A Week in Tunisia
I just spent a week in Tunisia. A year and a half ago I was planning on making a trip to visit my friend but ISIS scared me off. After ISIS came to America though, it felt less scary. Observations follow.
Sex
I went to a ‘talent show’ for kids from 15–22 at the American Corner, a US Embassy-sponsored cultural center. There were some adorable magic and less adorable Fall Out Boy covers.
One kid, maybe 20, shared a short story, with his girlfriend in the audience. It talked about how a Tunisian woman with a “pushup bra” and “smooth thighs” went on a date went wrong. “Their satanic laughter suffocated my very soul. They pinned me down to the ground. I had to endure massive pain. He slowly got on top of me and smoothly whispered into my ear ‘surprise…’”
Every swipe right for American girls in Tunis is a match. Condoms are apparently “not a thing.”
Rich guys and girls in Tunis all date and have sex before marriage. But some guys still want their wives virgins. The poorer you are, the more likely you are to be conservative, the less likely you are to date before marriage.
Facebook is king, and people randomly friend each other to make friends and hopefully start relationships. With a Tunisian number occasionally you get randomly called by young men in the hopes of finding someone. Girls occasionally respond. A whole nation catfishing each other.
Prostitution is legal and the government runs brothels, treating the prostitutes as civil servants.
They speak of 20 to 30 customers a day. These pay 10 dinars, that’s 5 euros per visit. Half of that goes to the “patronne” and as a tax to the state. Which leaves 2.50 euros for one session."
It also owns the beer (a generous 2.6 on Beeradvocate) that tastes like knockoff Heineken — one of the three alongside Becks available in the country.
Fighting sports are big. Maybe it helps with sexual frustration?
Police
A tunisian rapper ‘Digger Killer MC’ who was organizing some events with the American Corner asked to borrow an iPhone and just walked out with it. Later that night we walked to the tiny little local police station to report it. The woman whose phone was stolen said that throughout the interview, even though she was able to supply his address and youtube channel, they started asking “oh, are you in the CIA? How do you like Tunisia? Oh boy can you speak classical Arabic? Can I have your facebook?”
The latest: “I heard the cops broke into the guy’s house and found him with a girl. He still got away so no phone yet…”
Trump
A friend who worked at the American Corner hosted debate parties and was with the kids during election night. Their response was sarcasm. “Wow, congratulations on your new president!”
Islam
One taxi driver jokingly turned the radio up louder when the call to prayer came on. This country had fewer veils and more booze than Jordan.
The Club
One night we went to Le Carpe Diem on a whim. A Sudanese-American female teacher went earlier by herself and the people at the door said that it was guest-list only. Me and two other white women had no problem getting in…
The dj was French and incredible. He played every hip hop song with a vaguely arab beat alongside deep disco and r&b cuts. Tunisians knew the words to A Milli, which is all it takes to restore my faith in the future.
Bars mysteriously appear and successful ones often abruptly disappear. I would guess that when the bribes stop flowing, or when the demands for bribes from a prosperous place accelerate, establishments have to fold.
Bardo Museum
ISIS killed twenty tourists at the Bardo last year. It also has the world’s greatest collection of mosaics. There are rooms and room of this.
Korbous
We went to a janky sulfur bath village an hour out of Tunis. Its infrastructure has seen better days, but the coastline was gorgeous.
The hammam was pretty janky but at the end of the rotation the guy hosed me down. He put his thumb on the edge like a kid does to spray his sibling — it was painfully powerful.
Food
Tunisian food is underwhelming. I was expecting hummus and falafel — there was none. What I found was bland French-inspired food with solid fish dishes. They also put tuna on everything.
I also discovered Leblebi. First, you’re given some stale bread you are expected to rip into little pieces. Then they ladle on some hot chickpeas, garlic, oil, cumin and a raw egg that cooks. It is mushy and not particularly flavorful. In Cuisine and Empire, Rachel Laudan writes about the divide between noble and common food which the 20th century largely broke down by introducing a new level of middle class food. This dish, costing fifty cents or so for a very filling meal, is very common.
