Tunisia: Intellectual Elitism and the cage of Francophony
In the developing world, we often hear the terms “intellectual” or “intellectual elite” mentioned to describe a small fraction of the general populace with high regard. These terms are then correlated with other terms of the same jargon, such as “well-read” or “highly-educated.”
This fraction is majoritarily composed of individuals who have attended “elite universities.” Or even more esteemed are those who have studied abroad, and “abroad” usually means the country of the ex-colonist. In the case of my fellow citizens of Tunisia, this happens to be “France.”
This elitist cult sits at the top of the intellectual hierarchy in the developing, previously colonized countries. Through this article, I will attempt to briefly deconstruct the idea of elitism in the ex-colonized countries into its linguistic, economic, and social roots to give a relatively short account of a colonially-manufactured class of individuals that have risen from bureaucratic pillars to build a society whose structure revolves around the principles and objectives of colonialism.
As a case study, I will use the example of my home country, Tunisia. My work is influenced by the Martinic intellectual and writer, Frantz Fanon, particularly his two books, “Wretched of the Earth” and “Black Skin, White Masks.” This article will reflect how the depictions of the colonized societies found in Fanon’s books still accurately describe the same societies under their new affiliation.
Tunisia gained its independence on March 20th, 1956, a day still marked on the calendar of every Tunisian and celebrated with jubilation. A day that many politicians still use to give populist speeches and attract the masses with unfounded claims and short-lived promises.
However, Tunisia is still, in many aspects, very much reliant on France in a manner that many see as neo-colonialist. Economically, France still holds the lion’s share of Tunisia’s imports (16%) and exports (30%). France is also the first provider of foreign aid and the first supplier of foreign direct investment (Présence française en Tunisie, 2022). Moreover, France holds sway over the Tunisian job market with 1484 enterprises, employing more than 150,000 Tunisians (Présence française en Tunisie, 2022). These economic shackles enable France to use soft power to maintain its influence in Tunisia, both on the political scene and, most notably, on the social structure of the country.
While the economic effects of the French presence can be debated in terms of their benefits to the Tunisian economy, neocolonialism shines brightest in the Tunisian educational system and the formation of the Tunisian elite. In “Wretched of the Earth,” Fanon illustrates the dynamics of the relationship between the colonizer and the colonized. The colonizer subjugates the colonized to unparalleled human condescension that ranges from cultural to physical humiliation. In the eyes of the colonizer, the colonized citizen is no other than an animalistic savage, devoid of any cultural or human identity (Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth, 1968). As such, it is the colonizer’s mission to elevate this primitive being to the human level through extensive cultural assimilation.
Through 75 years of severe colonial suffering, the Tunisian people have gone through intensive conditioning attempts to perpetuate the idea that to be human is to be French, to be white. The Tunisians’ quest to prove their humanity can be accomplished in two seemingly opposing but fundamentally equal ways. The Tunisian layman refuses the savage label that has been laid upon their rich, historically dense identity. The Tunisian layman is aware of the colonial aspect of this cultural assimilation.
As such, The French resort to an internal subjugation of the people; that is, they create a social class that they educate and indoctrinate to believe in their civilization’s efficiency and cultural superiority. The members of this social class then self-proclaim the title of “elite.” They grow to believe that by frequenting the French and mastering their language, they ascend to the level of the human, of the colonizer. As a result, they begin to cultivate a sense of superiority over the rest of their native population, erecting an intellectual and economic barrier between themselves and the masses.
Following the country’s political independence from France, they inherited the colonizer’s mission by ingraining the French language and culture into every aspect of social existence. The very fabric of the social organization is divided into two categories: those who are familiar with French culture and language (the civilized) and those who are not (the savages). Fanon best illustrates this in “Black Skin, White Masks”: ‘In proportionately, the Negro of the Antilles will be proportionately whiter; that is, he will come closer to being a real human being-in direct ratio to his mastery of the French language’ (Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks, 1952).
Mastery of the French language is regarded with high praise, and a lack of understanding is correlated with intellectual incompetence. The simplest syntactical or grammatical errors are subject to intense ridicule. One seemingly indignant act defying all principles of rational thought is that one can be ridiculed for misunderstanding or misarticulating words in the language of the colonizer whose existence one sacrificed thousands of martyrs to deracinate. Equating mastery of the language of the colonizer with wisdom and intellect is an equally repugnant act.
The Tunisian educational system is a marvel to the objective observer. At the elementary level, pupils take on the French language from the age of 8, three years before the Lingua Franca, English, and two years after Arabic, the country’s constitutionally recognized native language. The story gets more interesting when the students move to middle school. They are divided into ordinary schools and pioneer, or “elite”, schools. Needless to say, this is a French-inherited concept. One difference between the two curricula is that in the elite schools, physics is taught in French, while in the ordinary, less intellectual schools, it is taught in Arabic.
