In light of the recent proposal in the Tunisian parliament demanding that France offer reparations or at least apologize for its colonial abuses in Tunisia, my paper revisits Abdelaziz Tha'albi 's La Tunisie Martyre (1920) with its portrayal and denunciation of the colonial era. My paper begins with a close contextualized reading and reinterpretation of the text which has too often been dismissed as a "pamphlet" by its supporters, and a racially divisive and melodramatic bit of religious propaganda by its detractors. My paper will engage with and situate the outrage inside the text, looking for parallels and continuities in the struggle for dignity of the 1920s and of the present--especially the text's connection with the nascent labor movement. La Tunisie Martyre documents the abuses of an era with statistics, data, anecdotes and examples of colonial humiliation, tracing the shifting powers of local players and their connection to the larger struggle in the post-war Muslim world, a world disappointed with the broken promises of the Paris Peace conference. The text documents the dispossession of tribes from their land, their impoverishment and racialized marginalization. Tracking Tha'albi's anti colonial activism beyond Tunisia's borders, my paper will interrogate accepted understandings of his differences with Bourguiba.