Undoubtedly the death angel, « Azra’ïl », is hovering around former Tunisian « Perspectivists ». After the death of Ahmed Othmani in December 2004 -, it’s now the turn of Noureddine Ben Khedher, another prominent figure of the Tunisian leftist movement, to bid farewell february the 11th. Hence, it’s now proven that the best ones disappear first !
It was an unusual day of July 2001 at the Law Courts of Tunis. The day during which, Sihem Bensedrine appeared before a judge to answer for the charge of « contempt of court and outrage against justice ». Three weeks earlier, the Tunisian activist was the main guest of the Sunday programme of the Mustaquilla TV channel. She denounced - before tens of thousands of baffled viewers - torture, the subjugation of some judges and growing corruption.
In addition to the 167 lawyers who volunteered to defend Sihem, a hardcore of about one hundred militants gathered to demand her immediate liberation. On that day, the most turbulent activist was almost unknown to the younger generation of militants. The bald « old man » - who was struggling like a fidgety child against the policemen who were trying to prevent the pack of militants from entering the courtroom - was none but Noureddine Ben Khedher, one of the « March 1968 » symbols (the Tunisian «May 1968 »).
Militant through and through, Ben Khedher is a genuine sample from that generation who witnessed the intense political struggles of the sixties and seventies, characterized by disinterested commitment and strong belief in a common revolutionary project. He belongs to a generation who suffered from repression (prison and torture) under the regime of Bourguiba.
Born in a family from Southern Tunisia, the young Noureddine moved to Paris at the end of the fifties. He became soon a regular visitor of the mythical « 115 Boulevard Saint-Michel », headquarters of the General Union of Tunisian Students (Union générale des étudiants tunisiens, UGET) and assiduously frequented almost all the prominent intellectuals, academics, politicians, writers and artists of the effervescent Paris.
Notwithstanding the fact that he struggled side by side with Communists of the PCT (Parti Communiste Tunisien), Trotskyites, Arab Nationalists and that he was attracted by Sartre’s Existentialism, Ben Khedher was, first of all, an « independent » leftist militant whose main priority was the struggle against the autocratic regime of Habib Bourguiba.
He went back to that period of Tunisian history, during an interview given in 2002 to Michel Camau and Vincent Geisser and published in their book « Habib Bourguiba. La trace et l’héritage.» (Habib Bourguiba. Trace and Heritage). During that interview, he conceded that the Perspectives movement was not struggling against the « positivist and modernist ideology of Bourguiba », but rather against his total alignment to the American imperialist positions on Vietnam and Cuba. He nicely described the leftist activists of that period as « illegitimate children » of the bourguibist vision of politics and society. The debate on the heritage of Bourguibism is astonishingly still agitating the different currents of the Tunisian opposition until nowadays.
After his return to Tunisia in the mid-sixties, Ben Khedher dedicated himself to reading, writing, full-time political activism and to that what he described, many years later, as the « militant dolce vita ». As soon as they went home, Noureddine Ben Khedher, Gilbert Naccache, Ahmed Smaoui, Mohamed Charfi and many other militants - from both sexes - brought a freedom of tone never known before in Tunisia. They organised students’ meetings, published, distributed newspapers secretly and unsuccessfully tried to create the missing link to the working classes.
They were rapidly caught by the wave of repression. After being arrested at the end of the sixties, the Perspectives leaders experienced different lots. Ben Khedher was arrested and tortured. Between 1968 and 1979, he spent eleven long years in jail.
After his release, he kept distance from political struggle stricto sensu and dedicated himself to his new duties as publishing director of Cérès, one of the most important publishing houses in North Africa. He shifted, hence, the battle from the political to the cultural field. Nevertheless, he didn’t restrain from taking position in the political debates. Accordingly, at the very time of the irresistible rise of the Islamist movement, around the beginning of 80ies - he declared his atheism to the newsmagazine « Le Maghreb » and asked the Tunisian society to protect his « non-believing » freedom.
During the last years, politics caught him again. In addition to his commitment (mentioned above) during the imprisonment of Sihem Bensedrine, he joined the Democratic Initiative (Initiative Démocratique) by sustaining the candidature of Mohamed Ali Halouani to the October 2004 presidential elections. According to the testimonies of people close to him, he waged the last battle as fiercely as the first ones : with courage, passion and abnegation.
On Saturday morning, the corpus of Nouredinne Ben Khedher was put in the earth. This will not be the fate of the values of freedom and justice for which he had been always fighting.

Taïeb Moalla - Tunisian Freelance Journalist
Québec - Canada - Translated by : Omar Khayyâm