Rethinking anti-colonial movements and the political economy of decolonization:

The case of Tunisia

Arab Studies Quarterly, 16,1 (Winter 1994)

Arab society lives with a terrible colonial legacy. This legacy not only

consists of what European forces inflicted upon Arab lands, but it also

bears its weight through the consequences of the strategies Arabs chose

to oppose colonialism and its effects. In this essay I look at a variety

of strategies devised and their implications with the aim of learning from

these experiences in the reformulation of state building strategies for

the future.

The most devastating tools of colonization were economic penetration and

European administrative control over Arab territories which overwhelmed

economic systems of production and circulation and dislocated existing

social formations. In the years after independence from direct European

political control and the toppling of externally imposed rulers, many progressive

Arab political elites came to see the development of a centrally organized

state apparatus with extensive powers of regulation and control as the

best means for advancing to the next stage of self-determination. By promoting

modern organizations, education, and industrial development, as well as

protecting against external economic and political influences, these interventionist

states were to provide Arab society with the organizational integrity and

protected environment needed to modernize and flourish.

But this form of state-building views a diversity of organized societal

interests as counter to the national interest as constructed by the new

state elites. Such a national interest is furthered, instead, by national

unity, cohesion amongst political elites, and the construction of large-scale

hierarchical organizations. In many post-colonial Arab states--which broke

from European political control through the mobilization of nationalist

forces--the new state elites restricted political pluralism and economic

diversity and replaced them with authoritarian-corporatist, state managed

politics maintained by employing an extensive apparatus of regulation and

control as well as coordinated efforts of symbolic and ideological manipulation.

State-constructed and imposed organizations, identities, and forms of economic

production took the place of self-representation and the autonomy of societal

groups. In this political economy of societal management, as Roger Owen

describes,

People have to be mobilized, different groups integrated, oppositions contained,

by a variety of methods which range from terror and brute force (the stick)

to economic inducements (the carrot), and from the use of personal, ethnic

or group affiliations to the compulsory membership of carefully constructed

unions and professional organizations designed to keep those at work in

the mode sector strictly in their place.(1)

In much of the pre-World War II Arab World one could find expressions of

a wide range of exciting modernist political ideologies. But by the late

1960s and 1970s these newly independent Arab nations once considered on

the progressive edge of the process of modernization contained populations

alienated and demobilized by authoritarian states struggling to maintain

their claims of legitimacy as the agents of national liberation and modern

progress in the face of rising Islamic militancy, widening gaps between

the rich and poor, and economies which lacked the vitality necessary to

meet the needs of the people and the challenges of a turbulent international

economy.

We cannot accept this as the ultimate fate of Arab society or the only

modernist alternative to nativist-Islamic reactionism. While Orientalists

and contemporary social scientists have developed various explanations

for the persistence of authoritarian states and the plight of Arab society--including

features such as the historic lack of private property, the "unincorporated"

nature of society, and the notion of an Islamic political culture which

entrusts the good of the society to the guidance of a just leader(2)--these

all fail to recognize and contemplate the significance of the political

and ideological forces which presented alternative visions to that of rigid

state-corporatist hegemony over societal activity. An understanding of

these ideas becomes ever more crucial as different alternative visions

compete to rebuild or replace the formulas of the national liberation movements

which have outlived their usefulness.(3)

Therefore, following Robert Bianchi's observation that: "... state corporatism

appears to be more a choice and initiative of fairly autonomous elites

than a necessary or reluctant response to forces beyond their control,"(4)

it is revealing to trace in history the development of political elites'

strategies and ideologies of political organization. Using Tunisia as a

case study, this essay explores how state corporatist and authoritarian-hierarchial

strategies, as well as alternatives to them, were formulated in the context

of the colonial experience, as a response to economic penetration, the

disruption of indigenous societal formations, and the frenzied confrontation

with European modernity--its ideas, strategies, and forms of power and

representation which colonialism produced.

This essay begins with an overview of the processes of pre-colonial state

reform, economic penetration, and colonization which led to the extensive

dismembering of pre-existing forms of social organization and economic

production. In the Nineteenth Century indigenous Tunisian state and social

institutions became fractured and overwhelmed by European economic, administrative,

and military technologies. After a brief invasion in 1881, French forces

achieved colonial control of the bankrupt Tunisian state apparatus and

were thereby able to swiftly reshape and mold the administrative, spatial,

and physical terrain of Tunisia for the benefit of a new European settler

population.

By the beginning of the Twentieth Century, Tunisian society was under an

extensive system of externally imposed regulation. The economic and social

changes this reordering of society brought provided the basis for the organization

of new social and political movements. Adapting European organizational

models and ideologies as well as drawing on existing social ties and cultures,

new modernist forms of institutional resistance to colonialism began to

spring up.

Regarding the pre-independence political discourse in Tunisia, this article

demonstrates the ideological diversity which existed in terms of strategies

to counter colonial domination, including alternative modernist visions

for societal organization, reform, and development--in particular ideas

about how to (re)construct the relationship between "the state" and "society."

At the heart of this study is a presentation of the contrasting visions

and organizational strategies of the Neo-Destour nationalist party on one

hand, and the Tunisian trade unions and cooperative movements on the other.

The essential problem both strategies sought to overcome was how to counter

the powerful colonial mechanisms which created the dislocation of indigenous

social institutions and economic formations with only the use of the limited

resources and weak institutions which colonialism left behind.

The nationalists of the Neo-Destour Party sought to be the guardian of

a new Tunisian national community. The dislocating effects of colonialism

had at once weakened old social bonds and also provided the basis for the

construction of a new national identity extending across tribal, regional,

and class lines. In the anti-colonial struggle, the nationalists of the

Neo-Destour sought to "capture" the state apparatus from the French through

the development of a unified political movement held together by a network

of political and economic ties to the central nationalist leadership. The

strong ties of this rigid hierarchical structure were to provide the accumulation

of resources and the organizational integrity, then lacking in existing

social organizations, to present a broad unified challenge against the

authority and effectiveness of the French mechanisms of regulation. Once

in power, the nationalist party would alter the mechanism of state control

to benefit the Tunisian masses--reversing the trends under colonialism.

In contrast, many trade unionists and cooperative movements were guided

by the goal of rebuilding and strengthening the social and economic microinstitutions

of society which were so easily devastated by French colonialism. They

presented an alternative vision of political organization and modernization

based around sets of autonomous societal institutions which could promote

local efforts of social reform throughout the population and support development

through the use of smaller, decentralized units of cooperative production.

Instead of developing large-scale hierarchically integrated networks, they

developed communities of associations which were more self-reliant: relying

on their own economic and organizational resources, thus avoiding the need

for domineering centralized institutions. Federations of these units could

coordinate collective action and mutual aid between unions and cooperatives

without cohesion. Their vision of independence was one of societal pluralism

where the state structures would coordinate the interaction between autonomous

societal institutions.

Both models were potentially viable strategies invented in the context

of colonialism to counter the effects of French colonial interventions

and the reordering of Tunisian social and economic life. It was the political

coordination of their complementarities during the confrontations with

French forces which provided both the strength and flexibility to maintain

the integrity of the struggle. But, I conclude, in the post-colonial era,

the nationalist party fostered state building along the lines of its centralized

hierarchical strategy, and--using these new mechanisms of control and their

access to new resources--exploited the flexibility, weak ties, and limited

resources of the trade unions and cooperatives to establish state corporatist

hegemony over them.

EARLY MODERNIZATION AND COLONIALISM: ORDERING AND REORDERING THE STATE

AND SOCIETY

Although the modern states in the Arab East are often considered "artificial,"(5)

the organization of a political entity having exclusive authoritative control

over a roughly defined contiguous territory has existed in Tunisia since

the Medieval period.(6) In the late Sixteenth Century, Ottoman military

officers established an autonomous dynasty in the area which was only briefly

under direct Ottoman rule thereby ending the cyclical conquest of Tunis

by different rural vibes as described by Ibn Khaldun. While formally loyal

to the Ottoman Sultan, the rulers of Tunisia had "independent diplomatic,

political, and commercial relations" with European powers and autonomous

control over their internal affairs.(7)

While in the process of slowly changing during most of this period, the

Tunisian state was only loosely connected to the people and institutions

of indigenous Tunisian society. Its army and administration were run by

mamluks, a "slave" class mostly acquired as children in other parts of

the Ottoman Empire and raised in the rulers' households to be loyal servants.

Importantly, the state did not have to rely predominantly on the productive

capacity of society from which to extract its operating resources. Though

the vast majority of the population was rural, the taxation of agricultural

production along the accessible coastal Sahil region consisted of around

40% of state revenues in 1800. These taxes were collected through occasional

military campaigns which often did not venture far into the tribal lands

of the southern interior.(8) The state gained the rest of its revue from

privateering (often run by European converts) and the taxation revenues

collected from long distance trade through control over urban markets,

coinage, and maritime trading routes.(9) Lacking a harsh predatory nature,

then, the Tunisian state may be described as a "garrison state" where intervention

in society was intermittent as needed and its surveillance ability outside

the urban areas minimal.(10)

Pre-Colonial State Reforms

Though short lived, Napoleon's occupation of Egypt in 1798 had a profound

impact on the Ottomans as they were forced to realize the considerable

military prowess of the European armies. In 1830 the French began their

occupation and eventual colonization of Algeria. Together with the suppression

by European forces of privateering in the Mediterranean and the decline

and rerouting of long distance trade, the Tunisian garrison state was threatened.

More focused on the military threats than the economic ones, though, the

ruler or bey of Tunisia, Ahmad Bey sought a path of military modernization.

Patterned after Ottoman Tanzimat efforts, the first military reforms in

Tunisia began in the 1830s. Ahmad Bey was enthusiastic about military affairs

and this was the central feature of the pattern of state building referred

to as "defensive modernization." The nizam al-jadid or "new order" of the

military was built with the help of European advisors and at its peak organized

a standing army of 26,000 men, who were recruited locally. They were organized

and drilled using modern European techniques, weapons, and uniforms. To

support this project a military school was started to train officers and,

at great cost, textile, small arms, and cannon factories were built.(11)

The military logic guiding modernization showed a lack of concern for economic

sustainability. To pay for these reforms as well as three new palaces,

the state relied on increased levels of tax extraction without concern

for increased production. The intermittent taxation of the garrison state

now expanded to attempt continuous forms of taxation such as custom duties,

export licenses, regularized taxes on the production of wheat, barley,

olive oil, and dates.(12) Furthermore, "all fruits and vegetables sold

at market were subject to taxes as were, for the first time, all marketed

animals."(13) Additionally, the state required that all soap, tobacco,

salt and leather be sold through it.(14) The tax burden on agricultural

production, in which the majority of the population was engaged, increased

to 50%-70% of state revenue.(15)

The state could no longer expect to collect these taxes without more authoritative

state agents operating from positions within society. This began a process

of building and extending an organizational structure of "state officials"

throughout society. Reliance on the army decreased and village notables

and tribal shaykhs were recruited to assist the state efforts. The existing

system of qa'ids, or governors, was expanded giving them increased authority

for collecting taxes and keeping the peace in the rural areas.(16)

The tremendous fiscal burden of the reforms was made worse by poor economic

conditions. As a result, state revenues declined and the military project

was scaled back. Muhammad Bey, Ahmed Bey's successor, abandoned the regular

army completely. Muhammad Bey's economic problems continued, however. He

was forced to take out loans from Europeans and grant legal and property

rights to non-Tunisians and Jews. Through these agents the commercialization

of the indigenous Tunisian economy began. Indigenous production of crafts

decreased and they were replaced by European manufactured imports.

Muhammad al-Sadiq, who became bey in 1959, revived reform including rebuilding

the army with increased recruitment as well as drafting a constitution.

But the state was not economically sustainable. In 1857 many of the taxes

on goods were replaced by a steep head tax, or majba, on the rural population

which by the late 1850s alone accounted for 50% of state revenue.(17) By

1863 it was necessary to take out larger loans from European sources. But

the already steep majba tax was not enough to cover these payments and

was doubled. When the administration attempted to collect it, it quickly

discovered the political limit of this form of predatory state financing.

A large scale tribal rebellion broke out in 1864, threatening the stability

of the bey's rule as well as his tax base. The bey then turned to large

scale external lending to keep the state afloat.

In the era before French colonization, new military and bureaucratic technologies

were used to construct and foster a predatory state in Tunisia. Attempting

to counter the military threat of Europe, military modernization institutionalized

a new instability: fiscal crises. While such threats were perceived by

Ibn Khaldun, they were seen as a consequence of urban decadence and decay.

It now became a structural feature of the process of reform during this

period which ended in increased Tunisian dependence and vulnerability to

European forces.

It was at this time (1867) that the Tunisian statesman and former minister

Khayr al-Din wrote his The Surest Path which argued for reforms which would

establish a more positive state--one that was not predatory, but accountable

and justly guided.(18) He wanted to reduce despotism and the predatory

taxes which were used to maintain the regime's military expenditures and

corrupt ruling practices. But only some of Khayr al-Din's policies were

ever enacted. The legacy of Khayr al-Din demonstrated an alternative path

to modernization conceived in the middle of the Nineteenth Century which

was European strength not simply in its military might but its bureaucratic,

fiscal, and political organization.

By 1866 the Tunisian state was bankrupt and could not pay its debts. It

was forced to submit to the International Financial Commission. The predatory

state seemed unconcerned with the plight of its indigenous economy which,

devastated by the increased tax burden, decreased production during this

period and this created more opportunities for foreign economic agents.

French government interest in Tunisia increased as the number of European

settlers increased, commercial trading relations and market penetration

expanded, and more Europeans received contracts for public works projects.

The Colonial Reconstruction of the Tunisian State

With these commercial stakes, France did not wish to risk further destabilization

of the regime and in 1881 moved 30,000 troops from Algeria into Tunisia

to establish political control over the ruling bey, expanding France's

arena of commercial colonization into a land "thought to be richer and

more prosperous than Algeria."(19) French officials took up major administrative

posts and through what was officially designated a "protectorate" effectively

guided the state's social and economic policies.

At this point, a colonial process of state formation and societal transformation

began the creation of a new "sustainable" colonial order in Tunisia. Ahmed

Bey and most pre-colonial Tunisian state officials were concerned with

the state as an institution which needed to protect itself from external

military and political threats. But the state system built under the French

was not simply expanded but reconstructed (in a way the military reforms

of the beys never considered) with the purpose of regulating, monitoring,

and transforming society. The new state sought to order society, land use,

and spacial networks--to create an effective infrastructure for European

economic extraction and production.

The regulation of economic and social activity benefitted the European

settlers, referred to as colons, and built up a sustainable settler population.

The pre-colonial "order" of the indigenous political, economic, and social

institutions was devastated, fragmented, and disorganized by the protectorate's

policies and the activities of the colons.(20) This was a form of colonization

using the regulatory technologies of state (not simply direct coercion)

for sustained surveillance, management, and societal engineering.

The job of societal transformation which the protectorate pursued was facilitated

by the existing network of qa'ids and local officials which had been established

as semi-autonomous agents of the state. For the most part, French colonialism

operated through the same existing network of traditional officials. In

fact, the average rural Tunisian rarely saw the French face of the colonial

state.

While conscription had existed in the legal codes and a previous bey once

attempted a census of the able-bodied, French resources and administration

were able to quickly impose an extensive French style conscription which

provided for a Tunisian police force and army under French control. At

once this strengthened the coercive capability of the Tunisian state and

"extended the ability of the government to intervene in the life of nearly

every Tunisian family"(21) as the state replaced kinship ties and economic

trade as the system which regulated the activity of young men.

The establishment of "technical" bureaucracies brought French educational,

technical, and legal systems to Tunisia. This expanded the opportunities

of some elite Tunisians to become technically vained, but they were not

allowed to hold influential posts in these ministries. Most importantly

these gave the state the technologies and control to indirectly regulate

and manipulate social and economic activity.

Reordering the Economy and Society

While the British in Africa often created and fostered what were considered

traditional institutions such as tribal formation and ethnic division as

a means to divide and rule, the French control over a considerable state

apparatus, their interest in settler colonization, and lack of major organized

resistance allowed for the French to almost blindly ignore and pave over

existing tribal and kinship political ties and indigenous institutions

of collective property and economic relations. The protectorate created

economic incentives to encourage French immigration to Tunisia for the

purpose of expanding French control of the bureaucracy and allowing the

colons to benefit from the local economy. In the process, existing Tunisian

institutions were dismembered and superseded.

Land Ownership and Use. Before the rise of commercial farming, land was

never scarce and most of it was collectively owned through traditional

institutions now decaying under colonialism. Much was owned by the state

(often through confiscation). As much as 40% of the arable land was collectively

owned and managed by administrators or religious institutions (hubus).

Land that was privately owned (mulk) was often owned by tribes or villages

regulated by agreed customs. Lands were poorly marked with vague boundaries

and deeds were unregistered. Many private land owners in the pre-colonial

era tried to disguise the amount of land they owned to prevent its confiscation

by the bey.(22) This system was easily exploited by French capital and

regulations which quickly transformed the existing land tenure system.

In 1885 the French introduced the Torrens system of land registration under

which land disputes would be heard by French courts.(23) This gave European

land speculators the security they required to start buying Tunisian land,

often at the expense of Tunisians. The creation of a real-estate market

started the breakdown of the traditional system of collectively-owned land

(by tribes, the bey, and Islamic institutions), the basis for rural social

and economic organization.

The protectorate also undertook ambitious infrastructure improvements to

encourage rural agricultural development by colons. Road, train, and communications

systems were established to facilitate the movement of colons and their

produce from their farms to the urban markets and the sea ports, which

were also improved. This reshaped the spacial networks of economic flows

leading to the decline of the interior sections of Tunisia which previously

had played an important role in economic circulation.

