BIRDNEST
The Bimonthly Reader’s Digest of the Network of
English-Speaking Tunisians
June 10, 2009
Goodbye Europe, Hello Rest of the World
By Tarek Cheniti
In the past 40 years or so Tunisians
have done their best to try and move
closer to the EU, if not politically, then at
least economically, culturally and
academically. Yet they are increasingly
faced with bureaucratic hurdles and
cumbersome procedures, as if there were
an inexorable process that aims at
discouraging and eventually banning
them from that part of the world. Yes
countries do have the right to monitor the
flow of people crossing their borders, but
they cannot and should not nurture
unjustified fears and received ideas about
particular categories of travelers.
Had we employed futurists in our
government back in the 1960’s, we would
have anticipated and accounted for the
current economic woes of this continent
and the rightist turn it has taken. We
would have never subjected 80% of our
economy to the ups and downs of a group
of aging and self-centered societies that
represent a tiny fraction of the world
population. We would have learnt English
too, thus reaching out to 2.5 billion
potential consumers for our products and
services. We would have spared ourselves
the dreadful experience of being looked
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at suspiciously at every airport, treated as
mere statistics in government databases;
asked to give out your personal details
and biometric data and think of ourselves
as holders of a ‘wrong’ type of passport.
We will certainly have to go on doing
business with the EU in the next few
years, but the time has come for us to end
our dependence on it. One does not have
to be a geopolitical expert to be able to
affirm that Europe has had its heydays
and they are over now. Why should we,
on the other shore, suffer the
consequences of this decline? Why does
Tunisia have to slow down when Europe
does, but still be complacent with its
meager 5% growth when Europe is doing
pretty well?
I also wonder why we still need visas
to visit many non-European countries
with which we have no history of
migration or dominance. Do we not have
embassies in or close to Argentina, Chile,
China, India and the Philippines? The
combined population of these five nations
suffices to grant us access to a market that
is 7 times bigger, far younger and more
consumerist than the EU. Would our
diplomats please tell us what is stopping
them from signing agreements to abolish
mutual visas with these countries like we
did with Brazil and Japan?
Let us learn from the experience of
Malaysia, a country that has successfully
turned the unfair rules of international
relations to its own advantage. Whilst
Malaysians adopt an open borders policy
with the rest of the world, they have
reformed their education and industry in
ways that allowed them to develop their
own capabilities and thus become less
vulnerable to the political choices of
foreign governments. The institutional
and mindset reforms led by Mahathir Bin
Mohamed sustained a 9% growth rate
which was necessary for superb schemes
such as the Multimedia Super Corridor,
Putrajaya and the Petronas Towers to see
the light. It allowed the country to
develop a vigorous high-tech industry and
attract extraordinary foreign investment
over the past decades. I believe this is the
way forward for a country like ours; it is
neither mass tourism nor on textiles. We
do have the competence to carry out a
similar transformation, but where is the
will?

