Home Is the Hero

As the French ship poked its bow into the Gulf of Tunis, a small, dark-eyed man in red tarboosh and grey business suit stared at the distant mountains and sobbed nervously. Habib Bourguiba, frail, 51-year-old leader of Tunisia's Neo-Destour and father of Tunisian nationalism, was returning in triumph to his country. It was the peak of a lifetime of struggle, over ten years of it spent in exile or French prisons.

A fleet of fishing smacks and steamers erupted from the harbor, each bright with colored balloons and bunting, and from the upturned faces came cheers, whistles, shouts of "Long Live Bourguiba," and snatches of the Neo-Destour song: "We will die, we will die, but the country will live." Banners proclaimed: "Hail to Our Supreme Fighter." Bourguiba cried emotionally: "I'm coming back to a people that has found its soul."

At the dock a cheering mob swept him up and carried him to the customs shed. From a shaky platform, Bourguiba declared: "Today we have become masters of this land."

Blessed Day. With 16 camel riders flanking his car, Bourguiba progressed through a seething sea of happy admirers as strangely mixed as Tunisia itself. Vespa motor-scooters, ridden by sport-shirted youths, skittered among primitive horsemen in burnooses; bare-foot peasant boys dodged fat businessmen in Citroens and Fords. In the blue-tiled throne room of the palace, old (73) Bey Sidi Mohammed el Amin, hereditary ruler of Tunisia, rose majestically from his place to embrace and kiss Bourguiba, saying softly: "This is a happy day. Joy has replaced suffering." Tears in his eyes, Bourguiba echoed: "A blessed day."

Skirting Tunis' subdued French quarter, Bourguiba's cavalcade proceeded amidst the thunder of drums and the shrilling of native pipes, through festooned streets and stopped before a small, dilapidated house. The adoring crowd surged forward, bore Bourguiba up three flights of stairs to the tiny apartment where his wife has lain bedridden during the last six months of his exile in France.

Bourguiba, sickly ever since he was stricken with tuberculosis in his teens, was nearing exhaustion. In the Place of the Sheep, a crowd of 50,000 cheered him for ten minutes, then listened as he warned: "We must know how to use this sovereignty in a dignified manner. We must respect everyone who lives on this earth, be he French or foreigner. We must treat him as a brother as long as he respects our freedom, our personality, and our dignity." With a final tired smile for the crowd, Bourguiba drove off to a friend's house to rest.

Where to Stop. In Bourguiba, France had no lackey, but what might be better: a Moslem moderate who went to school in France, married a French girl, and wants to work with the French. There was no sign that the French colons appreciated their good fortune. The diehard Presence Franc,aise called on all European settlers (250,000 in a nation of 3,300,000) "to unite to prevent the application of all measures interfering with their dignity, their persons or their wealth."

Colonial officials sneered. "Bourguiba's crazy and sick," said one. "There's no telling what he'll do." Added another: "The Neo-Destour is a fascist movement. Today their line is cooperation with us. But soon they'll start getting rid of their enemies. First it will be the Vieux Destour (nationalist extremists), then the Jews, then the French. All this enthusiasm has been a victory for France's policy. But it must stop at internal autonomy."

Bourguiba was not willing to stop there. "This is the preamble to complete sovereignty and entire independence.'' he insisted. That insistence, and the resistance of French colonials, may yet jeopardize the agreement; if it fails then all of French North Africa (including Morocco and Algeria) will be in trouble. Bourguiba preferred to be optimistic. "The French are conservative people," he said. "They're not against us; they're just against what they don't know."

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