As usual, the Tunis Volume ends and it is time for the chapter of history. My series of national history lectures does not follow a certain theme, such as economic development, cultural evolution, ethnic integration, etc., but only replaces dynasties in chronological order. Many historical fragments have been mentioned in previous chapters, and finally they are strung together with a program, and when I think about it later, there will be a clear clue in my mind, and it is also convenient to compare horizontally with the history of other countries.
I. Carthage
The indigenous people of North Africa are Berbers. "Berber" is the Roman name for them, meaning barbarian, and the ancient Chinese "southern barbarian north Yidong Di Xi Rong" a meaning. The Berbers were not a specific race, but a collective term for the indigenous peoples of North Africa.
Ancient North Africa was different from modern times, when desertification was not so severe, and the coastal areas were rich in water and vegetation, where the Berbers lived a semi-agricultural and semi-nomadic life.
Around the first millennium BC, trade flourished in the eastern Mediterranean, and merchant peoples came online. Whether it is the Greek region on the northeast coast or the Levantine region on the east coast, its local farming conditions are not strong, it cannot feed so many mouths, and the people can only find food to eat, plus it is the coastal area, shake a boat and go to sea, and gradually form a business culture.
Everyone sailed far, clinging to the coast all the way west, and began to establish strongholds on the Mediterranean coast, which gradually developed into colonial cities, such as the colonial city-states established by Greece in the southern part of the Apennine Peninsula and Sicily, known as the "Greater Greece Region".
The Phoenicians, too, walked out of the Levant and broke out of the doorway to North Africa. According to legend, it was the princess of the Phoenician city-states of the Tyre city-states who took refuge in what is now Tunisia. The local chieftain only agreed to give her a piece the size of a cowhide, and the princess shook her head, reduced the cowhide to a strip, and then spliced it out end to end, just encircling a hill.
This became the territory of the Phoenicians.
This hill is the Birsa Mountain. Around this hill, a Phoenician city gradually expanded outwards, it was the city of Carthage, which means "new city" in Phoenician. The city of Carthage fell at the top corner of the protruding tip of central North Africa, strangling the throat of the Mediterranean east-west traffic, and the merchants spoke, and soon developed into a large city.
The Phoenicians also took full advantage of the excellent farming conditions in North Africa, drove slaves, and built large farms. Carthage's industry grew larger and larger, gradually occupying the entire central and western coast of North Africa, including southern Spain and western Sicily.
With large farms on one hand and foreign trade on the other, Carthage became richer and richer, becoming a Mediterranean power around the sixth century BC, and since then, it has long competed with the Greeks, and the two sides have not fought less.
Later, a helper came out from the East, the Persians. The Greek-Persian wars were endless, Greece had no time to look west, and Carthage dominated the Mediterranean.
Carthage continued to expand, and in the third century BC it encountered a new competitor, this time a hard stubble - the Romans.
Ii. Rome
The rivalry between Carthage and Rome began in Sicily and soon evolved into the First Punic War. "Punic" is the Roman name for the Phoenicians. The two sides fought for twenty-three years (264 BC – 241 BC), and Carthage was defeated, losing Sicily and the Mediterranean sea power; Rome fought from a dry duck power to an amphibious power.
In order to avoid the Mediterranean competition in the middle of the country, and to escape from the political struggle at home, the Baca family, the representative of the Carthaginian foreign trade faction, fled to Spain to brush copies, subdued the natives, and swallowed the local silver mines. After the wallet was drummed, Hannibal, the second generation of the Baka family, recruited troops and led his troops across the Pyrenees, all the way to the east, and finally south over the Alps, to the Roman homeland to start the Second Punic War. Seventeen years later (218-202 BC), Carthage was again defeated, the armed forces were castrated, and war could not be waged without Rome's consent.
Half a century later, carthage's neighbor Numidia repeatedly invaded its territory, and the Roman side deliberately indulged it and ignored it. Therefore, Carthage violated the treaty and organized an army to fight back, and Rome just used the excuse of punishment, the army suppressed the territory, and it took three years to completely erase Carthage from the earth, and the capital City of Carthage was razed to the ground, and the population of 50,000 people was reduced to slavery, known in history as the Third Punic War (149 BC - 146 BC).
These are the three Punic wars between episodes 16 and 43 of the Tunis Scrolls. Note that Rome during the Punic Wars was still in the republican era and did not enter the imperial system.
In the Third Punic War, after the destruction of the capital city, the encirclement of the Roman army continued to shrink, and the remnants of the Carthaginian army retreated to the Birza Mountains, and a few days later, the Bilsa Mountains finally fell, and the unwilling Carthaginians threw themselves into the fire of the Temple of Eshmong and set themselves on fire.
Carthage, beginning with Birsa, also ended with Birsa.
The territory of Carthage became the Roman province of Afrikaners, from which the name "Africa" came from. The capital of the province was located in Utica, once the second largest city in Carthage, which surrendered to Rome before the Third Punic War had even begun.
A hundred years later, when Caesar came to power, the city of Carthage was rebuilt, but it was no longer a Phoenician city, but a Romanized city. Nowadays, if you travel to Tunis again, you will find, like me, that the whole of Tunisia is full of Roman ruins, amphitheaters, large baths, Colosseums, etc., and the traces of Carthage are almost gone.
III. The Vandal and Aran Kingdoms
In the middle and late period of Rome, land annexation became more and more serious, and the low-level people lived very badly, at this time, the rise of Christianity just became the spiritual opium of the common people, and it was wildfire in the territory of the Roman Empire. Christianity gradually overwhelmed the original polytheistic worship in Rome and became the state religion of Rome in 393 AD. Tunisia, of course, also fell, and churches rose from the ground. For example, in the ancient city of Durga that I mentioned in the previous issue, there is the ruins of a Victorian church.
In 395 AD, the Roman Empire split and was divided into east and west, with the Tunisian region belonging to Western Rome. By the fifth century, the Germanic invasions from the north were constantly invading, and the Western Romans were in decline. The Germans were not a specific people, but a collective name for a mixed ethnic group, one of whom was called the Vandals, known as the "King of Destruction", which crisscrossed the Great Plains of Europe, from east to west, then over the Pyrenees, swept Spain, crossed Gibraltar, pushed the tower along the North African coastline, and finally pushed to Carthage.
The city of Carthage at this time was a Roman city rebuilt after Caesar.
In 439 AD, the Vandals launched a surprise attack, easily and happily conquered the city of Carthage, and used it as a new capital, established the Vandal and Aran kingdoms, squatted for 94 years, became a hegemon in the Mediterranean, and at its peak also went to sea to take Sardinia and Corsica, and in 455 AD landed in the Apennines and sacked the city of Rome.
This also explains what the Western Romans had become. After another 21 years, the Western Romans died.
The Vandals tried to promote Arianism in the Tunis region, but this was very difficult.
The Arian sect is a sect of Christianity that is considered heretical by the mainstream and originates from Bishop Arius of the Diocese of Alexandria. You should have heard that Christianity has the "Trinity" and "God and Man", which can be explained to make people dizzy, in fact, it is not so mysterious at all, that is, the original scriptures have inconsistencies, believers think of ways to patch, only to create a lot of concepts, patching gradually specialized, the formation of theology.
