Medical Imperialism in North Africa: Regenerating the Jewish Community of Colonial Tunis by Richard C. Parks (review)

This is a survey of the transformative life of the Tunisian Jewish community during the colonial era, especially the interwar periods under the French Protectorate, and of the crucial role various metropolitan ideologies have played in the formation of identity. Medical Imperialism can be read as a postcolonial inquiry that aims at giving not only an objective rendition of the power structures of the colonizer and its allies, but also at displaying how the subalterns can speak back in the contested site of Tunisia. Parks delves into the concept of regeneration to show how Tunisian Jews embraced, challenged, renegotiated a plethora of imperial ventures attempting to seal their destiny as colonial subjects. A novel feature in Parks's inquiry is the way in which he stresses the illuminative power of fiction to explain the historical roadmap of France seeking to implement its medical imperialism in Tunisia. The constant reference to Albert Memmi's work informs Parks's historical analysis of France's imperial project. Citing Memmi, Parks reminds us that even "the benevolent colonizer can never attain the good, for his only choice is not between good and evil, but between evil and uneasiness" (xi). In the first chapter, "Situating Regeneration," Parks offers a critical genealogy of regeneration as embedded in Evolution theory and natural selection. The optimism of French eugenics was the driving force in the regeneration process of the Tunisian Jewish community considered as more assimilable than their Muslim counterpart, although the colonial other is always seen as a degenerate species. This would pave the way for France's mission to civilize and regenerate (21). Parks then gives a full account of the emergence of Tunis as a modern city based on sanitary science, laboratory medical authority, public health and hygiene. He shows how Tunis was drastically transformed from a diverse city, where various communities used to live peacefully, to a city that was Balkanized into ethnic, religious, and class-based enclaves (29). He continues his analysis by getting deeper into the uses of scientific and medical authority of public health and hygiene to revamp the map of Tunis, gentrify some city neighborhoods, and discriminate by maintaining intact indigenous Arab spaces as inherent historical sites due to the stagnant character of the Arab people. Parks provides a compelling narrative on how the French Protectorate regime sought to modernize, regenerate the Tunisian Jewish mind and body through two movements by European Jews: the Alliance israélite universelle and Zionism. In the final chapter, Parks debunks the patriarchal structure along with the authority of modern science and medicine over women's health. He demonstrates through Jewish women's practices and multiple counter-narratives that Tunisia, as all colonies, was never a simple laboratory, but a site of conflict and negotiation between colonizer and colonized. Medical Imperialism is a must-read in the panoply of works on French imperialism for its novelty and thoroughness.