Carthage
I was particularly eager to see the ruins of Carthage, especially those that date back to Phoenician times. The ruins aren't as well-preserved as many Ancient Roman sites, but that’s to be expected given that the city was razed, first by the Romans in 146 BC and then again by the Arabs in 698 AD. Considering the extent of its destruction, I’m just glad and somewhat surprised that anything has survived to this day.
One reason I’m surprised that anything remains is the fact that much of what remains is perched on a hill overlooking the Gulf of Tunis. The view is breathtaking, and from a military standpoint, the elevated position offers a natural defense. It makes me wonder why successive civilizations didn't seize this land to construct their own fortifications. It seems like an ideal spot to build upon, and yet, ancient ruins have been allowed to endure.
Despite all the pillaging and razing, there are still beautiful mosaics throughout the ruins. Many are still in good condition and it’s amazing that so many last.
They are oddly plentiful in a way that seems like the museums don’t know what to do with them all. Most of them are sort of stacked up and shoved into storage.
The people depicted in the mosaics were fairer skinned than I had expected.
One question I had when I landed that I wanted to get my head around was why the Third Punic War dragged on for as long as it did. The Second Punic War had ended with a complete Roman victory and left Carthage completely subordinate to Rome, not even able to defend themselves without asking permission. Then came the Third Punic War in 149 BC, initiated by Rome, who wanted to destroy Carthage once and for all. The Romans demanded that the Carthaginians surrender all their weapons to appease them. The Carthaginians reluctantly did so, handing over 200,000 sets of armor and 2,000 catapults. When the Romans demanded that they vacate the city, Carthage decided to fight with what remained.
I would think, given the disparity, further increased by the Carthaginians handing over all their weaponry, that the remaining siege would be a short affair. But it took another three years for the Romans to take the city.
I think the part I can’t get my head around is the city walls. I can’t comprehend how 10,000 soldiers with picks couldn’t knock down a wall overnight. And the Romans had around ~50,000 soldiers. I looked for remains of city walls to help me grok the size and scale of the challenge, but I wasn’t able to find any. I found walls like the one below, but they all seem to be interior walls.
I looked it up and found that Greek historian Appianus said the outer wall was 10 meters thick, up to 13 meters high, and 40 kilometers long. I guess this is why. Still, it’s hard for me to understand. The Carthaginians had just handed the Romans 2,000 catapults. That, plus whatever the Romans brought, I would think you could get in. Maybe it’s not an overnight affair, but a few months. Or if you can’t get through, go over—build a massive ramp or something. Remember, the alternative is feeding an army of around 50,000 men for 3 years. That seems much harder.
Despite the wall size, I'm still wrestling with an intuitive understanding of why breaching such walls would be so difficult. I suppose at 10 meters of thickness, walls become virtually impenetrable. Plus, let's not forget the additional hazards of arrows or boiling substances that defenders would launch from above.
During the Second Punic War, Hannibal campaigned around Italy for 14 years, crushing every Roman army in his path, but he didn’t even think about attacking the city of Rome. Again, sieging fortified cities must be harder than I can get my head around.
Every time I learn about ancient cultures, I’m always struck by the cruelty they practiced. Long before the final sack of Carthage, death by torture and execution by elephants were practiced by these people. In fact, “execution by elephant” happened throughout the Middle East and North Africa, extending into India and Southeast Asia. The practices I read about horrify and disgust me, but as I’ve said before, we’re not genetically that different from these people. It’s all culture.
Caption: Artwork showing executions by elephants from India, Belgrade, and Sri Lanka. Source: Wikipedia
The Carthaginians supposedly practiced child sacrifice. We have to be careful here when considering the historical accuracy of these claims because everything the Carthaginians ever wrote has been destroyed. So the written record is mostly a bunch of Carthaginian enemies (e.g. the Greeks and Romans) saying, “Oh yeah, those people over there are a bunch of baby-killers.” Possibly true. I visited the ancient infant graveyard. It’s a modest site and there’s not much one can glean from it. My understanding is that there’s no historical consensus, and some think it might be just an infant graveyard and there were no sacrifices, but overall it seems more likely than not that the child sacrifice is true.