BIRDNESTBIMONTHLY June 10, 2009
2 BIRDNEST4
Rajaa A. Gharbi
www.rajaagharbi.com
Rajaa A. Gharbi is a highly
respected and loved poet and
artist. She was born and raised in
Mediterranean Tunisia and has
been writing and painting for as
long as she can remember. A
1970s National Fencing
champion in her native
homeland, and a multimedia
artist with the Troupe Nationale
de Theatre de Marionnettes in
Tunis since Middle school, she
had to choose between a life-long
commitment to Fencing or the
arts. She left her national team’s
fencing strips and her gold
medals for literature, and
multimedia arts.
Gharbi has also lived in
Morocco, her grandfathers'
homeland, Spain and France
where she has created artwork in
poetry and film. She has been
living in the United States and
Tunisia since 1982. Although she
writes every day, gharbi limits her
published literary work to
distilled selections. Gharbi is the
first North African English
language poet in the United
States to have been published
and awarded public funding for
literary work (1986-2006). Her
poetry and visual art have been
published, presented, critiqued
and anthologized by literary and
art scholars from North Africa
and the United states. She has
read from her published poetry
and proems, and has had her
visual artwork presented at local,
national and international events,
solo and group exhibitions since
1989. Between 1998 and 2008
her poetry and paintings were
celebrated in a number of events
that include a 2006 Honor
retrospective exhibition, poetry
recital, and book signing of her
book of poems and paintings’
titled ...From Songs of a
Grasshopper (Kehna Publications
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2004). This event was given by
H.E. Mohamed Najib Hachana,
Ambassador of Tunisia to the
United States in Washington DC.
Among these events also was a
special inclusion in the new
Anthology of Arab American
Artists, Artists of the American
Mosaic, Dr Fayeq S. Oweis
(Heinemann 2007). In 2007 she
was nominated for the Seattle
Mayor’s Artistic Achievement
Award, and the Horace Mann
Achievement Award. In 2006 Dr.
Najib Redouane, North African
professor of Literature and
Literary critic presented an
extensive study of her poetry and
paintings at the Eighth
International Symposium on
Comparative Literature, Cairo,
Egypt. In 2006, on the occasion
of Tunisia’s 50th year of
independence Gharbi was the
first North African English
language poet to be invited to
publish paintings and poetry
work in the international
Expressions Maghrebines
anthology.
Rajaa A. Gharbi owes most
of her “informal” education in
language and art to her parents,
her paternal grand-mother, her
native and her adoptive
homelands. Her formal graduate
and undergraduate education is
in fine art, filmmaking, creative
writing, and socio-linguistics with
a MA degree in Transcultural
Communications. Gharbi is a
member of the Academy of
American Poets and Washington
Lawyers for the Arts. She is
currently the editor and
translator of the first US English
Language anthology of North
African literature (2009) and
preparing for her upcoming
(2009) exhibition of new works
titled “Psychies”.
 Profile
BIRDNESTBIMONTHLY June 10, 2009

Rajaa Gharbi’s Interview

By Slim Menzli

You are both a painter and a poet Do you feel a need The word as a communication channel has been for me
for more than one “communication channel” to part necessity, part inheritance. In the late 1800s my paternal
convey your message? great grand-father was a baach mofti. It looks like he really had
I read your question as two questions. It’s to use language! His
possible that my answer is somewhat indirect. “My work’s development relies on a daughter, my grand-
First I want to clarify the “message” part. multidisciplinary art practice especially mother had inherited his
Although all texts, visual or other, are always focused on visual or written poetry. I’m linguistic passion and
carriers of “messages”, intentionally or not, a always in conversation with family, friends developed it into her own
pre-determined message in my paintings is and colleagues from the artists’ universal art form establishing
extremely rare. When there is one, it’s usually tribe, living or long deceased. And I am herself as the beys’
not consciously planned, but is a natural always in conversation with nature.” professional story-teller.
outcome of the exploration and investigative Her son, my father, was
aspect of the work. It’s an unequivocal visual Rajaa Gharbi his happiest and on his
commentary on my discoveries and “findings”, if you will, a best behavior when he
quest or a questioning, without the “instructional” aspect spoke to us exclusively in proverb or short story. My mother
inherent to the delivery of “messages” or the expectation of kept a journal most of her adult life and wrote songs whenever
specific reactions from the viewer or the art critic. I am often her five children and work outside the home allowed her the
amazed by viewers’ level of engagement and interaction with time to write. One of my younger brothers and I used to collect
my work and the extent of their interpretations of it. This silk worms like lots of Tunisian kids at the time. We also
dynamism is always very exciting for me because it means that collected proverbs. In both elementary and secondary school I
both the artist and the viewer are engaged in the explorations used to write essays in Arabic and French to impress my
and questioning in a given art piece. teachers so as to compensate for the nightmarish grades I had
My work’s development relies on a multidisciplinary art in math. In the corridors of 1970’s Ibn Rachiq Art Center, on
practice especially focused on visual or written poetry. I’m the way to our puppet theatre studio or on brakes from it, a few
always in conversation with family, friends and colleagues from of my fellow marionettes and I used to recite our poems to
the artists’ universal tribe, living or long deceased. And I am each other, sometimes as we swapped sandwiches or
always in conversation with nature. Sometimes this is when complaints about this or that art mentor. In the organization
verb-poetry takes precedence over self-expression in the visual. Nationale de Theatre de Marionnettes we collectively adapted
Tunisian literary texts into the plays we created and presented.

Turns of no-
Returns.
Watercolor,
gouache, pencil,
ink. 41x27

“In this painting I

explore some of
the emotional
distances that
distinguish
expression from
the absence of
expression.”

Rajaa A. Gharbi

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BIRDNESTBIMONTHLY June 10, 2009
Praesent malesuada. bibendum. Donec
feugiat tempor libero. Nam uut, massa.
Maecenas vitae ante et lacus aliquam
hendrerit. Curabitur nunc eros, euismod
in, convallis at, vehicula sed consectetuer
posuere, eros mauris dignissim diam,
pretium sed pede suscipit: Adiam
condimentum purus, in consectetuer
Proin in sapien. Fusce urna
magna,neque eget lacus. Maecenas felis
nunc, aliquam ac, consequat vitae,
feugiat at, blandit vitae, euismod vel,
nunc. Aenean ut erat ut nibh commodo
suscipit.
Now that was the era when Poet-
singer Idir was taking a whole young
generation of North Africans by surprise
with his musical poem A VAVA
INOUVA, and Ali Ben Ayad’s
phenomenal Arabic language
performances of Othello and other
Shakespearian characters almost
convinced us younger artists that
Shakespeare didn’t write in English, and
may be after all, his name was Sheikh
Zobeir... Directly or indirectly, language
has always been a window into my own
world, other worlds, other histories, other
arts. During the five years I lived in Fez,
Arabic, French literature, and linguistics
were very present in my life. I continued
to write poems, started matching
Tunisian proverbs with their Moroccan
equivalent and that type of thing.
Then, in 1982, my first year in the
USA I experienced some unwanted and
unnecessary silence like never before. I
had an immediate allergy to the personal “improvise”?
and social effects of the nuclear family,
and the complete absence of clearly
visible and accessible artistic and cultural painting will look like when it’s finished. due to his courage to reconsider all
references as I knew them, including
literal and artistic multilingualism. I
thought that was a form of torture and
felt an urgent need to write every day, at
first to keep my emotional and intellectual by the nose- to a new visual phrase. But I said all this, artists are people with regular
sanity (I’m not sure these two things can
be separated). I also felt that I had to
create some kind of reference point for
my daughter. In the process of learning
how to do that I really took to the English or at least a re-interpretation of what’s
language, fell in love with the mountains
and forests of this Northwest and met
several greatly spirited US poets.
I have kept paper and pen readily
available at all times since I moved here.
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A notebook is much easier to carry than a cerebral expression. However, it is a
40x45canvas but the linguistics of construction of its own kind with specific
painting is much more resistant to language, technical skills and tools, and
censorship and self-censorship than the the requirement of at least some
written word. Every artist needs a understanding of the artistic context
spiritual taboula rasa when they start their informing or not informing the art/
work which, for me, is much easier to find poetry that’s being created. Both subject
when I’m painting. matter and form get more defined as the
painting progresses, and once the painting
starts to talk, if you will, I will interact
with it regardless of how long it will take
to complete it. Sometimes you will see
miniature narratives and visual
conversations within the large narrative
of the same painting. Sometimes the
painting is kept to a visual proverb. A few
examples of this that you can see in my
website are Luminary Visitors and
Worship or Self-Annihilation.
3- As far as I am concerned, most
activities that the artist has to engage in
that do not nurture the artist’s
development and help her or him
achieve artistic distinctiveness are
“business activities”. There is always a
stylistic thread that runs through both
my visual artwork and my poems, but if
the images I create start looking similar
I’d stop painting. I can’t follow “art”
trends or create work for a specific
market. Art is often the questioning and
reconsideration of pre-determined
perimeters. A 20th century Tunisian
example of a painter who painstakingly
When you start a painting, do you achieved great distinctiveness is Ostadh
have a clear idea of the outcome or Ammar Farhat. He ignored all sorts of
do you just go with the flow? In trends, transcending thematic and certain
other words, how much do you stylistic norms of his time (Imagine
having a retrospective exhibit of his work