The so-called "Trinity" means that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are the same Entity, the same God, but the three are different and not confused, and they are three persons. To give an inappropriate example, it's like a person with a triple personality.
As for the "two natures of God and man," that is to say that Christ has both a divine and a human nature, and these two natures coexist in one person, but are not mixed. This means that the deity and humanity of Christ exist simultaneously, regardless of the Person of the Father, the Son, or the Holy Spirit.
This is what the mainstream Christian denomination recognizes as a creed. Historically, anyone who violates these two standards has been labeled heretical. For example, the Arian sect believes that Christ the Son was created by God the Father, so the Son is inferior to the Father, and the Son and the Father are not the same thing. This is very different from the principle of the "Trinity".
More detailed content, previously mentioned in detail in the Egyptian Coptic Church in episode 16 of the Book of The Reins of Egypt, and the 24th episode of the Book of the Three Kingdoms of the Caucasus, about the Church of the Armenian Christian Apostolic Church, can be returned to the page.
The reason why this idea of the bishop of Alexandria is so influential is directly related to the cultural influence of Alexandria and Egypt. Before modern times, Egypt was still very developed, in ancient times it was the granary of the three major empires of Persia, Rome and The Ottoman Empire, and during the Hellenistic period, the Roman Empire, the Byzantine Empire, and the Fatimid Dynasty, it was an important cultural and academic center in the Mediterranean. Egypt's cultural and academic center is in Alexandria.
However, after several Christian congresses (i.e., e., ecumenical assemblies), everyone unified their minds, and in fact the political struggle came to fruition, the Arian sect was condemned as a heretic, the "Trinity" and "the two natures of God and Man" became a nail in the coffin, and the mainstream sects are still used to this day, and only some Germanic barbarians are still adhering to the Arian ideology.
The Germanic peoples had long-term contact with Rome, were affected, and embraced Christianity, which was similar to the Confucianization of the nomadic peoples in northern China in ancient China. Many of these tribes are Arian, such as the Goths and Vandals. Thus, the wars between the Vandals, the Goths, and the Romans, in addition to ordinary fighting, also had a religious color that judged orthodoxy and heresy.
4. Byzantium
In 527 AD, the Eastern Roman Empire, also known as Justinian the Byzantine Empire, ascended to the throne, known as Justinian the Great, and was hailed as the last glory of the Roman Empire. He built the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul.
In the life of the Holy Lord, there will be great generals. At his behest, Belisarius went on an expedition to North Africa, and in 534 AD succeeded in destroying the vandal and Aran kingdoms, replacing the late Western Romans in recovering the province of Afrikaner. As a result, the Tunisian region became Byzantine territory.
At that time, Byzantium and Sassanid Persia were at war for many years. At one point, Sassanid Persia reached Egypt and occupied Alexandria. Therefore, Byzantium built a large number of fortifications in North Africa, including Tunisia, of course. The ancient city of Durga mentioned in the previous issue has left some traces. The reason why the Roman triptych shrine is relatively well preserved is because the temple was included in the interior of the bunker at that time.
When Byzantium and Sassanid Persia consumed each other, a whirlwind of camels blew across the deserts of the Middle East.
Muhammad was born.
The Arabs have stepped onto the stage of history of hegemony.
V. The Arab Empire
The history of the growth of the Arab Empire is roughly divided into four stages:
(i) Muhammad raised the banner of theocracy and first unified the Arabian Peninsula;
(ii) Succeeded by the four caliphs, who went out of the peninsula and expanded outwards, among them, the Western Route advanced to North Africa and took Egypt and Libya;
(iii) The four great caliphs were followed by the Umayyad dynasty (or Umayyad dynasty), which is called the "White Clothed Great Food" in Chinese historical records. During the Umayyad dynasty, the Arab army continued westward and took the province of Afrikaner. In 698 BC, the city of Carthage fell, and Tunisian history entered the period of Arab Empire rule.
Arabs moved in, Islam swept in, and Tunisia began to Arabize.
The former province of Afrika became the Arab ifriqiya.
The so-called Ifkia is centered on the Tunisian region, plus the eastern Algeria on the left and the northwestern Libya on the right.
(4) The Umayyad dynasty was followed by the Abbasid dynasty, which is called the "Black Clothed Food" in Chinese historical records. By the time of the Abbasid dynasty, the governors of the Arab Empire began to disobey and establish themselves one after another, from North Africa to West Asia to Central Asia, established a bunch of small divided courts, and the family engaged in hereditary inheritance, but only nominally respected the caliph, similar to our Eastern Zhou countries.
Vi. The Aghlaib Dynasty
Among them, Aghraib of Ifkia is one of them, the caliph asked for the name of the emir, paid tribute every year, nominally worshiped the caliph as the eldest brother, and actually took charge of the local administrative, judicial, financial, and military powers, known in history as the Aghraib dynasty (or Agrab dynasty). The Aghlem dynasty was a glorious era in Tunisian history, both economically prosperous and full of martial virtue, once conquering the north, taking Sicily and Sardinia, controlling the Mediterranean trade routes, and unlimited scenery.
When the Arab army conquered North Africa, it established a military stronghold in the Tunisian region, and the stronghold gradually developed into a city, Kairouan. By the time of the Agleb dynasty, merchants were reeling and became the most prosperous city in North Africa. When the economy develops, the culture also flourishes. Kairouan gradually became the center of Islamic culture and academic exchange in North Africa, where many Islamic scholars gathered. The top of the mosque in the city is like a cloud, and it is said that in its heyday, the fingers were all mosques.
At that time, mosques and schools were not separated, and the number of mosques was highly correlated with the prosperity of academic culture. To this day, there are more than eighty mosques in the city. The Okba Grand Mosque that you would visit when you traveled was Harvard and Yale in that era.
Kairouan is thus known as the fourth holiest city in Islam. We also often call Kairouan "Kairouan Holy City".
Kairouan's influence on Tunisia continues to the present day. Tunisia is the only Arab country in the Middle East that legally enshrines "monogamy." This is related to the cultural tradition of Kairouan. A once enlightened and inclusive religious culture has contributed to the observance of "monogamy" by religious elders and congregations. Kairouan, both the aristocratic elite and the common people, stipulated "monogamy" in the marriage contract.
When Tunisia became independent and the Personal Status Act was promulgated in 1956, which explicitly prohibited polygamy, it was easy to accept that it was simply a legal confirmation of the existing sharia tradition.
VII. The Fatimid Dynasty
It is said that the ruling class of the Aghraib dynasty was a minority of Arabs, and the ruled class was the indigenous Berbers. In the later period of the dynasty, the gap between the rich and the poor, the tax burden at the bottom was too heavy, and the berbers' resentment boiled over. It was at this time that missionaries from the Ismaili branch of Shiites came to North Africa.
Since the Berbers hated the local Arab upper class, and the Shia missionaries only gave a little guidance, the Berbers easily hated the House and the U. Andu, believing that the Sunnis of the Arab upper class were not good things, and followed the Conversion to Shia. Then another Shiite missionary from Syria, Said ibn Hussein, also came here, calling himself mahdi.
