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Independent North Africa
biques. A clubby and familial atmosphere prevails among them.
They see much of each other; it is not uncommon to come
across half a dozen important government figures lunching to-
gecher for de special reason ocher than that Tunis is small and
their society is limited. (The extraordinary difference between
che school-cie government of a very little country like Tunisia
and the normally impersonal administration of a large country
like the United States may not at first strike most Americans
but it is a vimal political reality.) Bourguiba's place at the top
of this intimate hierarchy has never been disputed since the
early 1930's, and he is now consecrated as the first citizen of the
country, even though criticism of some of his actions is heard
on a rising scale. His popularity with the average Tunisian-
maintained by a boundless energy, numerous public appear.
ances regular radio ulls, and a fine popular touch-is still
great, although it has somewhat declined since the Bizerte
Fasco in 1961. The ill-conceived plor against the life of the
President at the end of 1963 is les symptomatic of this than
is the vague popular discontent owing to the slowness of
economic progress and the growing realization that Bourguiba
is not infallible. Sail, there is a general recognition, even among
intellectuals who often show impatience, that it was he who
firse lit the lamp in Tunisia and kept it burning at all times.
Around him is a group of distinguished men couching fifty
years of age Mongi Slim, now Foreign Minister after having
served as President of the United Nations Assembly; Bahi
Ledgham, in theory the second man in the country; and a half
a dozen other old companions-in-arms. But they are aging and
a new generation is behind then, men arriving at forty, of
whom the able Minister of the Interior, Taieb Mehiri, is an
example. With others like Masnoudi, Bourguiba has quarreled
over religious and personal issues, or like ben Selah, over the
degree of socialization in the economy, but most of these dis-
putes have ended in reconciliation, that word which always
comes back in a discussion of Tunisian affairs.
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