When I start working on a painting I in the United States!). Gaudi’s
seldom have a clear idea of what that architectural genius and legacy are largely
Usually there is a sort of gestation period aspects of the established architectural
I mostly feel viscerally at first, before I norms of his time and region. So the
begin painting. I work intuitively, and artwork is a process of “invention” not
every visual phrase leads me -sometimes the re-production of invention. Having
use the improvisational effect of paint as material needs like every body else. For
particular Oud or Jazz piano players refer certain artists in the US any way,
Institutional funding can be thematically
or allude to established musical modes,
but trust their own passion for innovation, and formally extremely conditional.If the
artist wants to maintain artistic freedom
already there. and doesn’t have serious collectors or
other patrons who believe in his/her
For me a painting is a multilayered work, they will reserve part of their
visual poem. And poetry, be it visual or creative time for business. But they won’t
made of words or something else, is not a succumb to anything that might eat the
soul out their art.
BIRDNESTBIMONTHLY June 10, 2009
In “Listening to Anwar Brahem” how did you translate
the sound on the CD to the silence on the canvas? Was
the musical piece that inspired you actually that blue?
Yes it was. When I was listening to the tune I was sort of
hearing its musical phrases with my ears and my eyes. I was
seeing dance, flight, ethereal costumes, and actors careening on
and off cloud-like stages or diving into unseen spaces. The
painting has palette nuances of blue, violet and ebony black that
merge into radiant silver spaces. They don’t come through in the
Internet digital copy of the painting that you saw. The large fluid
“dancers” and the blue of oceans and the sky are visible but not
the details of jeweled and feathered crowns or the smaller bird/
acrobats. The quarter-notes of the pigment, so to speak, are
visible in the original work. Viewers have described some of my
paintings as having an auditory quality
5-You lived in Morocco, Spain, France, the US and
Tunisia. How important was depicting your identity in
your art (paintings/poems)? And if you could sum up
each of these countries in one word, what would they
be?
I’m very careful around the term identity because of its
implicit false sense of absoluteness and impermeability. I think
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“[Her work is] a major visual power... “Gharbi
embodies the natural charisma of a descendent
from an older culture... I have to remember how
physical her work is ...it has grown into a complex
combination of “free hand and the search of what’s
to be left behind that which represents “the making
impulse”...the work is unkempt, gestural, lingual,
and as she said at one of her readings “...edited
almost out of sight”. I referred to her show
“Images, Scripts and Diacritical Signs” with a friend
of Gharbi’s, “the collected power of her work is a
stain that leaves the page and enters your chest”.
That was the remark that reminded me that the
need to make sense of complex mass takes time
but it comes.”
Jon Gierlich. Artist, Design professor, Cornish Art Institute
that culture and identity are dynamic. They are the way we do
every thing every day, and most of us reinvigorate, or at least
influence other people’s “identity” as much as they do ours. What
did Italian born artist Joseph Stella (1877-1946) or Polish born
artist Irving Norman (1906–1989) give to American art and what
did the US give to their art? May be a sincere look into the
construction of an identity?
I can’t imagine Ezzeddine Elmadani, Ali ben Ayyyad,
Soprano Jessye Norman, or Fieda Khalo approaching their daily
art work with the anxieties of having to depict or somehow state
their identity in their work. As far as I could tell they did not
perform their overall artistic or “ethnic identity”. They embodied
it. Perhaps you were alluding in your question to the fact that
almost at all levels of social interaction many peoples are often
expected to perform their “cultural heritage/identity”, prove
their humanism or humanity. The universal questions on the
meaning of life, justice, beauty, and the way artists try to share
these questions with the rest of society are work enough.
I don’t think I can sum up one single neighborhood in one
word
BIRDNESTBIMONTHLY June 10, 2009 Tell us more about your upcoming Tunisia, where can they be
exhibition “Collective Psyches” directed to?
due in 2009?

