Notes on Tunisia(mattlakeman.org)

107 pointsby returningfory2anno scorso68 comments

https://mattlakeman.org/2025/05/29/notes-on-tunisia/

79 comments

> In contrast, when is the last time one of the greatest cathedrals were built? Probably not for hundreds of years.

Our Lady of Good Health[1] in India is 1962.

I think what the author means is "one of the famous ones in Europe", but the Sagrada Familia is still being built[0], tho arguably construction started two centuries ago :)

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sagrada_Fam%C3%ADlia [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basilica_of_Our_Lady_of_Good_H...

rjswanno scorso

Two in Europe that I can think of [0] [1]:

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liverpool_Cathedral [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liverpool_Metropolitan_Cathedr...

kinowanno scorso

The Cathedral Basilica of the National Shrine of Our Lady Aparecida (Catedral Basílica do Santuário Nacional de Nossa Senhora Aparecia) was also built less than 100 years ago in Brazil.

I am not sure when it was first built, I think it was in the 50s, but they had a major renovation/expansion that I think finished ~40 years ago or so.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basilica_of_Our_Lady_of_Aparec...

Projectibogaanno scorso

In NYC, there is The Cathedral of St John The Devine. It was started on 1892, opened on 1909 and is still under construction, while open and in use.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cathedral_of_St._John_the_Di...

[deleted]anno scorso

allturtlesanno scorso

No offense to the people of Velankanni, but Our Lady of Good Health is rather rinky-dink compared to the great historical cathedrals. Looks like the nave is about 20 feet tall and the bell towers 40 feet maybe? Notre Dame it isn't. Per your Wikipedia link, it was designated a Basilica in 1962 but seems to have been mostly constructed before that.

AStonesThrowanno scorso

microtherionanno scorso

A church is a cathedral if it's a bishop's seat, which GP's churches are not. But it seems silly to characterize the Sagrada Familia as "minor".

tgajanno scorso

It's the official church title - "minor basilica". There are only four "major basilicas" in Rome.

AStonesThrowanno scorso

The "silly familia's basilica" is in good company: there are 1,881 minor basilicas. That is relative to the 4 major ones, which are all in Rome.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basilicas_in_the_Catholic_Chur...

St. Paul Outside-the-Walls was completed in 1840! Almost yesterday! However, re-consecration and construction continued after that. Interestingly, it seems that an automatic fire-detection and suppression system had been installed in the 19th century.

refactor_masteranno scorso

I looked up the Jubilee Church. Supposedly it has a roof that breaks down NOx. So I asked ChatGPT to do some napkin math and…

  Assuming ~1,200 m² of TiO₂-coated surface removing ~16 g NOₓ/m²/year → 1,200 × 16 = 19,200 g = 19.2 kg/year; with an average car emitting ~5 kg NOₓ/year (based on 15,000 km/year at ~0.33 g/km), the roof offsets ~3.8 cars annually.

cess11anno scorso

One reason for grabbing onto tourists and pushing things into their hands is that a lot of the ones during high season got drunk already on the flight and then spend the rest of their visit at some point between hungover and intoxicated. They're both profitable and require intervention to bring their attention to whatever trinkets or they'll just amble along without spending any money.

It was many years ago so it might have changed but my experience in Tunisia (as well as Egypt and other places around the Mediterranean) was that if you look and move like you belong in the area most merchants won't bother trying to push you around. I bought some of my favourite clothes in Tunisia and Egypt by asking tourist merchants about theirs and insisting that I want something like that and not the stuff in the souvenir market, many were willing to ask someone at a neighbouring stall to keep an eye on theirs and lead me to a 'real' shop in an area where locals trade with each other.

That's where the good cafés are, and that's the place to meet honest people who might be willing to act like taxi and guide for a day or two, or even invite you to meet their family and share food with them.

oa335anno scorso

I wish he write more about his day-to-day experiences and less about the history of Tunisia. I find his analyses of countries politics and history to be shallow.

arp242anno scorso

It's really hard to do that from three weeks of travel.

I like Matt's posts, but I always take them with a grain of salt. To really get an in-depth viewpoint you need to live somewhere for a year at least, and probably speak at least some of the local language. I've lived in a few countries over the years, and it's just such a different experience from just travelling for a few weeks.

skybriananno scorso

It shows the limitations of what you can learn as a tourist. He would have to team up local residents more to go more in depth. The language barrier doesn't help either.

