Habib al-Umma (Friend of the Nation), a short-lived communist newspaper published in Tunisia in 1921, was a site for imagining forms of political solidarity that challenged the racial, and class divisions structuring French colonial rule. Directed by Mokhtar Ayari, a tramway worker and member of the Tunisian Section of the Communist Party, the newspaper emerged in the context of the Communist International’s expanding engagement with colonized societies. The Tunisian communist movement brought together a diverse group of actors, including Tunisian Muslims and Jews, and French activists.

Colonial authorities placed the movement under close surveillance, censored its publications, and arrested several of its members. Yet repression did not put an end to communist publishing. Following each suspension, the Party established new journals under different titles, maintaining a press network that circulated international news, local political commentary, poetry, and revolutionary ideas.