For now all I can say about it is that They can begin at http://
it’s a visual exploration of collective www.rajaagharbi.com, or visit GHAYYA
psyches, larger in scale than my earlier Studio in Seattle Washington. An
paintings, and done in mixed water based exhibition of new works (2007-2008) will
acrylic on canvas and paper. be held there in December of 2008. For
Tunis, perhaps some one in the ministry
of culture can better answer your
What do you have to say to your question. I’m not sure
female Tunisian readers? “Highly evolved work”
Why just female Tunisian readers? I You’re now living in the West Michael Kline, curator Microsoft International
hope you can laugh at my joke. I don’t coast far from the culturally Art Collection
write looking at a photo of my ovaries. I vibrant North-East Coast, why
write from the heart, experience, and Seattle in particular? “Gharbi’s work integrates themes of
usually after long stretches of analytical life, death, relationships and her
work. I do not write or paint to answer It takes only a few hours’ drive to cultural roots in a unique form of
the demands of the day, but to look into heaven here- The forests are paradise visual poetry, her ability to show
the past in case I can unearth a forgotten wrapped in green lace, the mountains’ these human themes so powerfully
or obscured vision or two, point to purity might and the air are really addictive, through her strong and affective use
of emotion in the present and nurture and I started a few things in the arts of poetry woven through her
independence of the intellect. The quest here since 1986 that I would be paintings with the Arabic and other
for truth and beauty has been the work of ashamed to abandon now. The work I scripts, and her vivid use of colors
women and men too. I just do mine in do is in part an interaction with and and images touched me deeply. She
English and in my personal style. I don’t reaction to manifestations of truth and brings a perspective that is
know how many of us know that our beauty, and what obscures or frequently unseen or heard in this
beloved Taher Haddad played the Oud, overshadows them. My work is also a part of the world—that from an
wrote songs and poems and had celebration of life and the search for accomplished writer and artist, who
extremely loyal friends who helped him in what might help us keep spring when we is a woman, from North Africa
his time of adversity. I want to explore have it or dream it up when we don’t. (Tunisia) and a Muslim Background...
this side of his legacy. These manifestations change faces and These paintings are such a treat to
degrees in different places but they are the eye and soul. I could look at
everywhere and I have no choice but to them forever”
take myself with me wherever I live. So Patti Bezzo, Artist
For those interested in seeing your my celebration of life and my work
art on display either in the US or continue anywhere I live.
consumption
‫ﺍﻟﻘﻔﺔ‬ but my basket will sure help me reduce it.
le couffin (fr), the basket (en)
That’s it! Next time, I am taking my Tunisian basket!
Each week, while doing my groceries at a Montreal
supermarket, I realize that despite my efforts to reduce the use of
plastic bags -and packaging in general- I always end up having too
many! Vegetables and fruits are separately packed in small plastic
bags, cheeses and meat come in expanded polystyrene plates
covered with polyolefin film, olives and other condiments packed in
small rigid plastic boxes…Even bread sometimes comes in a plastic
bag! Whether manufactured in Nabeul, Gabes or elsewhere, the
This trend is present in all developed countries and is starting Tunisian basket is definitely one of the most ecological means to
its way in Tunisia especially with the newly introduced giant carry groceries. Not only, it is made of natural products, it is
supermarkets. It is true that a majority of this packaging is reusable, and it reflects a Tunisian know-how.
recyclable and is usually useful to keep products fresh. But I therefore invite all Tunisians living in Tunisia or elsewhere -
sometimes, its convenience stops at carrying goods, such as for and non-Tunisians as well-, to get a basket! Not only is it ecological
vegetables. Thus, I am determined! As of this week, my Tunisian but it can also help you make new friends. There will be somebody
basket is heading to Montreal’s supermarkets and markets. I do one day, asking you “Where did you buy this beautiful basket?”
realize that I won’t be able to avoid all the weekly plastic