Mahdi means savior, copied from Judaism, called the Messiah in Judaism and Christianity. Didn't they have the last judgment? Islam has also moved here, believing that by the end of the world, the Mahdi will appear in the world, rewarding good and punishing evil, leading Muslims to build an ideal world.
Therefore, in many uprisings, uprisings, and even revolutions in Islamic history, the leaders have called themselves the Mahdi. This is one of the best ways to rally hearts and minds. The most famous is the "Mahdi Uprising" in Sudan in recent history, and there is a special paragraph in the high school history books.
Hussein, relying on Shiite ideology and The Mahdi identity, consolidated the Berber forces and successfully overthrew the Aghlaib dynasty that lasted for more than a hundred years in 909 AD.
Hussein was revered as caliph, and he claimed to be a descendant of Muhammad's adopted son and nephew Ali and his youngest daughter Fatima, so the dynasty established was called the Fatimid dynasty, and Chinese historical records called "green clothes and food".
Notice that there are two caliphates in the Middle East at this time. Although the Arab Empire was shattered, their caliphate was still there, huddled in Baghdad. Equivalently, there was a Sunni caliph and a Shia caliph, the titular boss of the Arab Empire and the real boss of the Fatimid dynasty, respectively.
The Fatimid dynasty conquered the east, taking the entire Maghreb region (that is, northwestern Africa, including Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya) in the west, destroying the Turkic military regime in Egypt in the east, taking over the entire coastal region of North Africa, and moving the capital to Cairo in 973 AD. Since then, Egypt has become the central plains of the Fatimid dynasty.
As for Yves kia, it belongs to the Land of Longxing of the Fatimid Dynasty, just as the northeast is to the Qing Dynasty.
The name Fatimid would be unfamiliar to many, but I have emphasized a few times that it was of great significance in Islamic history, at one point swallowing Mecca, Medina and Jerusalem, and Dominating Baghdad in Cairo.
At that time, the Al-Azhar Mosque in Cairo was the highest school to which all Muslims aspired. There is a proverb in the Islamic world: "The Quran was revealed in Mecca, copied in Istanbul, and recited in Cairo." "This cultural splendor reached its peak during the Fatimid dynasty.
Therefore, the Fatimid dynasty is a period that Tunisia and Egypt must exaggerate when they trace the history, almost as much as we remember the Tang and Song Dynasties.
The Fatimid dynasty, like other Arab dynasties, also appointed a large number of Turkic military leaders, and by the end of the dynasty, the Turkic military leaders disobeyed, divided the territory, controlled the government, and the treasury was very poor. At the same time, the rise of the Seljuk Turks, the Crusades, and the occupation of Syria and Palestine under the Fatimid Dynasty were successively occupied by the Seljuk Turks and Crusaders.
The Crusaders invaded Egypt to the west, and the Fatimid dynasty was in danger, and rushed to the Zangi dynasty for help. The Zanji dynasty was a regime formed in Syria and Iraq after the Seljuk Turkic split. (The Seljuk Turks rose particularly quickly and collapsed so quickly, much like a sudden rainstorm, fleeting and sunny, leaving only a pool of water, which was a fragment of separatist regimes, such as the Zangi dynasty.) ）
The Zanji dynasty sent the Kurdish Shirku and his nephew to lead an army to Egypt.
After defeating the Crusaders, Shirku remained in Egypt, and five years later, the Fatimid caliph appointed him Vizier (i.e., prime minister) to take over military and political power. After Shirku's death, his nephew took over the position of prime minister, deposed the last fatimid caliph, established the Ayyubid dynasty, and revered the Arab caliph of Baghdad as the boss, officially returning to Sunnis, and the caliph named him sultan of Egypt.
He led his troops north to repel the Crusaders, retake Jerusalem, and became a hero remembered by the Arab world to this day. In particular, in the more than half a century of Arab-Israeli confrontation, the Arabs have always been at a disadvantage, and every Arab is looking forward to the return of the hero who has recaptured Jerusalem one day.
He is, Saladin.
VIII. The Ziri Dynasty
The timeline is reversed, and after the Fatimid dynasty moved its capital to Cairo, it appointed the Berber tribal chief Ziri as the governor of Ifkia, sitting in the land of Longxing. This man was loyal to the Fatimid caliph and was known as the "Sword of the Empire". But his son was different, after his death, Ziri II divided the side and established the Ziri Dynasty in 984 AD, ostensibly following the Fatimid Dynasty as the boss.
At this time, it was only eleven years before the Fatimid dynasty moved its capital.
At the beginning of the 11th century, the Ziri dynasty split into east and west and declined rapidly. The original city of Kailu All Saints had fallen at this time, and the trade was suppressed by the Fatimid dynasty in the east, and there were cities such as Genoa and Pisa in the north, and the Ziri dynasty did not make money.
In 1048, the Ziri dynasty officially broke with the Fatimid dynasty, pledged allegiance to the Caliph of Baghdad, and returned to Sunnis en masse.
IX. The African Kingdom of the Normans
At the same time as the Ziri dynasty declined, the Normans came in a boat.
The Normans were a branch of the Vikings who made their home in northern France, while the Vikings were the northern branch of the Germanics, known as the Vikings.
The 9th-12th centuries AD were the era when the Normans were attacking everywhere. The most famous of these is the invasion of England, the Normans became kings of England and established the Norman Dynasty, known in history as the "Norman Conquest".
After conquering the north, the Normans sailed south, along the coastline into the Mediterranean, conquered southern Italy, Sicily, and established the kingdom of Sicily, which flourished for a time.
It has been mentioned many times when talking about the Punic War that Sicily is too close to Tunisia, but it is a day and night boat distance. The kingdom of Sicily then marched south to Ifkia to attack the city, destroying the kingdom of Ziri in 1148 AD and creating a Norman African kingdom.
X. The Almuwahid dynasty
Meanwhile, Ibn Tumayert, a Berber on the Moroccan side, called himself Mahdi and recruited troops to establish the Al-Muwahid dynasty. (Yes, it's the Mahdi again, and if you open the history of the Islamic world, you'll find that mahdis are plentiful.) At this time, his power was still confined to the mountains. When his successor came to the throne, he occupied Marrakech and successfully overthrew the old dynasty.
Marrakech is equivalent to Morocco's Xi'an, the capital of successive dynasties, everyone travels to Morocco, into the Sahara Desert, generally from Marrakech.
The Almuwahid dynasty rose rapidly and expanded outward, crossing Gibraltar to the north, occupying southern Spain, pushing all the way east, conquering the entire Maghreb region, of which, in 1160 AD, drove out the Normans.
Tunisia became part of the Almuwahid dynasty.
The city of Tunis became the capital of the province. It is not far from the former city of Carthage.
Xi. The Hafs dynasty
In the 13th century, the Almuwahid dynasty's control over the region weakened, and the dynasty shattered into three pieces. In 1228, the fiefdom of Ifkia split off and established the Hafs dynasty, with the capital at Tunis. This is the first time that the city of Tunis has appeared as the capital.
In 1270, King Louis IX of France organized the Eighth Crusade. Originally, it was to re-take the road of crusade and go directly to Palestine and the Mamluks in Egypt.
