Holidays to Tunisia, are just fabulous ideas. tourist attractions are its cosmopolitan capital city of Tunis, the ancient ruins of Carthage, the Muslim and Jewish quarters of Jerba, and coastal resorts outside of Monastir. Tourists must have a visa and an immunization certificate of yellow fever and cholera. According to Garrett Nagle in his book Advanced geography, Tunisia's tourist industry "benefits from its Mediterranean location and its tradition of low cost package holidays from Western Europe." The development of tourism dates back to 1960 through the joint efforts of government and private groups. In 1962, tourism, with 52,000 entries and 4,000 beds, had a revenue of two million dollars and becomes the main source of foreign exchange in the country. However, it is not popular with American tourists who are wary of Middle East destinations since the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
Until recently, Tunisia's main attraction was on its northeast coastline around Tunis; however, the Seventh National Development Plan of 1989 created several new tourist areas including the resort at Port-el-Kantaoul. The tourism sector now represents 6.5% of Tunisia's GDP and provides 340,000 jobs of which 85,000 are direct jobs, or 11.5% of the working population with a high share of seasonal employment.
France, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom
are the four traditional tourist markets, though Tunisia lost roughly 500,000
tourists from Germany after 9/11. From 2003-2004, it regained tourists, and 2007
saw arrivals increasing by 3 percent over that of 2006 Attractions and Star Wars
filimingg areas.and Monty Python,
The souk in Tunis.
Resorts
This sector is popular mainly on the east coast, totaling more than 95% of beds. The following is a list of the largest resorts and the percentge of nights out of the total: * Sousse-Monastir-Mahdia (36 %) ; * Nabeul-Hammamet (24 %) ; * Djerba-Zarzis (24 %) ; * Tunis-Zaghouan (10 %) ; * Tabarka-Aïn Draham (2 %).
New developments In recent years, ecotourism, spa and medical tourism are emerging onto Tunisia's tourist scene and growing very fast. According to the former Minister of Tourism Ahmed Smaou, "The medical tourism has a great future ahead of us."
Statistics In 2000, there were 197,400 hotel beds in roughly 95,977 rooms with an occupancy rate at 56%. 5,057,193 travellers came to Tunisia that year. That year, tourist expenditures were nearly $1.5 billion. According to 2002 US Department of State estimates, the average daily cost of staying in Tunis or Carthage was $146, compared to $114 in other areas of Tunisia. A large number of tourists to Tunisia come from Eastern Europe, and the nationalities of major tourist countries is shown here: Libyans (1 472 411 visitors), French (1 234 735), Algerians (945 324), Germans (547 403), Italians (464 323) and British (350 693).There were 1 251 251 domestic tourists staying across the country for 2.75 million nights in 2006
At the beginning of recorded history, Tunisia was inhabited by Berber tribes. Its coast was settled by Phoenicians starting as early as the 10th century BC. The city of Carthage was founded in the 9th century B.C. by settlers from Tyre, now in modern day Lebanon. Legend says that Dido founded the city in 814 B.C., as retold in by the Greek writer Timaeus of Tauromenium. The settlers of Carthage brought their culture and religion from the Phoenicians and other Canaanites.
After a series of wars with Greek city-states of Sicily in the 5th century BC, Carthage rose to power and eventually became the dominant civilization in the Western Mediterranean. The people of Carthage worshipped a pantheon of Middle Eastern gods including Baal and Tanit. Tanit's symbol, a simple female figure with extended arms and long dress, is a popular icon found in ancient sites. The founders of Carthage also established a Tophet which was altered in Roman times.
Though the Romans referred to the new empire growing in the city of Carthage as Punic or Phoenician, the empire built around Carthage was an independent political entity from the other Phoenician settlements in the Western Mediterranean.
A Carthaginian invasion of Italy led by Hannibal during the Second Punic War, one of a series of wars with Rome, nearly crippled the rise of the Roman Empire. Carthage was eventually conquered by Rome in the 2nd century BC, a turning point which led to ancient Mediterranean civilization having been influenced mainly by European instead of African cultures. After the Roman conquest, the region became one of the granaries of Rome, and was Latinized and Christianized. It was conquered by the Vandals in the 5th century AD and reconquered by the commander Belisarius in the 6th century during the rule of Byzantine emperor Justinian.
In the 7th century the region was conquered by Arab Muslims, who founded the city of Kairouan. Successive Muslim dynasties ruled, interrupted by Berber rebellions. The reigns of the Aghlabids (9th century) and of the Zirids (from 972), Berber followers of the Fatimids, were especially prosperous. When the Zirids angered the Fatimids in Cairo (1050), the latter sent in the Banu Hilal tribe to ravage Tunisia.
