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The United States and Nortb Africa
If it is hard to see the pary breaking aparr from wichin, another danger faces it, that of withering away through indif.
ference. To qualify this, it should be said that this is nor an immediate danger and thar the neo-Destour, more successfully than most perties, has crossed the bridge from being a revolucionary force directing natonel energies toward a clearly defined goal to playing the role of a formally organized poliical party supporting a govermment which overshadows it and has pre-empted many of its funcions. There are at least three problems here: one is the diffculty the party has in recruing new members and maintaining interest at local cell levels: a second is the diffuse narure of the party structure, which was desirable when fexibility and the capecity to survive poliaical repression was important but is not now adequate to che needs of a state which feels it must control and direct a complex socioeconomic battle on many fronts; and a third is the result of having many talented party members in government jobs which inevitably take all their energy. Certainly a crisis in party-government relations has been smoldering for several years, and now there is an incipient crisis in the popular response to the party. Eforts to solve the first by reinforcing central authority over regional party federations do not seern to have been too successful, and as to the second, it is notorious that the party is unable to summon up mass enthusiasm; that is a task which has to be left to the magic of the presidenial appeal. It is too early to say that there is a crisis of generaions in Tunisia, but it looks as if the next five years or so will determine whether the elan that has so far caried the country along can be maintained as power moves into the hands of another age group.
It is not easy to sum up political nuances in Turisia: The state is paternalistic and verges on authoritarianism without openly espousing totalitarian methods. Up to now it has been a relatively free country without much sense of oppression;
almost anything could be ciicized save Bourguiba, and if criticism did nor get.vary far neicher did it bring down more
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