Tunisia

I have never felt as sorry for Muslims as I did in Tunis.

Mohamed Bouazizi’s name and spirit are missing. The men here dally in dark cafes, drinking tea with mint leaves, watching soccer. There is no trace of any revolution. Ben Ali is somewhere comfortable, his Saudi backers even more comfortable. The new-old government in Tunisia’s capital have banned a political party, forgetting Britain's lessons with Sinn Fein. Hundreds of people dead in 2011, for what?

I have never felt as sorry for Arabs as I did in Tunis.

In 1956, freed from the yoke of French colonialism, President Habib Bourguiba convinced the Tunisian National Assembly to pass the Personal Status Code, which prohibited polygamy, defined court procedures for divorce, granted universal suffrage, and required the consent of both parties to a marriage. “With this one law, women became equal to men before the courts.” (Third World Women Speak Out, by Perdita Huston)

But Bourguiba miscalculated. Tunisia’s rural villagers did not know about the Personal Status Code. When a country is illiterate, how can they know the capital city’s intentions for them? They continued the old ways.

What happened to the ideals of this leader of women’s rights, this Arab feminist? Where is his spirit in Tunis? It is in a street named after him and a statue. (At least the street is lively.)

I have never felt so sorry for Arabs and Muslims as I did in Tunis.

A capital city should be filled with activity and discussion, but Tunis at night is dead. Most shops close at 8pm, street lighting is irregular, and finding the way back to my riad is difficult. Only stray cats, graffiti, and small garbage heaps acknowledge me. Sanitation workers cannot clean the garbage heaps from the busy day quickly enough—the streets are too narrow, too winding, too dark. I have seen men using handheld carts, the kind farmers attach to the back of oxen, hauling garbage alone.

There may not be enough money to fix potholes, install proper lighting, clean graffiti, create a flag that doesn’t look like a Turkish copy, or improve sanitation, but the police near the presidential palace ride shiny BMW motorcycles. In the city centre, numerous security forces carry the latest semi-automatic weapons.

Tunisian women have not convinced politicians to pay them to stand around with guns, but they have their own defense tactics. When an impatient grandmother wearing a black headscarf crosses a busy street, she wags her finger at each oncoming driver, not bothering to look, confident cars will stop.

I have never felt so awful for Arab Muslims as I did in Tunis.

Wherever I go, I enter at least one government building and take a photo. I take the photo behind the security barrier or entrance check. The photo is always of something harmless or within easy sight, something I can zoom in from outside if needed. In San Francisco, California, the police officers do not bother me, even when I loiter in their lobby. They have discretion and are above following pointless rules for the sake of following rules. Their job is to keep the peace and bothering a potential taxpayer does not make sense.

In Havana, in Tunis, and in any society with too few women workers and too much security spending, the story is always the same. When I step inside Tunisia’s Ministry of Finance and take a photo of the tiled wall, an armed and uniformed security guard runs up to me and grabs my arm, angrily ordering me not to take photos. He knows his job is pointless, but he must follow orders, tu comprends? Not following rules affronts his manhood, and in Tunisia’s post-colonial world, enforcing pointless rules is his raison d’ etre.

Other government workers, equally useless, not used to commotion, come outside their offices to observe. They have very nice suits. A nonconformist in a Tunisian government building must be an interesting sight to behold. Meanwhile, EU finance ministers approved a blacklist of 17 jurisdictions deemed as tax havens. Tunisia is on the list.

I have never felt so despairing for young Arabs as I did in Tunis.

When I ask a guide the following day if we can enter a government building, the one over there with the interesting tiles, he calmly explains the building I would like to enter is for government employees. He does not need to add the word “only.” It is understood in Tunisia, which held democratic elections for the first time in 2012, the government does not work for him.

I have never felt so sad for young Muslims as I did in Tunis.