They also fry egg and tuna with parsley inside a wonton, which apparently has some connection to samosas.
There are very few US chains — a few Chilis establishments is all. The Wikileaks State Department cable that helped spark the revolution even talked about how the Ben Ali clan’s hold on foreign investment spilled all the way down to McDonalds franchises.
There are still several examples of foreign companies or investors being pressured into joining with the “right” partner. The prime example remains McDonald’s failed entry into Tunisia. When McDonald’s chose to limit Tunisia to one franchisee not of the GOT’s choosing, the whole deal was scuttled by the GOT’s refusal to grant the necessary authorization and McDonald’s unwillingness to play the game by granting a license to a franchisee with Family connections.
The chicken wings at one of the native chains was tasty but very, very tiny. I guess this is how big non-antibiotic gmo chicken are.
Colonialism
It’s weird everyone speaks French here.
Carthage
Tunis is built on top of Carthage, Rome’s greatest rival. It sponsored Hannibal’s march across the Alps which nearly sacked Rome.
Unfortunately for them, they lost that war, and in the next one Rome flattened their city. There’s not much left save some cisterns.
Roman historian Livy who chronicled the story was a genius. I walked around to his books on the Second Punic War alongside this mediocre book by a modern historian on the city.
I listened to an audiobook for a few hours straight and then after I bought something ended up saying “thank you” instead of merci or aishek. The language seeps into your brain.
Here are some choice quotes from Livy (note, he totally made up most of these speeches):
A Roman representative went to Carthage to complain about their invading Seguntum, and the Carthaginians started talking legalese about past treaties. His response:
Then the Roman, gathering up his toga, said, “Here we bring you war and peace, take which you please.” (tum Romanus sinu ex toga facto ‘Hic’ inquit ‘vobis bellum et pacem portamus: utrum placet, sumite’.) He was met by a defiant shout bidding him give whichever he preferred, and when, letting the folds of his toga fall, he said that he gave them war, they replied that they accepted war and would carry it on in the same spirit in which they accepted it.
Hannibal convincing his wary troops to march though the Alps:
I am astonished to see how hearts that have been always dauntless have now suddenly become a prey to fear. Think of the many victorious campaigns you have gone through…The Roman people made a demand for all who had taken part in the siege of Saguntum to be given up to them, and you, to avenge the insult, have crossed the Ebro to wipe out the name of Rome and bring freedom to the world.
When you commenced your march, from the setting to the rising sun, none of you thought it too much for you, but now when you see that by far the greater part of the way has been accomplished; the passes of the Pyrenees, which were held by most warlike tribes, surmounted; the Rhone, that mighty stream, crossed in the face of so many thousand Gauls, and the rush of its waters checked — now that you are within sight of the Alps, on the other side of which lies Italy, you have become weary and are arresting your march in the very gates of the enemy.
What do you imagine the Alps to be other than lofty mountains? Suppose them to be higher than the peaks of the Pyrenees, surely no region in the world can touch the sky or be impassable to man. Even the Alps are inhabited and cultivated, animals are bred and reared there, their gorges and ravines can be traversed by armies….
What can be inaccessible or insuperable to the soldier who carries nothing with him but his weapons of war? What toils and perils you went through for eight months to effect the capture of Saguntum! And now that Rome, the capital of the world, is your goal, can you deem anything so difficult or so arduous that it should prevent you from reaching it? Many years ago the Gauls captured the place which Carthaginians despair of approaching; either you must confess yourselves inferior in courage and enterprise to a people whom you have conquered again and again, or else you must look forward to finishing your march on the ground between the Tiber and the walls of Rome.
Hannibal psyching up his troops before the Battle of Cannae, Rome’s greatest defeat. What a set piece.
Hannibal thought that the courage of his men ought to be roused by deeds first rather than by words. After forming his army into a circle to view the spectacle, he placed in the centre some Alpine prisoners in chains, and when some Gaulish arms had been thrown down at their feet he ordered an interpreter to ask if any one of them was willing to fight if he were freed from his chains and received arms and a horse as the reward of victory. All to a man demanded arms and battle, and when the lot was cast to decide who should fight, each wished that he might be the one whom Fortune should select for the combat. As each man’s lot fell, he hastily seized his arms full of eagerness and exultant delight, amidst the congratulations of his comrades and danced after the custom of his country. But when they began to fight, such was the state of feeling not only amongst the men who had accepted this condition, but amongst the spectators generally that the good fortune of those who died bravely was lauded quite as much as that of those who were victorious.
