121
tiques. A clubby and familial atmosphere prevails smong them.
They see much of each other; it is not uncommon to come across half a dozen important govermunent fgures lanchأ؛ng together for no special reason other than that Tunis is small and their society is limired. (The exttaordinary difference berween the school-tie goverument of a very lirde county like Tanisia and the normally impersonal administration of a large country like the United States may not at first strike most Americans but it is a vital political reality.) Bourguiba's place at the top of this intimate hierarchy has never been disputed since the early 193o's, and he is now consecrated as the first citizen of the country, even though criticismn of some of his acrions is heard on a rising scale. His popularicy with the average Tunisianmaintained by a boundless energy, numerous public appearances, regular radio calks, and a fine popular touch-is gill great, although it has somewhat declined since the Bizerte fiasco in 1961. The ill-conceived plor against the life of the President at the end of 1962 is les symptomatic of this than is the vague popular discontent owing to the slowness of economic progress and the growing realization thar Bourguiba is not infallible. Still, there is a general recognition, even among intellectuals who often show impatience, that it was he who first lit the lamp in Tunisia and kept it buning at all times.
Around him is a group of distinguished men touching fifcy years of age: Mongi Slim, now Foreign Minister after having served as President of the United Nations Assembly; Bahi Ladgham, in theory the second man in the country; and a half a dozen other old comparions-in-arms. But they are aging and a new generation is behind them, men ariving at forty, of whom the able Minister of the Interior, Taicb Mehiri, is an example. With others, like Masؤ±noudi, Bourguiba has quarreled over religious and personal issues, or like ben Salah, over the degree of socialization in che economy, but most of these disputes have ended in reconcilietion, that word which always comes back in a discusion of Tonisian affairs.
|