Bourguiba and Bourguibism Revisited: Reflections and Interpretation
2001; Middle East Institute; Volume: 55; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
1940-3461
Autores Tópico(s)Middle East and Rwanda Conflicts
ResumoHabib Bourguiba's political career spanned six decades, roughly half as leader of the Tunisian nationalist movement and half as President of independent Tunisia. A portrait of his leadership style, relying largely on his own statements, show him to have been charismatic and effective both in guiding Tunisia to independence and in implementing major reforms after 1956. He, however, remained in power too long and his autocratic style inhibited the institutionalization of Bourguibism. You all did love him once, not without cause' On 6 April 2000, the long life of Habib Bourguiba came to an end. His political life had ended earlier, on 7 November 1987 when he, as Tunisia's President-for-Life, was ousted from office by his Prime Minister. That rang down the curtain on a 30-year-old presidency and a six decade long political career. His removal after those many years at the center of his country's political stage followed a very Tunisian scenario. Unlike Egyptian President Anwar al-Sadat, he was not assassinated, not literally torn to pieces as had been the fate of Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Said, not gunned down by his opponents as happened to Iraqi President `Abd al-Karim Qasim. Those who acted against him did not wait for him to be out of the country, as with Libya's King Idris or Ja`far al-Numayri of Sudan. Unlike King Sa'ud of Saudi Arabia or the Shah of Iran, he was not induced to step down following cumulative failures and a smoldering crisis lasting for months. Nor was he overthrown by the usual military putsch that in so many countries of the Middle East and North Africa since the 1940s has become as stylized as the Japanese Noh drama - the lightning quick storming of a few important power centers by a military unit loyal to the coup leaders, a few hours of confusion and media silence, and then the radio announcements in the name of the victors. Instead, in Tunisia it was all over in a night, not a shot was fired and Bourguiba was dispatched to a more or less honorable retirement within his native country. A panel of medical experts signed a document stating that the octogenarian Bourguiba was no longer physically or mentally capable of carrying out his presidential duties, thereby fulfilling the requirements of Article 57 of the Tunisian constitution. The reaction in Tunisia varied from jubilation to quiet relief. Not even his Destourian Socialist Party's apparatchiks seemed to oppose the move. It had not always been that way. Bourguiba during most of his long political life had enjoyed genuine popularity. Yes, it can now be seen even more clearly in retrospect, the man himself early on had set out to create that popularity, to project himself as the embodiment of the Tunisian nation. Yes, the very term that he put forward to label his political style - Bourguibism - scarcely bespeaks a modest man. Yes, from the time of independence in 1956 the instrumentalities of both party and state were placed in the service of Bourguibism to such extent that the two became for all practical purposes fused in a single political force. Even so, for all the carefully crafted cult of personality, beginning as early as the 1930s Bourguiba's leadership was a political reality. It can fairly be said that for much of his long political life Bourguiba was a charismatic leader, in the carefully drawn sense that Max Weber had intended when he coined that useful term.2 Weber had identified as a major problem in political change the transition from charismatic leadership (in which the inspired leader guides his following into putting aside old ways of doing things and challenges them to embrace a new world aborning) to a new set of political rules and new institutions. This, to Weber, was the daunting problem of routinization of charisma. Alas for Bourguiba's niche in history, his political charisma was not routinized. Instead, it broke apart, piece by piece over the many years of his relentless rule from 1956 until the shell that remained in 1987 - a physically and mentally decrepit old man - was simply put aside like a worn-out toy. …
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