Interestingly, the Carthaginians seemed to have a clever approach to sacrifice. Unlike other cultures that might offer a sacrifice in anticipation of divine favor, the Carthaginians made their promises conditional: "If you give me favorable winds for my fleet, then I will sacrifice my first-born." No wind, no dead baby. That’s the deal.
Public Opinion
I tried to chat with as many locals as I could to get a sense of how people felt about Tunisia and its future. Overall, people were a little less friendly and interested in chatting than I hoped. Not by a lot but by a little. Obviously, the language barrier plays a role, but even when considering that, there's less smiling, nodding, and eye contact compared to many other places. So I wasn’t as successful at talking to random people as I would have liked. So as much as I would have liked a random sample of the population, I ended up with a hugely biased set.
Mostly I was able to talk to people when they wanted my money. So much of it was with shopkeepers, taxi cab drivers, and the like. Even in a country where people are less inclined to speak to you, people trying to sell things to you will always speak to you.
I was also limited to people who can speak English. I can “où sont les toilettes” as well as the next guy, but if we're going to be speaking about geopolitics, it's got to be in English for me. So English speakers only.
For example, none of the homeless spoke English.
It’s been over a decade since the Tunisian Revolution and I asked a bunch of people if things were better now than they were 15 years ago. When asked, people bring up jobs. That’s what matters. Things are better because there are more jobs, or not as good as they would like because not enough jobs. No one brought up democracy or the right to vote without being prodded about it. When prodded, they pretty much uniformly said that democracy was better than the alternative. Most voted, including many for the current president. They’re generally in favor of democracy when asked, but it’s not front of mind. It’s mainly about jobs and the number of tourists.
Although no one was adamantly opposed to democracy, one person did emphasize that, sometimes, you do need a strong leader. Ben Ali was a strong leader. He wasn’t great though, but sometimes you need strength, he emphasized by holding up his clenched fist.
In general, most people would say things have gotten better since the revolution, and the revolution was a good thing. But it’s hard to separate what’s a single person’s experience from a larger picture, or what’s a nationwide change versus just a local thing.
One shop owner complained that they have to close all shops at 5 or 6, but tourists want to stay later because it’s hot during the day. He said this in the context of a conversation about changes since the emergence of democracy, but I don’t know at what level those rules are set.
Another told me there used to be more “good” tourists, which he referred to as European (but was actually Western European). Now there are more Eastern European and Russian tourists, and they’re “not as good” (I’m guessing that means they buy less).
There are also more Chinese tourists here, and they are not particularly good tourists.
There was pretty strong pro-American sentiment, at least among the people I spoke to. This could obviously be biased because they were talking to (and trying to sell to) an American.
Many people have some US connection, such as a friend or family member in the USA. Often a sister is training to become a doctor or something like that. They’re often eager to show pictures of their friends living in the US.
One person very much wanted me to have a Berber good luck charm and absolutely refused to take payment for it. (I don’t know the full extent of its power, but I can report that keeping Berber good luck charms in one’s breast pocket does nothing to prevent airline delays).
There’s also some level of anti-Chinese sentiment. Apparently, they’re not good tourists. They mostly go into the shops and take pictures of everything. One guy told me this was so that they could go home and make replicas of everything and undercut the market. I’m not exactly sure how this works. I wouldn’t think a Chinese person would set up shop right next to them; they would have to rely on a local reseller. Maybe it was online sales they were worried about.
As one person said, “The Chinese brought the Corona and the US brought the vaccines.” The US offered Tunisians free vaccines. Everyone I asked got the Johnson and Johnson vaccine. They also said the Chinese were only willing to sell the vaccine and that their vaccine was crap. The vaccines seemed to be a source of pro-American sentiment (again, they were talking to an American, so, potential bias alert!)
Again, I would love to be a fly on the wall when they’re talking to a Chinese tourist. Do they suddenly love China and hate the US? I would doubt this. Perhaps they tone down the anti-China stuff but the connections to the US seemed to be genuine. I heard many stories and saw many pictures of family members clearly in the USA.
I like to try to predict how I expect the world to be (e.g. how long it would take to siege ancient Carthage) and try to learn something every time I’m wrong. With that in mind, I thought about the predictions a pro-democracy advocate would make about Tunisian economic growth. I think a pro-democracy advocate would have predicted that there would be a marked shift in Tunisian economic numbers since the revolution. But that’s not my reading of the data. Here’s the unemployment rate from Statista. There was a spike in the unemployment rate in 2011, but, according to this IMF report, that seems to be more of a response to the social and political events and not the cause of them. So if we ignore the 2011-2013 spike because of political upheaval, we’re left with a higher unemployment rate than before. Maybe it just takes time for democracy to get its feet under it? Perhaps, but would a pro-democracy advocate have predicted unemployment to still be higher a decade later? Even worse, as democracy has time to settle, it continues to rise.
Similarly, we can look at GDP. Again, it’s sobering for anyone who hoped that democracy would bring an era of unprecedented growth. Growth was relatively consistent before the revolution and has been underwhelming since. Note that the strong, positive growth on the right side of the graph are all projected values. The true values end with less GDP than before the revolution.
But in other ways, the improvement seems significant.
One cab driver told me that under Ben Ali, police would ask what he talked about with people who drove around. It was like a hand always on his neck. I could not figure out exactly what it was that the security services were worried about. I don't think it was anything in particular, just a general “we’ve got our foot on your neck” kind of thing.
It’s funny, but some of their complaints sounded familiar to those in any industrialized democracy. “Politicians are all talk.” “They don’t do anything.” I guess these are signs of progress?
One taxi driver told me there are still a bunch of people who prefer the old system under Ben Ali (maybe it was 50-50, he suggested), but 80% of them were in on some form of kickbacks or corruption under the old system.
People still point to corruption as one of the largest problems facing Tunisia today. This was one of the largest complaints before the revolution and still hangs heavily. I get the sense that there is less corruption but perhaps not as significantly as people had hoped.
Another person told me that the main problem with Tunisia today is that it's gotten so expensive. It used to be cheap to eat, but now it’s so expensive.
The generational shift in Tunisia, like everywhere else in the world, cannot be stopped. The kids are all on all the familiar apps—YouTube, TikTok, Instagram. Some people even know people who are Tunisian influencers and the like. Everyone uses WhatsApp and Facebook; they’re essential infrastructure for running a business (e.g. a taxi cab).
When asked about English, one cab driver told me that although French is the main foreign language at the moment, “The future is English.” Kids get it, as I had expected, from Netflix and music and all the ways you would guess.
Although English is far below French in terms of prevalence, it is by far the #1 language written on t-shirts. There is very little Arabic on clothing and a bit more French.
There are lots of signs of modernization, wealth, and growth. Not rip-roaring growth, but growth nonetheless.
As is happening throughout the world, family sizes are getting smaller. One driver told me he had two children and was stopping there. It’s too expensive to have more. It’s interesting that even as the world has gotten richer, it’s common to say that it’s too expensive to have many kids. I think a large part of what’s going on, all over the world, is that the standard for raising children has increased tremendously. It’s expected that they take more time and resources than before and that they go to college. I should probably delve more into this in a separate blog post sometime.
I pushed him on this and he pointed to the quality of the food. He told me that food in the past was much better and much more nutritious, so it was easier to raise children.
Most everyone I spoke to expected their children to go to college.
It’s worth pointing out that I don’t necessarily trust everything people say about their home countries. Just like I don’t trust every American to accurately relay the status of America. I don’t mean quiz questions like, “What year did such and such happen?” I mean important questions about the health of the country. It’s been repeatedly found that many Americans’ perception of the economy tends to swing in tandem with the change of political power. So you just gotta take everything in and not necessarily believe it all.