The "Mamluks" were originally meant to be slaves, to the Arabs to charge the front, and later by military power, became a very powerful military group, this group of military leaders later seized power, became the ruling class of Egypt, known as the Mamluk dynasty. The invincible army of Hulagu's Western Expedition was to hit them and hit them with nails. If it weren't for the Mamluks, the Mongols might have fought all the way to Morocco and become empires that spanned the three continents of Asia, Europe, and Africa. In short, at that time, the Mamluks were the strongest Muslim mountain in the Middle East and the main opponent of the Crusaders.
However, Louis IX changed his mind before leaving. Four years ago, his brother took over Sicily from the Pope. Everyone discussed, the old route we played so many times in vain, why not try a new route?
Sicily was so close to Tunisia that the Hafs dynasty had no Mamluks to fight, destroying them first, then moving eastward, threatening Egypt from the flanks and perhaps resolving the siege of the Holy Land. The more everyone thought about it, the more excited they became, and the army went straight to Tunisia.
The landing operation did go well at first, but it was August, the heat was unbearable, and the epidemic suddenly broke out in the barracks, and even Louis IX himself fell ill and died.
The Crusaders reluctantly signed a peace treaty and withdrew. The Eighth Crusade failed again.
In the 14th and 15th centuries, several countries in the Maghreb fought each other endlessly, consumed each other, and went into decline together. By this time it was the Age of Discovery, Spain had become an empire where the sun never set, and piracy was rampant near North Africa.
On the one hand, there were constant invasions by Spain, and on the other hand, there were Barbary pirates who kept plundering. The Hafs dynasty was becoming more and more illusory.
The Barbary pirates seem to be foreign invaders, but in fact they are their own people. Just like the Ming Dynasty's Wu rebellion, "Gai Jiangnan Coast Guard, Wuju thirteen (three-tenths), while Chinese rebels are seventeen (seven-tenths) also." "Barbary" is the sound of "Berber", this group of pirates obviously originated from the Berbers, mostly Muslims, clocked in and worked on the Maghreb coast every day, and also found a big backer, the Ottoman Empire, and the European Catholic countries.
They entrenched the Mediterranean, the ticket-binding business took off, captured Europeans and ransomed for ransom, and charged protection fees on Christian merchant ships. At one time, it encircled many territories in North Africa, and even created a semi-independent kingdom under Ottoman rule. Officials above the ministerial level under Ottoman rule were called "Pasha", and the leader of the Barbary pirates was also called Pasha. Therefore, to say that it is a pirate has actually become a half-light and half-dark force in the political sequence of the Ottoman Empire, and the Imperial Black Glove is also.
The Barbary pirates have been bouncing around for more than three hundred years, and they have caused the Americans to complain bitterly, and every year they have to pay a huge ransom to the Barbary pirates, and the ransom paid in 1800 accounts for one-fifth of the U.S. federal revenue.
Later, the European and American countries could no longer bear it, mainly because of their military strength, their temper grew, and they jointly encircled and suppressed, and it took decades to finally kill this group of pirates.
Fast forward to the 16th century, when Spain and the Ottomans competed in the Mediterranean, the Barbary pirates helped the Ottomans, and the Ifkia region became a major point of contention between the two sides. You have come and gone, you have occupied Tunisia, and in the end, the Ottoman Empire was slightly superior, and in 1574, together with the Barbary pirates, destroyed the Hafs dynasty. Tunisia became a province of the Ottoman Empire, and the Ottoman Empire sent a governor. As mentioned earlier, the Governor is usually referred to as the Pasha.
XII. The Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman Empire did not exercise direct rule over several provinces in North Africa, and the Pasha sent did not speak the language, making it difficult to intervene in local affairs, and the real care was the local military chief Dee and the civilian chief Bey. Gradually, Dee and Bey put the Pasha in the air and took power.
In 1590, Tunisian Die usurped power;
In 1705, Bey Hussein bin Ali Turki overthrew Diy and became the Turkish Emperor of Tunisia, ostensibly still honoring the Ottoman Sultan, but in fact becoming independent, known in history as the "Hussein Dynasty", and the Tunisia under his rule was called the "Tunisian State of Beyi".
The Ottoman Empire was already lying dead, and there was nothing left to do about the separatism under its rule, but to raise the status of Bey or Dee to the pasha, acquiescing to their status.
At this moment, the great powers extended their claws to North Africa.
XIII. The State of Beyi, Tunisia
In 1830, France occupied Algeria. Algeria was nominally Ottoman territory, but like Tunisia, it had long been an independent small dynasty. Therefore, the French took it, and Ottoman did not have a temper, mainly Ottoman's half-dead body, which could only pretend not to see.
Algeria's right neighbor is Tunisia. The French lived next door, the Tunisian sense of crisis multiplied, and the last Bey learned from the Egyptian boss at the time, Muhammad Ali, to implement reforms, and to enrich the country and strengthen the army. But Bey faces an insoluble problem that almost all dynasties faced at the end of the dynasty— the lack of tax revenue.
The local tail is not large, and the tax revenue is withheld by four-fifths, and only one-fifth is left when it is finally handed over to the central government. There is no money to buy weapons, no money to expand the army, no money to build schools, no money to invest in infrastructure. The fiscal situation deteriorated year by year, and Bey had to borrow foreign debt to survive.
Finally, the debt was high, and by 1867, even the interest could not be repaid, and the finances were bankrupt. In 1869, France, Britain, and Italy formed an international finance committee to intervene in Tunisia's internal affairs as creditors.
Among them, France has the strongest presence.
In 1877, the Ottomans and Russia clashed again, known as the Tenth Russo-Turkish War. The Ottomans were pressed to the ground and rubbed, so weak that they could not bear to see. The European countries realized that the Ottomans were running out and that the time had come to pick up heads, but they could not let Russia take advantage.
In 1878, Germany dragged european friends to Berlin for a meeting, which was attended by Britain, France, Italy, Austria-Hungary, Russia, the Ottoman Empire, and several Balkan brothers. The theme of the meeting was the early partition of the Ottomans.
The meat eater and the meat sit on a table, what can the meat say? Ottoman was slaughtered and could only grumble. The conference divided the Balkan spheres of influence and also explored the ownership of the two ottoman provinces of North Africa, Tunisia and Tripolitania. Tripolitania is about northwestern Libya today.
France has taken Algeria and wants to take Tunisia and Tripolitania to the east. The three places are connected to roughly the traditional Yves kia region. Germany expressed its support.
Three years after the conference, in 1881, there was a murder on the border between Tunisia and Algeria. At that time, border management was lax, and everyone came and went to the border as if relatives were visiting, so there were many cross-border marriages. A Tunisian guy fell in love with an Algerian girl, but the girl's cousin looked at the guy unfavorably, and once, the Tunisian guy crossed the border to Algeria to date the girl, and the girl's brother directly clicked him.
The local community is mostly tribal, which has stabbed the honeycomb, and personal vendettas have quickly risen into tribal conflicts. The two sides crossed the border and beat each other. France was very happy, this is really want pillow to sleep, take advantage of the opportunity, immediately two ends busy:
While providing guns and ammunition to Tunisian tribes and encouraging them to avenge the deaths of their boys;
Back in Algeria, he supported the tribe to which the woman belonged to fight back.
