Teaching U.S. History in Tunisia

The American national experience is still "unfinished", as American historians often describe it. "Unfinished" is clearly a reference to the many failures of American democracy, including racial segregation, gender discrimination, or the misuse of world power. But the election of a black president on November 4^th is also clear evidence of the vitality of American democracy. It meant that American democracy is able to reinvent itself and it reassured me as a teacher of U.S. history that it makes sense to teach the U.S. as a democracy.

Much of my teaching seeks to establish a link between the "American success" story and the success of American republican institutions. Emphasis is laid on such key principles of the American political system as the separation of powers, the rule of law, accountability, freedom of the press as well as freedom of worship as reflected in the separation of church and state. These principles are particularly meaningful to students who are bitterly conscious of the lack of democracy in the Arab world. The same students, however, are also shocked by the history of racial prejudice which remains an integral part of American history. The teaching of U.S. history is made even more difficult by the U.S. role on the international scene.

Given the depth of anti-American sentiment among Arabs, the students here are particularly receptive to the history of American expansionism in the 19^th century and the American drive for hegemony in the last 60 years. Because reconciling democracy with empire is an impossible task, teachers of U.S. history like myself face a special dilemma.

More or less the same U.S. history courses are taught in English departments in Tunisian faculties of letters (about 10 of them), "American cultural studies