Being Less Wealthy
It’s interesting which aspects of a developing country strike me the most as indicators of lesser economic standing. Some things would intuitively make sense for lower-income countries, like not having as nice cars or not having fancy hospitals. But although these are probably true for Tunisia, they aren’t the most salient. The things that make me think that this is a poor country have very little to do, at least directly, with having or not having money. It’s more of a “culturally poor” atmosphere.
The most significant thing is the amount of trash everywhere. This is pretty universal to poor countries everywhere. It’s not that they don’t have stuff. It’s that after it’s used, the stuff is lying all over the ground.
It is weird to see kids drink from a water bottle and then just throw the empty bottle on the ground, despite the available trash cans nearby.
In addition, honking seems negatively correlated with income levels. Again, this isn’t a lack of material goods. It’s cultural.
This isn’t necessarily a lower-income country thing because it’s also common in places like South Korea, but seeing people smoking cigarettes everywhere is weird for me.
There is a lot of decay in Tunis as well. There is lots of unfinished and abandoned construction.
Roman Ruins
The Roman ruins are also pretty cool. They seem to be larger and more complex than the Phoenician ruins, though it’s hard to tell if they’re more sophisticated or just have the added benefit that they weren’t intentionally demolished by the Romans.
No Supply No Demand
I visited during a tremendous lull in the tourism season. Most places I ate weren’t well-attended and I was often the only person. The same was true for the Carthage historical sites. Lots of places had a “no supply, no demand” feel to them.
In nearly every historical site I had the place to myself, or was just one of a handful of people.
There was also a lack of “supply” in the sense of signage or things explaining what was going on. The Punic Ports of Carthage used to be a place of tremendous historical significance but are pretty empty and non-descript now. When I walked in, some guy off to the side sitting in the shade asked me for my ticket. He had no insignia or indication that he was anything other than a guy trying to get money off tourists, but I showed him my ticket and he seemed fine with that. There was no cash register, no tickets to give me. Just a guy sitting on a plastic lawn chair. I walked around the place for a bit and never saw another person. Even he was gone by the time I left.
According to the Internet, the museum to see is the Bardo Museum. It’s the best one in Tunis. But it was closed. So I pulled out Google Maps and looked for the next highest-rated one. It turns out that the Bardo Museum is by far the most popular one, and all the others have a tiny fraction of the reviews. But I went to the next most popular one, only to find that it was also closed. So I found myself sitting on the steps outside yet another closed museum (with its hours on the door indicating it is definitely open right now), in downtown Tunis googling “what to do in Tunis”.
Various
The biggest difference between me and a local Tunisian is the rate at which we cross the road. I'm usually for enjoying the journey but in this endeavor, I'm really just about the destination and trying to get there as quickly as possible. But they live it up. That's their time to take it slow and enjoy the asphalt.
I was mostly in Tunis so didn’t get a chance to see many interesting birds. I saw a spotless starling, which I had never seen before. But they look so similar to common starlings that it’s hardly an exciting new bird. I also saw common bulbuls, sparrows, doves and pigeons, and spotted flycatchers.
There’s this thing they do along the sidewalk where there is vegetation every once in a while. They plant it in the walking space and you have to walk in the street to get around it. It’s not immediately obvious what the benefit is, but the thought of removing it gives me Chesterton's fence vibes.
There are the normal scams/annoyances of being a tourist. There is the “I’m so confused by you repeatedly pointing to something on the menu. Don’t you mean the <insert more expensive thing>? How about I make it for you, and then we discuss it?”
The water of the Mediterranean around Tunis is absolutely beautiful. Crystal clear and a great temperature.
There is some nasty plant life. I think this is some type of acacia.
Negotiation is common, as expected. There are definitely times when you could negotiate lower but, really, where does an extra $3 do more good?
There are some benefits to not knowing the language. When I walked through the metal detector to get to the Baths of Antoninus, there was something wrong with my bag or something I was holding or something, but the security guy and I didn’t have any languages in common so the only word we both knew was “OK”, so after several failed communication attempts, he decided my bag was OK.
There are good meals to be had for cheap if you can find them. I got this Tunisian salad for less than $2
As is the case across North Africa, the cats are doing alright.