The state of enlightenment spreads darkness.. How did the French occupation fight education in Tunisia?

Tunisia lived in the late Hafsid era, especially at the beginning of the sixteenth century AD, phases of political and military weakness - like that of the countries of North Africa - and fell victim to the Spanish occupation, which had seized many of the coasts of Algeria and the Far Maghreb between 1535 -1574 AD, the era in which the Ottoman Empire witnessed the peak of its power and expansion during the era of its greatest sultan, Suleiman the Magnificent.

During that era, the Ottoman forces were able to extend their control over Libya in the east and Algeria in the west, and in view of the injustice, persecution and the Spanish occupation, “the Ottomans had supporters everywhere, and it can be said that their political presence in the occupied areas was always, while those who were to The side of the Spaniards was a traitor, so he was killed and his money was confiscated, and the outposts of Haydar Pasha (the Ottoman commander) were not far from the city of Tunis more than forty miles” (1). The matter ended with the victory of the Ottomans and the conquest of Tunisia in 1574 AD, and the country has since become an Ottoman "yayala".

It is true that the Ottoman presence in Tunisia went through different stages, starting with the Bakrlbakwat (the governor’s pashas), through the Muradians, then the Dayes and the Beys, who all became independent in a large part from the Ottoman Empire, as many contemporary Tunisian historians describe. The numerous correspondences between Tunisia and the Porte show the nature of the political relations between Tunisia as a province or an Ottoman province and between the center of power in Istanbul.

The Ottoman fleet attacking Tunisia in La Goulette in 1574

In this context, the Tunisian historian "Mustafa Al-Siti" believes that Tunisia's subordination to the Ottoman Sultanate was based on a group of elements, on top of which is the fact that the governor in Tunisia was taking over the rule after receiving the mandate letter by a special envoy sent from Astana, and it is worth mentioning that the rule in Tunisia was Genetically during the era of the Husseinite beys, and during their reign also, sermons were read in the name of the Ottoman Sultan and he was called to him in the pulpits, and the railway (the currency) was struck in his name, and financial and military aid was sent to him from equipment and men at the time of wars, as he was sent to him an irregular tax that was called a gift. It increases and decreases according to the country's economic situation (2).

In view of this great independence enjoyed by the state of Tunisia, like the case of the Ottoman state of Egypt, which became hereditary to Muhammad Ali Pasha and his sons, the beys of Tunisia concluded many agreements and loans with European creditors away from the Ottoman authorities in Istanbul, and for this reason, and since the seventies of the ninth century Ten, creditors such as the Italians, the French and the English began to consolidate their political influence in the country, and they fought with all force the great reform efforts on which the Tunisian minister "Khayreddine Pasha" was based, who eventually had to resign from the position of the Tunisian ministry and emigrate towards Istanbul.

A decade has passed since this resignation, and Tunisia was forced to sign the French protection agreement, which began with France taking over the responsibilities of defense and foreign affairs for Tunisia and ended with the permanent occupation that began to change the image of political, economic, and even social and cultural life in the country, and one of the results of which was the fight against education and learning.

How did the "lights and enlightenment" state fight education in all its forms in Tunisia?

And how did you work on graduating an elite that would help them in ruling the country?

Tunisia under French "protection"

Signing of the French Protectorate Treaty on Tunisia

Tunisia is considered the first experience of the protection system in the history of the French occupation. The French government headed by Jules Ferry decided in March 1881 to occupy the Tunisian country, after it had prepared a complete military and diplomatic planning in two phases: the first occupied the north of the country and imposed protection on the Bey, and the second Controlling the entire Tunisian territory and justifying the military campaign on the grounds of securing the French borders in Algeria from the raids of the tribes in northern Tunisia (3).

Under which protection was imposed on Tunisia, and France was authorized to interfere in all its internal affairs after it was limited in 1881 to defense and foreign affairs.

Thus, France imposed its full sovereignty over all Tunisian territory (4).

Thus, Paris imposed its control over the joints of the Tunisian state and its various institutions, and was able very easily to do absolute control over the educational and cultural field in the country. The state of calm in the first thirty years of the occupation led to the release of the hand of the occupiers without supervision or accountability in the type of education imposed, the number of schools and setting standards to be chosen On the basis of students, France has seen the control of primary and secondary education as a complementary tool to its military intervention, an effective means of cultural penetration, and an important mechanism to support its influence inside the country.

France and the domination of education in Tunisia

The entry of Tunisian students to French schools passed through stages of standard screening that took into account French interests in the country. Despite this, the occupation did not reach the year 1900 AD, when “there was an uproar on the part of the colonialists against science and education, and they became under the nightmare of an illusory danger, so constructions and scientific institutions were stopped, after they Several schools were closed, including the Gafsa school, and the only secondary school - Lyssi Carnot - closed its doors in the face of Tunisians, with claims less than the spider's web" (5).