Still, it's good to know about what your first impressions might be like without actually going there.

fuzztesteranno scorso

Yes, same here. And I wish he had written more about Tunisian food, the non-fast food kind that he mentions.

The history section was long and boring.

Some of the other stuff was a bit interesting, though.

decimalenoughanno scorso

I'm seeing a lot of comments here about how the history/politics part is "wrong". Would more enlightened readers care to give a summary of what, exactly, he got wrong?

My two cents: I haven't kept up on post-Arab-Spring politics, but the descriptions of Bourguiba (crafty politician, hopeless economics, then senile) and Ben Ali (thuggish, corrupt) seem pretty accurate to me.

doixanno scorso

I lived in Tunisia for 3 months, mostly in Tunis. I'm surprised there was no mention of the doors there. They are pretty beautiful[0].

The Star Wars section is also pretty limited, if you're a fan, I recommend checking out the GalaxyTours map[1], the tours were outside my budget but the information they provide is extremely accurate and well researched. Chott el-Djerid [2] was my favourite, basically the outside of Luke's home located in the middle of a dry lake (on google maps it looks like water). Funnily enough, my favourite example of Wikipedia not always being right is also an alleged StarWars filming location, wikipedia claims[3] that Ep 1 was filmed at Ksar Ouled Soltane but GalaxyTours shows that it was not [4].

I'm also surprised there were no pictures of plants in the desert covered by plastic bags. It was pretty shocking, driving through the desert, nothing really around, but pretty much every tree/plant had plastic bags attached. I thought maybe they were intentionally put there to serve some purpose, so I stopped and got a closer look. Nope, just trash bags that blew away in the wind and got stuck there.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medina_of_Tunis#/media/File:Me...

[1] https://galaxytours.com/starwars-locations-tunisia-map/

[2] https://galaxytours.com/starwars-tunisia-film-sites/chott-el...

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ksar_Ouled_Soltane

[4] https://galaxytours.com/research/ksar-ouled-soltane-debunkin...

liendolucasanno scorso

One of the things that the article does not mention is how extremely dirty Tunisia is. I've been there two or three weeks not long ago.

It was really sad to see how trash is all over the country no matter where you go. Dumpsters are extremely disgusting, full of trash left rotting for days in main streets. People throw away anything anywhere.

I've been to Djerba island and litter is even on beaches. I've seen litter floating in the water which deterred me from taking a swim. On one occasion I even spotted a half broken umbrella pole rusted and buried in the sand, just waiting for someone to be seriously injured which I obviously removed. Broken glass in beaches is also common, so be careful and always wear flip-flops.

This is a huge cultural and not so easy to solve problem as I've seen people dumping trash in front of me as if something completely natural. It is sad because if that problem is solved, it is actually a beautiful country.

Other countries suffering exactly the same problem that I've visited are Vietnam and Maldives.

curiousgalanno scorso

> how extremely dirty Tunisia is

These generalized statements make my blood boil. Djerba in particular has had issues with garbage [0]. This is akin to me saying the US is an extremely needle ridden country based on a long trip to San Francisco.

That said, a lot of Tunisian cities do have issues with garbage management and littering but calling the country "extremely dirty" makes it seem like people are taking dumps in the streets which is not the case.

0.https://www.jadaliyya.com/Details/31174

arp242anno scorso

> "extremely dirty" makes it seem like people are taking dumps in the streets which is not the case.

That was not my reading at all. There are several paragraphs clarifying what they meant with "extremely dirty".

liendolucasanno scorso

> These generalized statements

Generalized statements? I've been walking an average of 8Km a day while on holidays in Tunisia, so I've been to plenty of places and cities and the pattern repeated over and over again. I'm not the typical tourist that is moved from place to place like a puppet through tours. What do you expect from me? To walk all over the country to prove my point? Djerba was just an example. Give me break.

ashoeafootanno scorso

The delusional with cognitive dissonance are easily angered by description of reality hinting complexity.

dustypotatoanno scorso

Also obviously india

croisillonanno scorso

add Mauritius unfortunately

pybanno scorso

And Bali

robobroanno scorso

Bali is not a country, but agree! Litter is a big problem throughout Indonesia, even in the more rural areas.

owebmasteranno scorso

And Paris

citrin_ruanno scorso

I visited Paris a couple times and travaled across Tunisia and it is not even close. All three north African countries I've visited (Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt) are littered (mostly plastic) but Tunisia shocked me the most: plastic garbage is everywhere from tourist attactions (e. g. Roman runis) and beaches to the remote desert. One of sceens which shocked me the most is when a young man drove a wheelbarow full of grabage just outside a village and dumped content to be spread by wind across the desert.

pybanno scorso

Biased (local), but there is barely any trash in Paris

dzhiurgisanno scorso

> Note that “ugly” can still be interesting, as is the case with many Eastern European cities with their brutalist Soviet apartment blocks...

As someone who grew up there... he's being generous here. I hated those buildings, extremely depressing.

> he said he was from my hotel

I've almost fell for this while in New Dehli. Friendly walk and talk until he lured into some travel agents shop proceed to sell me some trips.

_1temanno scorso

> As someone who grew up there... he's being generous here. I hated those buildings, extremely depressing.

As someone who did NOT grow up there, I understand why he finds them interesting. They can, indeed, be very interesting to the foreigner, especially when people invite you inside.

billfruitanno scorso

Is there any analysis why there was major violent conflict in colonial Algeria with the French, but there was not as much in Tunisia.

jcranmeranno scorso

The article mentions this briefly, but Tunisia just wasn't as important to the French as Algeria was. To France, Algeria (at least the populated northern coast of it) wasn't a colony, it was Metropolitan France--it received full representation in the French legislature, for example. (Note that this was in practice limited to the French settlers in Algeria, as the natives were largely excluded from civic participation--not unlike the apartheid system in South Africa). Given that native populations weren't particularly well-treated, especially after their lot failed to improve despite being the major backbone of the Free French Army in WW2, it's not much of a surprise that they resented French rule and chose to become independent.

And quite like the settler colonies of other countries in Africa, the settler minority who held power in Algeria weren't particularly inclined to give it up to the majority they largely felt beneath them. And since it was a severe insult to national pride to let a core part of France become independent, the French government resisted to the point that it literally broke the government (the Fourth Republic fell because of it, leading to the Fifth Republic).

xwolfianno scorso

Well it has to do also with the European population in Algeria. Ofc Algeria was more precious to us in terms of resources, sheer size etc, but it was also home to millions of Europeans and extremely expensive to abandon or resettle them - a bit like if all the former countries of the Israelis citizens had to take them back today if Israel were to be taken back by its native original inhabitants: a complete nightmare nobody would support and we'd rather move along and let it be a bit of a mess rather than bring the mess back home.

That was at least the feeling at the time, and we still had to do it, and it is to this day a complete mess of people brought back who don't feel French and aren't Algerians really. We'll pay for it for many decades until it finally disappear, like every subgroup that got "imported" in France and had to merge painfully since France started.

Tunisia in contrast, we really didn't care all that much, there was no cost giving it back and we lost nothing. And fast forward 70 years, we probably actually saved tons of money doing so, so we're all good.

Note that if you talk people to people, it now seems to be in the past, Algerians are proud to be Algerians, French are ashamed to have damage the country so much for so long, and we try to be good friends. I've never met an hostile Algerian, as in a recent immigrant. I've met many hostile 3rd generation immigrants from Algeria whose grandparents fled back to France, and they still have trouble accepting that uprooting. There seems to be nothing to do except wait and smile and tell them it's gonna be ok, with a glass of wine and bit of saucisson.

tptacekanno scorso

Just to note that a plurality of Israeli Jewish people are indigenous at least to the region. Their situation is not at all like that of Algeria.

oa335anno scorso

> a plurality of Israeli Jewish people are indigenous at least to the region.

Do you have a source for that?

Britannica says:

> The largest proportion of Jews trace their roots to Europe (including the former Soviet Union) and North America, though some also hail from Africa (mostly North Africa), Asia, and the Middle East.

https://www.britannica.com/place/Israel/Demographic-trends

I think this is partially supported by immigration statistics:

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/total-immigration-to-is...

wolf550eanno scorso

The demographics are changing, but see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mizrahi_Jews_in_Israel

mytailorisrichanno scorso

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mytailorisrichanno scorso

Algeria wasn't considered a colony. It was annexed in 1848 and as such a fullblown part of France, and it saw large European settlement but with a segregated/apartheid system. Independence was therefore a very nasty and bloody affair on both sides that ended with all the Europeans having to live with nothing effectively on pain of death (114 years after Algeria had been annexed so enough time to create deep feelings).

