Every year, a shady organization calling itself the “Tunisian Community Center” produces the same farce and assumes the role of an honorable and legitimate institution that bestows honor upon a member of the Tunisian community in North America.

The reality is that this organization is devoid of legitimacy and lacks the minimum credibility to speak in the name of Tunisians in North America let alone bestow honors and sully the name of Ibn Khaldun or Abul Kacem Echebbi in the process. Its decisions are made in a dark room, maybe late at night in a bar around the corner.

I have come to realize this sad reality after giving the organization the full benefit of the doubt and helping it materially and by spending valuable time “putting the organization on the map” as the organization’s eternal director puts it. For over four year, I provided web hosting and support free of charge to this organization. One of these years, when the junta did not find a better candidate to exploit, I got “rewarded” and was asked to join the “Ibn Khaldun Hall of Shame” as the eternal director likes to call the previous “honorees.”

I invited my daughter and paid our way to New York to accept the “award” to learn in the process that the junta speaks in different tongues depending on the listener. To some listeners, the organization is not a “shu3ba,” the Tunisian flag has no place in the event and the Ambassador (whom they invited) has no right “dictating terms.” To others, the organization is the local cell of the ruling party in Tunisia.

I am now on the organization’s black list because I simply advised the junta, as an “honoree,” to seek more transparency after about 10 years of one-man rule. I even offered to setup online systems for the organization to facilitate interactions and consultation. The junta showed interest in person but after a few weeks of hard work putting the system in place, I was the one to be shocked when I discovered that they would rather have a dysfunctional website than a more transparent organization. The junta has decided to dump its “honoree” just like they dumped the others they have “honored” before.

Personally, I do not regret whatever I did for the organization because I did so with the good intentions of contributing to the betterment of the Tunisian community. However, after this experience, which I have decided to share openly, my hope is that others realize the nature of this organization and either reform it or move on. My other hope is that other respected members of the Tunisian community do not fall in the same trap and get their reputation sullied by accepting this “award.”

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