The policy of "private colonization" was based on providing incentives

to private French farmers who acquired and exploited land. The protectorate

targeted tax exemptions to the colons by reducing taxes on those who farmed

with modem equipment and those who produced wine. Nevertheless, most of

the French land was not fully developed. It was owned by large French land

speculation firms and worked by tenant farmers or day laborers. It was

at this time (1880s-1890s) that Italians started entering the country in

large numbers. They provided the labor for many of the government infrastructure

projects, as well as for the French-owned farms. With this European immigration

of landowners and laborers, the independent Tunisian farmers "found themselves

competing for cash employment on the large (French owned) properties, while

renters saw their assessments increase rapidly."(24) In 1892 a more concerted

effort at "official colonization" was initiated. The French protectorate

began to sell off land which was considered, under Ottoman law, to be in

the "public domain" which meant under the control of the bey. Also, all

forest land and collectively owned land was henceforth considered to be

public domain land. Furthermore, a special fund, the Credit Foncier de

Tunisie, was created in 1906 to assist new settlers in buying land and

equipment. From 1892 to 1914 the amount of land owned by co[ons doubled.(25)

By one account, in 1913 over a fifth of cultivated Tunisian land was owned

by colons.(26)

Agriculture and Rural Labor. The structure of agricultural production became

more capital intensive as the transportation infrastructure in Tunisia,

market opportunities in France, and cheap land and labor in Tunisia made

wheat (a cash-crop in this case) very profitable for the colons. This also

gave big French farmers the incentive to crop marginally fertile land which

severely hurt Tunisian livestock producers who used the land for grazing.(27)

With capital and technology advantages, colons reaped great economies of

scale benefits. By 1956, according to Raymond and Poncet, Europeans farmed

plots averaging 250 hectares, while the average Tunisian farmed a plot

of less than 6 hectares.28

Lacking access to credit and technology and with much of the most fertile

land in European hands, failed Tunisian farmers formed a growing mass of

landless agriculturists who had to seek wage labor employment, driving

down wages.(29) The new economic structures even altered the indigenous

population's conception of work:

Most peasants in the so-called predominantly traditional sectors, when

interviewed, declare themselves unemployed. For the majority of the society,

which is made up of the peasantry, working the land has ceased to be a

profession and has become a non occupation.(30)

This led to a massive rural exodus toward urban areas and brought the appearance

of real unemployment. The ratio of urban Muslims to rural Muslims in 1910

was 1:17; in 1930 1:10; and in 1955 1.6.(31) Bidonvilles or shanty towns

began to appear around coastal towns in the 1920s(32) and grew in Tunis

to a population of around 10,000 in 1936; 50,000 in 1946; and 150,000 in

1956.(33) This is remarkable considering that the urban Muslim population

for all Tunisian towns (with over 20,000) was about 200,000 in 1930 and

500,000 in 1955.(34)

Trade and Craft Industries. In the Eighteenth Century, Tunisia had a flourishing

chechia (woolen cap) industry which, according to Lucette Valensi, "clearly

stands up against similar European industries at the time."(35) A treaty

in 1824 restricted Tunisia from protecting this industry and it became

vulnerable to external forces. The colonial protectorate system in the

Middle East established trade barriers among Arab regions which for centuries

enjoyed active regional trade, forcing trade to be redirected along lines

established by the colonial powers.(36) Tunisian craftsmen lost their traditional

trade routes with the Arab East. For example, between 1902 and 1913 approximately

235,000 chechias a year were exported to Egypt and what is now Libya, while

by 1939 the number dropped to 15,400.(37) More crucially, the urban artisan

and the merchant economy in Tunisia faced dislocation as European manufacturers

could cheaply produce imitations of goods which had long been the basis

of the urban economy. For example, the chechias industry shrank from between

20,000 to 6,000 workers in 1850 to only 1,000 in 1934.(38) By 1935 in Tunis

alone, according to Claude Liauzu, there were 15,000 artisans unemployed.(39)

This economic plight led to the disintegration of the urban guild system

which provided non-tribal society with one of its main forms of associational

organization.

In all, the protectorate's economic policies led to the social dislocation

of all classes of Tunisian society on a par with the processes described

in Karl Polanyi's The Great Transformation. Old social groups, guilds,

and kinship ties, the basis for pre-colonial forms of political organization

were dismembered. Individuals found themselves atomized and sliding into

new places in the social mauix constructed and regulated by French colonialism

such as the army, the urban unemployed, and the poor landless laborers.

Tahar Haddad, writing in 1927, described the social conditions of this

period:

Artisanal production has decreased, numerous professional people have gone

bankrupt and they have joined the ranks of the unemployed who in turn are

joined by the inhabitants of the southern infertile lands and by members

of the tribes who are evicted from their land by French colonialism.(40)

The social and economic impact on Tunisian society caused by the policies

of the French protectorate and the activities of the co[ons was the central

problem of several currents of political discourse in Tunisia concerned

with combating these forces and determining the proper role of the state

in promoting societal reform. Each of these currents discussed in the next

section represents an alternative political construction of the state in

terms of its relation to society and its drive for social and economic

change. The colonial experience transformed the social and economic structures

of Tunisia as well as the Tunisians' ideological constructions about the

role of "the state" and its relationship to "society." This experience

actually reshaped the very nature of these categories and gave them a new

language and tools for political change and social reform.

IDEOLOGICAL RESPONSES AND POLITICAL STRUGGLES: RECONSTRUCTING THE STATE

AND SOCIETY

The challenge of modernity requires political engagement and struggle,

as well as sustained reflection and self-criticism. Frantz Fanon, Anouar

AbdelMalek, Edward Said and others have described how the practices of

colonialism--through physical violence, economic might, and hegemonic discourses

of (mis)representation -- try to rob Arabs of their history and identity.

But these colonial practices are also closely related to the defining experiences

of Arab modernity, which consists of how Arabs reacted to these practices

and what they were able to borrow and learn from them in their own quest

for modernity.

One thing we should learn from the debate that Edward Said's work has fostered

is that the experiences of imperialism and colonialism--as well as other

forms of political, economic, and ideological interaction between the Arab

and European peoples--have permeated deep into all aspects of politics

and culture in both Europe and the Arab World. The two cannot be pulled

apart and to attempt to do so--with the purpose of recapturing what is

authentically Arab or Islamic--would be reproducing (in reverse) strategies

similar to those of imperialism and Orientalism.(41) While the political

struggles of anti-colonial movements were generally directed at forces

identified as foreign, all of their strategies were a product of intense

interaction with European ideas, institutions, and forms of power. Referring

to two institutions--modern standing armies and Lancaster method schooling--which

colonial forces constructed in Egypt, Timothy Mitchell observed that:

Anti-colonial movements have often derived their organizational forms from

the military and their methods of discipline and indoctrination from schooling.

Colonial subjects and their modes of resistance are formed within the organizational

terrain of the colonial state, rather than some wholly exterior space.(42)

Anti-colonial movements, as well as national development projects following

independence, have to operate from within a "colonized space." This means

that they inherit certain political and economic conditions, as well as

ideological and organizational forms from the experience. There is no "authentic"

space outside of this colonized space. All anti-colonial movements (as

well as postcolonial ones) pull together ideas, organizational forms, and

objectives drawn from a variety of indigenous experiences which in some

way have encountered and engaged colonialism. The anti-colonial struggle

is, thus, very much about the choice of which colonial ideas and values,

organizational and institutional forms should be borrowed, adapted, or

rejected in the process of constructing the post-colonial Arab experience.

As we have shown above, a state apparatus which manages and regulates the

social and economic activity of society was introduced to Tunisia through

a process of imitation, assimilation, and imposition of European ideas

and institutions. The impact of colonization was to break down existing

institutions (tribal, artisan, religious, beyical) into fractured pieces

of modern economic and social life: educated intellectuals, urban wage

earners, rural landless laborers, out of work artisans and the unskilled

unemployed. The anti-colonial movement sought to respond to this disintegration

by either rebuilding the old institutions or seeking to construct a modern

society from within the new landscape of social forms. In one way or another

all Tunisian political movements came to see the colonial state as the

mechanism which promoted the disintegration of Tunisian society and an

analysis of the proper role and functioning of the state was central to

all their ideologies.

Three distinct Tunisian political responses to colonialism were the Jeunes

Tunisiens, the Destour, and the Neo-Destour. Each borrowed and adapted

a different set of European ideas and organizational forms. L. Carl Brown

views these responses in terms of progressive stages of elite ideological

change leading toward a more "rational" vision which seeks to modernize

Tunisian society along a path of "Westernization."(43) On the other hand,

Lisa Anderson views these political movements in terms of how they mobilized

various social classes, with the Neo-Destour best able to build extensive

clientalist relationships and lead a broad Irased social movement which

could apply adequate pressure on the protectorate to relinquish control

over the state apparatus and the processes of state formation and social

transformation.(44)

But both these schemes fail to identify the ideology and organizational

structure of the Tunisian trade union and cooperative movements as representing

distinct alternative political visions. Both Brown and Anderson see it

as an adjunct to the nationalist movement. Brown views Tahar Haddad's contemporary

writing about the trade union movement as a progressive influence on the

thinking of the younger generation of the Destour which led to the founding

of the Neo-Destour. Anderson sees the trade union movement as a means for

mobilizing the working classes behind the nationalist movement, thereby

helping it in its struggle to capture the state.

Instead, here we seek to show that the trade union movements presented

an alternative view of how the state-society relationship and the path

of modernization should be constructed which used its organizational flexibility

and reach to assist the more rigid nationalist struggle at key periods

of stress. Cooperatives, which have played a central role in trade union

strategy from its creation, provided a model for cooperative production

and assistance which could help Tunisian society adjust to the conditions

brought about by colonialism.

