Tunisia Way

The Era of Habib Bourguiba

In 1957, the Prime Minister Habib Bourguiba (Habib Abu Ruqaiba) abolished the monarchy and firmly established his Neo Destour (New Constitution) party. The regime sought to run a strictly structured regime with efficient and equitable state operations, but not democratic-style politics. Also terminated was the dey, a quasi-monarchist institution dating back to Ottoman rule. Then Bourguiba commenced to dominate the country for the next 31 years, governing with thoughtful programs yeilding stability and economic progress, repressing Islamic fundamentalism, and establishing rights for women unmatched by any other Arab nation.The vision that Bourguiba offered was of a Tunisian republic. The political culture would be secular, populist, and imbued with a kind of French rationalist vision of the state that was buoyant, touched with élan, Napoleonic in spirit. Bourguiba then saw an idiosyncratic, eclectic future combining tradition and innovation, Islam with a liberal prosperity.

"Bourguibism" was also resolutely nonmilitarist, arguing that Tunisia could never be a credible military power and that the building of a large military establishment would only consume scarce investment resources and perhaps thrust Tunisia into the cycles of military intervention in politics that had plagued the rest of the Middle East. In the name of economic development, Bourguiba nationalized various religious land holdings and dismantled several religious institutions.