Recent history
Rivalry between French and Italian interests in Tunisia culminated in a French invasion in 1881 and the creation of a protectorate. Agitation for independence in the decades following World War I was finally successful in convincing the French to recognize Tunisia as an independent state in 1956.
The country's first president, Habib BOURGUIBA, established a strict one-party state. He dominated the country for 31 years, repressing Islamic fundamentalism and establishing rights for women unmatched by any other Arab nation. In November 1987, BOURGUIBA was removed from office and replaced by Zine el Abidine BEN ALI in a bloodless coup. Street protests that began in Tunis in December 2010 over high unemployment, corruption, widespread poverty, and high food prices escalated in January 2011, culminating in rioting that led to hundreds of deaths. On 14 January 2011, the same day BEN ALI dismissed the government, he fled the country, and by late January 2011, a "national unity government" was formed. Elections for the new Constituent Assembly were held in late October 2011, and in December, it elected human rights activist Moncef MARZOUKI as interim president. The Assembly began drafting a new constitution in February 2012 and, after several iterations and a months-long political crisis that stalled the transition, ratified the document in January 2014. Parliamentary and presidential elections for a permanent government were held at the end of 2014. Beji CAID ESSEBSI was elected as the first president under the country's new constitution.
Government type:
republic
Capital:
name: Tunis
Administrative divisions:
24 governorates
Independence:
20 March 1956 (from France)
National holiday:
Independence Day, 20 March (1956); Revolution and Youth Day, 14 January (2011)
Constitution:
several previous; latest approved by Constituent Assembly 26 January 2014, signed by president on 27 January 2014 (2015)
Legal system:
mixed legal system of civil law, based on the French civil code, and Islamic law; some judicial review of legislative acts in the Supreme Court in joint session
Nationality
noun: Tunisian(s)
adjective: Tunisian
Ethnic groups:
Arab 98%, European 1%, Jewish and other 1%
Languages:
Arabic (official, one of the languages of commerce), French (commerce), Berber (Tamazight)
note: despite having no official status, French plays a major role in the country and is spoken by about two-thirds of the population
Religions:
Muslim (official; Sunni) 99.1%, other (includes Christian, Jewish, Shia Muslim, and Baha'i) 1%
religious affiliation:
Population:
11,037,225 (July 2015 est.)
Major urban areas - population:
TUNIS (capital) 1.993 million (2015)
Education expenditures:
6.2% of GDP (2012)
country comparison to the world: 38
Literacy:
definition: age 15 and over can read and write
total population: 81.8%
male: 89.6%
female: 74.2% (2015 est.)
Unemployment, youth ages 15-24:
total: 37.6%
male: 35.7%
female: 41.8% (2012 est.)
Economy - overview:
Tunisia's diverse, market-oriented economy has long been cited as a success story in Africa and the Middle East, but it faces an array of challenges following the 2011 revolution. Following an ill-fated experiment with socialist economic policies in the 1960s, Tunisia embarked on a successful strategy focused on bolstering exports, foreign investment, and tourism, all of which have become central to the country's economy. Key exports now include textiles and apparel, food products, petroleum products, chemicals, and phosphates, with about 80% of exports bound for Tunisia's main economic partner, the European Union. Tunisia's liberal strategy, coupled with investments in education and infrastructure, fueled decades of 4-5% annual GDP growth and improving living standards. Former President (1987-2011) Zine el Abidine BEN ALI continued these policies, but as his reign wore on cronyism and corruption stymied economic performance and unemployment rose among the country's growing ranks of university graduates
Tunis.com
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ts.html
Education/Adult education
In 859 a young princess named Fatima al-Firhi founded the first degree-granting university in Fez, Morocco.
Prior to 1958 education in Tunisia was only available to a privileged minority (14%). It is now given an extremely high priority and accounts for 6% of G.N.P. A basic education has been compulsory for both boys and girls between the ages of 6 and 16 since 1991.
A three-day conference on adult education and building a knowledge society in the Arab world opened on Monday in Gammarth, Tunisia. Titled "Investing in adult learning: Building knowledge and learning societies in the Arab region", it is one of five preparatory regional conferences for Unesco's Sixth International Conference on Adult Education-- http://www.universityworldnews.com/article.php?story=20090108191130620
19 to 25 - Adult
There are "162 institutions of higher education, among them 22 Higher Institutes of Technological Studies (ISET), and 6 Higher Institutes of Teachers Training (ISFM)". A voluntary policy to promote adult education has served to increase literacy and pave the way to a "lifelong" education.
http://www.universityworldnews.com/article.php?story=20090108191130620
Indigenous peoples of Tunisia and North Africa
The Berbers in North Africa and their culture probably dates back more than 4,000 years. Berber states known as Mauritania and Numidia existed in classical times.
Cultural indentifies
The people of the Maghreb and the Sahara regions speak various dialects of Berber and Arabic and almost exclusively follow Islam. The Arabic and Berber groups of languages are distantly related, both being members of the Afro-Asiatic family. The Sahara dialects are notably more conservative than those of coastal cities
The diverse peoples of the Sahara are usually categorized along ethno-linguistic lines. In the Maghreb, where Arab and Berber identities are often integrated, these lines can be blurred. Some Berber-speaking North Africans may identify as "Arab" depending on the social and political circumstances, although substantial numbers of Berbers (or Imazighen) have retained a distinct cultural identity which in the 20th century has been expressed as a clear ethnic identification with Berber history and language
From the vastness of their mountain ranges, the native peoples of the Maghrib have resisted successive Punic, Roman, and Christian invasions. Not until the 7th and 8th centuries was the Maghrib conquered; the Arabs, who imposed on the native peoples the religion of Islam and Arabic, the language of the Quʾrān, thus absorbed the Maghrib into the Muslim civilization. Despite this absorption, most of the North African societies have preserved their cultural identity throughout the centuries.
