Genetics and ethnic identity of Tunisia: Nationalism’s wrong tool for the wrong purpose
Summary
- The need for social belonging inspires us to identify the ethnicity with which we are affiliated.
- Nationalists and supremacists used archeology to impose their agenda. Currently, genetics and genomics are used for the same aim.
- Propagandists and social media influencers are controlling the narrative about the origin of Tunisians. They, however, lack the ethical and scientific understandings about the subject.
- There is a significant divergence between what science says and what mainstream and social media are spreading about the origin of Tunisians.
The thrill of re-constructing history can be equated to the magical opening of an entrance to the past time. As humans, we are aware that civilization stemmed from our ancestors’ quest for knowledge and colonization. We were able to contest the hardship of nature and survive for millions of years thanks to the endeavor of our forefathers. The epicness of their deeds inspires us to relate to their lineage through tangible ties.
The scarcity of archeological evidence makes it difficult to trace back our history either as a global or as a subgroup of the human population. Perhaps, this is the reason why population genetics/genomics is so alluring for those who wish to trace their ancestry. Companies such as 23andMe, Genelex, and National Geographic realized that satisfying our need for social belonging and being part of an unstoppable building machine that run since thousands of years ago could be marketed through genetic ancestry tests. Obviously, there is no harm in that. But try to mix that with chauvinism and ego, and you will get a killer poison.
The Hatay province is located in the Southernmost part of modern-day Turkiye. The region has been a crossroads of civilizations since Alexander the great’s campaign. In the late thirties of the 20th century, Hatay was claimed by both the Turkish government and the Syrian government. The land was however annexed to the Turkish territory in what appeared to be a political arrangement between France who controlled the mandate of Syria at that time and the recently created republic of Turkey. The legitimacy of the annexation was shaky at its best since the majority of Hattay’s habitants are Alawites who are an Arabic-speaking ethnoreligious group. The argument based on which the annexation was conducted is as factual as the flat earth existence: a shaky archeological argument claiming that the Alawites are the late offspring of the Hittites who built a powerful empire in Anatolia at the time when the Pharaohs were ruling Egypt.
Aggressive nationalist attempts to ethnically label population groups, like the example mentioned above, is a common practice in history. Archeology, however, is no longer the method of choice as genetic/genomic analysis is easier to conduct and provides a more substantial flow of data compared to archeology. Most importantly, DNA analysis sounds “more scientific” and therefore more rigorous for inferring anthropological findings compared to other tools.
The 1980s marked the emergence of genetic and genomic application in anthropological studies performed on populations from the Maghreb region to which Tunisia belongs. The outcomes of these studies were only the subject of shy academic discussions until the 2011 revolution. When freedom of expression was normalized in the country, a whole debate was launched and it wasn’t uncommon since then to run into blogs, social media feeds and radio talks about “The origin of the Tunisians”.
Unfortunately, what started as a scientific discussion, became a malicious projection of political agendas. Two clans, at the extreme ends, dominated public opinion about the ethnic labeling of Tunisians. The first, believe that Amazighs (historically known as Berbers) are the dominant ethnicity in Tunisia and therefore the cultural and political interests of the country must be steered toward the neutralization of the Arab influence. On the opposite side, pro Arabo-Islamic identity, consider any other ethnic culture unworthy to preserve, sustain, and promote. For them, the identity of Tunisians was sealed since the early Islamic conquest of North Africa. Both of these groups are exploiting all possible options to prove their claims including genetic/genomic studies.
It’s, however, disturbing to witness the abduction of what is fundamentally a scientific subject by propagandists and social media buzz-loving influencers. Unfortunately, little understanding and awareness about the ethical and social gravity of the issue are shown by those who control the narrative. Which led me to feel that the same controversy about eugenics is trying to set foot for the first time in this part of the world. I may be a bit extreme here, but any large snowball starts small at the tip of the hill. And if we act indifferently toward the issue, it will be just a matter of time until we find ourselves in pre-WWII Germany or late 19th-century colonial Europe type of situations.
A quick comparison between the scientific literature and the narrative of propagandists shows how divergent the interpretations of both partakers are. When taken outside of the scientific context, the understanding of the genetic anthropological studies’ outcomes seems to be shallow by being deterministic about the ethnic labeling of Tunisians. One of the blogs, in fact, assertively stated that genetics is “an exact science” that cannot be refuted and that Tunisians are “only 4% Arabs”. Nothing beats numbers, and quantitative arguments are always welcome to make the claim looks “scientific”. Others adhered to such a perspective with more or less stubbornness. In reality however, population history genetic studies from Tunisia and North Africa, as for any other scientific approach, have their share of imperfections.
In the upcoming article, I will detail the extent of applicability and limitations of some of these approaches in anthropological studies. I will also show that even studies that used high-throughput sequencing and whole genome marker screening, left more questions than answers about the ethnic origins of Tunisians.
