diff -r 5bad73fbf593 Lib/site.py
--- a/Lib/site.py	Sun Apr 29 09:25:25 2012 -0700
+++ b/Lib/site.py	Mon Apr 30 10:14:56 2012 +0200
@@ -560,7 +560,31 @@
     if hasattr(sys, "setdefaultencoding"):
         del sys.setdefaultencoding
 
-main()
+try:
+    unicode
+except NameError:
+    # If Python is built with no unicode support, we need to patch a
+    # few modules where unicode is used only in isinstance clauses.
+    class unicode(object):
+        def __new__(cls, *args, **kw):
+            # Make sure that you cannot instantiate instances
+            raise TypeError("No unicode support")
+    # We do not want to pollute the __builtin__ names space, so we
+    # inject this unicode class directly into the modules that need it
+    def _patch_modules(*modnames):
+        for n in modnames:
+            try:
+                __import__(n)
+                m = sys.modules[n]
+            except ImportError:
+                pass
+            else:
+                setattr(m, 'unicode', unicode)
+    _patch_modules('posixpath', 'glob')
+    main()
+    _patch_modules('locale', 'textwrap', 'unittest.case')
+else:
+    main()
 
 def _script():
     help = """\
diff -r 5bad73fbf593 Lib/test/script_helper.py
--- a/Lib/test/script_helper.py	Sun Apr 29 09:25:25 2012 -0700
+++ b/Lib/test/script_helper.py	Mon Apr 30 10:14:56 2012 +0200
@@ -10,7 +10,10 @@
 import py_compile
 import contextlib
 import shutil
-import zipfile
+try:
+    import zipfile
+except:
+    pass
 
 from test.test_support import strip_python_stderr
 
diff -r 5bad73fbf593 Lib/test/test_support.py
--- a/Lib/test/test_support.py	Sun Apr 29 09:25:25 2012 -0700
+++ b/Lib/test/test_support.py	Mon Apr 30 10:14:56 2012 +0200
@@ -405,7 +405,7 @@
     the CWD, an error is raised.  If it's True, only a warning is raised
     and the original CWD is used.
     """
-    if isinstance(name, unicode):
+    if have_unicode and isinstance(name, unicode):
         try:
             name = name.encode(sys.getfilesystemencoding() or 'ascii')
         except UnicodeEncodeError: