My perspective about Tunisia

Submitted by Laura (United States), Oct 14, 2006 at 22:58

Hi, Amanda. I wanted to respond to your post because I happen to know a little bit about Tunisia. I am American, and my husband is from Tunisia, and, like you, I met him there. But I was essentially "set up" with him by people we both know who live in the U.S. We developed a relationship through email and over the phone first, and then after three months I went there and met him and some of his family.

I must say, I was treated very well by his family, just like you. Of course, I know very little Arabic, so I was not able to communicate with them for the most part, except with one of his sisters, who knows some English. But, in my case, I knew from the beginning that my husband wanted to come to the U.S. (And I got a lot of negative comments from people, who were sure, like Aysha who posts on this board, that he was simply using me to get a green card.) So, it was a condition of our relationship that we would live together in the U.S. and not in Tunisia.

I made four trips to Tunisia to spend time with him while we went through the immigration process. The first two trips were wonderful. Then I spent six weeks there on my third trip, and that was when I realized that I REALLY could never live in Tunisia! I'm sure some American women (and perhaps English women, like yourself) could do it, but I value my life in the U.S. too much to give it up. In America, I know the language, I know the social expectations here, and I am free to believe what I want, as I am not and will not become a Muslim. In Tunisia, if you spend enough time there, you will see that there are many subtle differences (and some obvious differences) between that society and western societies.

So, my advice to you, Amanda, is to take TIME to get to know this guy and think very, very carefully about whether or not you want to build a new life in a country that is significantly different from England. In Tunisia, your children will be Muslim, of course, because everyone is Muslim there!! If you live in England, your children will be exposed to more diversity, which will give them more freedom to choose what they want to believe. That's a huge reason why I could never live in Tunisia. I want to raise my children without indoctrinating them into a particular religion, and thankfully for me, my husband has a lot of questions about his faith (although he feels too much guilt about it to explore it fully). and he is not bent on raising his kids Muslim. And he wanted to live in America. Anyway, it will be possible to raise our children (if we have any) essentially as agnostics in the U.S.; that would not be possible in Tunisia.

To sum up, here's my advice: learn everything you can about Islam as a first step. Then decide what you believe and what is important to you--what are your goals for yourself, do you want to have children, what do you want to teach them, etc. Then, when you've done that, find out everything you can about your boyfriend's beliefs, especially when it comes to raising children. If he is not willing to move to England, then it sounds like he wants them to be Muslim. You have to decide for yourself if that's okay with you!!

I hope this helped, and good luck to you!!

Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments".