Word: slimming
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Assembly President Mangi Slim Family. Born Sept. 15, 1908, in Tunis, Mongi Slim (pronounced Monjee Sleem) is an improbable cross-breed of Mediterranean civilizations: Greek, Turkish and Arab. One great-grandfather, a Greek named Kafkalas, was captured as a boy by pirates, sold as a mameluke (white slave) to the Bey of Tunis, who educated him, freed him, made him his minister of defense. His paternal grandfather was an aristocratic Caid who ruled the wealthy province of Cape Bon. His mother was a member of the Beyrums, a noble Turkish family which had risen to prominence in Tunis, was famous...
Early Life. Educated at Tunis' famous Sadiki College, Slim was a fragile youth who loved fist fights (he usually won), detective stories (his hero: Nick Carter), and soccer. A brilliant student, he graduated at 16, went on to study law at the Sorbonne...
...first year at Sadiki, he and his lifelong friend Mohammed ben Hamouda had joined an anti-French demonstration through the streets of Tunis. Recalls Hamouda, now a pharmacist in Tunis: "We were finally rounded up, given a good spanking, and sent home. But this made a profound impression on Slim. From that time on, his life was politics...
...Paris, the two friends met a fellow student named Habib Bourguiba, and the three spent hours talking about independence. Says Hamouda: "Slim rarely went out, but hundreds of students dropped by to see him. He was a great help to the Algerians and was always preaching unity in the North African struggle." In 1936, at the age of 28, Slim returned to Tunis, with Bourguiba founded the Neo Destour Party, dedicated to liberation from France. He fell in love with a young Tunisian girl, but suddenly broke with her. Explains a friend: "After much thought he decided...
Political Career. At war's end, Slim plunged deeper than ever into the struggle for liberation. As political director of Neo Destour. for nine years he traveled tirelessly and worked secretly setting up nationalist movement units all over the country. His black Citroën (license No. 225) was featured on so many French police posters that it became famous throughout Tunisia. The French caught him in 1952, jailed him for two years, released him just in time to assist Bourguiba in the 1954 independence negotiations with French Prime Minister Pierre Mendès-France. He became Bourguiba...