After his men had been impressed by watching several pairs of combatants Hannibal dismissed them, and afterwards summoned them round him, when he is reported to have made the following speech:
“Soldiers, you have seen in the fate of others an example how to conquer or to die. If the feelings with which you watched them lead you to form a similar estimate of your own fortunes we are victors. That was no idle spectacle but a picture, as it were, of your own condition. Fortune, I am inclined to think has bound you in heavier chains and imposed upon you a sterner necessity than on your captives.You are shut in on the right hand and on the left by two seas, and you have not a single ship in which to make your escape…Here, soldiers, on this spot where you have for the first time encountered the enemy you must either conquer or die.(hic uincendum aut moriendum, milites, est, ubiprimum hosti occurristis.)
The same Fortune which has imposed upon you the necessity of fighting also holds out rewards of victory, rewards as great as any which men are wont to solicit from the immortal gods….
…Come then, seize your arms and with the help of heaven win this splendid reward. You have spent time enough in hunting cattle on the barren mountains of Lusitania and Celtiberia, and finding no recompense for all your toils and dangers; now the hour has come for you to enter upon rich and lucrative campaigns and to earn rewards which are worth the earning, after your long march over all those mountains and rivers, and through all those nations in arms…
Do not think because the war, being against Rome, bears a great name, that therefore victory will be correspondingly difficult. Many a despised enemy has fought a long and costly fight; nations and kings of high renown have been beaten with a very slight effort…
Wherever I turn my eyes I see nothing but courage and strength, a veteran infantry, a cavalry, regular and irregular alike, drawn from the noblest tribes, you, our most faithful and brave allies, you, Carthaginians, who are going to fight for your country, inspired by a most righteous indignation. We are taking the aggressive, we are descending in hostile array into Italy, prepared to fight more bravely and more fearlessly than our foe because he who attacks is animated by stronger hopes and greater courage than he who meets the attack.Besides, we are smarting from a sense of injustice and humiliation…
There is nothing left to us anywhere except what we claim by force of arms. Those may be allowed to be cowards and dastards who have something to fall back upon, whom their own land, their own territory will receive as they flee through its safe and peaceful roads; you must of necessity be brave men, every alternative between victory and death has been broken off by the resolve of despair, and you are compelled either to conquer, or if Fortune wavers, to meet death in battle rather than in flight. If you have all made up your minds to this, I say again you are victors, no keener weapon has been put into men’s hands by the immortal gods than a contempt for death.
Fabius trying to convince the Consul replacing him not to engage Hannibal in battle. “Experience is the teacher of fools (stultus)”…
It is said that truth is far too often eclipsed but never totally extinguished. The man who scorns false glory will possess the true. Let them call you a coward because you are cautious, a laggard because you are deliberate, unsoldierly because you are a skillful general. I would rather have you give a clever enemy cause for fear than earn the praise of foolish compatriots. Hannibal will only feel contempt for a man who runs all risks, he will be afraid of one who never takes a rash step. I do not advise you to do nothing, but I do advise you to be guided in what you do by common sense and reason and not by chance. Never lose control of your forces and yourself; be always prepared, always on the alert; never fail to seize an opportunity favourable to yourself, and never give a favourable opportunity to the enemy. The man who is not in a hurry will always see his way clearly; haste blunders on blindly.
And finally, Fabius burning a pretender to the consulship:
It is of more importance to you, T. Otacilius, than it can be to any one else that you should not have a burden placed upon your shoulders whose weight would crush you.
Money
I saw a handful of Porsche Cayannes and some bmws but no super fancy cars ala the gulf.
The Interior Minister’s house is on the edge of the ancient Punic port. It looked pretty nice. Also you could still see boat docks from two thousand years ago.