THE JEUNES TUNISIENS: FOR A POSITIVE STATE

Tunisian resistance to the French invasion was fairly muted, especially

compared to the protests and battles that accompanied the French occupation

of Algeria and Morocco. There were tribal based anti-French, anti-beyical

uprisings in southern provincial towns at the time of the invasion, but

these were not sustained and never threatened French control. One reason

for this is that the Ulama--urban, orthodox Muslim leaders--did not, in

general, openly advocate or support violent armed resistance.(45) Another

reason is, as Carmel Sammut notes, that "having known the despotic regimes

of the beys, [some] thought that the French presence would put an end to

the arbitrary rule of the beys."(46)

A group of such men formed what was soon to be called the Jeunes Tunisiens

(in French "Young Tunisians" modeled after the "Young Turk" reformers)

representing the earliest organized political response to colonial rule.

They consisted of members of the old ruling mamluk aristocracy who were

some of the first to benefit from access to French education.(47) While,

as L. Carl Brown notes:

for centuries Tunisians had looked upon the government as something best

avoided since its only apparent function was to collect taxes for its own

maintenance,(48)

the Jeunes Tunisiens wanted to reconstruct the nature of the state. Critical

of the inefficient and unsustainable nature of the predatory beyical state,

the political thinking of the Jeunes Tunisiens was to seek a replacement

of despotism with the rule of law, thus making the state, and to some degree

the colonial experience, a neutral force. Instead of violently (or even

directly) resisting French colonialism, they wanted to benefit from contact

with the French in terms of access to advanced education and scientific

progress. Further, they endeavored to work within the protectorate system

to influence the policy making apparatus of the state. They sought to modify

French controlled state formation practices to allow themselves and other

Tunisians to benefit from the changes it brought. In particular they called

for equal treatment of Tunisians in the bureaucracy and the expansion of

French education throughout Tunisia at a time when the colons were beginning

to become aware of the political dangers of having an educated Tunisian

population. The Jeunes Tunisiens also supported self-help institutions

and programs, and believed such efforts--like agricultural development--could

benefit from French technology.

While this critique of the Tunisian state has roots in the thought of Ibn

Khaldun and especially Khayr al-Din and remains an element of some liberal

anti-statist discourse, the movement in this form at that time was not

sustainable as a political organization. As a small group of intellectuals,

the movement could not be organized into a powerful political force since

it made few allies within or associated with the state, the bey, nor among

the rising nationalist trends and the emerging popular classes. While their

power had waned for a while, it came to an end when the protectorate cracked

down on the Jeunes Tunisiens in 1912 after they staged a boycott of the

tram service in protest of wage discrimination. This crackdown and World

War I helped repress open political activity until 1919.

THE DESTOUR: RESTORE THE OLD ORDER

After the First World War members of mostly traditional bourgeois families

and urban intellectuals of Tunis formed the Destour ("Constitution") Party.

Many of these families had gained their wealth from mercantile capitalism

in the Mediterranean basin and rent from land tenure (privately and religiously

owned hubus lands).(49) They had the most to lose in terms of economic

power and social and political influence under the protectorate. Adopting

many of the ideological and organizational features of Eighteenth Century

European bourgeois revolutionaries, this group, including many with legal

backgrounds, attempted to reverse their fortunes, (and thus in many ways

were essentially restorationists not revolutionaries). Through the establishment

of a new Tunisian constitution and eventually independence, the Destour

sought to regain and protect the power which the traditional classes held

before the French came. As Brown describes: "Like a good lawyer concerned

with defending rather than reforming his client, the Westernized elite

of the Old Destour accepted society as they found it."(50) Unlike the Jeunes

Tunisiens and the more progressive Neo-Destour, the Destour, as a party,

had little in the way of a modernizing reform agenda and generally disliked

what the modern state had and could do. They sought to return the control

of the regulation of society to the traditional social political and economic

structures and its leadership to the traditional Figures such as the ulama,

muftis, qa'ids, aduls, and prominent merchants who had been brought under

the domination of, or co-opted by, the protectorate. Their ideology, therefore,

appealed to the classes that were dying out and the social and religious

groups which were in the process of disintegration and who thus could provide

a limited support base for this elitist movement.

The Destour, though, can be credited with the creation of the first well

organized nationalist challenge to colonialism. It provided forums--such

as a press, literary clubs, and gatherings of notables--for the expression

of discontent and exchange of strategies. It was also able, crucially,

to link together such activities with similar ones in different parts of

society including the establishment of branches in rural areas from where

the next generation of political leaders emerged. The Destour, also, was

not a "conservative monolith"(51) since "for a time it was hardly respectable

not to be a member of the Destour, and for just this reason, no political

maneuver among Tunisians was acceptable without the Destour cachet."(52)

Thus Tunisian progressive reformers in the 1920s were also members of the

Destour. Their views were distinctly a minority, but their political activities

would out-live and replace the static, conservative Destour. While some

of these reformers were more of the Jeunes Tunisiens' mold, the younger

generation of Destourians, such as Habib Bourguiba, became the leaders

of the more socially progressive Neo-Destour and supported the development

of nationalist trade unions.

NEO-DESTOUR: CAPTURE THE STATE

Once in power Bourguiba often ruled personally as the "supreme combattant"

and exerted a high level of charismatic authority. But the key to his power

was in the state structures he created to organize and channel this personal

influence. In Bourguiba's view, Albert Hourani writes:

The State must be strong, respected, standing above all sectional or personal

interests; only this could check the tendencies to individualism and disintegration

which were strong in Tunisia as in other Arab countries.(53)

In fact the basis for this authoritarian-statist ideology was not developed

after he had attained power, but was an integral part of the Neo-Destour's

pre-independence political ideology and guided their political actions

during the nationalist struggle. The ideology can, with some confidence,

be traced to the French Left at the time.(54) The Neo-Destour elite sought

to build a mass- based popular movement, uniting the oppressed classes

behind a strong disciplined organization with a tight centralized hierarchical

leadership.

Led by Habib Bourguiba, the Neo-Destour was formed in 1934 by the younger,

more progressive Destourians interested in social reform and reaching out

to the wider (rural and poorer) populations. This new organization had

rural roots and most top leaders came from the Sahil region, but were also

educated at the modern Es-Sadiqia College. They observed the extent of

the impact of the colonialists' agricultural domination over the majority

of the Tunisian population and sought to develop a wide social base and

popular following. While this aspect of their ideology is frequently emphasized,

the other main aspect of their ideology is often taken for granted: Their

political response to colonialism was, in contrast to the Jeunes Tunisiens,

to confront directly the authority of the protectorate--seeking to capture

the state. They then planned to expand and use the state apparatus to help

promote, through "modernizing" social transformation, economic development

thereby bearing the full fruits of independence.

While building broad extensive support, the Neo-Destour "urged the boycott

of French goods and counseled civil disobedience: refusal to pay taxes

or appear for military service."(55) They believed the root of their problem

was the French capture of the Tunisian state apparatuses and its use to

exploit the Tunisian land and people. In turn, Bourguiba described his

struggle in terms of wresting the power of taxation from the French.(56)

Bourguiba wrote in 1937:

For a long time, the Tunisian did not see the colonization except from

the perspective of political oppression. He denounced the government for

the injustices, the arbitrariness and favoritism, insofar as they were

direct attacks on his dignity....But the financial work of colonialism

tending, by the mechanism of the budget, to redistribute revenues in its

interest this work, was most dangerous because it is the least visible,

attacking not an individual or tribe, but the whole of the Tunisian people,

the Tunisian knew nothing about.(57)

The Neo-Destour leaders reasoned that since the cause of the Tunisians'

present condition was the protectorate and since the masses in society

would not otherwise organize themselves against this "less visible" aspect

of colonialism, that the Neo-Destour--as a broad based centralized and

hierarchial organization--was the only political force capable of mobilizing

the masses against the protectorate. In building a mass-based organization,

the Neo-Destour leadership imposed a disciplined pyramidal structure which

was viewed as the most effective way to attain organizational strength

in combating the protectorate. This hierarchical structure, codified in

1934, was organized into a series of levels of organizations each subservient

to a higher levels.(58) At the bottom were local branches spread around

the country, about 400 by 1937. Federations and congresses created intermediary

and regional links to the higher leadership. At the top was the National

Council composed of members sent from the lower levels and the Political

Bureau which directed the movement within the context of the resolutions

of the Council. While each higher level was nominally democratically accountable

to the lower levels, in practice the structure was most effective for the

chain of command it established. The result was a parallel authority seeking

to match that of the French protectorate. As Elbaki Hermassi writes,"A

state within a state was in the making, and every militant became accountable

in terms of discipline and solidarity."(59)

In addition, it was before independence that Bourguiba and the Neo-Destour

began establishing new patron-client relationships whereby the nationalist

organization would provide services in exchange for political allegiance

and funds. This was, for example, the logic behind their aid societies

which contrasts with the purposes of the cooperative movement discussed

below.(60) With the organization the Neo-Destour built they could attract

the financial support of the wealthy and local petit bourgeois patrons

who had previously acted as interlocutors for the protectorate. They would

now play that role for the NeoDestour as the party gained sway over the

fate of economic institutions, such as banks, which were dear to the Tunisian

bourgeoisie.(61)

This structure, though, did not allow flexibility or pluralism in its organization.

