DOCSLIB.ORG

Introduction E

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Introduction E © Copyright, Princeton University Press. No part of this book may be distributed, posted, or reproduced in any form by digital or mechanical means without prior written permission of the publisher. INTRODUCTION E N THE COURSE OF A discussion about the Algerian war, a disen­ chanted man in his twenties who worked in the mailroom of a gov­ Iernment institution where I had been employed in the early years of independence when I was still a student said to me: “The French army broke my testicles! And here I am recording mail day in, day out.” A shy young woman at the time, I had not quite grasped the enormity of the pain and suffering that this man had experienced, nor had I understood his trauma, although I glimpsed the depth of the anger that gleamed in his eyes. It was my first encounter with a person who had been tortured dur­ ing the war. I often remember that look. Years later, it helped me to un­ derstand the sexual core of torture and, by implication, the silence in which it had been wrapped in Algeria: that men, just like women, had been systematically raped. In the summer of 2001, while I was in Algiers carrying out interviews for another research project, two publications appeared. The first one was by an Algerian woman, Louisette Ighilahriz, a former revolutionary, who broke silence about the torture and rape she had endured during her in­ terrogation by Colonel Graziani and his men in 1957.1 This was the first time since the independence of Algeria that a woman wrote about her sex­ ual abuse at the hands of paratroopers. The other book was by a retired French general, Paul Aussaresses,2 who not only admitted to having tor­ tured numerous Algerians, but also described the methods he used in a detached manner, expressing no regrets and making no apology. A num­ ber of war memoirs had already been published by retired Algerian gen­ erals, to which were added young deserters’ accounts of torture commit­ ted by the Algerian military against Islamist suspects, and confessions to assassinations by former Islamists. I grew intrigued by these tales of tor­ ture and war from both sides of the Mediterranean and was unsure of their significance. In France, Aussaresses’ confession created a stir, sparking a flurry of legal actions against him, and renewed interest in a chapter of French his­ tory that government and public opinion had wished to bury in silence. It occurred to me that the Evian Accords that put an end to the Algerian War in 1962 had not mentioned torture, but had declared a moratorium on legal actions for all acts of violence committed during the war. There For general queries, contact [email protected] © Copyright, Princeton University Press. No part of this book may be distributed, posted, or reproduced in any form by digital or mechanical means without prior written permission of the publisher. 2 INTRODUCTION was to be no equivalent of the Nuremberg trials. I thought again of the man in the mailroom. Oddly, writers dealing with French veterans of the Algerian War often think that Algerian combatants had an easier time of it.3 They claim that Algerian combatants did not suffer, as French soldiers allegedly did, from having to keep their involvement in a problematic war silent. Unlike their French counterparts, the story goes, Algerian combatants returned home victorious and were celebrated for their success. They were able to put the war behind them and move on with their lives, while French soldiers re­ turned to a life in the shadows, resented by their society for having de­ famed it, and abandoned by a government that had failed to treat them in the manner that it did veterans of previous wars. Perhaps this is a case of the grass looking greener on the other side, or a circuitous way of be­ moaning defeat. The memory of torture and other atrocities has fed a steady stream of French narratives that unburden the self as they shed light on the core of a dishonorable war. Memory retrieval has been aided by professional studies made possible by the opening of the military archives in 1993.4 The cumulative effect of this speaking and writing about the war has re­ sulted in a trivialization of the significance of torture as glossy pictures turn war into an orgiastic intellectual entertainment.5 Speaking authori­ tatively about both sides of the war, a new generation of French histori­ ans felt entitled to change its name and the identity of its initiators: It was a “war of independence” they asserted, not a “revolution” as Algerians who won it have claimed; and nationalists are turned into “independen­ tistas.”6 Thus a long-standing monopoly over meaning enables the em­ pire to reproduce itself by deconstructing itself with one hand, and re­ composing itself with the other. In this climate of recovery of the colonial past, French legislators passed a law on February 23, 2005, that attempted to rehabilitate colonialism by proposing (in Article 4) that school curricula present it as a positive sys­ tem of rule, especially in North Africa.7 They also rehabilitated formerly convicted and deported citizens (an oblique reference to members of the clandestine Organisation de l’Armée Secrète) opposed to the indepen­ dence of Algeria who became eligible for monetary compensation.8 The management of what French historians have of late called “la mémoire,” has become a political affair.9 Torture and related atrocities cast serious doubt on the plausibility of the ongoing revisionist history of “empire,” French as well as British, which seeks to extol the benefits of colonial domination for the colonized and downplay its cost as collateral dam­ age.10 This relegitimation and rehabilitation of the French “civilizing mis­ sion” elides a discussion of whether the colonial