The French invasion of Algeria has always seemed unique and odd to me: Annexing an Arab territory especially while denying equal rights to the "indigenous" population (the term that was used) was a recipe for disaster and ultimately it proved untenable.

In contrast Tunisia was only a protectorate after the French invaded from Algeria in 1881.

natmakaanno scorso

> The French invasion of Algeria has always seemed unique and odd to me

It began with centuries of piracy and enslavement in the Mediterranean sea, leading to the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbary_Wars , which in turn led to the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombardment_of_Algiers_(1816) . All this doesn't set a path for the invader to offer equal rights to the "indigenous" population.

mytailorisrichanno scorso

All quite beside the point.

A military action, even a colonial invasion, to "pacify" a place and to take control of it has little to do with a full annexation. The US did not make Afghanistan a State... And even among European colonial empires Algeria is quite unique.

France had lost most of its Empire during the Revolution and Napoleonic period so was keen to rebuild one. France did not have a settled Canada or Australia, either, so perhaps this also played a role but it seems unrealistic to believe that trying that with an Arabic Muslim country could have ever worked.

natmakaanno scorso

> "pacify" a place and to take control of it has little to do with a full annexation

Indeed. No objective is intangible. Actions taken to reduce an aggressive enemy to inaction can lead to a promising discovery (in this case, that of what would become Algeria, which was then a rich agricultural and pleasant territory occupied by non-unified tribes) leading to a desire to seize it.

ashoeafootanno scorso

Why do you have the deciding vote on whose narrative is right, wrong and what is final?

umanwizardanno scorso

Probably just because Algeria was a way bigger deal to France than Tunisia was. It was considered an integral part of France (whereas Tunisia never was) and around a million ethnically French people lived there.

Which would the US have fought harder to keep: Hawaii, or the Marshall Islands?

csomaranno scorso

The US asked France to get out of Tunisia. Then they created the country.

pier25anno scorso

I grew up in Tunisia during the Ben Ali dictatorship in the 90s and the conpiracy theory floating around is he was a CIA trained asset.

aspenmayeranno scorso

Was this before or after the Vietnam War? I’m not that familiar with this part of history.

csomaranno scorso

Way before. Also it is worth mentioning that the North African campaign liberated North Africa and Tunisia from the Germans. The idea that Tunisia got its independence from France is shallow. It was more like Turkish -> French -> German -> American -> New Republic.

csomaranno scorso

I won't get into the politics, the author is way off base...

> Tunisian cities are mostly ugly as hell.

Bare a few touristic spots, yes. It is unfortunate as Tunisia could have looked more like Santorini and less like the nuclear apocalypse that it is today. I guess on the upside you have little to no homelessness?

> The only problem with Tunisian niceness is that it blends into Tunisian mercantile craftiness.

This is mostly a problem in touristic craft stores which I never visit. I guess tourists are attracted to the Medina; but most Tunisians "Medinas" have completely collapsed economically.

> Informality Has Its Advantages

Given how broken the system is, that's how anything can run in Tunisia.

> Tunisian butcher shops tend to hang not just hunks of meat but animal heads in front of their stores

This is kind of an ad that we just had the animal slaughtered now. Fresh meat.

> Sorry Tunisia, but your mosque game is weak.

He should have focused on Churches, Cathedrals and Synagogues.

> There aren’t many bars in Tunisia, even in the major cities.

There are lot of bars in Tunisia but the second major city is a conservative one. It is the last place where you want to have a beer.

> Alcohol is still fairly taboo in most Arab countries, even in relatively liberal Tunisia, so they probably adopted cafe cultural norms.

No, the cafe cultural norms came from the French. You can see a similarity with Vietnam in this regard.

> but he was most excited to tell me that the U.S. Ambassador had just visited the House of the Governor two weeks ago along with his “black wife” who “wasn’t white like you and me.” Ok, then.

You are reading too much into this. Tunisians are pretty chatty and gossip to unhealthy levels.

