Mongi Slim (; September 15, 1908October 23, 1969) was a

Tunisia Tunisia, officially the Republic of Tunisia, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It is bordered by Algeria to the west and southwest, Libya to the southeast, and the Mediterranean Sea to the north and east. Tunisia also shares m ...

diplomat A diplomat (from ; romanization, romanized ''diploma'') is a person appointed by a state (polity), state, International organization, intergovernmental, or Non-governmental organization, nongovernmental institution to conduct diplomacy with one ...

who became the first African to become the

President of the United Nations General Assembly The president of the United Nations General Assembly is a position voted by representatives in the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) on a yearly basis. The president is the chair and presiding officer of the General Assembly. Election ...

in 1961. He received a degree from the faculty of law of the

University of Paris The University of Paris (), known Metonymy, metonymically as the Sorbonne (), was the leading university in Paris, France, from 1150 to 1970, except for 1793–1806 during the French Revolution. Emerging around 1150 as a corporation associated wit ...

. He was twice imprisoned by the French during the Tunisian struggle for independence.

Early years

Born on September 15, 1908, in

Tunis Tunis (, ') is the capital city, capital and largest city of Tunisia. The greater metropolitan area of Tunis, often referred to as "Grand Tunis", has about 2,700,000 inhabitants. , it is the third-largest city in the Maghreb region (after Casabl ...

, Slim came from an aristocratic family of

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

and Turkish origin. His mother was a member of the Beyrum family, a noble Turkish family which had risen to prominence in Tunis, and was famous throughout the Arab world for its learnedness in Islamic law. One of Slim's great-grandfathers, a Greek named Kafkalas, was captured as a boy by pirates, and sold to the

Bey of Tunis Bey, also spelled as Baig, Bayg, Beigh, Beig, Bek, Baeg, Begh, or Beg, is a Turkic languages, Turkic title for a chieftain, and a royal, aristocratic title traditionally applied to people with special lineages to the leaders or rulers of various ...

, who educated and freed him and then made him his minister of defense. His paternal grandfather was an aristocratic Caid who ruled the wealthy province of Cape Bon.

Political career

In 1936, Slim became involved in organizations advocating Tunisia's independence from France. In 1954, he became the chief Tunisian negotiator in discussions with France on independence. In this position, he helped draft protocols which secured Tunisia's independence in 1956. Slim served as an

interior minister An interior minister (sometimes called a minister of internal affairs or minister of home affairs) is a Cabinet (government), cabinet official position that is responsible for internal affairs, such as public security, civil registration and iden ...

of Tunisia from 1955 to 1956. In 1956 he became Tunisia's

ambassador An ambassador is an official envoy, especially a high-ranking diplomat who represents a state and is usually accredited to another sovereign state or to an international organization as the resident representative of their own government or so ...

to the United States, Canada and the

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is the Earth, global intergovernmental organization established by the signing of the Charter of the United Nations, UN Charter on 26 June 1945 with the stated purpose of maintaining international peace and internationa ...

. He became involved in a special United Nations Committee on the problem of Hungary and served as a delegate to the

United Nations Security Council The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations (UN) and is charged with ensuring international peace and security, recommending the admission of new UN members to the General Assembly, an ...

. He relinquished his posts as ambassador to the United States and Canada in 1961 when he was unanimously elected president of the

United Nations General Assembly The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA or GA; , AGNU or AG) is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations (UN), serving as its main deliberative, policymaking, and representative organ. Currently in its Seventy-ninth session of th ...

after a plane crash that killed U.N. Secretary General Dag Hammarskjöld. Slim made the cover of ''

Time Time is the continuous progression of existence that occurs in an apparently irreversible process, irreversible succession from the past, through the present, and into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequ ...

'' magazine in September 1961. The United States came up with a plan to have Slim carry out the duties of Secretary-General while delegating his own duties to a Vice-President of the General Assembly. However, the Soviet Union favored

U Thant Thant ( ; 22 January 1909 – 25 November 1974), known honorifically as U Thant (), was a Burmese diplomat and the third secretary-general of the United Nations from 1961 to 1971, the first non-Scandinavian as well as Asian to hold the positio ...

of Burma, and secured a U.S. agreement to appoint him acting Secretary-General for the remainder of Hammarskjöld's term. Slim left the United Nations in 1962 and became Minister of Foreign Affairs of Tunisia. He served in that position until 1964.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Slim, Mongi Presidents of the United Nations General Assembly Tunisian diplomats 1908 births 1969 deaths Tunisian people of Greek descent Tunisian people of Turkish descent University of Paris alumni Permanent representatives of Tunisia to the United Nations Ambassadors of Tunisia to the United States Ambassadors of Tunisia to Canada Foreign ministers of Tunisia Interior ministers of Tunisia 20th-century Tunisian people