It was vulnerable to attacks against its top leadership as well as divisions

within its upper levels of decision making. Bourguiba fiercely fought divisions

which might break up or cut into the Neo-Destour's political cohesion (i.e.

his constituency). As we will see, it was the help of the trade unions

and other movements with decentralized structures which helped the Neo-Destour

sustain the frontal offensive against the protectorate which gave Bourguiba

the leverage to press for independence from the French.

TUNISIAN TRADE UNIONS AND COOPERATIVES: RECONSTRUCTING SOCIETY

At the beginning of this century infrastructure construction, some industrialization,

an increasing number of failed farmers, and the decline of the urban artisan

economy provided the basis for the formation of an urban wage labor proletariat

of poor Tunisians and landless colons. Eqbal Ahmad paints the scene after

World War I:

[Tunisians] returned home to face unemployment, high prices, and a fiscal

system that violated basic social justice by hurting the already exploited

natives while giving licentious protection to the privileged settlers and

French capitalists.(62)

Most European and many Tunisian white collar and skilled workers ("such

as government functionaries, teachers, doctors, miners, railroad and tramway

workers"(63)) joined the local branch of the Confederation Generale des

Travailleurs (CGT), the main French trade union in Tunisia established

in 1919. During the period 1919-1924, "widespread discontent caused by

the upheavals of the war, inflation, poor harvests, and the success of

employers in keeping wages down"(64) created the basis for common interests

among Muslims and poor European workers. This also helped produce increased

unionist strike activity demanding an eight-hour work day, the right to

strike, and better working conditions.(65)

Europeans brought the organizational form of the trade union to Tunisia.

These Leftist cadres were responsible for providing the Tunisian labor

activists many of the organizational skills and socialist ideas they were

to use in their anti-colonial struggles.(66) But, how these skills were

used--in particular which political struggles were to be fought and against

whom--was directly related to peoples' different ideas about the nature

and processes of economic and political change and their views about the

struggle for justice.(67) In the context of the labor movement, French

socialists as well as Tunisian nationalists and social reformers, allies

in many struggles, were able to carry on intense interchanges and critical

dialogues in a way that was rare in most other colonial contexts.(68) In

the process of their labor struggles these contending ideas became manifested

in rival trade union organizations.

After joining the CGT, many Tunisians found that they were not treated

as equals by the French and that the CGT leadership would not support,

or sometimes even ignore, Muslim strikes demanding what was supposed to

be a CGT motto "A travail gal, salaire egal" or, "Equal work for equal

pay." Jean-Paul Finidori, a French communist sympathetic to the Tunisians

(writing from a prison cell in Tunis in 1925) explains that "It is they,

however, who received the lowest salaries."(69) Historian Mohamad Salah

Lejri further adds that "this differentiation appeared, in the eyes of

the French, totally natural."(70) In his political tract Finidori explains

how the Tunisian workers tried to increase their representation in the

union leadership by changing the college-based election system to a system

of proportional representation, but the CGT leadership refused.(71)

In August 1924 these grievances sparked rebellion. Muslim Tunisian dockers

in Tunis and workers at the Bizerte port initiated strikes to demand the

same wages as French workers who had just revived a 29% cost-of-living

adjustment.(72) While the CGT leadership advised calm, M'hamed Ali, a progressive

Destourian, brought them support and encouragement from his consumers'

cooperative movement and the Destour and--after several weeks of striking--helped

them conclude successful wage negotiations. Tensions within the CGT increased

and striking workers began to form several autonomous local unions as did

the "dockers, textile workers, tramway employees, cement factory workers,

and some traditional handicraftsmen."(73) After debates about class and

race with the French socialists, the Confederation Gerale des Travailleurs

Tunisiens (CGTT) was formed in November of that year under M'hamed Ali's

leadership.(74) This began a short but momentous period in Tunisian history

when M'hamed Ali and the CGTT led strikes at industrial sites and public

demonstrations and clashes with the police in the streets of towns all

over the country. The CGTT demonstrated the effectiveness of organized

mass political action, brought social reform and the plight of urban as

well as rural workers(75) to the center of nationalist concerns, and forged

a viable anti-colonial ideology based on social reform, popular participation,

and industrial modernization which appealed to both nationalists and socialists.

The CGTT created a new problematic in the trade union movement. The secretary

general of the local branch of the French Socialist CGT, Joachim Durel--writing

at the time in Tunis Socialiste--condemned the CGTT as "nationalist, fanatic,

xenophobic agitation supported by the communists"(76) arguing that it split

and weakened the forces of the proletariat in their struggle against capitalism.(77)

The Parti Communiste Francais (PCF) had split from the French socialist

party after the Bolshevik revolution and the Confederation Gerale du Travail

Unitaire (CGTU) formed in 1921, led in Tunisia by Robert Louzon and Jean-Paul

Finidori, became the PCF affiliated union and supported the CGTT against

the CGT.

Most leaders of the Destour, fearing the implication of these "red" ties

to the communists, or at least hoping to gain some concessions from the

French, called for the dissolution of the CGTT.(78) Then in February 1925,

after the protectorate authorities called for the CGTT to merge with the

CGT and the CGTT leaders refused and even called another strike, the defiant

and now isolated leaders CGTT leaders were arrested and deported.(79) The

CGTT was never a Leninist movement, though, it was for a short time associated

like the CGTU with the Red International of Labor Unions.(80) Although

M'hamed Ali was aided by Louzon and Finidori, these communists viewed the

greater political role of the CGTT very differently, that is more like

their own splinter organization the CGTU. Political tracts written by Louzon

and Finidori(81) from the 1920s show that they viewed the Tunisian workers

as allied with workers in Moscow and Berlin against international capitalism

along the lines of the Leninist view of the Third International.(82)

The CGT and the CGTU represented, respectively, the contemporary French

socialist and communist understandings of capitalist development in the

colonial setting. The CGTT, on the other hand, was less a world-historical

critique of international capitalism, but a critique more specifically

of the impact of French colonialism on Tunisian society. The CGTT sought

to develop an alternative pragmatic response to the colonial situation

that was not dependent on other political forces "whether it be a state,

a political party, or a private group."(83) While Tahar Haddad--a progressive

Destourian who wrote an important history of the CGT--was deeply influenced

by Marxist conceptions of economic change and class formation and struggle,

the CGTT was based on the view, in his words, that:

now people are beginning to realize that political action alone cannot

influence the state, and that it is necessary to orient ourselves to economic

and technical construction.(84)

M'hamed Ali and the other members of the CGTT were primarily concerned

with building societal resistance to the effects of protectorate imposed

economic transformations. As Ahmad and Schaar described it, they were driven

by "a strong emphasis on self-improvement and self-reliance, a search for

the operative ideas and organizational principles and an impatient desire

to root out the causes of backwardness."(85) Haddad's insight into the

condition of Tunisian workers was to notice that it was big capital and

capital intensive production externally imposed on the Tunisian economy

which destroyed the skilled artisan class, proletarianized rural workers,

and exploited workers in the urban modem sector, and thereby broke down

the social bonds between people.(86)

With this observation, M'hamed Ali and Tahar Haddad developed a broadbased,

what I call, "societal-pluralist" counter-attack to colonialism: The Tunisian

people had to have autonomous control of industrial technology, capital,

and labor markets. Larger scale industrial technology (such as the French

used) should not be introduced which would increase unemployment. Industrialization

could also be developed through a number of small-scale cooperative projects

which pooled capital resources and helped small producers find markets

for their goods. These would be at once better able to absorb a greater

number of the less skilled Tunisian workers, and also would be more practical

in terms of the ability of Tunisians to accumulate adequate capital.

M'hamed Ali helped Tahar Haddad establish the Association of Economic Cooperation

AEC) which, "Haddad explained...should be regarded as part of the labor

movement although it invited the participation of all classes so that the

whole nation might be united around a common reformist program just as

they were united in their suffering."(87) This effort was meant to "prepare

the people, in a productive manner, to manage their own affairs."(88) Its

basic objectives were to protect consumers from exploitation, teach business

and management techniques, provide jobs to the unemployed, promote knowledge

of economics and business management, and motivate and teach skills to

youth.(89)

In the most simple terms, the cooperatives and the trade unions were geared

to strengthen society, not capture the state. In fact, the CGTT activists

believed that the economic structures in society should be able to resist

state domineering. Haddad explained their view of the struggle toward independence:

If we achieve social progress, remove our internal weaknesses inherited

from the past and begin to view the world clearly and with a broad outlook,

then we will be able to convince many Europeans that we deserve a free

life.(90)

Thus, we can see that the trade union and the cooperative's approach was

not geared to capture the state and use it as a tool for change, but to

enable society to develop from the grassroots level a diverse set of autonomous

societal institutions. While the French unions were waging the battle against

"international capitalism," the Tunisians sought to promote smaller-scale

economic development, social progress, and the integration of educated

workers into a modernizing society. These were, in their view, essential

conditions for nationhood and it is in this way that we should understand

their construction of nationalism.

