Tunisian perspectives – Wikipedia

Tunisian perspectives , also known as Perspectives or the movement of El amal ettounsi (The Tunisian worker of the title of his newspaper) is a political movement of the left and extreme left which is considered to be one of the main Tunisian opposition movements in the 1960s and 1970s.

Origin [ modifier | Modifier and code ]

The movement originated in the world of Tunisian students living in Paris in the late 1950s and the early 1960s ^{[ first ]} . At that time, the Central Union Student, the General Union of Students of Tunisia (UGET), was led by Destourian students close to the regime even if students from the various left trends took up more and more space. The drop in popularity of President Habib Bourguiba following the bizerte crisis ^{[ 2 ]} , the hardening of the regime following the attempted conspiracy against the president Bourguiba in 1962 and the prohibition of the Tunisian communist party are all conditions which promote the dissemination of left ideas in the Tunisian student movement ^{[ 3 ]} . To this is added the rise of the left and third-world movements internationally and the growing adhesion of student spheres to these ideals ^{[ 4 ]} .

In 1961, left -wing Tunisian students won the Parisian section of the UGET section where they published a publication, Al-ITIHAD . In 1963, in the eleventh Congress of Uget, left-wing students won the section again, but the urn disappears mysteriously and the newspaper of the neo-Destour, Tunisian action Announces a victory for Destouriens students. As the left group disputes the results, its members, who count, among other things, Mohamed Charfi, Ahmed Smaoui and Khemaïs Chammari, are excluded from the UGET. They then decided to form an independent group, the group of studies and socialist action in Tunisia (Geast) and publish a review entitled Perspectives Then Tunisian perspectives . This review, the first issue of which appeared in December 1963, will become the symbol of this movement ^{[ 5 ]} .

1963-1966: Période du Spirit [ modifier | Modifier and code ]

The Geast, which is made up of activists belonging to various left -wing tendencies, is independent of any political party at first and affirms that its objective is to carry out economic, political, social and cultural studies on Tunisia. However, membership of socialist ideals is clearly reflected in the analyzes of Tunisian perspectives And the reform projects that the review offers. The Geast thus militates openly for the independence of the UGET with regard to the regime ^{[ 6 ]} .

In 1964, in the village of Cherahil, near the city of Moknine in the Tunisian Sahel, the militants of the Geast came initially to participate in a UGET congress held a meeting during which it was decided to relocate the center of severity of Paris to install it in Tunisia. The movement is structured with a central committee and cells in the various institutions and university cities. Funding is based on the donations of sympathizers and the payment by each activist of 4% of his income. Review Tunisian perspectives , disseminated clandestinely, gaining popularity as the geast settles in the Tunisian university ^{[ 7 ]} .

The February 15, 1965 , Tunisian students demonstrate to protest against their study conditions. The demonstration which brings together between 500 and 700 students is repressed by the police. The geast who has not led this movement covers him largely in one of the number of Tunisian perspectives And thus increases his notoriety in the student environment.

The December 14, 1966 , two students are arrested by the police following an altercation with an agent of the National Transport Company (SNT). This arrest triggers a protest movement which turns to the riot and 200 students are arrested by the police; Nine of them are brought to justice and convicted, among them are five geast leaders. The movement is then radicalized and the slogans and articles of Tunisian perspectives become more and more critical. In parallel, the Geast, who had already opened the pages of his review to activists from the Tunisian Communist Party and Trotskyists like Gilbert Naccache, also opens the way for membership. The Geast also opens up to Arab nationalists and does not openly refute the idea of ​​adhesion of its members to the Socialist Party Destourien (PSD) in power since the latter officially declared himself socialist, even if this idea made Debate within the movement ^{[ 8 ]} .

1967-1968: Maoist period [ modifier | Modifier and code ]

From 1966, Maoist ideas began to spread within the Geast. The idea of ​​cultural revolution appeals to young student activists, as is the case around the world ^{[ 9 ]} . Furthermore, the heavy defeat of the Arab armies in the face of Israel in the same period causes a collapse of the Panarabist ideology and the activists of the nationalist and Arabist currents find in Maoism an ideological refuge. The editorial line of Tunisian perspectives Change from June 1967. A membership in the ruling party was now over and the idea of ​​a gathering of abandoned lefts. Revolutionary ideology, the fight against imperialism and bourgeois domination become recurring rhetorics. Tunisian perspectives pass from the journal to the newspaper ^{[ ten ]} .

The movement also changes its mode of action by using the manifestations more in order to come into contact with the popular classes. THE June 6, 1967 , he participated in the organization of a demonstration in the center of Tunis, which starts from the premises of the UGET to arrive at the United Kingdom Embassy and at the United States Cultural Center. One of the activists, Ahmed Ben Jannet, is arrested and sentenced to twenty years of work forced by the Military Court of Tunis; 19 other activists are also sentenced to prison terms ^{[ 11 ]} . The heavy sentence pronounced initially dissuades activists who reinvest university. Thus, on November 17, the activists of the Geast and the Tunisian Communist Party led a student strike against the Vietnam War. The position against this war becomes a constant for the militants of the Geast with the adhesion in the Maoist current ^{[ twelfth ]} .