The coasts were held briefly by the Normans of Sicily in the 12th century and the following Arab reconquest made the last Christians in Tunisia disappear. In 1159, Tunisia was conquered by the Almohad caliphs. They were succeeded by the Berber Hafsids (c.1230 – 1574), under whom Tunisia prospered. In the late 16th century the coast became a pirate stronghold (see: Barbary States). In the last years of the Hafsids, Spain seized many of the coastal cities, but these were recovered by the Ottoman Empire. Under its Turkish governors, the Beys, Tunisia attained virtual independence. The Hussein dynasty of Beys, established in 1705, lasted until 1957.
In the mid-1800s, Tunisia's government under the rule of the Bey severely compromised its legitimacy by making several controversial financial decisions that led to its downfall. France began plans to take control of Tunisia when the Bey first borrowed large sums of money in an attempt to Westernize. This failing state facilitated the Algerian raids that occurred thereafter. The weakened Bey was powerless against these raids and unable to resist European colonization.
In 1878, a secret deal was made between the United Kingdom and France that decided the fate of the North African country. Provided that the French accepted British control of Cyprus, recently given to the United Kingdom, the British would in turn accept French control of Tunisia. This satisfied the French and led to their assumption of control in 1880, anticipating the Italians. Tunisia was formally made a French protectorate on May 12, 1881.
World War II
Main article: Tunisia Campaign
In 1942 – 1943 Tunisia was the scene of the first major operations by the Allied Forces (the British Commonwealth and the United States) against the Axis Powers (Italy and Germany) during World War II. The main body of the British army, advancing from their victory in Battle of el-Alamein under the command of British Field Marshal Montgomery, pushed into Tunisia from the south. The US and other allies, following their invasions of Algeria and Morocco in Operation Torch, invaded from the west.
General Rommel, commander of the Axis forces in North Africa, had hoped to inflict a similar defeat on the allies in Tunisia as German forces did in the Battle of France in 1940. Before the battle for Tunisia, the inexperienced allied forces had generally been unable to withstand German blitzkriegs and properly coordinate their operations. As such the battle for Tunisia was a major test for the allies. They figured out that in order to defeat Axis forces they would have to coordinate their actions and quickly recover from the inevitable setbacks the experienced German-Italian forces would inflict.
On February 19, 1943, General Rommel launched an attack on the American forces in the Kasserine Pass region of Western Tunisia, hoping to inflict the kind of demoralizing and alliance-shattering defeat the Germans had dealt to Poland and France. The initial results were a disaster for the United States; the area around the Kasserine Pass is the site of many US war graves from that time.
However, the American forces were ultimately able to reverse their retreat. Having learned a critical lesson in tank warfare, the Allies broke through the Mareth line on March 20, 1943. The allies subsequently linked up on April 8 and on May 2, 1943 the German-Italian Army in Tunisia surrendered. Thus, the United States, United Kingdom, Free French, and Polish (as well as other forces) were able to win a major battle as an allied army.
The battle, though often overshadowed by Stalingrad, represented a major allied victory of World War II largely because it forged the Alliance which would one day liberate Western Europe.
Independence
Before Western colonialism, Tunisia was ruled by a line of
(Turkish colonial) Beys until 1881. Up until this point the Beys of Tunisia borrowed
money from Europe to finance modernization within Tunisia. When the local population
resented tax rises to fund the repayment the country found itself bankrupt. It
is at this point that France, Britain and Italy placed the finances of Tunisia
in administration via an international agreement.
Initially, Italy was the country that demonstrated the most desire to have Tunisia as a colony having investment, citizens and geographic proximity as motivation. However this was rebuffed when Britain and France co-operated to prevent this during the years 1871 – 1878 ending in Britain supporting French influence in Tunisia in exchange for dominion over Cyprus. France still had the issue of Italian influence and thus decided to find an excuse for a pre-emptive strike. Using the pretext of a Tunisian incursion into Algeria, France marched an army of about 36,000 personnel which quickly advanced to Tunis and forced the Bey to make terms in the form of the 1881 Treaty of Bardo (Al Qasr as Sa'id), which gave France control of Tunisian governance and making it a de-facto French protectorate.
