“Tunisia, or the black and white trap of Ifriqiya” 

No doubt some of you are aware of the existence of a French intellectual, Renaud Camus, who was a member of the Socialist Party in the 1970s and is now close to the French far right? It’s not the far right carried by the National Rally, which is too soft for his taste. The ideas of Renaud Camus are in line with the obsessions of Éric Zemmour’s Generation, whose 7.3% in the last French presidential elections cooled down somewhat. 

Renaud Camus is the first to have stated́ in the Abecedaria of innocence published in 2010, the thesis of the « Big replacement ». It consists in « refusing the change of civilisation », « gathering all those who oppose Islamisation and the African conquest » « to put a rapid end to it ». His target is the « hordes of illegal migrants ». He does not seem to dissociate white Africa from black Africa: « All tanned » for those who are in love with hate.

Tunisia, land of welcome and transition

A sad sire considered in particular by the Black, White or related, Arab and even Arab-Muslim « hordes » in France, Italy, Germany and elsewhere: to the point of losing one’s Latin, one’s Arabic, one’s Wolof and all the other languages involved in emigration all over the planet! 

Now, herè in his declaration of 21 February 2023, the democratically elected head of the Tunisian state – even if somewhat politically illegible up to that point̀ – invites himself to the banquet of the extreme by taking up the sinister theory of « replacement » and applying it immediately to the same people with a few shades of difference – the nuance being there precisely black or white. This, he says, is to preserve the « Arab-Muslim » character of Tunisia. Irreceivable: there is no indication of anyone’s religion, and that’s fine. Aren’t Tunisians themselves multi-ethnic and of various confessions – Muslims, Christians, Orthodox, Jews? Some are even agnostic. To take up this theory would indicate that the Libyan strip, including Tunisia, was Berber, and was itself « replaced » by Arab-Muslims in the 10th century AD. 

A dog that will never stop biting its own tail, an endless and inglorious game in the 21st century: « Tennes, the Haven in Berber language gavé Tounes » explained Si El Habib Boularès in his time. Let’s leave it at that: our geographical situation makes our land an open land, welcoming and in transition. This is something that the smugglers have well understood, as they shamelessly exploit the seam.

For finally, from memory, during the Arab uprisings following the one that Tunisia had initiated, the streets were filled with Syrian or Libyan « hordes »: tents pitched neaŕ metro stations, cardboard boxes taking the place of bedding, or worse, exploited people held in the clutches of unscrupulous landlords or renters. If the landscape was new and desolate, the realitý was that Tunisians were enduring their reputation as a hospitable land, even if proportionally, Tunisia was the country receiving the largest number of migrants fleeing war and atrocities. Nowhere was it detected́ that any political leader took offence at the presence of these hordes.

The presidential word, a trap and a danger

Is memory so selective that it becomes two-toned? Would the coloured ‘hordes’ be more disturbing? Of course, societý is such that there are thugs everywhere and that crime, theft and malfeasance have no colour; from there to lumping everyone together is an institutional step that has beeń dangerously taken, when wisdom would be to open up a debate rather than to racialise it. Racialism is the beginning of war. Who will be next, when Tunisia is ‘whitewashed’? Black Maghrebians are a geographical junction and a historical reminder that white or black Africa is one and the same land. What does the majoritý matter! This is not a contest of who is whiter or blacker. Just Africa! 

The step taken by the word of the Head of State is a trap: Whites against Blacks, or Africans against Africans – for film buffs, it is Kramer against Kramer. This is about institutionalising racial and racialist leprosy. We will not fall into this trap. It is enough that racism is social in nature, a taboo that the late Béchir Ben Yahmed (founder of Jeune Afrique, editor’s note) had the curiositý, the courage and the honestý to reveal in his columns as early as 2004. It is not a question of erasing anyone’s colour, but of understanding that, as Elisabeth Badinter said, « racism is a plague when you enclose the being in a colour ». 

The step taken by the word of the Head of State is a danger and a blank check granted to an economically challenged minoritý and to a racist fringe of the country. Its consequences are manifold: victims are holed up, injured, or camped at the foot of their respective embassies. Among them are students who have put their trust in our education system, precarious immigrants who look after our children, clean our floors and latrines, polish our kitchens: often exploited. Honest employers are asked to denounce their workers. To denounce whom the next time? Infidels? The homosexuals? Chicken thieves and bread thieves? Happy return to the future! An abomination.

