Activist’s murder in Tunisia attests to racism’s grip

There is a theory that the word “Africa” originates from the Romans, who used to refer to the ancient city of Carthage, now a Tunis suburb, as “land of Afri.” Geographically, Tunisia is the highest point in Africa; as a geo-linguistic point, Tunisians are considered Africans as much as Canadians are North Americans or Vietnamese are Asian. But in Tunisia, a history of colonization, political dictatorship, institutionalized racism and a culture of microaggression has distorted and complicated identity politics to a tipping point.

“Tunisians are Africans” is not a geographically neutral statement; it is a rallying cry used at anti-racist protests.

It was most recently used in the last days of 2018, as mourners and protesters took to the streets after a particularly gruesome racially motivated crime. On Dec. 23, Falikou Coulibaly was stabbed to death in the northern Tunis suburb of la Soukra. Coulibaly was president of the Association of Ivorians in Tunisia, representing natives of the Ivory Coast, and had previously spoken to the international media about racism in Tunisia. The Ministry of Interior asserted that Coulibaly’s death was a mugging gone wrong, separate from race — a point protesters, citing a number of other violent crimes against black people, dispute.

In a depressing foreshadowing of his own death, Coulibaly told France 24 earlier in 2018, “The police tell us that the violence is a result of the high rates of crime in the neighborhood. However, only Ivorians are targeted. So these attacks definitely have a racist element. The young people who carry out this violence target our community because they know they will not be punished.”