Rarely in modern Tunisia have black Tunisians taken up a leading role or even a symbolic place in its narrative, especially in the pre- and post-colonial nation-making period. Apart from scant figures with marginal roles in post-independence Tunisia such as Taieb Sahbani, Bourguiba’a director of cabinet, a nationalist militant, and a diplomat, or Béchir Gueblaoui a former Tunisia’s diplomat in some East and West African countries, no black Tunisian female figure has had any appearance gracing any schoolbook, history book let alone a newspaper or magazine that feature Tunisian women figures in politics, art, sports, academia, economy, medicine and society (Mzioudet, 2023; Mrad-Dali, 2015). In a country that always celebrates Tunisian women’s achievements and extols their significant role in the country’s national movement as fighters against French colonialism, it further renders black Tunisian men and women almost totally absent from contributing to the nation’s narrative. Black Tunisian activists have been collecting and chronicling evidence of black Tunisian figures’ contributions to the national narrative. These include, among others, Slim Marzoug and “Halima Ezzaima” from Gabes. Ezzaima was decorated by former president, Habib Bourguiba as a form of gratitude for having hid him from the French authorities in her house, when he was fleeing them to the south of Tunisia in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Ezzaima was a local nationalist fighter (moujahida) against French colonization (Ezzaima, 2021). Another black Tunisian hero of the fight against French colonialism was Nasser Madani, a fallen hero of the Battle of Agri in the governorate of Tataouine who fought French aggression against the town in 1956 and whose heroic fight was featured by Tunisian journalist, AmanAllah Mansouri, as part of his work on transitional justice for the Truth and Dignity Commission in 2018 (Truth and Dignity Commission, 2018).
In this piece, I chronicle the fabulous life of Zohra Hamdiyya, from the southwestern oasis city of Gibili, who is credited to be Tunisia’s first nurse.
Black Tunisian women breaking the racial glass ceiling:
Black Tunisian women living in southern Tunisia have broken the racial glass ceiling open since the 1970s and 1980s, going up the social ladder through education, training to become nurses. They disavowed the stereotypical image of black Tunisian women as being mere submissive creatures, confined to menial jobs and positions inherited from the era of slavery, like maids in rich “white” southern Tunisian people’s households, nannies and spiritual healer s(the famous chabbaha or fortune teller through the invocation of higher spirits). Even in a conservative environment where women are confined to their households, some got a rudimentary education up to the early years of secondary school and joined nursing and midwifery programs at regional hospitals.
A trip down memory lane:
My most prominent recollection of Black presence in Tunisia remains the southwestern oasis city of Gibili, historically situated at the trans-Saharan slave triangle of Gibili-Douz-Tozeur, when caravans carrying slaves from West Africa and the Sahel made it become one of the main hubs of the African slave trade in Tunisia. I first visited it in 2009, under the recommendation of a local and former work colleague at the University of Tunis, who told me about a mysterious slavery museum. Later, I learned from civil society activists, who are the members of Old Gibili’s Preservation Association that it was the house of one of its eminent residents of the Souf tribe in Tripolitania (modern day northwestern Libya) and whose president Mhemed Souf is one of its descendants.[1] Next to the house lies the former slave market, a barren square that holds no sign of the horrific practice that lasted until 1846, the year Tunisia abolished slavery across the Ottoman Regency. The place testifies to a forgotten part of Tunisian history that remains invisible and marginalized in Tunisian school history curriculum.
I visited old Gibili in August 2022 where I met with a local civil society activist, Anis Chaieb, who created a Facebook group, “The Museum of Nefzawa,”[2] which gathered old and rare photos and different archival documents (including maps and historical records of Ottoman rulers of the area), some of which go back to the early 17th century.[3] He once shared with the group a photo and an old article from Essabah[4] (the most popular Arabic-language newspaper in Tunisia) about Tunisia’s first nurse, a black woman from Gibili. While Tunisia celebrated its first female doctor, Tawhida Ben Cheikh, by memorializing her in the 10-Dinar banknote in 2020, almost no trace of Zohra Ben Hamdiyya,[5] Gibili’s pride, can be found in any historical book. Incidentally, Gibili named the COVID-19 Unit in the regional hospital after her.[6]
The article in Essabah recounts the saga of Hamdiyya, a self-sacrificing and brave woman who made national history in 1971 when the Tunisian Minister of Health decorated her with the Tunisian Medal of Appreciation for her dedicated care of the sick at Tunisia’s oldest hospital, Aziza Othmana, which she joined in 1931. Her fortune lies in the benevolence of the demimondaine-turned-Princess Marie Anne Ghika (Liane de Pougy), wife of Prince Georges Ghika, of Romania, who were visiting the Nefzawa region in 1913. The story, as Hamdiyya recounted to the journalist, sounded more like a fairy tale for the daughter of a postman. She was noticed by the princess, who asked Hamdiyya’s father to take her to her residence in the posh suburb of Saint-Germain-Des-Prés, where little Zohra was given specialized education on cooking, furniture organization, good manners, protocols of welcoming visitors, in addition to French-language instruction. Returning to Gibili after the end of WWI, Zohra joined Tunisia’s first vaccination campaign for the Tunisian kingdom. Working as a translator between locals and the military doctor who was supervising the vaccination campaign in Nefzawa, she came to represent a model of a courageous woman who broke the societal rules of her conservative society, where women were rarely allowed to be in public let alone travel alone, as Zohra did throughout the region to vaccinate women and girls. Her story is that of a self-sacrificing nursing career, healing the sick in Tunisia’s hospitals and cooperating with the French Red Cross and the Tunisian Red Crescent.
Below is excerpt from the Essabah article about Zohra Hamdiyya:
In a modest apartment in Bab Bnet Avenue, in Tunis, Zohra Hamdiyya, Tunisia’s first nurse, leads a happy and content life… In 1931, the nurse, Zohra Ben Hamdiyya, stepped foot in Aziza Othmana Hospital, which is currently the Sadiki Hospital, for the first time. She became the first Tunisian woman to hold a nursing job officially. After several years passed, she retired. Then, the nurse returned to her hometown of Gibili to recount to us memories of years of adventure and her admirable, patriotic duty when nurses were scarce and female nurses in hospitals were non-existent.
“A princess riding a pile of iron”
Zohra recounts: “When I was little, my father Ali Ben Hamdiyya, who was a postman in the municipality of Gibili, used to shower me with his love more than the rest of my siblings. I used to visit him at his office. The French director of the post office had a little girl who was attending primary school, so the post office director asked my father to give me permission to keep his daughter company whenever she went to school. My father did not hesitate and agreed to that (with no hesitation) and let me join the school that was a boys’ only school. I attended it thereafter. One day when I was returning to our house close to the post office with some companions, we saw a crowd of people jostling to watch a moving iron pile; and whenever it let out some smoke plume, they would scream “Hey, hey, hi” and would applaud.
Then, we ran towards the pile, which in fact was a carriage of the first car that had ever arrived in the town of Gibili. This was in 1913. In that car was Prince Georges Ghika of Romania and his wife Princess Marie Anne Ghika (Liane de Pougy) with some of their subordinates. They came from the outskirts of Paris for tourism. They crossed the regions of the Algerian oases and then [arrived in] Tunisia. In Algeria, they had traveled through Biskra, went to Tuggart and then El Waad, and finally crossed into Tunisia, visiting the Jerid and Nefzawa regions.
I caught the princess’ eye and she instructed the driver to pull over and pointed at me while smiling. I was shy and hid. However, the desire to get inside the car was haunting me. I kept following the moving iron pile. Fate and chance played their roles. Just a few moments later, my father was brought in by the officer of civil affairs, Captain Séjour, who pleaded with my father that he let me go to France with the princess. My father refused, insisted on not handing me to anyone. He eventually backed off when he saw the prince and his wife’s pleading with him and my passion for riding in the car, so he had no choice but give his consent. In return, a document was signed, pledging that I would be instructed and educated.
Thus, Zohra moved from Gibili to “Tunisia Palace” in Tunis, and finally, Saint-Germain-Des-Prés in the suburbs of Paris. She said: “I received an education with specialized teachers, and lived in the care of the princess, who would show her about facets of the palace. The maids would show her the work that they do in the palace such as cooking, furniture organization, and the protocols for welcoming visitors. Zohra happened to get acquainted with and followed the movement that ravaged Europe in that historically explosive period that ended with the WWI, which lasted between 1914 and 1918. Despite the war climate prevailing in Europe, the late Ali Hamdiyya, the father of Zohra Ben Hamdiyya, would send letters to the caretakers of his daughter. He eventually asked them to send her back. They then complied with his request and Zohra returned to Tunis, then Gibili.
Taking part in the the nationwide vaccination campaign:
After the end of WWI, the French colonial authorities officially decreed to vaccinate the population of the Tunisian kingdom. The military physician, Dr. Bernas arrived in the southern oases. He was entrusted with the supervision of the vaccination campaign given that Nefzawa locals took part in the war with 1300 soldiers. Some members of the contingent returned to their hometown, but how would they vaccinate women when most men refused to expose their women and girls to the male doctor?
The officer of civil affairs was perplexed by this case. It did not take him long to find the solution. Zohra came forward as a volunteer to vaccinate the women and the villages of Nefzawa. Zohra sometimes worked with the doctor and other times, on her own, traveling the region’s villages, moving from one hut to another, riding a donkey, a mule or a camel in order to get to the most distant and isolated areas in the Tunisian Sahara Desert.
When the campaign ended in Nefzawa, Zohra married one of the families’ sons and stayed at home. She was only home a short while before she was called by Dr. Bernas and his nurse, Ms. Lucien-Saint, to join her in the Jerid region to carry out a similar campaign. She came to her husband and told him about Bernas and Saint’s suggestion for her to join the campaign, but he refused to give her his consent. This was the second time Zohra was emboldened to sacrifice her personal life and thus her marriage, despite her young age. The argument over the campaign issue ended with their divorce and she traveled to the Jerid region to carry out her duty in the campaign, deeply believing that her presence was necessary and inevitable. Indeed, her presence was one of the reasons for the success of the campaign in a region that was conservative in its traditions during that time. Zohra also traveled to the region of the Jerid to vaccinate the women and the girls of the oases from Debabsha to Tameghza. By getting to know her, they found solutions to many of their health problems. When the aforementioned campaign ended, she returned to her hometown, while Dr. Bernas moved to Tunis with the nurse Lucien-Saint. In Gibili’s clinic, Zohra worked with Lucien-Saint’s team as the interpreter, where she assisted hundreds of patients
Zohra’s new nursing life in Tunis:
Days and months passed, during which Zohra attempted, through the Centre of Civil Affairs to receive permission for her to work in the hospital. She was eventually recruited as a nurse in Aziza Othmana hospital in 1931. There she met again with Dr. Bernas and his assistant, Ms. Lucien-Saint. Zohra said: “it was a surprise for the doctor who used to reject the admission of Tunisians in the public health sector.” Thus, Zohra Hamdiyya took upon herself the responsibilities of coordinating between the doctors and the patients in that dreadful period in Tunisian political and social life, and she committed herself to carry out her new responsibilities.
First, through social counselling, Zohra travelled near and far in order to find poor families that represented a large percentage of Tunisian population, particularly in the capital city’s outskirts. She would offer to the working-class families to put their newborns in the hospital, in return for taking charge of all the babies’ layette and a financial support of 50 francs for each birth. Zohra succeeded in bringing all the poor women and created conditions for successful births.
As a nurse, her work was to treat patients and give solace to the afflicted from all social classes all day long and sometimes at night, bringing joy to the poor and elderly people, who were the majority of the hospital’s patients. Her dedication largely resonated with the people who would regularly visit the hospital, and it conferred her work with a [positive] reputation, reflective of the compassion that flows from her dutifulness. She [also] bestowed [this compassion] upon the visitors to the Sadiki Hospital and later the Rabta Hospital. Her reputation allowed her to travel everywhere in Tunisia and even abroad.
She worked as a translator as there were no male nurses, except for the late Sadeq Ben Ammar and she had to explain women’s illnesses to the French doctors as 99% of visitors did not know French. Zohra commented on this with a broad smile: “you see how I was a useful tool at a time when a woman was only [considered] good for staying. at home and thus, I feel happiness overcoming me as I was the last wheel in the social train that tried to move forward. There is no soaring without health.”
Zohra’s resilience and strong will against all odds:
In her personal life, Zohra was a lively person who succeeded in overcoming the desires of the mind and the body, turning her enthusiasm and spiritual revolution of her youthful age into something positive. Therefore, she did not drown like her peers in fantasies, marginal things, and futile adventures. She instead turned her enthusiasm into an immense work, social efficiency, and human well-being. She would pay attention and give importance to works of charity and cooperation organizations. She would spend time with the Red Cross, then with the Tunisian Red Crescent with her colleagues, such as Tunisia’s first midwife, Badra Ben Mostfa. She would attend middle-class boys’ circumcision ceremonies and would work cooperating with Ben Miled clinic in the Halfaouine area of the medina of Tunis. As for the vacations, she would take them to rest from exhaustion and overwork and to dedicate herself to her new husband, with whom she had more affinity. However, many problems started to arise in her life, further disturbing her marriage.
During the years Zohra spent in the hospital, she had the opportunity to get the equivalent of the experience of dozens of doctors, with whom she worked as a nurse. Additionally, she was fond of reading. One day she felt she was mature enough, given her ability to perform another mission for society and she was in the age of giving and benefiting others. She hoped that she could become a supervisor in one of the hospital’s wings. She waited to get promoted. Alas, the sneaking years did not give her a second chance as retirement devastated her wishes and limited her big ambitions. One day in 1971, during a festive celebration, the Minister of Health decorated her with the State’s Medal of Appreciation and to congratulate her in the name of the Tunisian state for her ongoing battle for sick people, while announcing her retirement on that occasion.
Bibliography:
Ezzaima, H. (2021). Facebook page “Page of people of goodwill in Gabes”, December 13, 2021: https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php/?story_fbid=233048748941285&id=106627028250125&dl_redirect=1#no_universal_links.
Mrad-Dali, I. (2015). Les mobilisations des noirs tunisiens au lendemain de la révolte de 2011: Entre affirmation d’une identité historique et défense d’une cause noire. Politique Africaine, 2015/4 (140): 61-81. https://www.cairn.info/revue-politique-africaine-2015-4-page-61.htm.
Mzioudet, H. (2023). On Silence and (In-)visibility: Whither Black Tunisian Mobilization in Post-2011 Tunisia? Arab Reform Initiative, July 19. https://www.arab-reform.net/publication/on-silence-and-in-visibility-whither-black-tunisian-mobilization-in-post-2011-tunisia/.
Truth and Dignity Commission. (2018) .Documentary of Igri Mountain: a forgotten war crime after independence Truth and Dignity Commission Archives, July 2, https://web.archive.org/web/20180726214640/http://www.ivd.tn:80/وثائقي-معركة-جبل-اقرى-1956-جريمة-الحرب-الم/