The unions were concerned with more than higher wages and protecting workers

from exploitation from capitalists, but also with the social life of the

workers. The CGTT established "clubs for the recreation and cultural advancement

of workers, published books and magazines for common people, provided facilities

for education and technical training of children of union members."(91)

The unions were not only trying to get the state and French capital to

alter its policy to the workers' advantages (i.e. better wages and working

conditions), but hoped to build the social and economic strength of the

working class themselves. Through improving workers' skills, the unions

sought to also attain higher wages for the workers and improve their working

conditions.

The CGTT was one of the first indigenous Arab or African trade unions and

demonstrated the effectiveness of popular mass action as well as helped

incorporate the interests of the working class into the anti-colonial struggle.

Fifteen months after its formal initiation, M'hamed Ali and its other central

leaders were arrested and deported. The CGTT soon collapsed, though many

of its members became involved in CGT activities. The CGTT was revived

in 1938, but it only lasted for two years. The political weakness of the

CGTT was that during the protectorate it was much too vulnerable to the

coercive powers of the state apparatus. Unlike the Neo-Destour, CGTT operations

were not large scale and tightly organized so as to be able to call massive

general strikes or take over important sites. Its founding was based on

the principle of autonomy, groups of workers making their own choices,

not following the policies handed down by CGT leaders. But with dispersed

autonomy, the trade union movement needed stronger networks and more resources

to survive.

The visions of the CGTT members, though, did not die but played a continuing

role in Tunisian political discourse. In 1944, Ferhat Hached established

an autonomous Tunisian union in the South, which developed into the Union

Generale des Travailleurs Tunisiens (UGTT) in 1946 with direct support

from the Neo-Destour. While the UGTT worked closely with the nationalist

party--having at times an almost organic bond sharing the goal of independence

with up to 80% of its members also being party members(92)--it had a separate

ideological view of how society should be organized. At the core of this

was societal autonomy. National independence, they thought, could increase

the workers' control over their own lives by assuring responsive democratic

government at the local and national levels(93) As Abdessalem Ben Hamida

carefully shows, the UGTT of Hached differed from the policies later espoused

by Ahmed Ben Salah(94)--the UGTT leader who in the 1960s helped lead a

statist socialist development project. On the local as well as national

level, Hached supported self-reliance and even felt Tunisia need not industrialize

using external resources. He argued against the use of large scale projects

with high capital to labor ratios which could increase unemployment and

instead advocated smaller scale efforts at industrialization.(95) He did

not want industry at the expense of the rural sector and his vision included

extensive irrigation projects using simple technologies.(96) Cooperatives,

he believed, could even transform production by creating alternative forms

of economic organization and the pooling of resources and services.(97)

While the political argument behind these suggestions for economic organization

presents a clear "societal-pluralist" critique of large scale projects

not geared to workers' needs, it remains to be proven if such cooperative

projects could be viable and could accomplish more than stalling the pressures

for capital accumulation and large scale industrialization, but actually

reshape them. While there is evidence that European modernization included

several alternative models for the development of modern industry,(98)--in

particular the expansion of craft-based production and the use of technologies

of flexible production--the same is not yet true of the Middle East. What

does seem certain is that craft production did not simply vanish in the

face of European competition. As Donald Quataert notes, "The history of

nineteenth-century Ottoman industry is one of change, of shifting employment,

of even on occasion, successful adaptation to the threat of European imports."(99)

Three trends stand out. One is the "sweat-shop" proto-industrial model

where "workshop owners-cum-merchants" accumulated capital and sought non-guild

(cheaper) labor to decrease the costs of production.(100) There were also

increases in the division of labor where different towns would take on

small parts of the production process. Another trend was the use of a set

of flexible-dualist strategies where small manufactures worked in the spaces

left by larger factories or made their own space through the use of technologies

which could produce specialized higher quality items. As Roger Owen notes:

Those small-scale plants which survived could only do so either by dominating

or developing some part of the local market which was protected from foreign

imports by cost, taste, or fashion; or by learning to make efficient use

of some of the cheaper products which the outside world could provide--such

as cotton thread or simple machines (such as the Jacquard loom or the steam

boiler).(101)

We could analytically sub-divide this group into two types of strategies:

1) dualist responses which worked in protected spaces left untouched by

large factory mass production--created by government protection, limited

flexibility (vis-a-vis market demand) in factory production capacity, or

based on static market niches such as traditional handicrafts for European

tourists and collectors; and 2) flexible responses which sought to create

new spaces through the incorporation of modern technological innovations.

Another trend, though not completely separate from the above, was the formation

of cooperatives where production societies would provide pools of capital

for buying equipment as well as helping out small manufacturers in tight

times when they might otherwise go under. Often drawing on older forms

of fraternal guilds, these societies would provide flexible lines of credit,

coordinate the activities of its members to reduce destructive competition,

and build common supply outlets.(102)

Whatever economic projects might have been attempted or envisioned in Tunisia

during this period, following the end of the Second World War the UGTT

was primarily focused on a political struggle for independence allied with

the Neo-Destour. The ebbs and flows of this trade union-nationalist party

relationship, though, had profound implications for the nature of the economic

projects attempted as well as their chances of success.

THE PARTY, THE TRADE UNIONS AND THE COOPERATIVES: ORGANIZATIONAL COOPERATION

AND CONFLICT IN THE NATIONALIST STRUGGLE

As we mentioned above, the CGTT of M'hamed Ali was too fragile to resist

the protectorate forces without the full support of the Destour. Later

trade unionists were mindful of this and it created a set of internal tensions.

The unions wanted autonomy and decentralized flexibility, but they also

feared the vulnerabilities that went with this. They desired national independence,

but here they feared the lack of autonomy that might come with uniting

with the Neo-Destour movement. This began a continuing internal debate

in the trade union movement about strategies of political struggle and

union autonomy.(103) In 1937-8, the revived CGTT leadership split over

the issue of autonomy from the Neo-Destour. Belgacen Guenaoui denounced

a strike in Bizerte called by the Neo-Destour to protest the arrest of

a Moroccan and an Algerian nationalist (Alal al-Fasi and Messali Hadj).

Guenaoui argued that Hedi Nouira, a pro Neo-Destour party trade union leader,

by supporting the strike would be "putting the CGIT under the grip of the

Neo-Destour," and "not [he] nor any of [his] comrades will consent to it."(104)

Bourguiba responded that "Guenaoui's reasoning is false," arguing that

Guenaoui did not understand that the only way to improve the working conditions

of the workers was to capture the state and that the Neo-Destour was the

only organization capable of doing so."(105) In fact, without the Neo-Destour's

support, Bourguiba argued, no other national organization would be able

to survive in the anti-colonial struggle. On organizational grounds, he

was right, and that was the basis of the Neo-Destour strategy, to create

dependent links to societal groups.

Ferhat Hached in 1944 faced a different colonial situation with different

organizational challenges and opportunities than did M'hamed Ali. In fact,

without the Neo-Destour's help it is unlikely that Hached would have been

able to gather the resources and political support to start and sustain

the UGTT. In addition to resources, the Neo-Destour provided political

organizers to aid the young UGTT in its expansion. The UGTT had close ties

to the Neo-Destour and worked with its Political Bureau of which Hached

became a member. Hached saw the opportunity for national independence and

believed this to be the next step in the struggle for workers' interests.

But as the UGTT needed the Neo-Destour, so did the Neo-Destour need the

UGTT. The Neo-Destour was a centralized hierarchial structure that relied

on a top leadership and a chain of command. While the local branches of

the NeoDestour would be difficult to wipe out, the weak point of its command

and nerve center at the top was vulnerable to periodic assaults by the

protectorate authorities. When the top leadership was captured, it was

the UGTT with a decentralized network of self-functioning units as well

as international ties which provided cover for Neo-Destour operations.

The UGTT also operated as a trade union which had some respect and legal

standing with the authorities as French unions also had. As we mentioned

the UGTT organization greatly expanded the reach and scope of the Neo-Destour

into the working classes. The UGTT also acted as occasional "shock troops"

for Bourguiba and his allies by siding with them against threats to the

internal cohesion of the top Neo-Destour leadership, such as were posed

by Taalbi of the Old Destour and the pan-Arabist Ben Youssef.

In 1956, after years of skillful political maneuvering on Bourguiba's part,

the French government gave up control of Tunisia to engage themselves more

intensively with their other possessions in Indochina and Algeria. As independence

came, one of Bourguiba and his cohorts' main objectives became the further

consolidation and centralization of power in their hands. The state apparatus

they "captured" from French control and implanted with their own organizational

structures gave them centralized bureaucratic power over Tunisian society.

Bourguiba expelled his main political rival from the party (pan-Arabist

Salah Ben Youssef), and directly attacked the independence and sources

of income of the religious institutions. The state also began the creation

of political organizations, often organs of the party, which would serve

as mechanisms for accommodating, often controlling, political participation

and policy implementation. The strategy was eventually extended to the

labor movement and the cooperatives.