The more the two sides fought, the more they fought, and it turned into a local war.
France saw that the fire had arrived, immediately jumped out, and righteously and sternly said: Algeria is a French protectorate, Tunisia invaded Algeria, and the French army must fight back to protect the security of Algerian territory. In April 1881, the army and sea invaded Tunisia and besieged the palace of Bey, Tunisia, and the treaty of Baldu was signed with friendship and cordiality.
Tunisia became a French protectorate, in fact, a colony, and Bey became a puppet. France ate the scissors difference, digging Tunisia's phosphate mines on one side, pulling a ship back, and on the other hand making industrial products and dumping them back to Tunisia. The Red Lizard Train, mentioned in Episode 14, travels in the southern phosphate mining region, and the train was given to Bey in Tunisia by France.
14. French Tunisia
After the French colonized Tunisia, Italy was hungry and always wanted to replace it. Italy does have an advantage, being close enough to Tunisia. Because of this, the fat under the eyelids falls into the mouths of others, and it is not a taste after all.
In the second half of the 19th century, Italians hula ran to Tunisia, causing Italian immigrants in Tunisia to surpass French immigrants at one point. France looked at how this worked, specifically allowing Tunisia to introduce measures to restrict Italian immigration, and by 1931, French immigrants finally surpassed Italy.
A few years later, World War II came, France surrendered at the speed of light, and Germany supported the French government officials to set up a puppet regime, called france, because the government office was located in the small city of Vichy, known in history as "Vichy France". The Vichy regime took over the affairs of the French government, including, of course, the Tunisian colonial government.
Mussolini wanted to take advantage of Tunisia, but Hitler did not agree.
In November 1942, the Allies launched Operation Torch and landed in North Africa. After Germany and Italy reacted, they quickly sent troops to control France and directly take over the French colonies, and Italy occupied Tunisia and fulfilled its long-cherished wish.
French Tunisia became Italian Tunisia.
However, only half a year later, after the Battle of Tunis, the Allies defeated the German and Italian allies in the North African battlefield, and Tunisia was returned to France.
At the end of World War II, national independence movements around the world were in full swing. Tunisia is no exception, and the most prominent political figures in the independence movement are Bourguiba, a lawyer who has returned from studying in France, and his new constitutional party. The political elite of colonial countries often had the experience of studying in the suzerainty and all of them qualified as lawyers in the suzerainty, such as Gandhi, Nehru, and Lee Kuan Yew.
After years of struggle, by 1956, France was exhausted and could not afford to spend, the two sides signed the "French-Tunisian Joint Protocol", Tunisia became independent, established the Kingdom of Tunisia, Bey became the first king, the implementation of the constitutional monarchy.
The New Constitutional Party came to power and Bourguiba became Prime Minister.
15. Kingdom of Tunisia
A year later, Tunisian government troops took control of the palace in place of the Royal Guard, and Bey was placed under house arrest.
Bourguiba took the Constituent Assembly through a resolution deposing the king and converting to a republic.
The Constituent Assembly is the parliament of Tunisia.
On 25 July 1957, the Republic of Tunisia was established and Bourguiba became its first president.
Tunisian history enters the present.
Tunisia's contemporary history can be divided into three periods:
(i) Bourguiba Dynasty (1957-1987);
(ii) Ben Ali dynasty (1987–2011);
(iii) The Post-Arab Winter Era (2011-present).
16. The Burjiba Dynasty
In 1959, Tunisia promulgated its first post-independence constitution. Under the 1959 Constitution, Tunisia effectively implemented a presidential system, with bourguiba gandhi. It was not until 1969 that the post of Prime Minister was reinstated, but the Prime Minister was only Bourguiba's deputy, and the cabinet members were all at The mercy of Bourguiba, the Prime Minister had no decision-making power, and the Parliament could not control it.
After independence, Tunisia first inherited its colonial heritage and continued to engage in free markets, but the economy did not improve. In the fifties and sixties, when the Soviet Union dominated the north and was particularly ideologically strong, "socialism" was a fashionable concept before, and many newly independent countries, although they did not join the Red camp, carried out reforms with socialist elements. For example, India, Egypt, and Algeria, which we have talked about, have all learned from the Soviet Union's socialist construction and planned economy, and even land reform.
The same is true of Tunisia, where in 1961 Bourguiba reused Bin Salah to take the lead in socialist construction. In order to show its determination, the new constitutional party was also renamed the socialist constitutional party.
Salah raised his hand to complete a ten-year development plan, followed by agricultural co-operation, land reform, confiscation of about 750,000 acres of land owned by Europeans, and later promoted agricultural co-operatives to all landlord classes.
Tunisia is negotiating the transfer of power, the old interest groups have basically survived, and the links between them and the power departments are inextricably linked. Bourguiba abandoned the car to protect the marshal, dismissed Salah in 1969, and in 1970 gave him another ten years in prison for treason. Socialist construction came to an abrupt halt, followed by a return to liberalization in Tunisia.
In 1974, in the seventeenth year of his presidency, Burjiba was seventy-two years old, in poor physical and mental condition, difficult to govern, and surrounded by a group of young people. The old emperor listened to the wind and the rain, and the government was in a mess. However, he did not want to be crown prince yet.
Something big happened this year that made people question whether Bourguiba could still be the president. The Egyptian Scrolls of the Reins say that the pan-Arabist trend of thought prevailed in the sixties and seventies, which was a kind of hugging and warming mentality in the face of the power of Europe and the United States, in short, the Arabs should reunify and reproduce the glory of the Arab Empire, and the political manifestation was to try to re-merge, such as Egypt, which was once merged with Syria.
The chess player of pan-Arabism is Egyptian President Nasser, but the most fanatical believer is Gaddafi. Qaddafi went around a group of people and found Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, and Sudan. When he ran to Tunisia, a speech was in the sky, coupled with Foreign Minister Nuira's hard work, Bourguiba at this time was completely like the elderly listening to the salesman selling health care products, a thrill, did not consult with anyone, directly signed a Tunisian and Libyan merger agreement with Gaddafi.
Afterwards, the prime minister and a key cadre came forward and struggled with him, and only then did he find that he had been fooled and abrogated the agreement. However, as soon as this incident came out, everyone could not help but ask in their hearts: Can Bourguiba still lead the country?
Whether you think it is possible or not, Bourguiba thinks it is possible, and in 1976 he made himself president for life through a parliamentary resolution, which was another decade.
It was not until 1987 that he promoted Ben Ali, Minister of State for the Interior, as Prime Minister, personally ending his presidency.
XVII. The Ben Ali Dynasty
Ben Ali was a soldier, studied at the French Special Forces School and the Artillery School, went to the United States for further study, trained in intelligence work, returned to China as the director of the military security bureau for ten years, then was sent to Morocco, and three years later returned as the minister of defense and the director of the General Director of national security.
In his later years, Bourguiba was extremely suspicious, and anyone with too much power and prestige was easily expelled from the core of power.
Ben Ali was a typical example, after becoming defense minister and director of the National Security Bureau, he was soon sent to Poland as an ambassador. Following this path, Ben Ali would have to travel around the world in his lifetime. What changed Ben Ali's fate was the "Bread Crisis" of 1983-1984. Similar to the Arab Winter, the crisis has been linked to rising prices of necessities.
