It is a long time ago when Tunisia inspired respect and admiration beyond its borders. Each passing week taints a little more the image of this country which once shone with a singular flame in the Arab-Muslim world. What remains of the prestige conferred on it by its avant-garde status in terms of civil liberties, political pluralism, women’s rights and respect for minorities? The Head of State, Kaïs Saïed, who assumed full powers in a coup in July 2021, is now imposing a most worrying repressive, conservative and xenophobic turn on him. Tunisia becomes unrecognizable.
In this case, everything is linked: the return to autocracy goes hand in hand with identity tension, both feeding on an alleged “plot” against the state and the homeland. One of the most depressing illustrations of this regression is the recent wave of anti-Black racism that has rocked the country. In the wake of President Saïed’s February 21 statement, which castigated “hordes of illegal migrants” associated in his eyes with a “criminal plan” aimed at “changing the demographic composition” of the country in rupture with its “Arab membership -Islamic”, hostility is unleashed against students and immigrants from sub-Saharan Africa.
The latter are victims of physical and verbal attacks every day in Tunis and other urban centers. The conspiratorial speech of the Head of State, with accents of the “great replacement” type, released a racism buried in the depths of Tunisian society, a legacy of slavery in North Africa, with lasting psychological consequences.
Embarrassment prevails
The eruption of this state-sanctioned xenophobia has clouded the perception of Tunisia abroad. Mr. Saïed may have tried to qualify his remarks by specifying that he was targeting immigrants in an irregular situation, the damage is done. Its brigades of followers, some of whom are affiliated with a Tunisian nationalist party with speeches and methods worthy of the European far right, hunt down sub-Saharans. The most progressive Tunisians confess their “shame” and try to organize in adversity an “anti-fascist” front. Consternation also reigns in many capitals of the continent. The African Union has “condemned” President Saied’s “shocking statements”.
In European capitals, it is rather embarrassment that prevails. While the chancelleries do occasionally express their “concern” at the decline of the rule of law in Tunisia, they have not reacted to the presidential charge against sub-Saharan migrants. And for good reason: Mr. Saïed responds rather positively to calls from Europe – first and foremost from Italy – to better lock its maritime borders in order to stem the crossings of the Mediterranean.
The padlocking of “fortress Europe”, which contributes to settling candidates for European exile in North Africa, is no stranger to the migratory tensions of which this region is the theater. Are we trying to spare Mr. Saïed in order to prevent him from “slowing down” on the surveillance of his coast? If that were the ulterior motive, it would add cynicism to an already dramatic enough record.