Tunisia enjoyed certain benefits from French rule; however, the desire for self-governance remained and in 1910 Ali Bach Hamba and Bechir Sfar created the group of young Tunisians which led to the 1920 group called the “Destour” (constitution) party. Keeping the new movement under control led the French to use a combination of carrot-and-stick tactics that worked well but did not halt the momentum for independence. In 1934, a younger, more fervent element of the Destour party called the Neo-Destour emerged, with Habib Bourguiba, Dr Mahmoud Materi, Tahar Sfar and Bahri Guiga as their leaders. This new party was immediately declared illegal by the French administration, but received strong support from the fascist organizations of the Tunisian Italians
Habib Bourguiba spent a great deal of time in French prisons. However, this did little to stem his influence or halt the momentum for change. The Second World War played into Bourguiba’s hands as he was moved from Vichy French prisons to Rome, and then to Tunisia as the Axis powers courted his influence in Tunisia. Bourguiba never endorsed these requests. He did manage relocation to Tunisia and two months after this, the Allies claimed Tunisia.
In the following ten years, the struggle for independence continued and gained momentum. Bourguiba was again incarcerated from 1952 – 1954, which in turn caused an outbreak of guerrilla attacks by supporters. In 1954, things changed abruptly when Pierre Mendes-France became the leader of the French government and pursued a policy of pulling out from burdensome French colonies, with Tunisia in this category. This resulted in the April 1955 agreement which handed internal autonomy to Tunisian hands while international relations were managed by France, a similar situation to the Turkish Bey method of governance in pre-1881.
The Neo-Destour were now in control, but Bourguiba refused to take the helm until the French relinquished all control over Tunisia. He did not have to wait long, as the terrible Algerian War of Independence changed the French desire for colonialism, leading to the abolition of the Treaty of Bardo and Tunisia gaining full independence in March 20, 1956.
Bourguiba became Prime Minister and, after 1957, the first president of the Republic of Tunisia as the constitutional role of the Bey was abolished.
presidential system characterized by bicameral parliamentary system, including the Chamber of Representatives and the Chamber of Advisors . President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali has been in office since 1987, the year he acceeded to the executive office Habib Bourguiba after a team of medical experts judged Bourguiba unfit to exercise the functions of the office. At the time, Tunisia was on the verge of upheaval as Ennahdha's (banned Islamic party) supporters were attempting to seize power. Since his access to power, also known as the Change, president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali launched a series of reform meant to introduce political pluralism and boost the economy.In Tunisia, the President is elected to 5-year terms. He appoints a Prime Minister and cabinet, who play a strong role in the execution of policy. Regional governors and local administrators also are appointed by the central government. Largely consultative mayors and municipal councils are elected. There is a bicameral legislative body, the Chamber of Deputies, which has 182 seats, 20% of which are reserved for the opposition parties and the Chamber of Advisors which is composed of representatives from political parties, from professional organisations and by personalities appointed by the president of the Republic. Both chambers are composed of more than 20% of women, making it one of the rare countries in the Arab world where women enjoy equal rights. Incidentally, it is also the only country in the Arab world where polygamy is forbidden by law. This as part of a provision of the country’s Code of Personal Status which was introduced by the former president Bourguiba in 1956. The judiciary is independent. The military is professional and does not play a role in politics.
Since 1987, Tunisia has gradually reformed its political system, it has abolished life presidency and opened up parliament to opposition parties. There are currently nine political parties in Tunisia, six of whom are represented in parliament. The majority party known as the Democratic Constitutional Rally (RCD) in French, is composed of about 2 million members and more than 6000 representations throughout the country; although the party was renamed (in Bourguiba’s days it used to be known as the Socialist Destourian Party), its policies are still considered to be largely secular. Since 2007, all political parties represented in parliament benefit from state subsidies to cover the rising cost of paper and to expand their publication. In July 2008, new constitutional provisions have been voted by the country’s parliament. These provisions which include lowering the age of voting to 18, as well as easing the conditions for eligibility for the presidency, also allow for any head of political party , whether represented in parliament or not to present their candidacy, to run for president.
The state has also abolished the ‘depot legal’, which required prior authorization before sending to print, and issued legislation meant to bring amendments to the press code which provides journalists with greater freedom to express their ideas. Recently, the election of a syndicate of journalists met with a positive reaction from journalists. There are currently about 300 publications in Tunisia, most of them are financially and editorially independent. The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), as well as other press freedom groups have regularly led fact finding missions and issued reports calling on Tunisia to free what they consider as detained journalists, however Tunisian authorities have reacted by saying that there are no journalists currently held for having expressed their ideas. The recent case in point was provided by the ‘Slim Boukhdir case’, a journalist (since then released before serving his term), who was sentenced to a year in jail for having insulted a police officer on duty, according to the version given by the authorities. CPJ denies this version, arguing he was convicted for having written articles critical of the president. Tunisian authorities maintain that only pornographic material and articles inciting to hate, are banned by law. This is the case of both the printed press and the internet which has witnessed a considerable development with more than 1,1 million users and hundreds of internet cafes, known as ‘publinet.’ Human rights are also the subject of controversy between human rights groups such as Amnesty International that argue that rights are not respected and Tunisian authorities that make the point that in recent international fora such as the United Nations - based New York Human Rights Commission and the Human Rights Committee in Geneva (2008), where all of the countries of the world go through a ‘periodic review’, Tunisia ‘s efforts to promote a comprehensive system of human rights were officially acknowledged.