empire was inevitable. It eschews the fundamental core of colonial ventures: the extension or For general queries, contact [email protected] © Copyright, Princeton University Press. No part of this book may be distributed, posted, or reproduced in any form by digital or mechanical means without prior written permission of the publisher. INTRODUCTION 3 preservation of the interests of the colonists not the natives. Had colonial systems been motivated by an alleged gift of “civilization,” a cultural charity, it is incomprehensible that the gift failed to reach the majority of natives. In this book, I take a different approach. I examine torture as an ana­ lytical category and practice (that is, a conscious and rule-bound activity) through which to understand how, between 1954 and 1962, the milita­ rized colonial state normalized terror to forestall the collapse of the em­ pire in an age of decolonization. In tracing the etiology and methods of state terrorism, I explore the justifications that allowed for the routiniza­ tion of torture in a “total” war of decolonization-recolonization. From this perspective, the book seeks to uncover torture’s layered meanings for practitioners and victims; the role it played in techniques of population screening11 and social engineering; and its use as a catalyst for imperial identity formation and crystallization. Torture was not, as was often claimed by military officers, an epiphenomenon of the war. It was central to the army’s defense of a colonial empire in its waning years. The sys­ tematic use of torture was the logical outcome of revolutionary-war the­ ory (guerre révolutionnaire) and doctrine developed in the 1950s by a group of veterans of colonial wars, especially in Indochina. Many had also fought in World War II. They were men who had suffered a loss of honor and relevance in fast-changing postwar France. The Algerian War offered them a last opportunity at recouping both. In this context, systematic tor­ ture was not just an instance of violence committed by uncontrolled sol­ diers; it was part and parcel of an ideology of subjugation that went be­ yond Algeria’s borders.12 Algeria became a testing ground for fighting “revolutionary” wars in Africa and Latin America.13 Torture was intimately linked to colonial history and to the nature of the colonial state. It had been used in the aftermath of the invasion of Al­ geria in 1830 when rape, beatings with a matraque, exposure of naked bodies, and starvation were frequent.14 Thereafter, it was not uncommon at the hands of colonial policemen and gendarmes who used the methods of electricity and water on communists and nationalists. But it had not risen to the level of a system as it did after 1954.15 Rather, it was part of a general pattern of police brutality exercised on a native population that lacked the legal protection enjoyed by French colonists. Algeria was invaded in 1830, but French control was not established securely until the 1870s. Resistance was first organized by Emir Abd-El- Kader, who set up the first native government since the incorporation of Algeria into the Ottoman Empire in the sixteenth century. After his defeat in 1844, a series of tribal-based uprisings took place episodically until 1871, when the last one of significance was crushed in the Grande Kaby­ lie. After each uprising, land was confiscated by the colonial state, and For general queries, contact [email protected] © Copyright, Princeton University Press. No part of this book may be distributed, posted, or reproduced in any form by digital or mechanical means without prior written permission of the publisher. 4 INTRODUCTION heavy fines exacted from the insurgents. The military administered the countryside through the Arab Bureaus until their demise in the 1870s. Throughout this period, tensions arose between the settlers who had been given land confiscated from the native population, and the military.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Algerian War of Independence - France
    Joint Crisis: Algerian War of Independence - France JHUMUNC 2017 1 Joint Crisis: Algerian War of Independence - France Topic A: The Grand Ensemble and the Algerian War Topic B: Domestic Challenges and the Challenge to French Identity Overview committee and its legislative board, the The French-Algerian War occurred Algerian cabinet. between 1954-1962, spanning the Fourth and Fifth Republics of France. The war was Parliamentary Procedure not limited to conflict between French For this committee, we will follow colonial authorities and Algerian standard parliamentary procedure. We will nationalists, but also involved civil divide on remain in moderated caucus, unless a the Algerian front between populations of motion for an unmoderated caucus is different cultural backgrounds, religions, motioned and approved. Standard voting and ideologies toward the future of the state. procedure will be observed, and any This committee opens in 1955 and serves as differences regarding procedures will be the managerial body of the French subject to the decision of the chair and dais government, the French Cabinet, with Rene staff. Gustav Coty as the director, who will be represented by the chair. Delegates are responsible for evaluating domestic and Delegate Biographies foreign challenges simultaneously. Part of Maurice Bougrès-Maunoury the committee will revolve around growing Maunoury played an important role resistance in the French colony of Algeria, as the leader in the French Resistance, a while another segment will address the movement to interfere with the Nazi internal challenges faced by the French occupation of France. Following the end of government, which affect the future World War II, Borges served as minister for structure of the government and all of several different seats including defense, France.