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BIRDNEST MONTHLY June 10, 2009
In an era of unfettered
markets
Opinion
By Amine Allam, Tunisian Fullbright,
Rochester University, New York.
The prominence of a nation can be
measured using a wide set of criteria
including Gross Domestic Product, the
number of Nobel prizes, the number of
gold medals it earns in the Olympic
games or even internationally acclaimed
artists or bestselling authors to name a
few. In a globalized world where
managerial talent is becoming
commoditized, the number of world class
business leaders a nation produces is
indeed a measure of its integration in the
global economy and overall international
profile.
This article is an anecdotal
account of how different
countries have done in
producing world class
managerial talent. When it
comes to Arab countries, the
Lebanese are the absolute
winners. The Lebanese are
widely known for their innate
business acumen and
entrepreneurial sense. The same
pursuit of business opportunities
that took the Phoenicians to
Carthage almost three thousand
years ago took the Lebanese to
virtually every country in the
world. They have a significant
presence across all sectors in
Latin America and the US; they
are in international trade in Asia
and in the Petrol industry in
Africa. As a result, the Lebanese
can claim a decent number of
world class business leaders.
Perhaps the most famous of
whom is Carlos Ghosn the CEO
of Renault-Nissan who achieved
a corporate hero status during his tenure
at Nissan in Japan. Another famous
Lebanese is Selim Helu who is the second
richest man in the world, who built his
empire from scratch and who gained his
prominence in the telecom sector in
Latin America. Jacques Nasser, born in
Lebanon in 1947 served as CEO of the
Ford Motor Company from 1999 to
2001. My favorite yet is John Mack
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(nicknamed Mack the knife), CEO of
Morgan Stanley, one of the largest Wall
Street firms and Co-CEO of Credit
Suisse First Boston between 2002 and
2004.
Other noteworthy countries in this
area are India and Pakistan. Indians and
Pakistani represent a significant
population of the MBA students at Ivy
League schools and represent a
significant percentage of each Associate
class that Wall Street hires. Most famous
leaders include the recently appointed
CEO of Citi, Vikram Pandit or Moeen
Qureshi, ex-CFO of the World Bank, ex-
interim prime minister of Pakistan and
currently Chairman of private equity
firm EMP.
So where do Tunisians stand in the
picture? Unfortunately we do not rank
very high. Tunisian “international
presence” is still heavily limited to
France. Although Tunisians made good
headways in French Grandes Ecoles and
are being hired by top industrial and
consulting firms, to my knowledge, there
is no single CEO in the CAC-40 who is
of a Tunisian descent.
While we might be optimistic and
wait for the current generation of
Grandes Ecoles graduates to make its
way to the top jobs at CAC-40
companies, the picture doesn’t look
promising when we consider fortune 500
companies and Wall Street firms either.
There might be a few potential leaders
down the pipeline though but we will
need to wait for a decade or two.
During my own quest for a job at
Wall Street, I actively tried to track down
Tunisian bankers in New York. After
some research, I found out that there are
no more than a dozen Tunisians at Wall
Street, most of them are from IHEC
Carthage (my undergraduate school) and
many of them did part of their education
in Canada before landing a job in Wall
Street.
Perhaps the most troubling
observation is that we are far from being
aware of our absence from the Anglo-
Saxon educational system and from
leadership positions in multinationals. In
fact we are moving in the opposite
direction. Scholarships to the US were
discontinued in the mid 90's and
scholarships to Canada were suspended
in the late 90's. In contrast, Pakistan
agreed to contribute more funds to the
US-based Fulbright scholarship in order
to increase the number of Pakistani
scholars to 200 per year, the majority of
which end up in Ivy League schools
(compare to only six or seven Tunisian
scholars per year, all fields included). In
addition, although Tunisian purchasing
power is 5 to 10 times higher than the
Chinese or the Indian, very few Tunisians
are taking the risk of financing graduate
school in the US or the UK through a
loan with the intention of repaying it
after getting a job.
In conclusion, there is a lot of
ground work to be done to educate
Tunisians on how to access world-class
education but also how to move up the
corporate ladder in corporations and
institutions that literally “govern” the
world. This will be an essential step
towards speeding up Tunisia's
development process and boosting its
international profile.