In the 1970s, because of the oil crisis, oil prices soared, and Tunisia, which exported oil, became rich in waves, and by the 1980s, oil prices fell, and Tunisia ran aground. I am tight on my hands and it is difficult to borrow money from the International Monetary Fund (International Monetary Fund). However, as you should be familiar with, the IMF usually sets some borrowing conditions such as privatization, marketization, liberalization and other economic measures. In order to borrow money, Bourguiba announced the abolition of food subsidies, and the price of flour and bread soared.
In the Middle East, flour, bread, and cakes have the same status as rice in China.
The poor immediately took to the streets, and Tunisia was plunged into turmoil, known in history as the "Bread Crisis".
Bourguiba panicked and hurriedly pulled Ben Ali back to the town yard. Ben Ali lived up to expectations, using thunderous means, helicopters and tanks, and successfully resolved the riot. Boljiba was satisfied, and subsequently promoted Bin Ali to general as secretary of state for national security. Just at this time, Bourguiba looked at the people around him and thought that everyone wanted to empty him and usurp the throne, including his wife. In his opinion, only this Ben Ali was still loyal.
Thus, after Burguiba deposed two prime ministers, in October 1987 he supported Ben Ali as general secretary of the socialist constitutional party, making him prime minister.
Bin Ali took office and immediately drew up a list of the new members of the government and submitted it to Bourguiba for approval. After Bourguiba approved, he was supposed to receive all members of the government on October 28. However, Bourguiba suddenly changed his mind and postponed the meeting.
The holy will is unpredictable, Ben Ali panicked, thinking of Bourguiba's capriciousness, he was released twice before and after, transferred away from the core of power, Bourguiba will not engage in any more moths, right? Thinking about it, in order not to go abroad as an ambassador, Ben Ali decided to start first and plan a coup d'état. The health doctor who found Bourguiba, asked the seven doctors to sign a health report jointly, and then issued a statement that, under article 57 of the Constitution, the president was physically ill to perform his duties and would be replaced by the Prime Minister.
The disgruntled Bourguiba at the top had long since gathered, and with the support of ben Ali's military, the coup was very silky, and it was successful without a single shot, and the 84-year-old Bourguiba stepped down.
Ben Ali became President of Tunisia. One dictatorship is coming to an end, and another is about to begin.
As soon as Ben Ali came to power, he said that he would draw a line with Bourguiba, abolishing the presidential life system and replacing it with a five-year presidential term, which could not be re-elected more than twice. (Later, of course, he lifted the re-election restriction.) Socialist constitutional parties were renamed the Constitutional Democratic Alliance.
The name already reveals Ben Ali's intention to reform – further liberalization. The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank praised and sent financial support, and a large amount of capital from Europe and the United States invested in it. With blood transfusions, Tunisia's economy was once very bright.
Among them, tourism has developed particularly rapidly, gradually growing into a pillar industry, and is the largest source of foreign exchange in Tunisia. Many Europeans come to the resort, and the streets are full of white European figures, so Tunisia is called the "back garden of Europe".
Like most Asian, African and Latin American countries, the overall economic data is indeed good, and the average is very deceptive, but when you look at the median, the problem is exposed - only a small number of people eat and drink spicy, and the bottom is still eating soil.
Moreover, the more liberalization, the more pronounced the Matthew effect became. For most Tunisians, the country looks good, but the goose has nothing to do with him personally.
Take, for example, agriculture, which has had the greatest impact on liberalization. Tunisia was originally a small farming industry, but later allowed capital to intervene and transformed into a mechanized capitalist farm. The peasants became agricultural workers, working for the farmers. The government has also carried out policies to support farmers, but when it comes to help, it is the big farmers who are eventually supported, and most of the farmers do not get benefits.
Moreover, mechanized farms need so much labor, and farmers are forced to break out of the industry and run to the cities to find another way to survive. This is a big problem, the proportion of industry in the Arab countries is generally not high, not much labor, Tunisia is not much better.
In this way, the problems of the poor and unemployment accumulate.
Even more dangerous is "over-education". After Ben Ali came to power, he vigorously promoted higher education and produced college students in batches. There are more college students, not necessarily good, it depends on whether the economy can catch it. Tunisia clearly cannot. First of all, the agricultural sector has just said that there is already an overstaffing, and university students are not willing to hoe the grass at noon; moreover, Tunisia's industry is mostly labor-intensive industries, such as textiles, and college students are certainly not willing to bargain. Therefore, the problem of "graduation and unemployment" in Tunisia is particularly serious, with one third of young people in unemployment, and the British media estimates it even more seriously, believing that one in two is unemployed.
Speaking of which, everyone can understand the importance of education diversion and climbing the technology tree. We also have too many college students, education diversion, that is to reduce the supply of college students; climbing the science and technology tree, that is, to create more high-end jobs, absorb college students employment. In short, college students cannot be left without doing anything.
High unemployment is very easy to problem, especially college students, once they are unemployed, often more resentful, just so-called, full of complaints are students. Moreover, after all, he is educated, can speak and write, and engages in sports, and the momentum is huge.
After the subprime mortgage crisis of 2008, all the contradictions accumulated in Tunisia erupted together.
Tunisia is a strong export-oriented economy. Whether it is the tourism industry or the textile industry just mentioned, the customers are mainly Europe and the United States, and Tunisia's domestic market is too small and lacks depth to digest these services or goods. Once there is a bit of turmoil in the world, the Tunisian economy will have to follow the roller coaster.
After the financial crisis, the world's demand is insufficient, Tunisia has no tourists, the products are not easy to sell, and the income is in free fall; at the same time, in order to tide over the crisis, the United States has released water in the currency, and the dollar will often speculate on high food prices after the indiscriminate issuance. Most countries in the world are not self-sufficient in food, especially developing countries, and Tunisia is certainly no exception, which is very dependent on imports. People earn less, spend more, and the pressure of life increases sharply. For the poor and the unemployed, life cannot bear. Thus, in 2011, the so-called "Jasmine Revolution" was staged.
It started with a self-immolation incident in December 2010. The 26-year-old Tunisian youth borrowed money to buy goods and set up a vegetable and fruit stall, which is the source of livelihood for his family of eight. On this day, the chengguan inspected and found that he was operating without a license, and directly confiscated the stall along with vegetables and fruits. The youth ran to the town hall to complain, but no one accepted it, and in despair, bought gasoline and set himself on fire.
This news caused an explosive reaction in an instant, Tunisia's unemployment rate is high, many people are related; some news also said that this young man is a college student, did not find a job after graduation, had to make a living, but also aroused the empathy of the unemployed group of college students. Coupled with the long history of rampant corruption, people have burned all the anger on the government at once, demonstrations have spread across the country, and the slogans of street protesters have been bluntly expressed: "Want bread, don't want Ben Ali".
Public opinion at home and abroad fanned the flames, and Tunisia flooded fiercely. At a critical moment, Ben Ali discovered that the military also had centrifugal tendencies, and on January 15, 2011, he fled in a plane and went into exile in Saudi Arabia. The 23-year-old Ben Ali dynasty collapsed.