Tunisia is also one of three Muslim countries (Azerbaijan and Turkey are the others) that prohibits the hijab in government buildings. By government edict, women that insist on wearing the hijab cannot enter public buildings. Dissenters are liable to a fine and have to sign a document to avoid recidivism. Even if the ban against the hijab in public offices, is not always strictly enforced, the publicity given to certain cases, has overshadowed the real issues.
Underground opposition from Islamic fundamentalists has an obvious but shadowy existence in Tunisia. Under former president Bourguiba, Islamic fundamentalists were temporarily allowed to serve as a counterweight to more left-leaning movements, until their plans to seize power was revealed . Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali, has consistently expressed his opposition to the presence of religious parties in parliament, and the Tunisian constitution clearly forbids the inclusion of religious parties in the political system. While Tunisia cannot boast the natural resources its neighbors have, standards of living are among the best in the developing world. This can be evidenced by two compelling economic observations: the level to which Tunisia has become self-sufficient in material goods, and the extent of real estate development in the cities and major towns of the country. Put simply, the mid-level retail outlet will typically offer goods more than 90% of which are home produced. As to the rise of the building and construction industry, a fleeting visit to any of Tunisia's smaller towns (let alone the cities) will confirm that development is rampant: many projects, especially hotels, are newly opened, and many more stand as skeleton buildings, ready to be developed as soon as demand - and capital funds - are available to bring them to completion. starvation, homelessness, and disease, problems seen in much of Africa and Asia, are rare. Poverty has significantly been reduced thanks to a national solidarity policy and strong social commitment from the government , and now stands at 3,8%, instead of some 50% in 1956.
The following is an excerpt from the The World Factbook about Tunisia;
Following independence from France in 1956, 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 recent years, Tunisia has taken a moderate,
non-aligned stance in its foreign relations. Domestically, it has sought to defuse
rising pressure for a more open political society.
Tunisisa's monarchs
were bad like all monarchs
And the leaders nag Jews, hang some from 1818-20,
in the plague,
A 1/4 of the population die, 50000, of plague,
So it lost
Europe's respect, as of the moves, of hangings,
They then saw the Turks firmly
took Libya, from it's respective leaders,
And they feared Algiers, and the
French policy there, and French expansion,
Then plan expensive modernising,
But see high tax riots,
The same amount of deaths occur in 49, of cholera,
The loans saw bankruptcy despite the creating of a new constitution,
&
they abolish slavery in 57,
There was a near Revolution in 64, but it did
not succeed,
Which was a shame, as their was allot of poverty for socialist
democracy to cure,
Upto 50000die of the typhus lice famine 68, but little was
done,
It was less bad than earlier epidemics it is felt,
More reformers
saw strength retained, but they were replaced,
It was foreign pressure that
helped lead Jews to be freed in Tunisia,
From onerous sharecropping restrictions,
freeing 1000s, probably France helped, most,
As I say though sharecropping
was increased again late in the regime,
& under the French,
Which was
guaranteed under the French, guaranteeing a minimum wage,
But also it in new
ways tied the sharecroppers, To the land, & added some to it, aswell as seeing
urbanising decrease some, there,
From the 1870s-90s French colonial office
drew imperialist, again,
They feel a empire wouldn't be a drain,
Which
pleases Germans,
As they wanted this to put off any attempt to regain lost
French lands,
Actually it was their idea,
Their idea,
In 1881, 'Tunisian
tribes entering Algeria',
Whether they were Tunisian or not, really quite
a border tribe really,
Was used as an excuse, as it decided to conquer the
realm, so 1000die, in this,
Unlike Algeria, locals kept land, & there was
large investment, & but the 1911-2 revolt,
Algeria saw millions of locals
die as of French colonialism, started by France's kings and Emperor, in the 19th
Century but Tunsia had a bit of a better time, with less colonialism, but it stayed
poorer than France,
Tunisia's Destour constitution P urges locals' equality,
Bourguiba a leader, got it popular, & negotiates with the French PF,
Till
it fell in 38,
122die in partly Nat 30s, riots,
So they were arrested,
There are underground cave villages, holding sheep in the boiling S,
Where
robed peasants walk out of too, of others, to see them graze,
But most are
in villages, & towns, in the land, of fertile soils, & food, & tender
delight,
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