In the news today is a report that Denzel Washington (the black American actor) is to play Hannibal in a Netflix program. Quite rightly, they are questioning this in Tunisia. Hannibal was a Carthaginian, which means he was descended from Phoenicians from modern Syria who cleated a colony on the coast of Tunisia. In the unlikely event that he somehow was black, like Otello (a ‘moor’, always staged as black) the ancient sources would not have failed to have noticed, and in any case Otello was a mercenary, while Hannibal was an aristocrat, and aristocracies tend to be strong on the purity of their bloodlines.

In researching the story of Sophonisba for the Emerging from Darkness catalogue, I came across a lot of material on the internet presenting Sophonisba’s nemesis, Masinissa, as black. Sophonisba was a Carthaginian by birth, married to a Numdian king. Masinissa was another Numidian king. The Numidians were the indigenous populatiobn occupying the hinterland and are the ancestors of the modern Berbers (who prefer to be known as ‘Amazigh’).

According to Wikipedia, Berbers make up only 1% of the Tunisian population. 98% are arabs, the result of later migrations during the Islamic era. There is therefore good reason for the Tunisians to be twitchy about how their historical identity is portrayed, especially as only now is there significant black migration from sub-Saharan Africa which is perceived as a threat. Presumably after Rome wiped out Carthage the Carthaginians were either killed, or dispersed, and their genetic footprint in Tunisia is presumably hard to distinguish from the rest of the population, and ancient Carthage can be seen as part of their national past without difficulty.

The Berbers are probably equally unhappy as being painted black. This all goes back to the Black Athena book, and has also resulted in Cleopatra as being portrayed recently as being of mixed race, although she was a member of the famously inbred Greek Ptolemy dynasty. And, at bottom, it is an American issue which America, though its domination of the media, imposes on the world. ‘Africa’ is seen as a trigger work for ‘black sub-Saharan Africa’. When Roman sources wanted to identify someone as black they called them ‘Ethiopian’.

Incidentally, as the population figures indicate, the Berbers are analogous to first Australians, and like them do not identify with the larger grouping to which outsiders see them as belonging, but with individual communities. Also worth noting is that Wikipedia makes clear a link between rapid and uncontrolled population growth and economic and social instability: ‘the [Tunisian] government has supported a successful family planning program that has reduced the population growth rate to just over 1% per annum, contributing to Tunisia’s economic and social stability.’