches in prison, he lives from hand to mouth with no thought of his own comfort or security...
...Realizing that the old Destour was merely the party of the military and professional class, he founded the Neo-Destour to enlist the support of the whole Tunisian nation and not merely that of the literate class...
...at the same time that they took Bourguiba into custody, lent a certain color to the French allegations...
...He had little time to collect briefs, however, for he straightaway threw himself into militant political action...
...In successfully welding together the interests of the nationalist intellectual with the aspirations of the Tunisian people as a whole, he rendered Tunisian independence not only eventually possible but inevitable...
...With peace restored once more, he was freed but kept "under surveillance...
...Bourguiba speaks two languages...
...In the confusion which followed the Allied liberation of Tunisia, the French thought to pay off old scores and tried to execute him...
...Pakistan...
...remonstrated one...
...In 1932 he joined the old Destour party...
...seated amid a large circle, he will turn and, gesturing energetically, cry: "Come in...
...near Paris, although the capital itself was forbidden him...
...Mathilde, the daughter of French tradespeople...
...replied Bourguiba smiling...
...On this score, one prominent Neo-Destour leader recently expressed himself as follows: "Most Communists who come to Tunisia are French...
...Negotiations with the French were resumed, only to be broken off once more the following year...
...In 1934, a fateful year for Europe...
...As tension and violence waxed in North Tunisia, he was sent to the South: then to the Isle of La Galite off the Tunisian coast: then to the Isle de Groix off the coast of Brittany...
...But on this subject he is cautious...
...Whether this favorable circumstance permits a sound friendship to be built between the United States and the new Tunisia depends primarily upon the tact and understanding exercised by the framers of American policy during the next few years...
...At this time, also, he and his associates founded their own publication, L'Action Tunisienne, which took part in an energetic campaign against Tunisians who accepted French citizenship...
...the United States...
...Sit down...
...From there he traveled on to Egypt, where he set up headquarters at an office in Cairo...
...Whereas they had been comparatively tolerant in their dealings with the old Destour, they paid Bourguiba the compliment of arresting him and his entire committee, and of transporting them to a concentration camp in the desert...
...His son, who speaks English, translates the relevant parts of the New York Times to him every day...
...That is the standard of Arab hospitality, and Bourguiba respects it...
...In 1927, after three years, he returned to his native country with a French wife...
...did nothing to lessen his pleasure...
...the organization's Secretary General —is its dominant personality...
...During his imprisonment, both were sold to feed his family, and pa) for his son's education...
...Foreign policy and defense would remain, for the time being, under French control...
...Furthermore, although after independence a policy of cooperation with France will be followed, Tunisia's primary allegiance will, of course, be towards the Arab League...
...We have noticed that, invariably, in their attitude towards Tunisian affairs, they remain Frenchmen first and Communists second...
...Young Habib was sent to the Sadiki college in Tunis, then went on to Paris to study law and political science at the Sorbonne...
...In all his 52 years it was the first time that he, as the Neo-Destour leader, had been officially called upon to negotiate with the French Government...
...But each time Bourguiba has diverted the money to forward the cause of independence...
...Dressed as a Bedouin tribesman, he was smuggled out of the country in a small boat...
...Perhaps this is because be demands of himself even more than he asks of others...
...Nor can Bourguiba bring himself to shut his door to anyone...
...His wife endures, in this respect, more than another wife would stand...
...Many a time he has emptied his pockets to aid a friend...
...On April 9 the French colons rejoiced to see martial law declared, and the Neo-Destour organization completely smashed...
...Although there may only be enough to eat for two people, if 30 come all share alike...
...Since then his followers have several times raised enough money to buy him a new house—even a luxurious one...
...Habib Bourguiba was born in 1903 at Monastir in Tunisia...
...April 22 was a day unlike any other in the life of Habib Bourguiba...
...Early to bed, Bourguiba never drinks, but smokes three cigarettes a day...
...He sailed east for three days, landing on the Libyan coast...
...To seek friends for Tunisia, he visited countries where he would be sure of finding sympathy for Tunisia's light for freedom?India...
...Sala Ben Yusuf...
...Two years later, with the city of Tunis in a ferment and Leon Blum's Front...
...who proved friendly to Tunisian aspirations...
...Should the Faure Government's agreement be ratified, however, Tunisia would only achieve internal autonomy...
...He wrote for several papers, but his articles in the Arab Journal La Voix du Tunisien attracted particular attention...
