Paradisiacal gardens with a profusion of birds and flowers. The expanse of clear, turquoise blue water stretching to the horizon. No wonder the European tourists return again and again.
War zones don’t usually look like this.
It was British home secretary Theresa May who best captured the incongruousness of it: “How could a place of such beauty, of relaxation and happiness, be turned into a scene of brutality and destruction?”
Incongruous too, the holiday-makers sunning and swimming as if nothing had happened.
The balloon glider overhead, emblazoned with the words “Love Tunisia”; the music blaring from a hotel nightclub. Didn’t the 38 people, including three Irish citizens, who were shot dead here on June 26th, deserve a decent interval of mourning?
Genuine grief
Many Tunisians felt genuine grief, like Rim Bouagga, an English teacher. Was she afraid, I asked, as she stood before the pile of flowers marking the massacre site.
“I’m not afraid,” she answered, almost angrily. “If I was afraid, I wouldn’t be here.” Then she turned and walked down the beach to hide her sobs.
Many feared for their livelihood, like Bilal Mourjan, a horse and carriage driver for tourists.
When I asked Zohra Driss, owner of the Imperial Marhaba Hotel and a deputy in the Tunisian parliament, what she felt, she replied: “We had 620 clients on Friday. There are only 21 left now.”
Driss scandalised some of her compatriots by asking the state to pay her financial compensation.
There was the sad smile and pregnant silence of an airport official when I asked why the government had not adopted the security measures it is again promising after the March 18th jihadist attack that killed 21 tourists at the Bardo museum.
Others complained the government doesn’t tell them anything - that it gave better medical treatment to foreigners than to wounded Tunisians.
The day after the massacre, two Irishwomen were touched when a Tunisian woman with a small child stopped in traffic to blow them a kiss.
Anis, a city councillor, Hayan, a medical doctor who often treats tourists, and Riyadh, the owner of a modest hotel in downtown Sousse, sat beside the deserted pool of Riyadh’s hotel, smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee.
The three men described themselves as average, downwardly mobile middle-class Tunisians.
Though only Riyadh was directly affected by the attack - the occupancy of his hotel dropped from 100 to two - all were preoccupied by travel warnings to be issued by European governments in the future.
Tunisia’s future “depends on the behaviour of the victims’ countries”, Anis said.
“We’re afraid they might restrict travel to Tunisia,” Hayan explained. “That would be the worst. If they merely recommend that people don’t come here, the tourists who’ve been here before will come back anyway. A restriction would destroy us.”
Extremist traffic
Though few in Tunisia regret the 2011 departure of Zine al Abidine Ben Ali, my hosts could not help recalling that the former dictator deployed police patrols on the beach, on horseback and quad motorcycles. Under Ben Ali, extremist traffic on the internet was closely monitored.
Riyadh suggested ulterior motives behind the massacre. “Tunisia is in the process of becoming a democratic country,” the hotel owner noted. “That doesn’t please non-democratic Arab countries… The Europeans are friends of democracy.”
Riyadh classified himself as “centre right”. His friends belong to the left-wing party al-Massar. “Europe knew very well that Tunisia wasn’t a democracy when they supported Ben Ali,” Hayan sniffed. “Europe cares about its own interests. Do you think they’re doing Tunisia a favour, letting our workers be paid 250 dinars (€115) a month?”
The friends agreed that Tunisia, like Algeria and Lebanon, was torn between those who look to Europe and those who feel Arab and Muslim. “We’re only 60km from Lampedusa [Italy],” Riyadh said.
“Europe needs to help us: politically, economically, military, and to establish security. Europe needs to invite our young people to study in their universities. They should continue to train our elites.”
Again, Hayan was more sceptical. “Africa is the richest continent in natural resources,” he said. “They want Tunisia to be stable as a gateway to Africa.”
Tunisians tell you they’re a peaceful people, who haven’t attacked another country since the ancient Punic wars. Despite the June 26th massacre, all three friends were optimistic for the future. “For 3,000 years, we’ve always conquered extremism,” Riyadh said.
“We have institutions,” Hayan chimed in. “Four medical faculties, faculties of human science, physics, mathematics, the arts… There’s an organised state here, as in any developed country.”