Afterwards, about fifty Tunisians living and working in Egypt ran to the Tunisian Embassy in Egypt and sang and danced to celebrate the victory of the "revolution" (the political event in Tunisia is characterized as a "revolution"). There was a prophet on the scene who said, "Ben Ali, please tell Mubarak that a plane is waiting for him." ”
A month later, during the so-called "Nile Revolution," Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak also stepped down. The Egyptian Scrolls tells in detail that at the beginning and end of the "Nile Revolution", the reasons for the outbreak of political movements in Egypt are at least identical, if not identical, compared to Tunisia.
The Arab Winter spread quickly.
In Western media narratives, the Arab Winter is identified as an effort to pursue democratization.
Everyone in Tunisia celebrates, and everyone feels that without Ben Ali, everything will be solved.
Reality slapped them hard in the ear.
XVIII. The Post-Arab Winter Era
The political situation in the Arab countries after the Arab Winter can be summed up in one word - chaos.
Political disorder, economic turmoil, social unrest. The latter two are in turn a direct consequence of the former.
Ordinary people in these countries generally have a shadow of dictatorship, such as Tunisia, which does not want another story of a president for thirty years and another president for another twenty years. Dictatorship is widely blamed for embarrassment, so it seeks the most authentic Western-style voter and demands the erosion of presidential power.
That being the case, it would be necessary to revise the political system, specifically, to amend the Constitution.
No, Tunisians believe that a constitutional amendment is not enough and must overturn it and come up with a new one.
During the drafting of a new constitution, a transitional Government needs to be elected.
During the reign of Ben Ali, strongman politics banned many parties, and after he stepped down, all kinds of cattle, ghosts, snakes and gods came out of their heads.
In the 2011 parliamentary election, the Islamic Ba'ath Party (IGA) won a parliamentary majority, becoming the largest party in parliament.
As the name suggests, the IB is a religious party.
Is there a sense of déjà vu? When talking about the post-"Nile Revolution" era in Egypt, it is mentioned that after Mubarak stepped down, Egypt held the voting main election, and also elected a religious party to power, called the Freedom and Justice Party, which was subordinate to the Muslim Brotherhood.
Now when you think of radicals, the first time you always think of Syria, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, in fact, they are all younger brothers, Egypt is the home country of radical ideas, the Muslim Brotherhood founded in Egypt in 1928 is the mentor and big brother of various radical forces. The various extremist forces that everyone is familiar with are directly or indirectly linked to the Brotherhood.
The Same is true of the IB, which is deeply influenced by the Muslim Brotherhood and can be called the Tunisian rudder of the Muslim Brotherhood.
When ordinary people in backward countries are desperate for the actual situation, they often seek two directions to seek a way out: either absolute force or ideology.
Both are attempts to re-integrate the state, the former by military, metaphysical, and hard integration; the latter by thought, which may be advanced theory or backward religion, metaphysical, soft integration. Most countries are not so lucky, and the ideological weapons they eventually take up are backward religions.
So, you will find that in those countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America, after some years of poor economies, either the military comes to power or the religious brain.
After the military head is useless, he will change the religion to the brain, and if the religion is useless, the military leader will start again.
Egypt is a typical example, the military politics, has not been done well for decades, after the Arab Winter, the Muslim Brotherhood was elected to power, and the Muslim Brotherhood was even more chaotic after the Muslim Brotherhood came to power, so the military relied on public opinion to launch a coup and regain power. Tunisia is similar, Ben Ali is a military man, after the Arab Winter everyone sent the Islamic Restoration Party to power.
Religion has always been associated with poverty. The leaders of the first generation of Mu bourguiba and the second generation of Mu ben Ali did not do a good job in the economy, and the people at the bottom lived too hard, at this time religion became the last comfort, and forces such as the Islamic Restoration Party developed. But Bourguiba was a staunch secularist who was rude to religious radicals, and organizations like the IDF could only develop obscenely.
When the second generation of Mebuki Ali came to power, after all, he was not in the right position, in order to win over the support of all forces, he pretended to be enlightened and generous, released many radicals, and the Islamic Restoration Party once participated in parliamentary elections. But, soon, Ben Ali found himself Too young, too simple.
The IB never gave up on its ideals and sought to build a purely religious state. They believe that all the embarrassment of the common people comes from the state's departure from religion. According to media reports, they are preaching to the congregation that westerners and women have taken your jobs and that as long as you return to the shariah countries, everyone can live a good life.
However, when they accumulate strength, they often behave harmlessly and consider themselves "moderates". Once active or even in power, the tide of thought quickly turned upside down. Ben Ali had originally co-opted the IFO to support him, but as a result, the IGA won more than ten percent of the vote in parliament and tried to replace Ali. Ben Ali was shocked to realize that in 1991, he banned the Yifu Party and arrested more than 25,000 members. Not to be outdone, the Islamic Restoration Party directly organized an armed attack on the ruling party headquarters. It took Ben Ali a long time to suppress the Islamic Party.
After the Arab Winter, when there was no one to put the field around, the Islamic Restoration Party re-emerged and became the largest party in parliament.
The vein of this story is also exactly the same as that of Egypt, a generation of Munasel suppressed the Muslim Brotherhood with an iron fist, the second generation of Mu Sadat released the Muslim Brotherhood, and later found that the Muslim Brotherhood was repulsive, and then turned to strong suppression, the third generation of Mubarak continued the policy of repression, and after the Arab Winter, the Muslim Brotherhood swung onto the stage of the ruling party.
However, the IB only won a relatively large majority of seats, not more than half, and must unite with other parties to qualify for the formation of a cabinet. The top three parties with the most seats in the 2011 parliamentary election were the IB, the Congress for the Defence of the Republic, and the Forum for Work and Liberal Democracy.
Listening to the name shows what Tunisians are concerned about, the name of the REPUBLICAN Congress is not anti-dictatorship, and the forum for work and freedom and democracy is not to reduce unemployment. The three factions formed a coalition and compromised with each other to distribute power, with the IB taking the position of prime minister, the PAP taking the presidency, and the Forum for Work and Freedom and Democracy taking the position of speaker. Just right, one by one.
Why is the IB, as the largest party, taking the prime minister instead of the president?
That's what I mentioned earlier, and after Ben Ali stepped down, there was a consensus to limit the power of the president and tilt it in the direction of parliament and the prime minister.
So, in 2014, the new Constitution of Tunisia was promulgated, and Tunisia transitioned from a de facto presidential system to a de facto semi-presidential system. The semi-presidential system is between the presidential system and the parliamentary system, the state power is a dual structure, and the parliament and the president form two power nodes. The prime minister comes from the parliament, holds the supreme executive power, and is accountable to the parliament; the president is elected by the whole people, but is not a virtual monarch like India, and has a certain amount of real power, usually military power and foreign affairs.
This is the case in Tunisia. Thus, for the post-Arab Winter era, my narrative perspective shifted from president to parliament.
To say a few more words, whether it is the Arab Winter or the color revolution, the core is to reduce the authoritarian system and turn to Western-style voters. Therefore, countries that have had these political movements will mostly weaken the power of the president and strengthen the power of parliament afterwards. For example, Georgia and Armenia, as we talked about in "The Three Kingdoms of the Caucasus", have changed from a semi-presidential system (more inclined to a presidential system) to a parliamentary system.