The people of the Maghrib belong to both Berber and Arab ethnolinguistic groups. The Berbers are descended from the earlier inhabitants of the region and may trace their ancestry to Paleolithic times. Many other groups have invaded the area, including the Phoenicians, the Arabs, and the French. About one-sixth of the population of the Maghrib still speak one of the Berber languages (most of them in Algeria and Morocco), but most also speak some form of Arabic.
History identities
.
Phoenician city-states began to take form c. 3200 BCE and were firmly established by c. 2750 BCE.
Phoenicia thrived as a maritime trader and manufacturing center from c.1500-332 BCE
skill in ship-building, glass-making, the production of dyes, and an impressive level of skill in the manufacture of luxury and common goods
Punic Wars
Punic Wars
The main cause of the Punic Wars was the conflicts of interest between the existing Carthaginian Empire and the expanding Roman Republic
The Punic Wars were a series of three wars fought between Romeand Carthage from 264 BC to 146 BC
.The Second Punic War(218 BC – 201 BC) is most remembered for the Carthaginian Hannibal's crossing of the Alps.
Eventually, the war was taken to Africa, where Carthage was defeated at the Battle of Zama(201 BC)by Scipio Africanus. The end of the war saw Carthage's control reduced to only the city itself.
Islam- Arab control and the Ottoman Empire the 8th -19th century
The Islamic Civilization is in reality an amalgam of wide variety of cultures, from North Africa to the western periphery of the Pacific Ocean, and from Central Asia to sub-Saharan Africa.
The traditional beginning of the Islamic civilization is associated with the Prophet Muhammed [about AD 570-632]. In 610, Muhammad received his first revelations from God via the angel Gabriel.
By 615, a community of his followers was established in Mecca in present-day Saudi Arabia. In 622,
Muhammed moved his community (the movement is called the hejirae) to Medina (also in Saudi Arabia). There he formally established the Muslim community, beginning the Muslim calendar in that year, renaming it Year One of the Anno Hegirae
The spread of Islam began shortly after the Prophet Muhammad's death in 632. By that time, he and his followers had converted most of Arabia's tribes and towns to Islam, which Muslims maintained united the individual believer, the state, and society under God's will. Islamic rulers, therefore, exercised temporal and religious authority. Islamic law (sharia), which was derived primarily from the Qur'an, encompassed all aspects of the lives of believers, who were called Muslims ("those who submit" to God's will).
Within a generation of Muhammad's death, Arab armies had carried Islam north and west from Arabia into North Africa. Muslims imposed political control over conquered territories in the name of the caliph (the Prophet's successor as supreme earthly leader of Islam). The Islamic armies won their first North African victory in 643 in Tripoli (in modern Libya). However, the Muslim subjugation of all of North Africa took about seventy-five years. The Arabs invaded Nubia in 642 and again in 652, when they laid siege to the city of Dunqulah and destroyed its cathedral. The Nubians put up a stout defense, however, causing the Arabs to accept an armistice and withdraw their forces.
Contacts between Nubians and Arabs long predated the coming of Islam, but the arabization of the Nile Valley was a gradual process that occurred over a period of nearly 1,000 years.
Almohads, Arabic al-Muwaḥḥidūn (“those who affirm the unity of God”) , Berber confederation that created an Islamic empire in North Africa and Spain (1130–1269), founded on the religious teachings of Ibn Tūmart (died 1130)
Between the 11th and 13th centuries, two great Berber dynasties – the Almoravids and the Almohads – controlled large parts of Spain, as well as north-west Africa.
Growing demands for the recognition of Berbers—in theory as the original inhabitants of North Africa and in practice as distinct components of its society
It was the Arabs, who had enlisted Berber warriors for the conquest of Spain, who nevertheless gave those peoples a single name, turning barbarian (speakers of a language other than Greek and Latin) into Barbar, the name of a race descended from Noah. While unifying the indigenous groups under one rubric, the Arabs began their Islamization
Maghrib, ( Arabic: “West”) , also spelled Maghreb, region of North Africa bordering the Mediterranean Sea. The Africa Minor of the ancients, it at one time included Moorish Spain and now comprises essentially the Atlas Mountains and the coastal plain of Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya. The weather of the Maghrib is characterized by prevailing westerly winds, which drop most of their moisture on the northern slopes and coastal plain, leaving little for the southern slopes, which maintain desert scrub fading into true desert in the Sahara to the south.
From the vastness of their mountain ranges, the native peoples of the Maghrib have resisted successive Punic, Roman, and Christian invasions. Not until the 7th and 8th centuries was the Maghrib conquered; the Arabs, who imposed on the native peoples the religion of Islam and Arabic, the language of the Quʾrān, thus absorbed the Maghrib into the Muslim civilization. Despite this absorption, most of the North African societies have preserved their cultural identity throughout the centuries.
The people of the Maghrib belong to both Berber and Arab ethnolinguistic groups. The Berbers are descended from the earlier inhabitants of the region and may trace their ancestry to Paleolithic times. Many other groups have invaded the area, including the Phoenicians, the Arabs, and the French. About one-sixth of the population of the Maghrib still speak one of the Berber languages (most of them in Algeria and Morocco), but most also speak some form of Arabic.
European colonial rule 19th century
Arab slave trade
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