The 10 and January 11, 1968 , violence again shakes up Tunisian University with the protest of students against the visit of the American vice-president Hubert Humphrey. The movement, whose central committee is no longer composed exclusively of students, takes an active part in this movement.

In March 1968, the Geast mobilized within the University but this time in order to release Ben Jannet. The activist’s liberation committee launched on March 13 a call to students to put pressure on the regime: a four -day strike is started from March 15. During the strike, general meetings are multiplying and leaflets are disseminated in institutions and university homes. The regime reacts by the repression of the movement: the militants of the Geast, the Communists and the sympathizers of the two movements are stopped by the hundreds. After the investigations, 69 activists and fourteen communists were translated to the State Safety Court on September 16 in what is one of the major Tunisian trials ^{[ 13 ]} .

The trial results in sentences ranging from financial fines to sentences of sixteen and a half in prison ^{[ 11 ]} . The imprisonment of leaders weakens the movement which is also crossed by intestine struggles between the proponents of the various ideological lines. The divisions are felt as well among the exiles of the movement in Paris as in the debates between the recluses of the Tunisian jails ^{[ 14 ]} .

1970-1975: Resumption of activities [ modifier | Modifier and code ]

The failure of the cooperative experience in Tunisia pushes the president Bourguiba to a self-criticism and a questioning of the regime which results in a certain openness. Thanks to this opening, communist and perspective activists including Ahmed Ben Jannet, Salah Zghidi and Khemaïs Chammari were released in early 1970 ^{[ 15 ]} . The Geast changes its name to become prospects – the Tunisian worker, names of his two newspapers published in France and circulating clandestinely in Tunisia. Tunisian perspectives is always published in French and is aimed at intellectuals and students; The Tunisian worker ( El amal ettounsi ) the first issue of which appeared in July 1969 was published in Arabic and is rather addressed to workers and popular classes. The latter newspaper does not hesitate to use the Tunisian dialect to stay as close as possible to the people ^{[ 16 ]} .

Until 1972, the movement was confined to the dissemination of its newspapers where it presented left ideas. The Uget Congress in Korba and the student revolt of February 5, 1972 gave the movement the opportunity to resume the challenge. He also takes part in workers’ movements during strikes that multiply in the country. So, The Tunisian worker moved from police violence suffered by SNT agents during the strike of May 2, 1973 . The perspectivists accentuate in this period the dissemination of leaflets and the movement begins to attract popular classes. He also managed to get out of the capital by installing illegal cells in Bizerte, Sousse, Sfax, Gafsa and Kairouan ^{[ 17 ]} .

This renewed popularity is not to the taste of the regime, especially since the tone of The Tunisian worker is increasingly hostile or even violent towards Bourguiba. In 1973, Tunisian police arrested Belgian student Francis Laveaux at the airport because he transported 600 copies of the newspaper; He is sentenced to a prison sentence ^{[ 11 ]} . In August of the same year, Bourguiba, during a meeting with Tunisian workers abroad, attacks the movement and qualified its members as “virus”. The speech is felt as a signal by the Tunisian police who launched an arrest campaign in the ranks of the prospects. More than 1,000 activists and sympathizers of the movement were arrested before December, 205 of them are tried by the State Security Court with 17 activists from the Tunisian Marxist-Leninist Group (GMLT) in a large trials which is held on August 5, 1974 ^{[ 18 ]} .

The trial, better known as the trial of El amal ettounsi , is translated among other sentences by 81 condemnations in absentia to prison sentences ranging from two to twelve years, forty convictions to prison sentences from one to ten years and 54 convictions to suspended prison sentences ranging from a at ten years old ^{[ 11 ]} .

The movement, already undermined by intestine ideological struggles, beheaded by arrests and subjected to the test by the repression of the regime, implodes in 1975 and ends up dividing into three groups ^{[ 19 ]} :

To qualify ambiguous relations and ambivalent position with regard to Bourguiba and his social project, Noureddine Ben Khedhr, one of the founders of the Perspective Movement qualifies the prospects of “illegitimate children of Bourguiba” ^{[ 20 ]} . The movement is radically opposed to the character and mocked him by calling him as a “supreme actor”. Bourguiba had initially tolerated the movement and recognized the quality of his publications. In the repressive phases, he behaves in a paternalistic way with the militants whom he climbed after having sentenced them to prison.

On the ideological level, the movement adheres to the project of modernist and socializing society of the president, in particular on the question of the emancipation of women and the dissemination of teaching. The movement also adheres to the president’s positions on Palestine and takes them back in its Brochure jaune In 1967, where he defended a federal state in Palestine. On the other hand, the movement is opposed to the official position of Tunisia in matters of foreign policy which he considers reactionary and close to imperialism, in particular concerning Cuban and Vietnamese questions.

Several activists from the Tunisian left and far left went through the movement during their political journey: