ABSTRACT
Like the schools the administration of justice in Tunisia has also been unified. In this respect Bourguiba’s reforming zeal has gone further than that in any other Arab country. Although Bourguiba has made a clean sweep of the regulations which were preventing progress, he has not renounced religion completely. He describes Tunisia as an Arab-Islamic state and supports the Islamic Conference, which competes with the Islamic Congress in Cairo. The political background of the movement is obvious: this alone explains why it has the support of Bourguiba, who otherwise encourages the process of secularization in his state. Bourguiba does not seek the salvation of his country in premature industrialization with large-scale projects, but wants to increase and improve agricultural production as the foundation for sound development. An initial three-year plan of economic development should lead to a seven year plan which, according to Bourguiba, would take Tunisia out of the zone of ‘under-development’. Bourguiba’s rule is authoritarian but not totalitarian.