> ... where there’s a lot of lingering resentment against their former overlord

France was a popular (and the) destination until 10 years ago or so. France now sucks economically. It has nothing to do with it being a former overlord.

optimalsolveranno scorso

Also interesting is his Notes On The Gambia, which for some reason is the premier destination for female sex tourism:

https://mattlakeman.org/2023/07/10/notes-on-the-gambia/

tuna74anno scorso

Regarding his section on leaving luggage at a museum, when I went to the British museum in London and the National museum in China they both had cloak rooms where you could store your luggage while you were visiting.

fuzzythinkeranno scorso

Nice (very) long notes. The HUGE lake that's shown on GMaps does not exists??? https://maps.app.goo.gl/i8mFwGtpCNES6n2o6

croisillonanno scorso

dries up in the summer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chott_el_Djerid

mellinganno scorso

Tunisia is on my short list. In addition to a lot of Roman ruins, it has been used in movie locations. eg Tatooine in Star Wars.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/sponsored/star-wars-tunisia-f...

https://depart-travel-services.com/en/discover-the-iconic-st...

devoutsalsaanno scorso

I've been to Tunisia several times since 2021.

If you like Roman ruins, here's my favorite sites that I've personally visited:

- Amphitheatre of El Jem - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amphitheatre_of_El_Jem

- Dougga - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dougga

- Bulla Regia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulla_Regia

While itself not an amazing Roman building, I also enjoyed going to Ksar Ghilane - https://maps.app.goo.gl/Ru5sEqEtJDEWNg3R7. There's a small touristic oasis where you ran rent a quad bike, zip over some dunes in the Sahara, and then stop at the small Roman fort. It's fun to imagine being a Roman stationed at one of the southern most outposts of the empire. It's also fun to rent a 4x4 w/ driver and drive through the desert from Douz to Ksar Ghilane.

ks2048anno scorso

In addition to Roman ruins, one of the best museums I've been to - the Bardo, with lots of roman mosaics.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bardo_National_Museum_(Tunis)

tgajanno scorso

Turkey is a good place to visit too, if you like ancient ruins: https://lionsinthepiazza.com/ancient-ruins-turkey-southern-c...

mytailorisrichanno scorso

> But when I asked whether they wanted to move to the most logical foreign destination – France – they all said, “no.” Tunisia is yet another former French colony I’ve visited (including the Ivory Coast, Senegal, Benin, Togo, Mauritania, etc.) where there’s a lot of lingering resentment against their former overlord.

All those countries are still close to France, with higher education in French and educated people speaking better French than most French. Arabs countries like Tunisia have adopted policies of Arabisation but French is still widespread.

It is perhaps a bit like India: Nationalism in reaction to colonialism but with major cultural links and the old coloniser is a major emigration destination.

France is the main emigration destination for Tunisians (55% if you look it up), with almost a million Tunisians in France (Tunisia's population is 12 million).

> Throughout this trip, I talked to many Europeans, including Frenchmen, Italians, Maltese, Germans, and a few Brits, and from an American perspective, it was surprising how often the topic of conversation turned to immigration. Or rather, anti-immigration.

Well, see numbers above. Anti-immigration sentiment is growing in Europe because of the numbers and negative impact. It should not be a partisan issue, really, but plain realism.

[deleted]anno scorso

mikhailfrancoanno scorso

Support for the Palestinian cause is to be expected in an Arab country.

But perhaps the reported strength of feeling is correlated with the history of the PLO, who moved there after being expelled from Lebanon by the Israeli invasion in 1982. Israel then attacked the new PLO HQ in Tunisia in 1985.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestine_Liberation_Organizat...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Wooden_Leg

Correlation might mean causation in a couple of directions. Did the PLO move to Tunis because Tunisians already supported them sympathetically, or do they now support the Palestinian cause more strongly because they provided refuge and were attacked by Israel? Probably both.

draw_downanno scorso

computerthingsanno scorso

bdbenton5255anno scorso

acquisitionsilkanno scorso

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bugsenseanno scorso

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juniperusanno scorso

Great, but I don't see why it was necessary to present the situation surrounding Jeffrey Epstein or whatever as being a loony radical conspiracy theory. Clearly blackmail is a big component of western political life, he says he's from a western country, but I don't know if this is really a partisan issue. Making that sound like some Q cult alien belief is silly.