Berlin in winter is horrible. To beat my winter blues, a business trip in January 2006 to Tunisia served me right. From gloom to bloom in just three hours: After work I headed to the gorgeous village of Sidi Bou Said, just 30 minutes from Tunis. Narrow cobblestone streets offering wonderful views on the blue Mediterranean, all houses painted white and blue. Just to make sure I was not in the Greek Cyclades, I ordered a chicha (as hookashs were called locally) and was Immediately transcendeding into Patrick Bruel’s Café au Délices. German expressionists August Macke and Paul Klee must have had similar feelings on their famous „Tunisreise“, a voyage to Tunis, Sidi Bou Said, Hammamet and Kairouan in 1914, shortly before the outbreak of First World War. They fell in love with the colours, forms and light of Tunisia. Their trip became a turning point in the history of art, helping to overcome Expressionism with more abstract forms of art. Just months before August Macke tragically fell in the World’s First World War, he had been quoted saying: „The farer your distance, the more you appreciate the Orient.“ 

At Bardo Museum in Tunis I got for the first time an idea about the splendour of Roman Africa and Carthage. How would Europe look like if Hannibal and his elephants would not only have crossed the Alps, but if ancient Carthage, one of the most affluent cities of the classical world, would have been victorious in the Punic wars against Rome?

After a week, business was mostly done, and my team and I were finally used to be „secretly“ followed by well-meaning Tunisian officials. To see more of oriental Africa, I turned from Tunis to the south, leaving the empty and soulless hotel castles on the coast behind, and heading for the beautiful emptiness of the desert. I first reached Kairouan, fourth-holiest city of Islam. While earlier travellers could enter its wonderful Medina only in Islamic disguise, I walked unharmed, ending at the Great Mosque, oldest Muslim place of prayer in northern Africa. 350km further south, I arrived in the oasis town of Douz, gateway to the Sahara at the fringes of the Grand Erg Oriental. 

When I finally set foot on Jerba, Homer’s legendary „Land of the Lotus Eaters“, the addicts who once seduced Odysseus’ men to stay, had long gone. As where the fabled lotus trees whose fruit was said to have a narcotic effect causing the inhabitants to sleep in peaceful apathy. At the time of my visit, magical Jerba with its cool Berber culture, maze of winding streets, often with bougainvillea climbing the walls, covered souks, white-washed mosques and sandy beaches was almost devoid of tourists. Apathy had a different reason: The island’s synagogue, one of the oldest in the world, dating back over 2,000 years, had been targeted in a bomb attack by al-Qa’ida. 21 people died, among them 14 German tourists. In a local restaurant I enjoyed grilled sea bass alongside couscous as my dinner partner was telling me about the island’s wonderful ethnic mix. At the neighbouring tables, local men and women were sitting together drinking espresso and mint tea in a way often uncommon in Muslim societies. Apart from Sunni Arabs, Jerba was still home to the unorthodox Islamic sect of Ibadis and to one of the largest Jewish populations in North Africa. Here, Arabs and Jews had been living and trading together peacefully for hundreds of years, giving proof of Jerba’s long-time laid-back tolerance. Four years after my visit, the country which cured my winter blues, would turn into the launchpad of the Arab Spring.