After Hached's assassination, Ahmed Ben Salah took over the UGTT leadership

with the idea that the role of the UGTT should be to "supply a social and

economic doctrine to the Neo-Destour."(106) He sought to work with the

state and use it to advance workers' ends. His major effort was to draw

up a national economic plan (his Rapport Economique, based around the nationalization

of major industries and centralized socialist planning). This plan was

at first rejected by the Neo-Destour since Bourguiba did not want to chase

away European investors. When, a few years later, Bourguiba decided that

existing economic policies were not doing enough to promote national development,

he put Ben Salah in charge of economic planning. Ben Salah shared Bourguiba's

vision of the strong state. This "socialist" program sought the centralization

of all economic activity through state agencies. Cooperatives effectively

became institutions for political and economic control rather than the

decentralized locations for societal reform and economic development, envisioned

by others. The UGTT cooperatives became squeezed out by those under the

direct control of the state. The rural agricultural cooperative in particular

became coercive and brought intrusive state agencies into rural life. The

decentralized and weak organizational structure of the UGTT allowed for

this cooptation and reordering.

This sets the scene for the next chapter of the story where the individual

unions within the UGTT became increasingly dissatisfied with the top leadership

and through wildcat strikes sought to express their desire for increased

autonomy and responsiveness from its leadership. The success of this effort

has its roots in the ideological divisions and institutional flexibility

that remained in the UGTT. This period climaxed twenty-two years after

independence on 26 January 1978 when the UGTT leadership was pressured

to call a nation-wide strike and demonstration (later to be referred to

as "Black Thursday") which became not just a protest against state development

policies but a broader challenge to Bourguiba and the nationalist party.

The strike and demonstration were violently put down, resulting in many

deaths. The trade union's existing leadership was put on trial and the

state replaced them with a new, more quiescent set of party followers.

In wildcat demonstrations leading up to the 26 January strike, thousands

of textile workers in Ksar Hellal (birthplace of the nationalist movement)

shouted, with a good sense of history, "The Destour Party was born here

and shall die here."(107)

Elbaki Hermassi gives the following explanation of the alienation of the

trade unions from the state and nationalist party:

The 1970s witnessed a continuous wave of strikes; some of these strikes

were conducted in defense of sectional and professional interests; others,

such as the confrontation of January 26, 1978 in Tunisia, reached the level

of defiance of state hegemony over society.(108)

While true that since 1978 labor relations have not been quite the same,

the UGTT continues to find itself enmeshed in the complex matrix of state-society

struggle, at once seeking to challenge state policies, but also using its

close ties to the party to gain greater rewards during the uneven process

of liberalization.

CONCLUSION

This essay has presented the problematic of anti-colonial struggle as being

how to build a movement with limited resources and out of dislocated social

formations while also keeping the movement flexible and adaptable to the

desires and needs of the differentiated colonized population. The case

study which followed then showed the first phase of the process where state-centered

authoritarian-corporatist political ideologies were formulated by political

elites and interwoven--through the process of nationalist anti-colonial

struggle with aspirations for industrial modernization and popular notions

of national independence and self-determination. In contrast, though, we

also showed how many trade unionists and cooperative movements presented

an alternative vision of political organization and modernization based

around sets of autonomous societal institutions which could maintain societal-pluralist

forms of self-representation, promote local efforts of social reform throughout

the population, and support economic development through the use of smaller,

decentralized units of cooperative production.

The nationalist party was successful in incorporating, under the broad

nationalist banner, the whole trade union organization while stifling its

proautonomy aspirations. The decentralized flexibility of the trade unions

made them too vulnerable to this statist manipulation and thus, as "Black

Thursday" showed, it turned out not to be a stable solution. I suggest

that the tension between these forms of organization may need not end up

in cycles of the expansion of authoritarianism, followed by a period of

decentralized, yet feeble, rebellion. Constitutional reconstruction may

be able to manage the middle ground where all actors agree to limits and

governing rules which may be periodically modified. In such a system the

autonomy of societal groups would be preserved, but within limits, and

the state would have the power to regulate, but again within limits. But,

we must add, the preconditions for such a system--trust--sadly remain elusive.

The history of other colonized countries may hold examples of similar alternative

paths, which are too often discounted and written off as unworkable or

unfeasible. We may learn more about the history of decolonization and its

future possibilities by investigating what conditions might have made these

alternatives possible and what political struggles led to their demise.

As forms of state authoritarian-corporatist political and economic regulation

and manipulation begin to disintegrate--such tendencies represented by

the emergence of state retrenchments, more vigorous Islamist and liberal

forms of association and opposition, and hidden/informal economies operating

outside of state regulation--there opens up more opportunities for another

period of social transformation and the reconstruction of state-society

relations in the Arab World. We need to make sure, though, that these new

strategies will not be worse than the old ones.

back to papers

NOTES

1. Roger Owen, State, Power & Politics in the Making of the Modern Middle

East, (London: Routledge, 1992), p. 38.

2. Arguments about the weakness of private claims to property (vis-a-vis

the despotic state's claims) are generally derivative of Marx's "Asiatic

Mode of Production." For a non-Marxist use see Alan Richards and John Waterbury,

A Political Economy of the Middle East (Boulder: Westview Press, 1990),

pp. 42-46. On the unincorporated nature of Arab society see references

in Charles Issawi, "Europe, Middle East and the Shift in Power," in Comparative

Sudies in Society and History, 22,4 (October 1980); as well as Clement

Henry Moore "Authoritarian Politics in Unincorporated Society" in Comparative

Politics, 6,2 (January 1974). For a description of the ideal leader in

the Islamic model of political authority see: James A. Bill and Carl Leiden,

Politics in the Middle East, (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1984),

"The Politics of Patrimonial Leadership," pp. 132-176. See also Yahya Sadowski,

"The New Orientalism and the Democracy Debate," in Middle East Report,

no. 189, pp. 14-19.

3. Elbaki Hermassi, "States and Regimes in the Maghrib," in Halim Barakat,

ed., Contemporary North Africa. (Washington, D.C.: Center for Contemporary

Arab Studies, 1985).

4. Robert Bianchi, Unruly Corporatism: Associational Life in Twentieth-Century

Egypt. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), p. 222.

5. See Bahgat Korany, "Alien and Besieged Yet Here to Stay: the Contradictions

of the Arab Territorial State," in Ghassan Salame, The Foundations of the

Arab State, (London: Croom Helm, 1987).

6. See Elbaki Hermassi, Leadership and National Development in North African,

(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1972), Part I.

7. Lisa Anderson, The State and Social Transformation in Tunisia and Libya,

1830-1980. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986), p. 39.

8. L. Carl Brown, "Stages in the Process of Change," in Charles Micaud,

ed., Tunisia: The Politics of Modernization. (New York: Praeger, 1964),

p. 8.

9. Anderson, The State, pp. 39-40; and Albert Hourani, A History of the

Arab Peoples, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991), p. 229.

10. Anderson, The State, p. 40.

11. Anderson, The State, pp. 66-70; and L. Carl Brown, The Tunisia of Ahmad

Bey 1837-1855, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1974), pp. 261-299.

12. Anderson, The State, p. 50.

13. Anderson, The State, p. 81.

14. Jamil M. Abun-Nasr, A History of the Maghrib in the Islamic Period,

(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), pp. 274-5.

15. Anderson, The State, p. 80

16. Anderson, The State, pp. 78-9.

17. Anderson, The State, pp. 74.

18. Translated by L. Carl Brown in "The Surest Path," (Cambridge, MA: Harvard

Middle East Monographs XVI, 1967).

19. Abdallah Laroui, The History of the Maghrib. (Princeton: Princeton

University Press, 1977), p. 333.

20. On the pre-colonial order see Lucette Valensi, On the Eve of Colonialism:

North Africa Before the French Conquest, (New York: Africana, 1977).

21. Anderson, The State, p. 137.

22. Brown, "Stages," pp. 15-16.

23. Laroui, History of the Maghrib, p. 330.

24. Anderson, The State, p. 153.

25. Ezzeddine Moudoud, Modernization, the State, and Regional Disparities

in Developing Countries: Tunisia in Historical Perspective, 1881-1992,

(Boulder: Westview, 1989), p. 113

26. Laroui, History of the Maghrib, p. 330.

27. Kenneth J. Perkins, Tunisia: Crossroads of the Islamic and European

Worlds. (Boulder: Westview Press, 1986), p. 105.

28. Cited in Moudoud, Modernization, p. 114.

29. Anderson, The State, pp. 152-3.

30. Hermassi, Leadership and National Development, p. 89.

31. Samir Amin, L'Economie Du Maghreb: La Colonization et la De'colonisation

(Paris: Les Editions de Minuit, 1966), p. 35.

32. Moudoud, Modernization, p. 115.

33. Moudoud, Modernization, p. 132.

34. Samir Amin, L'Economie Du Maghreb, p. 35.

35. Valensi, On the Eve of Colonialism, p. 41.

6. Charles Issawi, An Economic History of the Middle East and North African.

(New York: Columbia University Press, 1982), p. 37.

7. Pierre Pennec, Les Transformations Des Corps De Metiers De Tunis, (Tunis:

ISEA-AN, 1964), p. 259.

38. Pennec, Les Transformation Des Corps, p. 298.

39. Cited in Moudoud, Modernization, p. 111.

40. Tahar Haddad, The Tunisian workers and the birth of the trade union

movement. (in Arabic) (Tunis, 1927); cited and translated in Ahmad and

Schaar, "M'hamed Ali and the Tunisian Labor Movement," Race and Class,

19:3(1978), p. 260.