My host, a kind man named Oussama, the owner of both French and Tunisian passports, tells me politicians loyal to Ben Ali, the president who fled to Saudi Arabia after the student-led revolt in 2011, are re-gaining power. It is unclear whether the police or military would arrest Ben Ali if he returned, despite outstanding warrants for money laundering and drug trafficking.  

Oussama opines that the students’ 2011 nonviolent approach may have been a mistake. He does not look like a man who favors violence. He is slender, calm, has many books in many languages. He explains that after the revolution, the state disappeared and the mafia entered the void, but now the state is making a comeback. Unfortunately, Tunisians have lost the most important thing—their energy, so palpable in 2011. Young Tunisians today say they—the politicians—are all the same, which is the worst possible outcome. I do not tell him my successful Arab friend in America refers to the “Arab Spring” as the “Arab Winter.”

I have never felt so happy for Arab Muslims as I did in Sidi Bou Said.

The sidewalks are (mostly) clean, excellent coffee exists in enough places, students with laptops write eagerly, and no one objects to people taking harmless photos. Posh restaurants, late hours, and stunning views of the sea and mountains seem indigenous, as does the color blue. It is impossible to be sad in a city where almost everything has been painted blue by man or Allah.

I have never felt so optimistic for African Muslims as in Sidi Bou Said.

Men and women sit together on rooftop salons, black and Arab Africans walk side by side, and men do not need soccer or cigarettes to socialize. Police officers with shoulder-strapped guns are also here, but they bring a different energy. They are more purposeful, more determined, more proud. One plainclothes officer in Sidi Bou Said is worth ten uniformed personnel in Tunis.

I have never felt happier for African Arabs as in Carthage.

Carthage has the nicest houses, the most money, the best-paved roads, and the most interesting history in Tunisia. Hannibal, son of Hamilcar Barca, was born here, his military tactics striking fear and respect into the hearts of the Roman Empire.

Tunisia’s most vibrant cultural center is here, away from most government ministries. Inside, surrounded by movie posters, I see, for the first time, Heinrich Böll speaking on television. Outside in December, young men and women of every shade of color mull about, chatting and laughing.

I have never felt so happy for Arabs and Muslims as in Carthage. 

Simple Truths: De Facto Segregation

Author's note: I just discovered this post from many years ago. It's a draft, but I can't capture my original train of thought, so I am publishing it below "as is." I'm very surprised at #3, because I now firmly believe segregation, assisted by poor public transportation, is the cause of almost all major issues in modern countries. I don't mean only race-based segregation--I mean segregation of all kinds. In nature, birds of a feather may flock together, but if the human race's survival depends on "getting used to each other," segregation must be actively fought with the same planning and precision militaries fight wars.

Truth #3: Segregation may help minorities, at least in modern-day America.

Look at the history of assimilation in America. Which groups have been successful? How have they been successful? And why have we had so much "white flight"? Is "white flight" just a term for rich people trying to avoid an influx of poor people of a different color? Or is it a practical response to unwanted cultural change?

I don't know the answers to the aforementioned questions, but I do know there is safety in numbers. In America, as much as we advance the "melting pot" theory, the real power is in concentration, not integration. Democratic societies function based on elected representatives. Who chooses the representatives? The majority. If your group--whether professional, religious, or racial--is in the majority, chances are, your group will maximize its political potential. In contrast, if your group is in the minority, you will be dependent on the kindness of the majority to ensure your prosperity.

In good times, everyone is usually on the same page--it's the bad times that cause miscommunication and violence. History shows that when things get bad enough, majorities have no problem gassing millions of Jews, locking up Japanese-Americans, detaining and torturing Arabs and Muslims without due process, and so on.

In short, when the economy is doing well, Americans love assimilation; however, problems tend to arise during each recession.

Truth #4: Most people don't even know our two biggest problems.

The proliferation of nuclear weapons is a massive problem--so is trying to compete in a globalized economy. Sure, other major problems exist, such as cybersecurity, a crumbling infrastructure, and a declining K-12 education system, but nuclear weapons and globalization stand out because we don't necessarily have the answers yet. 

