Tunisia Quotes

I would like to extend to you our deep appreciation and thanks for the position the United States has taken in support of the democratization process that has taken place in Tunisia, in Egypt, and what is attempting to take place in Libya. ~ Hamad Bin Khalifa Al Thani

Sometimes roused by desires (say, the trip to Tunisia), but they're desires of before--somehow anachronistic; they come from another shore, another country, the country of before.--Today it is a flat, dreary country--virtually without water--and paltry. ~ Roland Barthes

In Tunisia, the so-called Yasmin revolution has led to the installation of a relatively moderate Islamic government. Whether or not that means democracy will, however, only be put to the test if and when the time comes for another election, which the opposition may win. ~ Martin Van Creveld

Less than a year after the Sept. 11 attacks, al-Qaida attacks were continuing: the firebombing of a synagogue in Tunisia in April, a bomb outside the U.S. Consulate in Karachi in June. ~ Bill Dedman

Literacy in Tunisia is almost 100%. It's amazing - no country in the region or even in Asia can match Tunisia in education. ~ Mo Ibrahim

Some socialist movements in Egypt, Tunisia and Bahrain, for instance, were genuine. I was making films about the so-called Arab Spring, and I'm well aware of how complex the situation really was. But it goes without saying is that the West immediately infiltrated and 'derailed' the revolutions, turning them into what you have described. ~ Andre Vltchek

It was an identity crisis. I was born and raised in France, but I never really felt French, so I needed to find something that I was more connected to. I used to go back to Tunisia every summer, but I was more into the language, my Arabic roots. ~ EL Seed

The Arab spring confirmed that peaceful change is possible and so reinforced the vision of political Islam. The impact of this went beyond the Brotherhood to include the Salafist tendency in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen and Libya that had questioned the democratic path. ~ Wadah Khanfar

Tunisia was not for the United States an important country in the way, let's say, Algeria was because of its gas, because of its size, because of its struggle against terrorism that sometimes turned bloody. ~ Elliott Abrams

Together they'd run away. Together they could find a place to call home. Together they'd finally form their own constellation and never break apart again. He would be her starlight again and she his sun. ~ Hella Grichi

Women in the Arab world have a rich history in their active participation in political change from the Algeria revolution against the French occupation to the most recent revolution in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya among other countries. The question is not their participation. Their question is the incorporation of women's voices fully in the new definitions of the countries where change has happened. ~ Zainab Salbi

I met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel, visited our allies in the Arab Gulf, traveled to Tunisia and Iraq, met with President Petro Poroshenko in Ukraine, and visited our allies in Germany, France, and the United Kingdom. ~ Kevin McCarthy

In Tunisia, where women have long enjoyed greater rights than many of their Arab neighbors, women pushed for and won a new electoral code that guarantees women will make up half of a candidates' list for office. ~ Gayle Tzemach Lemmon

Tunisia will continue to be a source of influence, not through its size but through the ideas and the models that it represents. ~ Rashid Al-Ghannushi

I was born on April 1, 1933, in Constantine, Algeria, which was then part of France. My family, originally from Tangier, settled in Tunisia and then in Algeria in the 16th century after having fled Spain during the Inquisition. ~ Claude Cohen-Tannoudji

I was born in Paris. My parents came here from Tunisia when they were kids, but we're still foreigners. Arabs. Africans. Rabble. Scum. We're what's wrong with this country and we always will be. ~ Jennifer Donnelly

Tunisia is small - just ten million, no great natural resources. ~ Elliott Abrams

If you look at the list of the top wheat importers for 2010, almost half of them are Middle Eastern regimes: Egypt, Algeria, Iraq, Morocco, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Libya, and Tunisia. Egypt is the number-one importer of wheat in the entire world. Tunisia leads the entire world in per capita wheat consumption. So it's no wonder that the revolutions began with Tunisians waving baguettes in the streets and Egyptians wearing helmets made of bread. ~ Annia Ciezadlo

