Tunisia Grows Up
Here's hoping the Jasmine Revolution improves upon the legacy of Habib Bourguiba, the nation's first president.
By Christopher Hitchens
Posted Monday, Jan. 17, 2011, at 12:37 PM ET
Visiting Tunisia three years ago, I thought that it was easy enough to see the main problem. The state was publicly dedicated to modernity and secularism and development—what used so long ago to be called "Westernization"—but it didn't really trust its citizens to be grown-ups. The country had only had two heads of state since becoming a republic in 1957, after winning independence from France in 1956, and the second of them had come to power in a palace coup.