Tunisia: Understanding Conflict 2012 - Johns Hopkins School of ...

History of Secularism in Tunisia
In addressing the debate surrounding secularism, it is necessary to understand the
Tunisian protectorate experience as well as the experience under both Bourguiba and Ben
Ali. First, in Tunisia, secularism is expressed by the French laïcité. This idea was first
introduced when Tunisia became a French protectorate in 1881 and became subject to
French influence. Laïcité is the total separation of Church and State. In Tunisia, as in
France, laïcité evolved to be the belief that there must be an absence of religious
expression in public spaces and an absence of government intervention in religious
affairs. Thus, laïcité is a form of secularism that rids the practice of religion or
integration of religion from public or civil areas. Important to note is the simultaneous
influence of the Turkish model of secularism. In the post-colonial context, the Tunisian
rulers were looking for a “western” model to replicate that was separate from their
colonial past. However, the Turkish model also incorporated the rejection of religion in
public spaces. This further supplied legitimacy to the model of laïcité.
Under Habib Bourguiba there was a major movement to modernize Tunisia.
Modernization was understood in some respects to be westernization and
industrialization. Under this movement, Bourguiba and the Destour party, elected in
1957, implemented the Personal Status Code, by which equality was granted to men and
women. Through this effort it seems that Bourguiba felt the need to promulgate the
laïque ideology as a mechanism to complete modernization. This is because the
assumption was common that to be “modern” one had to be like the West, which had
achieved some higher level of modernity. The most well known symbol of this desire to
change Tunisian public social relations took place on Ramadan when Bourguiba went on
television to address the nation while simultaneously drinking a glass of orange juice. By
doing this during the month of Muslim fasting, he signaled to the nation the absence of a
place for religion in public life.
This ideology continued under the regime of Ben Ali. For example, the wearing
of the hijab was not permitted in schools or places of work. Thus, secularism became not
just the separation of religion and state, but was widely believed to be the rejection of
religion. The Rassemblement Constitutionnel Démocratique party, the inheritors of the
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