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Picture of Habib Bourguiba while being transferred from exile on the uninhabited island of La Galite close to the northern shores of Tunisia, where the French colonial administration had incarcerated him for two years in 1952.
When France exiled Bourguiba in 1954 to the island of Groix near the port city of Lorient on France’s Atlantic coast, Eltaher sent a telegram to the governor of the island, in which he told him: “I wish to congratulate you on the presence of Tunisia’s leader Habib Bourguiba on your island. The Eastern world expects that you will ensure his comfort and his dignity, and that you will not behave towards him the way Sir Hudson Lowe, the British Governor of the island of St. Helena behaved in the past century with his guest the Great Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte.”
In his book “Fifty Years in Arab Politics”, Eltaher indicated that he had drafted the telegram in Arabic and had Dr. Mohamed Salaheddin Pasha, the former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Egypt edit it in “an elegant diplomatic style”, as Eltaher says. As the Tunisian nationalist Saleh Ben Youssef was visiting him at “Dar Ashoura”, Eltaher had him translate the telegram into French. After Tunisia got its independence in 1956 and Bourguiba became its first Prime Minister, the latter mentioned to Eltaher that the Governor of Groix was quite impressed by the telegram, and that he had shown it to him then.
In this context it is interesting to mention another similar story, but which took place in Yemen. Imam Ahmad, ruler of Yemen had emprisoned a young Yemeni nationalist called Ahmad Mohamed Noman because he had contradicted him on something. When Mohamed Ali Eltaher learned about that, he wrote to the Imam asking for his mercy toward Noman. The Imam not only sent Eltaher’s letter to Noman in prison, but he also kept sending him the various issues of Eltaher’s newspaper “Ashoura” which he used to receive and read regularly! Years later, Noman became Prime Minister of Yemen. It is also worth mentioning that Noman informed Eltaher that his cell mate in prison was Abdallah Al-Sallal, who also read Eltaher's newspapers sent by the Imam to Noman in prison. Sallal eventually became a general in the army of Yemen and subsequently first President of the Yemen Arab Republic! |
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