Tunisia's Postcolonial Identity Crisis: A Key to Understanding the Lure of Extremism

Abstract

In Tunisia today - a country burdened by a weak economy and experiencing precarious security - the hotly debated question of Tunisian identity opens up a vacuum for radical groups to fill. Since its independence in 1956, Tunisia has been through three major historic chapters, each offering strikingly different views of Tunisian identity: the era of Habib Bourguiba (1957-1987), of Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali (1987-2011), and the revolutionary period that began in 2011. While the dictatorships of Bourguiba and Ben Ali were characterized by a top-down approach and a repression of all opposition, the post-2011 period of democracy and freedom of speech has allowed Tunisians to conduct grass-roots discussions of what they identify with. Different identity cards have been played in the newly introduced electoral game, however, which makes defining what it means to be Tunisian a divisive practice indeed.