Al Qaeda's message that violence, terrorism and extremism are the only answer for Arabs seeking dignity and hope is being rejected each day in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Bahrain and throughout the Arab lands. ~ Elliott Abrams

The fact that this organisation is called the Islamic State reveals something even deeper. In fact, it implies that every single Islamist party in Egypt, Iraq or Tunisia are not really representing Islam and Muslim people. Nowadays, political Islam is going through a crisis, however this crisis is necessary, for it will lead to a changing way of thinking. In order to make it out of this dead-end, reviewing political Islam becomes mandatory. ~ Tariq Ramadan

In Tunisia the Americans had to pay a stiff price for their experience, but it brought rich dividends. Even at that time, the American generals showed themselves to be very advanced in the tactical handling of their forces, although we had to wait until the Patton Army in France to see the most astonishing achievements in mobile warfare. ~ Erwin Rommel

What Tunisia urgently needs, is freedom and the building of a real democracy. ~ Rashid Al-Ghannushi

I think it is extremely important that the West support this experiment [of Tunisian democracy] with investment, with aid, with symbolic support, not just flows of democracy assistance ... If Tunisia can't make it, what are the prospects for the rest of the Arab world? ~ Larry Diamond

My family were very poor. I am one of nine siblings: two girls and seven boys. Only my brother and I play in Europe, and then three more work in Europe, and another plays in Tunisia. This family is a footballing family, but our lives have not always been good. ~ Yaya Toure

I believe democracy will succeed in Tunisia, but I also believe that it will succeed in the other Arab Spring countries. ~ Rashid Al-Ghannushi

The people on the streets of Egypt and Tunisia and Libya and Syria and Iran have done more to defeat the ideology of Al Qaeda than anything that the United States has done. They have shown that there is a third way, that with peaceful protest you can have an end to dictatorship and a role for human dignity, a role for your religious faith in society. ~ Reza Aslan

I'm working 24 hours a day. I have had a house in Tunisia for 20 years, and I never have time to go because there are collections, fittings. ~ Azzedine Alaia

The problem with what we call the 'Arab spring' is that these are very nationalistic experiences. Tunisians are concerned with Tunisia, Egyptians concerned with Egypt and so on. ~ Tariq Ramadan

Within twenty-five years of the prophet Muhammad's death in 632, they had conquered all of the Fertile Crescent and Persia, and thrust into Armenia and Azerbaijan. Their lightning advance was even more penetrating towards the west: Egypt fell in 641 and the rest of North Africa as far as Tunisia in the next decade. Two generations later, by 712, the Arabic language had become the medium of worship and government in a continuous band of conquered territories from Toledo and Tangier in the west to Samarkand and Sind in the east. No one has ever explained clearly how or why the Arabs could do this. ~ Nicholas Ostler

There's always Tunisia. Amid the smoking ruins of the Middle East, there is that one encouraging success story. ~ Elliott Abrams

I dream of a free, democratic, peaceful Tunisia, a country that can protect its developing identity. ~ Rashid Al-Ghannushi

Tunisia is extremely dependent on economic conditions in Europe, which is why it also experienced shockwaves from the euro crisis. ~ Alvaro De Vasconcelos

I'm the ranking Republican on the foreign aid appropriations subcommittee, so I know Tunisia well. ~ Lindsey Graham

We in Tunisia have no problem with respecting other people's religion, and we have a long tradition of that. ~ Rashid Al-Ghannushi

In the case of Tunisia, it was indeed this single act that sparked what had been long-standing active protest movements and moved them forward. But that's not so unusual. Let's look at our own history. Take the civil rights movement. There had been plenty of concern and activism about violent repression of blacks in the South, and it took a couple of students sitting in at a lunch counter to really set it off. Small acts can make a big difference when there is a background of concern, understanding, and preliminary activism. ~ Noam Chomsky