In his study "Colonial Education in Tunisia during the French Protection", Moroccan researcher "Ahmed Soualem" monitors with accurate numbers and statistics the systematic policy of the French occupation that worked to reduce the number of educated Tunisian men and women compared to the European communities and the Jewish minority in the country, in the period between 1897- 1903 AD The number of Tunisian students systematically and deliberately decreased. In 1897, their number reached 4,656 students, representing 28.9% of those enrolled in French-Arab public schools. To be surprised, their numbers decreased again in 1903 AD to 2,927 students, representing 17% of the total number of students enrolled in schools. This decrease is due to the obstacles set by the French occupation authority, such as: reaching the legal age, the guardian’s desire, the presence of a vacancy, and the approval of the “French” supervisory board.

On the contrary, the children of the French, Europeans and Jews easily and unconditionally found their places in the study seats (6).

The French approach did not stop at reducing the number of Tunisians in education, but rather they worked to give a French character to educational curricula and environments, and education in the French language became the original, along with the presence of shame for Arabic in public schools, until the student became fluent in French, understood its secrets, and tasted its literature. His language is far from him.

France has worked to bring out an elite class that admires French culture in order to help it control the Tunisian people.

However, the French failed to control the "Zaytouna Mosque", which was the last bastion of Islam and Arabism in the country, where education was limited to religious and linguistic sciences and the dissemination of Islamic culture (7).

Only one year after the imposition of comprehensive protection on Tunisia, and in April 1884 AD, the French resident "Campon" issued a decision to create the "General Administration for Science and Knowledge", and it was taken over by "Louis Machoel", the French orientalist who knew Arabic, where he set a program for the most important institutes The scientific institute in Tunisia at the time, which is the Sadiki Institute, and in this program, “Machoel” was keen to approve a curriculum identical with the French educational curricula, then he canceled education in the Turkish and Italian languages, so that education in French became absolutely in front of Tunisians and non-French Europeans, and the number of schools in Tunisia in that year reached 24 schools, all of which were taught by French and European monks and missionaries (8).

Despite the pressures of intellectuals and parents on the government to allow the establishment of an Arabic-French primary school, "Khaldounia", whose foundation depended on the donations of parents in Tunisia, the Arabic language remained an optional course that did not affect the student's success or failure.

The influence of French education soon influenced a group of famous Tunisian intellectuals during that era, among them “Mohamed Al-Aram” (d. 1925 AD), who demanded the publication of French education even in the Qur’anic books, and the integration of Tunisian children with French children from early childhood, and he called for Tunisian youth to be cultured Purely French, and to facilitate communication between Arabs and French in all fields (9).

How was education in Tunisia before the occupation?

In his book "Tunisia the Martyr", Abdelaziz al-Thaalbi (1876-1944 AD) - the Tunisian reformer and one of those who stood very firmly against the French occupation of the country - monitors the crimes of the French occupation in Tunisia in various fields, including education, and compares the state of his country before the occupation with its aftermath. There is a well-thought-out plan that was developing before the advent of the occupation, and in light of which the level of Tunisian education steadily progressed. “Education was reviewed as a whole, and on November 1, 1842, a law was issued regulating the conduct of lessons, improving teachers’ salaries, forcing them to work, and guaranteeing good teaching… On the twenty-seventh of September, 1870, the government doubled the tuition fee for the education system in order to give the teachers of the Great Mosque a wage that would increase their enthusiasm and motivate them to establish evidence of their perseverance necessary for the advancement of education” (10).

Al-Thaalibi considers that the peak of the reforms undertaken by the state of the Beys in the field of university education was only 6 years before the French occupation. The decree of December 26, 1875 AD stipulated a review of the educational program, to include, in addition to religious and philosophical sciences, the study of law, jurisprudence and literature History, geography, engineering drawing, arithmetic, architecture, astronomy and surveying, and this decree took into account the psychological conditions of the students, "the lesson time should not be short or long, that is, its duration should not be less than 45 minutes, and not more than an hour and a half."

And Article (24) says that - and since the opinion of the professor in his student is the most important motive for his work - it was necessary for each student to have a form in which the professors put their opinions on his perseverance and intelligence, and then put in this form the grades that the student obtains in his examinations” (11).

Al-Thaalibi admits with great sadness and sorrow that the French occupation destroyed this emerging educational renaissance, as the “Marsa” treaty, which imposed French protection on the country in 1883 AD, came to “destroy this great renaissance, as the first article of it left the French government and public finance the power of moral guidance to our people. The first was that the new government found a problem… Does it leave the Tunisians their national language and culture and enable them to adopt more rational curricula, or on the contrary, it deliberately teaches them in French? And the government would not have thought of coexistence or reciprocity between the two languages, because Arabic was undoubtedly replacing French, which is It is a natural thing… Arabic was judged without discussion, because it is by its nature that the Tunisian people preserve and develop the roots of their personality, thus making their colonization extremely difficult” (12).

Thus, Tunisian education has been persecuted since the French armies relentlessly set foot, cannons and weapons in the country, and the occupation took control of endowment funds and donations, and struck the foundations of national education in favor of its institutional project based on the Frenchness of education, thus changing the identity, culture and orientation of the new generations.

Thus, the government of the “Enlightenment and the Colonial Lights” made the Tunisians between two choices. Either spreading darkness, ignorance and sabotaging education that preserves people’s religion and culture, or French education that brings out France intellectually and culturally, and in that it faced relentless resistance, and that is something we will undoubtedly stand upon.

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