Prague, Czech Republic: Deservedly Weird

The Czechs are weird. My first day, a college student took pity on me, a confused-looking tourist on the tram (I should have downloaded the Jizdni rady IDOS app earlier), and invited me to a show. The show turned out to be one of the trip's highlights and better than the 300 koruna performance at a fancy Prague museum. 

How did I get into this small gathering? Through a revolving door filled with heavy books. Why a revolving door? Because this is where the Czech intellectuals met, in secret rooms, to plot against their Soviet occupiers. 

Like much of Europe, the Czechs were occupied by Nazis. Just three years after the end of WWII, the Czechs, having expelled Nazis and fascists, had to battle Communism, which included the Soviet re-taking of property that had been returned to their rightful Czech owners in 1945. The three-years' bout of independence wasn't forgotten when the Soviets came; if anything, the sight of the sickle and hammer reinvigorated the Czech spirit. 

Consider the (pre-Soviet) heroic but ultimately tragic Heydrich assassination attempt, memorialized in the National Memorial to the Heroes of the Heydrich Terror. Short version: the British helped a small team of Czechs successfully assassinate the local Nazi police chief, then received cooperation from local church leaders to hide the Czech shooters in an underground crypt below a small church. The way to the crypt requires pushing through an inconspicuously heavy, half-revolving door. (See a pattern?) Unlike visitors today, the Czech shooters had to hide in darkness, armed only with candles for light. (I didn't see a toilet, by the way.) 

Unfortunately, one of the parties involved in the assassination split after things didn't go exactly according to plan, and it's unclear whether he knew the Heydrich hit had worked. He eventually betrayed his colleagues, but the fact remains: the Czechs, unlike other Europeans, resisted. 

Tales from the Crypt

Adolf Kajpr, a Jesuit priest, attracted the Gestapo's attention because of his anti-Third-Reich writings and was sent to Mauthausen concentration camp. Yet, he never wavered in his faith and published still relevant thoughts, such as the idea that liberal capitalism leads to atheistic humanism, but Communism promotes oppression and injustice, especially against religious adherents. Why? "[P]ure religious truths were regarded as a form of resistance against those who claimed to possess the entire truth, freedom, and power." (Note to self: totalitarians hate competition.) 

Incredibly, Czech nonconformity can be traced back to the first President of Czechoslovakia, Tomas G. Masaryk. He was expelled from Catholic school, married a rich French-American woman from Brooklyn, took her last name as his middle name, and as a matter of principle, refused to honor convention. (Politicians matter, folks. For better or worse, they help shape a country's image and ability to credibly claim a particular value in the future.) 

If this isn't available online when I get back to California, I'm gonna be disappointed.

Other Czech iconoclasts include playwright and eventual President Vaclav Havel. Below are two of my favorite passages from perhaps the Czech Republic's greatest citizen: 

From Disturbing the Peace (1990)

Imagine meeting in secret café rooms with a playwright and plotting to drive the law-and-order Soviets so insane, they'd give up and leave. It actually happened. The Czechs managed to resist non-violently and in crazy enough ways to make a report sent to Moscow impossible or incomprehensible. For example, when the Soviets first came, Czech resisters removed all the street signs. In a non-GPS, non-GNSS era, this action rendered the efficient Soviet machine slow, making navigation and mapping impossible. 

The Czechs were just getting started. Try to envision a 22 year-old Soviet soldier patrolling the streets of Prague with a Kalashnikov. He doesn't know where he's going because there are no street signs. When he walks around, trying to maintain order, he sees this: 

"What's going on?" he thinks. No one is attacking him, so he can't shoot. The artist cleans up after the performance, so there's no litter. It's not against the law to "crow." Does he just stand there, looking like an idiot? How does he explain this incident to his local superiors, who then have to report to straitlaced Moscow? If you're the 40 years-old local military commander, and you receive a call describing this performance--and others like it--do you even write a report? If you don't, you'll be accused of hiding information from Moscow, but if you do, you'll look like you've lost your mind, and you might lose your job. What do you do? What do you do?