...Indo-China, and, in 1947...
...French action in arresting the leaders of the tiny Tunisian Communist party in January 1952...
...Bourguiba, however, did not wish to be watched...
...When the Germans occupied Vichy in 1943...
...For an active fellow nationalist, Bourguiba will do everything in his power...
...Two years before, at the age of 19, he had already demonstrated his bent for political action by taking part in nationalist demonstrations organized by the old Destour...
...Finally, there is no doubt that most of Bourguiba's contacts with America, whether through the American Consul who saved his life or through the American labor leaders who backed his cause, have been of hopeful augury for the future...
...In January 1952 Bourguiba was once more arrested, this time by the Schuman Government...
...Like most of the petty bourgeois of North Africa, the Bourguiba family lived in a modest home, surrounded by a small tract of characteristically infertile ground bearing only a few olive trees...
...The French have since tried to use this circumstance to discredit Bourguiba as a "Fascist...
...one fine Spring day—a cheerful, solidly-built man with a fez on his head...
...Tell us what you have to say...
...In 1951 he again visited America, and also Britain, where he spoke over the BBC and established contact with the Bevan branch of the Labor party...
...In 1940 he was removed to the Fort St...
...The nation is Tunisia, and the man is Habib Bourguiba, strong man of the Tunisian party of independence, the feared and famous Neo-Destour...
...While it is too early to speak of the future status of the NATO base that the French maintain at Bizerta, it is hardly likely that Tunisians will favor its continuance under French control...
...when he was permitted to move to Chantilly...
...Although his Arabic is colloquial (for he is in full possession of the idiom of the people), he is also well acquainted with classical Arabic...
...The people must speak first, through a properly constituted electoral system ("Destour" means "Constitution...
...The party's militants were tortured and beaten, the leaders roughed up and imprisoned...
...Hoping that he would prove a thorn in the French side, the Italians had him sent back to Tunisia once more...
...Michel, his life differed little from that of generations of students who go to Paris to suckle learning at the very breast of Western civilization...
...He is never happier than when talking politics in the midst of a large gathering...
...With him went the hopes of a nation struggling back to a twentieth-century rebirth...
...Today their only child, Habib Bourguiba Jr., who was until recently living in New York, is himself married to a Tunisian girl, also from Monastir...
...How will you pay your hotel bill now...
...He also likes cooking, and will fearlessly enter the kitchen to prepare a meal for the assembled company...
...Should he see a newcomer standing shyly on the threshold, Bourguiba will notice him...
...Bourguiba himself, suffering from a throat ailment to which he has constantly been subject, was not physically maltreated...
...That the call came from Edgar Faure—reluctantly obliged to dance to the tune called by his energetic predecessor...
...Here he remained until July 1954...
...For, after 13 years of prison and exile, to Bourguiba the summons to the Hotel Matignon meant that Tunisian independence at last appeared to be approaching realization...
...On his Atlantic island, no less than when imprisoned in the desert, traveling abroad, or organizing political action in Tunis or Cairo, he symbolized to the people of Tunisia the heart and the head of the independence movement...
...He built a modern political movement...
...The French even went so far as to contact Bourguiba as the voice of the independence party...
...Repression returned with the Chautemps regime of 1938...
...Habib Bourguiba would appear to be not unlike Simon Bolivar in the degree of affection and enthusiasm that he inspires among his followers...
...Pierre Mendes-France...
...In 1949 he returned to Tunisia to direct opposition to French rule...
...Arabic and French...
...Populaire in power, the prisoners were released...
...One might suppose that it could be taken for granted that he will become the leader of his country once independence is achieved...
...When he first settled down as a lawyer in Tunis, he had a small bouse and a little Citroen car...
...But his life was saved by the intercession of the American Consul in Tunis, Hooker A. Doolittle, and he was kept in Tunis until 1945...
...his long years of imprisonment, while they have weakened his health, have not embittered his spirit...
...The measure of the Neo-Destour's effectiveness was the immediate French reaction to it...
...For him, the cause is everything...
...Upon his return to Tunis, Bourguiba set up as a lawyer...
...Don't worry, they'll only throw me out...
...Bourguiba showed his political genius...
...There is no doubt, however, that the Neo-Destour is the dominant political party on the Tunisian scene, and that Bourguiba—together with his right-hand man...
Vol. 38 • May 1955 • No. 22