Tunisia created a semi-presidential system, which was intended to allow the president and the prime minister to check and balance each other. In fact, as everyone envisions, the two sides meticulously check and balance each other, and the essence of all kinds of tripping is the partisan interest dispute behind it. After all, the Islamic Restoration Party is a religious party, and the other two secular parties have less than one pot of urine, and everyone not only quarrels, but even assassinates.
The political arena is in a mess, nothing can be done, nothing has improved in the economic situation, unemployment continues to rise, and social unrest continues. Many Tunisians regret that after the "revolution" it is not as good as before the "revolution". The Islamic Party was disappointed, especially in the urban middle class.
It was hard to wait until the new constitution was passed in 2014, the mission of the transitional parliament and government ended, and the official parliamentary elections were held that year, and the people in the city roared to elect the Yifu Party.
But who to choose?
The most formidable competitor is the Tunisian Phonopée. The party, which was only established in 2012, is actually a new bottle of old wine, and the main force of the party is the original constitutional democratic party led by Ben Ali, the new constitutional party founded by Bourguiba. After the "Jasmine Revolution", the new constitutional party lost power, and its generals rallied some leftists and middle forces to create the party under a different name.
For their part, urban voters now dislike neither the Ben Ali ruling clique nor the IB. In contrast, the IB in the past two years has been more obnoxious. The lesser of two evils, they decided to choose the Voice Party. This process is like the vote of many people in the US election to Biden, not because they like Biden, but because they really don't want to understand Wang Huohuo for another four years. Moreover, you will find that the IGC's vote base is similar to the basic market of understanding the king, and the Tunisian group willing to vote for the Voice Party and Biden have similar sources of votes.
As a result, the Yifu Party was indeed PK, the Voice Party became the largest party in parliament, and the Ben Ali ruling clique borrowed the corpse to return the soul. However, the Yifu Party is still strong, but it has retreated to the second oldest. The Voices Party has only won a relative majority of seats and needs to form a coalition with other parties. The joint formation of a cabinet is bound to involve a conflict of party interests. So, for the next five years (2014-2019), Tunisia spent a lot of noise and nothing.
Prices continue to rise, unemployment continues to rise, social unrest continues and, more frighteningly, terrorist attacks are everywhere. Two terrorist attacks specifically targeting tourists in 2015 nearly killed Tunisia's tourism industry. I introduced this in the previous program, one is the Baldu National Museum shooting, the extremists directly into the national museum to shoot tourists; the other is the Sousse beach shooting, the extremists carry guns to the coast to strafe. European tourists were frightened and no one dared to come.
Business was already dismal, and after these two terrorist attacks, European tourists basically disappeared. Therefore, when I arrived in Tunis, I found many attractions such as the Colosseum of El Djem and the ancient city of Duggar without a single tourist except for the two of us.
Since then, the terrorist attacks have been almost endlessly reported in the newspaper, and the country may not have reported too much, if you go to tunisian news, you will find that after the Arab Winter, Tunisia has had terrorist attacks every year. Moreover, not only for domestic sales, but also for export abroad, it is not honorable to become the largest exporter of foreign radicals in the Middle East. In October 2020, the perpetrator of the terrorist attack in Nice, France, was a Tunisian.
Tunisian officials gave a statistic that 5,000 people ran to Syria and Iraq to participate in the so-called "jihad", which may actually be more. The New York Daily News reported that under the influence of extremist ideas, many Tunisian women ran to Syria to become so-called "sex holy warriors", comforted the fighters with their bodies, and then returned to Tunisia with a big belly.
Ironically, among the Arab countries, Tunisia, which was supposed to be the most secular echelon, has become like this.
What appears to be a religious issue is, but in fact it is an economic issue. If we fail to manage the economy, we will not be able to eradicate the soil in which extremist ideas are planted. But the government is busy fighting for power and quarreling, so how to deal with the economy? Five years passed, the parliament was replaced, people were disappointed in the Tunisian Voice party, and the Islamic Party became the largest party in the parliament again.
But it is not that the IB has more support, it is just that the Husa Party is too weak. Tunisia has a total of 217 seats in the parliament, and the Voice party won 86 seats in 2014 and only 3 seats in 2019, which shows its reputation. The IB took 69 seats in 2014 and 52 in 2019. It can be seen that although the Islamic Restoration Party has returned to power, the number of seats is decreasing.
None of them are satisfied, and they all rely on their peers to set off.
Because the proportion of seats is too low, the Yifu Party still has to unite with other political parties to form a cabinet, so it has created a coalition government again.
In the same year, the presidential election also came to an election of a political amateur, Keith Said, a law professor at the academy who studied constitutional law and was a professional adviser to the 2014 constitution revision. The reason why he can come to power is very simple, people are tired of the old fritters in the political arena, anyway, they don't like anyone, it is better to choose someone they don't know.
Then, time went into 2020 and the covid-19 pandemic came. Like most countries, Tunisia's epidemic management is a mess, and the whole country is in a state of chaos. Given that the president is a political man with little foundation in the power structure, and after the new constitution, the power to dispose of daily affairs is tilted to the parliament and the prime minister, so Saeed is basically vacated. Then, of course, the black cauldron of the failure of the epidemic governance must be carried by the parliament and the prime minister.
In July 2021, the number of confirmed covid-19 cases in Tunisia surged, and the government was unable to respond. Coupled with long-standing high inflation and unemployment, protests have erupted everywhere.
Taking advantage of the public opinion, Saeed took advantage of the sudden attack, ordered the removal of the prime minister, froze the parliament, stripped the deputies of their immunity, dismissed more than a dozen senior officials such as the minister of defense and the minister of justice, temporarily took over the government directly, and exercised the supreme executive power.
The strength of his ability to do so comes from the support of the military. Security forces and troops are stationed in the capital, and Tunisia has a curfew for January.
The Tunisian prosecutor's office then said it would investigate the suspected collection of illegal funds by three parties, including the Yifu Party, before the 2019 election.
Since taking office, There have been constant disputes between Saeed and the prime minister and parliament. Obviously, this is a wave of power grabs.
As mentioned earlier, the Arab Winter was recognized in Tunisia as a democratized "revolution." Opponents jumped out, arguing that Said was a counter-"revolutionary" and wanted to repeat the dictator story. But most Tunisians applauded, especially young people in the city, and even took to the streets to celebrate (completely despite the epidemic).
Saeed himself has expressed a preference for a presidential system. If he can truly consolidate his power, it is certain that he may push for another constitutional amendment and take back the presidential power from the hands of Parliament in writing.
That's the latest in Tunisia.
How to say it? Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Syria, and after the Arab Winter are all in chaos. Although the original government was reactionary, there was a stable order, and after the vote was dominated, there was either riots everywhere or wars raged on the ground, and life was not as good as before.
A car, I can't drive fast, in fact, the engine is broken, but people think that it is all a steering wheel problem, a rage to smash the steering wheel, and then, the car is on the road, the result, hit seven meat, and even the car is destroyed.
This concludes the history of Tunisia.
See you in our next travel chapter.