VOTRE-NOUS (Algeria)

1.  la guerre de liberation  1954-1962

     outre-mer

     1931                     Islam is my religion.

                               Arabic is my language.

                               Algeria is my country.

    1936                         ... this Algerian nation is not France,

                                         cannot be France,

                                         and does not want to be France ...

     metropole

    1954     The Algerian departments are part of the French Republic.

                  Between them and metropolitan France there can be no conceivable secession.

                  Ici, c'est le France!

                                    The evil is spreading.

                                    French peace in Algeria is ruined.

                                    Weakness always encourages new adventures.

    1957    The evil is too profound.

                No agreement is possible between the natives and the French in Algeria.

                I no longer believe in French Algeria.

                                    Algeria isn't France.

                                    It isn't even Algeria.

                                    It is that unknown land which a cloud of blood hides.

Algerie Francais

Algerie Arab

AL-GER-IE FRANCAISE!

AL-GER-IE AR-ABE!

2.   la moudjahida

     "I knew from a young age who and where I was;

      an Algerian in her own country.

      As a child, when I accompanied my mother and my aunts,

      traipsing together over vast fields

      to visit the tomb of wali salah ...,

      the woman explained to me that in truth

      these lands belonged to such-and-such tribe,

      which had been dispossessed in favour of such-and-such colonist.

      In doing so, they transmitted to us the history, sociology, and

      true map of our country."

    "The only domain where women enjoyed

     unquestioned, inviolable sovereignty

     was the hamman [public baths] ...

     This was where the details of great exploits and achievements reached us ...

     In the hamman, women told us that henceforth

     our heroes were called moudjahidine [soldiers of Islam],

     and that those who were killed by the French army

     would be known as chouhada [martyrs of Islam].

     We lapped up the words ..."

On September 30, 1956, Zahra Drif (above), Djamila Bouhired, and Samia Lakhdari ― women in their early twenties and members of the Algerien Fronte de Liberation Nationale (FLN) ― crossed the checkpoint between the Arab quarter and the European quarter of Algiers. They were dressed in European styles for a day at the beach and carrying bombs to be planted in cafes and bars popular with French colonial settlers in Algeria. Two out of three of the revolutionary women's bombs exploded, killing 12 and injuring 50, including children.

3.   la colon

      "See there: burned.

       Over there, burned and the vineyards cut.

       And there, burned; the owner egorge [his throat cut].

       In that field my neighbour was egorge while he was working ...

       Last week an officer was shot on this slope.

       That farm was burned one Sunday while the patrone played at boules.

       There is my nephew's farm, burned.

       And we have been here since 1838."

     "Some call us oppressors, feudal lords, exploiters,

      ... this is false.

      My Moslems like me,

      but they are archaic and need a tribal leader,

      ... me.

      They are like tractors or like donkeys.

      You must mount them to make them work.

      Otherwise they do nothing.

      They don't plant trees,

      they cut them;

      they let their goats devour the saplings

      and move on ...

      We are the pioneers who understand and made this country.

      Our bones are in its cemeteries."

The New York Times correspondent Cyrus Sulzberger visited Algeria in March 1959. He met an elderly colon [above], whose farmhouse amid 200 acres resembled an armed camp.

4.  les harkis

     "When the war broke out, benti,

      everyone had to choose a side.

      My three brothers joined the harka,

      and there was only me left.

      All four of us got together at home and talked about it.

      If I too became a harki,

      we would have been harassed and threatened

      by the djoumouds ― the FLN soldiers.

      So I joined the FLN to protect our family from being executed.

      If we had come across a French patrol,

      my brother would have shown them his harki card.

      If we had come across a group of moudjahidin,

      I would have given them my name.

      Algerian independence was important to us

      but it was not our priority.

      We also had to survive in a country

      where war increased the risk of famine and starvation.

      With their wages as harkis

      my brothers helped me feed our children."

You get up one morning

and you discover that your neighbour

had his throat cut during the night.

You, you know him, your neighbour for a long time.

You do not understand why he has been killed.

You understand only that you must not ask questions.

So in the beginning, you say,

to reassure yourself:

"It is astonishing, but the moudjahidin

know undoubtedly what they are doing.

The men killed were perhaps playing a double game."

And then, after a while,

with all these deaths,

the old people,

the youngsters of fifteen or sixteen years of age,

you say to yourself:

"There is something not quite right here,

that tomorrow it could be your turn,

like that,

for nothing."

5.   la guerre civile en Algerie  1992-2002

The government:  Front de Liberation National   (FLN)

The opposition:    Front Islamique du Salut          (FIS)

'To support the FLN was to support a military regime that was undemocratic a posteriori.

 To support the FIS was to support a religious crusade that was undemocratic a priori.'

At the command of the authorities:

                              Armee de Liberation National                                    (ALN)

                              Departement du Renseignement et de la Securite    (DRE)

At the heart of the insurgency:

                              Armee Islamic du Salut                (AIS)

                              Groupement Islamique Armes     (GIA)

"Death is inevitable.

 Certainly, one day I will die.

On that day the AIS killed a soldier.

The ALN and DRE launched a massive arrest campaign.

Attacking houses in my village,

they were taking every male above fifteen years old.

After two days,

some of us were released

and others,

perhaps,

had been taken to other prisons.

Until today,

we do not know what happened to them."

There is a word: Tak fir : to excommunicate,

to kill the kafir, the unbeliever

         the murtad, the apostate

         the zindiq, the heretic

         the girl not wearing the hijab

There is a word: Faj'aa : to be betrayed,

to suffer an unspeakable event that breaks the heart

              the trauma of a 'world unmade and undone'

              mourning your dead without zaghareet

"My neighbors,

my chidhood friends,

informed the GIA insurgents

that my son was home.

They slaughtered my son Mahomed,

then, they sent his head to me

in a garbage bag.

That is my last memory

 with my little boy

who was obliged to join the army

in order to serve his country.

I can accept his death,

but I cannot accept how they killed him,

or how my neighbors betrayed me."

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1.     Andrew Hussey, 2014, The French Intifada : The Long War Between France and its Arabs, Faber and Faber, pp 174-194

2.    Laura McMahon, 2020, 'Religion, Multiculturalism, and Phenomenology as a Critical Practice : Lessons from the Algerian War of Independence', Journal of Critical Phenomenology (Puncta), 3.1, pp 5, 17

3.    Michael Burleigh, 2013, 'Losing By Winning : Algeria', Ch 12 in Small Wars, Far Away Places : The Genesis of the Modern World 1945-65, Macmillan, p 354

4.    Alina Sajed, 2019, 'How We Fight : Anticolonial Imaginaries and the Question of National Liberation in the Algerian War', International Journal of Postcolonial Studies (Interventions),

21.5, p 645

       Burleigh 2013, p 353

5.    Jacob Mundy, 2010, 'Expert Intervention: knowledge, violence and identity during the Algerian crisis, 1997-1998', Cambridge Review of International Affairs, 23.1, pp 32-34

       Faouzia Zeraoulia, 2020, 'The Memory of the Civil War in Algeria: Lessons from the Past with Reference to the Algerian Hirak', Contemporary Review of the Middle East, 7.1, pp 37-39