A race war to create political diversion

By the way, our thanks go to those who have takeń the Hippocratic oath and who treat blacks and whites equally. Here, my sister-in-law is white and a follower of the same oath. Which of us should draw the battle axe first? Her or me? Shall we leave it to my future nephews, to our respective families? What does the Tunisian head of state say? The banquet of extremes to which Tunisia is invited by the words of the highest dignitary of the State is indigestible: it is, in the immediate future, made up of wars in the making, of human flesh and blood. We do not want these morbid agape; the soup is bitter and the guests not very honourable.

In an exquisite fable, “Haro sur le baudet”, inspired by Kalila wa Demna, Jean de la Fontaine unpacks the eroded mechanism of the scapegoat. A mechanism that delights the extremes. To tell the truth, as these lines are being written, Tunisians simply need sugar and coffeé and an end to the economic stop-and-go that makes all commodities precious because they are scarce or in the process of being so – today, no oil? Tomorrow no rice. The day after tomorrow? You’ll come back for fuel… I refute, refuse, reject, condemn and loathe the race war to be born for the sole purpose of creating a political diversion.

Simply need sugar and coffee, you see? We will not tear each other apart, nor deny our belonging, nor our diversity, nor our families nor our friends. It is enough to judge the criminals, but also to protect all those who are on our soil, also the prisoners! The President of the Republic is the protector of all, including foreigners, not the gravedigger of a multiple identitý with a globally precarious balance. This is neither a question of political option nor of opinion, it is the law and the law alone that prevails. The saddest ghosts are stirring, when the first defender of the nation no longer holds his role. « Houmét al Houmê » or Defenders of the Nation! Belgacem el Chebbi would turn in his grave. Belgacem is used́ advisedly, but not Abou el Kacem, or the complex of Arabnesś experienced by some compatriots, a complex that makes the head of state claim an exclusively Arab-Muslim identity.

Not all North Africans are racists

To use diplomatic language, the step taken by the head of state is « highly regrettable », the social consequences of which are all mapped out: wokism, racialism. Where Bourguiba – in spite of some tasty anecdotes about the Ouesfênes or Blacks – will have worked for a united nation integrating diverse components, the current president summons wokism and its procession of cancel culture. This is very serious, because instigating these concepts in Tunisia – or elsewhere, our country being an integral part of a geopolitical entity, the Maghreb, extended to the south of the Mediterranean – is a mistake: yes, some Maghrebians are racist; no, not all Maghrebians are racist.

The proof is in the demonstrations that took place following the remarks made by the highest authority of the Tunisian state. The crowd was predominantly white, also due to the fear of some black people to be seen publicly.

Let’s continue with the paradoxes: what is the added value of a woman in the highest political spheres if she is as disconnected from her humanitý as her male counterparts? Tunisians will have waited in vain for an expression of common sense from their prime minister. 

Immigration is the march of the world. No need for racism or racialism to see this, human beings move and… even give birth when they move, like the first men. We are fighting hard enough in Europe and elsewhere to ensure that Tunisians who live on foreign soil, without going through the university or criminal channels, are received and accepted, and even respected when they are, respectable. Thus, the term « scum » used by a classic right-wing president made us jump. To protect who? Tunisian invaders, of course!

Given the fact that the Minister of Foreign Affairs – whose cross is to try to extinguish a fire that he himself did not cause – does not find it necessary to apologize, because finally, « We have not harmed anyone, » he said. Erm… perhaps it would be wise to ask about attacks, injuries and casualties, sir? Unless you wear blinders masking the realitý of the images displayed here and there, of blacks beaten, injured, raped for some – ah, it is true that rape can be invisible…

I propose a deal to the Minister: have the murderers, terrorists, thugs, rapists, drug addicts and other weaklings who are active on foreign soil repatriated – there is no need to hide behind one’s own finger, there are some, and some Tunisians, alas. In return, and only in return, will the Sub-Saharans leave.

What would the country gain apart from the return of… a good number of Tunisians… and the failure to have fought́ and won the battle against the only real gangrene: the smugglers of human flesh? The very ones̀ who make the Mediterranean blood red on one sidé as well as the other, replacing a turquoise sea that was once a Phoenician trade route, open as far as the coasts of sub-Saharan Africa? 

By Affet Bent Mabrouk Mosbah

Action in this direction, will be worth an apology.

Source : Kapitalis