41. For his own view, see Edward W. Said, Culture and Imperialism (New

York: Knopf, 1993), Chapter 3: "Resistance and Opposition."

42. Timothy Mitchell, Colonizing Egypt, (Berkeley: University of California

Press, 1988), p. xi (preface to the paperback edition).

43. Brown, "Stages," pp. 3-6.

44. Anderson, The State, pp. 158-177; chapter titled: "Nationalism and

Clientelism: The Countryside Mobilized."

45. See A. H. Green, "The Tunisian Ulama and the Establishment of the French

Protectorate, 1881-1892," in Revue d'histoire Mnghrebine, no. 1, pp. 14-25.

46. Carmel Sammut, "L'Imperialism Capitaliste Francais et Le Nationalisme

Tunisien (1881-1914)," in Revue d'histoire Maghre'bine, no. 1, p. 63.

47. Anderson, The State, p. 160.

48. Brown, "Stages," p. 28.

49. Werner Ruf, "Tunisia: Contemporary Politics," in Richard Lawless and

Allan Findlay, eds., North Africa. (London: Croom Helm, 1984). pp. 101-2.

50. Brown, "Stages," pp. 40-1.

51. Eqbal Ahmad, "Politics and Labor in Tunisia," Ph.D dissertation, Princeton

University, 1967, p. 69.

52. Brown, "Stages," p. 39.

53. Albert Hourani, Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age 1798-1939. (London:

Oxford University Press, 1962), p. 366.

54. Moore, "The Era of the Neo-Destour," in Charles Micaud, ed., Tunisia:

The Politics of Modernization. (New York: Praeger, 1964), p. 84.

55. Anderson, The State, p. 173.

56. Moore, "The Era of the Neo-Destour," p. 76.

57. Habib Bourguiba, La Tunisie et La France: Vingt-cinq ans de lulte pour

une cooperation libre, 2nd ed. (Tunis: Maison Tunisienne de l'Edition,

n.d. [first edition, 1954]), p. 157; cited in Anderson, The State, p. 176.

58. This simplified description is based on Clement Henry Moore, Tunisia

Since Independence: The Dynamics of One-Party Government. (Berkeley: University

of California Press), p. 108.

59. Hermassi, Leadership and National Development, p. 123.

60. Anderson, The State, p. 174.

61. Anderson, The State, pp. 170-4; and Hermassi, Leadership and National

Development, pp. 126-7.

62. Ahmad, "Politics." p. 52.

63. Ahmad, "Politics," p. 54.

64. Ahmad and Schaar, "M'hamed Ali," p. 268.

65. Ahmad, "Politics," p. 55.

66. Short biographies of all leading labor activists of this era can be

found in: Juliette Bessis, Les Fondateurs: Index biographies des cadres

syndicalistes de Tunisie coloniale (1920-196), (Paris: Editions L'Harmattan,

1985).

67. See Charles F. Sabel, Work and Politics: The division of labor in industry,

(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982); Ahmed, "Politics," pp. 37-46.

68. Brown, "Stages," pp. 48-52; Ahmed, "Politics," pp. 37-46.

69. Jean-Paul Finidori, "La CGT Tunisienne et les Imperialistes Franais,"

[1925] in Finidori, ed., Barailles ouvrires: La C.G.T. Tunisienne et les

Imperialistes Francais des Annees 20, (Chateau Thierry, 1981), p. 9.

70. Mohamad Salah Lejri, "L'evolution du mouvement national tunisien des

origines a la deuxime guerre mondiale," These du doctorat, Universite de

Lausanne, 1975, p. 25.

71. Finidori, "La CGT Tunisienne," p. 9.

72. Lejri, "L'evolution," p. 254, citing Haddad, Tunisian Workers, (no

page).

73. Ahmad and Schaar, "M'hamed Ali," p. 270.

74. Ahmad, "Politics," pp. 61-62; Finidori, "La CGT Tunisienne," pp. 10-16.

75. M'Hamed Ali's key support base was, in fact, in the Southern region

from which he came.

76. From Tunis Socialiste, 27 September 1924, cited in Lejri "L'evolution,"

p. 264.

77. Note also that some Tunisians, in particular Mokhtar Ayari who was

Durel's principal adjutant, at first thought the CGTT-CGT split would weaken

the labor movement, but later joined and became its main leader in the

North.

78. Ahmad, "Politics," p. 65; Ahmad and Schaar, "M'hamed Ali," p. 270;

and Lejri, "L'evolution," pp. 268-277.

79. Ahmad and Schaar, "M'hamed Ali," p. 272-3.

80. Willard A. Beling, Modernization and African Labor: A Tunisian Case

Study. (New York: Praeger, 1965), pp. 63-64.

81. Finidori, "La CGT Tunisienne"; Robert Louzon, "Le Complot Tunisien,"

reprinted from la Re'evolution proletarienne no. 11 (November 1925) in

Finidori, ed., Bailles ouvieries.

82. This strategy of international communism allows Third World communist

movements to align themselves with "bourgeois" nationalist movements and

after the revolution the communist party then fights to take control of

the state; see Martin Carnoy, The State & Political Theory. (Princeton:

Princeton University Press, 1994), p. 179.

83. Haddad, Tunisian Workers, p. 123, cited in Brown,"Stages", p. 54.

84. Haddad, Tunisian Workers, p. 10, cited in Hermassi, Leadership and

National Development. p. 115. See also Michel Lelong. "Tahar Haddad et

la civilisation du travail," in IBLA (Tunis), 97 (1962), pp. 31-48. This

includes a French translation of the introduction of Haddad's Tunisian

Workers.

85. Ahmad and Schaar, "M'hamed Ali," p. 264.

86. Haddad, Tunisian Workers, pp. 28-29. See Noureddine Sraieb, "Contribution

a la Connaissance de Tahar Haddad (1899-1935)," in Revue de L'occident

Musulman et de la Mediterronee, 4, (1967), pp. 114-5.

87. Ahmad and Schaar, "M'hamed Ali," p. 266.

88. Haddad speech to AEC (June 1924) cited in Ahmad, "Politics," p. 81.

89. From Haddad, Tunisian Workers. p. 39 in Ahmad, "Politics," pp. 80-81.

90. Haddad, Tunisian Workers, in Ahmad and Schaar "M'hamed Ali," p. 267.

91. Ahmad and Schaar, "M'hamed Ali," p. 266.

92. Hermassi, Leadership and National Development, p. 125.

93. Abdesselam Ben Hamida, Le Syndicalisme tunisien de la 2 sup e guerre

mondiale a l'autonomie interne de la Tunisie (these de doctorate--Nice,

1979), p. 120.

94. Ben Hamida, Le Syndicalisme tunisien, pp. 134-9.

95. Ben Hamida, Le Syndicalisme tunisien. pp. 134-5.

96. Ben Hamida, Le Syndicalisme tunisien, pp. 139.

97. Ben Hamida, Le Syndicalisme tunisien, pp. 136.

98. See Charles F. Sabel and Jonathan Zeitlin, "Historical Alternatives

to Mass Production: Politics, Markets, and Technology in Nineteenth-Century

Industrialization," Past and Present, no. 108 (August 1985), pp. 133-176.

99. Donald Quataert, "Ottoman Handicrafts and Industry in the Age of European

Industrial Hegemony, 1800-1914," Review, XI, 2, (Spring 1988), pp. 172.

100. See James A. Reilly, "From Workshops to Sweatshops: Damascus Textiles

and the World-Economy in the Last Ottoman Century," Review, XVI, 2, (Spring

1993), pp. 199-213.

101. Roger Owen, "The Study of Middle Eastern Industrial History: Notes

on the Interrelationship Between Factories and Small-Scale Manufacturing

With Special References to Lebanese Silk and Egyptian Sugar, 1900-1930,"

International Journal of Middle East Studies, 16 (1984), pp. 476. See also

Pennec, Les Transformations Des Corps, pp. 331-351.

102. Byron D. Cannon, "Experimental Joint-Stock Cooperatives in the Tunisian

Madinah, 1900-1914," Journal of South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies,

II:2(Winter 1978), pp. 27-41.

103. This debate is read from the public discourse about the relationship

between the Neo-Destour and the CGTT gathered from newspaper statements

reprinted in Bourguiba, Ma Vie. Mon Oeuvre, Vol II. 1934-1938. (Paris:

Librairie Plon, 1986). pp. 511-542; see also Histoire du mouvement national

Vol. II: Le Neo-Destour et le Front Populaire en France, pp. 193-258 and

Ahmad, "Politics," pp. 96-103.

104. Le Congres de la CGTT," Le Petit Matin. 30 January 1938, reprinted

in Habib Bourguiba, Ma Vie, Mon Oeuvre. Vol. 2. 1934-1938.

105. Bourguiba, "Syndicalisme Tunisien," pp. 384 and 389.

106. Ahmad, "Politics," p. 154.

107. Nigel Disney, "The Working Class Revolt in Tunisia," MERIP, no. 67

(May 1978), p. 13.

108. Hermassi, "States and Regimes in the Maghrib," pp. 159-60.