Suffice to say, Vaclav Havel and his band of misfits prevailed--but only after college students, who so often sacrifice themselves to shame adults and the Establishment into doing what should be done, set themselves on fire. Remember these names: Jan Palach, Jan Zajíc, and Evžen Plocek--they are heroes and better men than you and me. 

Memorial at Charles University

When women today make the popular V-sign in photos, they may not know its full history. It was in Wenceslas Square where President Vaclav Havel, a poet and playwright, made the V-for-victory sign to thousands of Czechs who had finally won their freedom from Soviet occupation. 

At Wenceslas Square, the site of Palach's self-immolation in 1969.

After I left Prague, I read a delightful book by an Australian woman who moved there in search of a more interesting life. The passages below are from Rachael Weiss's book Me, Myself, and Prague (2008), but I recommend you start with her more polished and recent work, The Thing about Prague (2014). Her insights are spot-on about the Czechs, whom she politely calls "eccentric." 

Weiss correctly describes the Czechs as rude by Western standards, but one must also remember much of the world thinks Westerners are idiots for walking around smiling all the time for no reason. Me, I say the Czechs have earned the right to be any way they like. If they want to be eccentric, rude, and notorious for having affairs, more power to them. Anyone repelling armed soldiers using art, nonviolence, and sheer confusion ought to be able to put a man on an upside-down horse in the middle of a bazaar and act as if that's perfectly normal. 

Your eyes do not deceive you. It is what is is.

If you visit Prague, try Medovnik (honey cake), and think of the Czechs as perpetually drunk Germans. Czechs are usually blunt, so it often feels like you're getting yelled at or ignored with no middle ground. I'm no linguistics expert, but the way Czechs speak English indicates their language prefers to be precise and concise when possible. 

Just don't take anything too personally, whether it's the museum employee trying to be helpful by warning you not to buy a ticket because it's too late ("Why did you wait until you only had one hour left? You come tomorrow." I bought the ticket after realizing she wasn't actually giving me an order); to the sitting newspaper stand owner loudly demanding to know why you're standing in front of his stall (an American would just ignore the potential customer); to the waiter who ignores you even when you wave your hand trying to catch his attention. 

Despite the occasional rudeness and weirdness, you'll be pleased to know the Czechs, unlike most of Eastern Europe, have successfully integrated about 60,000 to 80,000 immigrants and made about half of them citizens. These Vietnamese immigrants weren't necessarily fleeing the North Vietnamese military--some relocated voluntarily as part of a later Communist alliance between Chinese-backed North Vietnam and the Soviet Union, which is why Vietnamese food in Prague is different from Vietnamese food in America. 

Besides excellent restaurants and cafés, Prague has too many tourist sights to list, but you should try the following: Charles Bridge, 

Basilica of St. James (aka Church of St James the Greater), 

I don't read Dan Brown's books, but look closely.

Church of St. Nicholas (in Old Town), the Dancing House, 

St. Vitus Cathedral (in Prague Castle aka Prazsky Hrad), the Franz Kafka Monument, 

Yes, the guy who wrote a weird story about a man who turns into an insect is Czech.

National Gallery aka Narodni galerie v Praze (with permanent and changing exhibitions in different locations--I enjoyed Julian Rosefeldt's "Manifesto," starring Cate Blanchett), Wenceslas Square (for its historical value--it's just a shopping area now), National Memorial to the Heroes of the Heydrich Terror, and Lobkowicz Palace. Five nights is sufficient. 

Lastly, here's a photo of dogs in the aforementioned royal palace. As you can see, you will never, ever be as weird as the Czechs. They are the original hipsters, and others will always be poor imitators. Unlike most artists today, their art and nonconformity had purpose, bravery, and substance, helping the Czechs achieve independence. The next time someone asks whether art and philosophy are useful, you can respond affirmatively--as long as you thank the Czechs.