This is one of the first steps of conditioning, a simple equation. Arabic is equated with low intellect, while French is assigned the cap of science and high intellect. It implicitly indoctrinates students to believe that if they study hard enough, they will get a headstart in studying physics through the lens of the language of science and intellect.
The high school level further accelerates the transition. All the hard sciences in high school, from experimental sciences to physics to mathematics, are taught solely in French. This adds pieces to the puzzle slowly being constructed in the Tunisian’s mind. Another variable is added to the equation. French is the language of the sciences, of rational thought and intellect, while Arabic makes the transition to a mere literary tool. An equation that still stands firm only in the old French colonies, nurtured by neo-colonialist policies. French has long ceased to be the language of science and technology, yet a carefully manufactured and maintained cage of Francophony still locks Tunisia in a pre-defined orbit of primitivity and educational lag.
After studying the aforementioned elements of the Tunisian educational system, it should come as no surprise that higher education in Tunisia is also predominantly structured according to the French system and conducted in French. Out of 203 higher education institutions in Tunisia, not taking into consideration law and language institutions, only one isolated school (Tunis Business School) uses an international curriculum and follows an American structure of education (Tunisia: higher education institutions by type | Statista 2022). All the other 202 institutions are exclusively structured in the outdated, rigid French system, which many French higher education institutions have abandoned in favor of the more internationally-recognized Bachelor system.
After a cycle of this maniacal French sway over the fabrication of the country’s educated class, the top students are served on a silver platter to France, working within its industries and government and contributing to its prosperity. It should be noted that education is completely free in Tunisia. It thus follows that every student who leaves the country after graduation is a considerable net loss, both intellectually and economically. A study by Campus France shows that France is, by and large, the first destination for Tunisian students going abroad. The country hosted 13,025 Tunisian students in the 2018–2019 academic year alone. Moreover, an estimate in 2017 indicates that 770,000 Tunisians legally live in France, most of whom are employed and actively participate in the French economy (En chiffres: la mobilité France-Tunisie, preuve des “liens inextricables” entre les deux pays — Jeune Afrique 2017). The students with the highest scores on the country’s national high school exams in Mathematics and Experimental Sciences are also offered full scholarships to continue their education in France.
This cycle of mass indoctrination creates and maintains an unfounded yet masterfully constructed inferiority complex that perpetuates the longing for an illusory transcendence from Tunisian to French, from the indigenous savage to the civilized white.
The Tunisian elite, that is, those who have passed the test of intellectual submission to French standards, develop an utter loathing and disgust for their fellow citizens. On television and in the press, they go on parading and speaking with indignance about how the Tunisian layman cannot construct a proper sentence in French.
In a scheme of intellectual colonization, they paint the image of their past self, their pre-illumination status, as ignorant and devoid of all aspects of civilization. It should be noted that the Tunisian’s equal lack of understanding of the native Arabic language is very seldom, if ever, deplored by this class of intellects. The criteria upon which intellectual classes are divided go even beyond this point. Not only is the Tunisian mocked for his or her ability to understand and speak French, but for the accent with which he or she articulates the words.
The Tunisian, and specifically the rural Tunisian pronunciation of French words, is often the subject of comedy shows and is instantly correlated with low intellect. The elitist class spends hours in empty rooms twisting their tongues and malleating them to please the ears of their French counterparts. One of them once told me, with a glimmer of pride in his eyes, that someone from the embassy informed him that he had a “Parisian accent”. They then go on lecturing the Tunisian layman about his or her lack of eloquence. This virulent epidemy of condescension then infects the public, and it becomes the duty of every educated member of the population to keep a strict guard over their fellow citizens’ articulations of the French language.
A state of anxiety takes hold of me every time I speak in French, as I can already hear the hysteric mockery in my head if my tongue, God forbid, commits the deadly sin of speaking in my indigenous accent. A seemingly decolonized population is still held captive, suffocated in a box of colonial indoctrination that paralyzes its social harmony, economic prosperity, and very sense of identity. The cultish elite is to be intellectually decapitated, for it is a capital mistake to lay the label of intellect on individuals who throw the seeds of the poisonous colonial past.
References:
En Chiffres : La Mobilité France-Tunisie, Preuve Des « liens Inextricables » Entre Les Deux Pays — Jeune Afrique. (2017, March 31). JeuneAfrique.com. https://www.jeuneafrique.com/423590/societe/chiffres-mobilite-france-tunisie-preuve-liens-inextricables-entre-deux-pays/.
Tunisia: Higher Education Institutions By Type | Statista. (2017). Statista. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1241507/number-of-public-and-private-tertiary-education-institutions-in-tunisia/.
Présence Française En Tunisie. (2001, March 10). Présence française. http://www.ctfci.org/11/presence-francaise.
Fanon, F. (1952). Black Skin, White Masks.
Fanon, F., Farrington, C., & Sartre, J. (1968). The Wretched of the Earth.