    [Show full text]
  • On the Spaces of Guerre Moderne: the French Army in Northern Algeria (1954–1962) Samia Henni
    37 On the Spaces of Guerre Moderne: The French Army in Northern Algeria (1954–1962) Samia Henni Introduction French National Assembly formally recognised On the night of Friday, 13 November 2015, as the the term war by law and authorised the use of the Paris attacks were still unfolding, François Hollande, appellation La Guerre d’Algérie in French schools President of the Fifth Republic stood before national and in official terminology.2 television and declared the closing of the country’s borders and a nationwide état d’urgence (state of In 2015, sixty years after the institution of the emergency). The French media compared these state of emergency, the same extraordinary law attacks with the calamities of World War II, thus is enforced, but it took the French president a few disregarding and undermining the Paris Massacre hours to call the Paris attacks ‘an act of war’, and of 17 October 1961, during La Guerre d’Algérie (the a few days after that to proclaim that ‘France is at Algerian War, 1954–1962), which killed hundreds war’. Hollande and his government, however, had of peaceful Algerian pro-independence protesters no intention of recalling the peculiar character of who had gathered in Paris. The Paris police forces warfare that France waged (and is still waging), a were then under the authority of Maurice Papon, a war that Colonel Roger Trinquier, a French army French civil servant who had served twice in Algeria officer and theorist who served in Algeria, termedla under French colonial rule, and who was convicted guerre moderne (modern warfare).
    [Show full text]
  • Memory, Empire, and Postcolonialism: Legacies of French Colonialism' and Singer and Langdon, 'Cultured Force: Makers and Defenders of the French Colonial Empire'
    H-French-Colonial Barrows on Hargreaves, 'Memory, Empire, and Postcolonialism: Legacies of French Colonialism' and Singer and Langdon, 'Cultured Force: Makers and Defenders of the French Colonial Empire' Review published on Friday, January 15, 2010 Alec G. Hargreaves, ed. Memory, Empire, and Postcolonialism: Legacies of French Colonialism. Lanham: Lexington Books, 2005. 272 pp. $32.95 (paper), ISBN 978-0-7391-0821-5.Barnett Singer, John W. Langdon. Cultured Force: Makers and Defenders of the French Colonial Empire. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2004. xi + 483 pp. $45.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-299-19900-5; $29.95 (paper), ISBN 978-0-299-19904-3. Reviewed by Leland Barrows (Voorhees College) Published on H-French-Colonial (January, 2010) Commissioned by Jyoti Mohan Myths and Realities: Conflicting Perceptions of French Colonial History and Postcolonialism Postcolonial studies came later to the Francophone than to the Anglophone world probably because of the trauma associated with much of French decolonization. There was also a felt need in France to come to terms with the Vichy era before turning to the almost as traumatic end of French rule in Algeria. But by the 1990s, French colonial studies were rapidly coming into vogue. The two books under review, Cultured Force, a revisionist history of the French empire that stresses a biographical approach to historical narrative, andMemory, Empire, and Postcolonialism, which publishes the proceedings of an interdisciplinary conference on cultural memory, are good examples of the varied types of writing that the rekindled interest in the French empire is spawning. “Biographical study,” the authors ofCultured Force inform their readers, “provides a relatively painless way to introduce people to an era’s subtleties,”enabling them to develop an awareness of the relativity and the contradictions of received truths, particularly those reflecting the history of modern imperialism and colonialism (p.
    [Show full text]
  • Coming to Terms with the Colonial Past: the French and Others
    Coming to Terms with the Colonial Past: The French and Others R( mERr ALDRICH* In 1929 one of the key works of French colonial history was published by an Australian historian, Stephen H. Roberts. History of French Colonial Policy (1870-1925) was a version of Roberts's thesis at the LSE, published in the year that he took up an appointment as the second Challis Professor of History here. Roberts had gone from Australia to Britain, there to study French colonialism, after which he had the good fortune to move from a School of Economics to a Faculty of Arts. After eighteen years as Challis Professor, he served as Vice­ Chancellor from 1947 to 1967. 1 Roberts's study of French colonialism comprises two volumes and 741 pages. He begins: 'This book is an attempt to cover an obvious gap in modern European history. It is strange that, despite the importance of the subject, nothing exists on it in English'. He then noted that his interest had derived from research on the French in the Pacific. The preface continues with a reflection on Roberts's experience of writing the study: [Tlhe book does not pretend to be an interpretation based on actual colonial experience: it is a piece of historical research and analysis, the main colonial element coming from the fact that the author himself has lived for most of his life in a colony and thus has some capability of understanding the colonial point of view. It would be foolish to assume that actually living in the French colonies would not result in a more living presentation: but, on the other hand, one can write of the Middle Ages without having lived in them.2 Anyone who writes of another time and place does somehow feel * Robert Aldrich is Professor of European History at the University of Sydney.
    [Show full text]
  • Re-Viewing the Battle of Algiers with Germaine Tillion Author(S): Donald Reid Source: History Workshop Journal, No
    Re-Viewing the Battle of Algiers with Germaine Tillion Author(s): Donald Reid Source: History Workshop Journal, No. 60 (Autumn, 2005), pp. 93-115 Published by: Oxford University Press Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/25472817 Accessed: 25-09-2018 11:09 UTC REFERENCES Linked references are available on JSTOR for this article: https://www.jstor.org/stable/25472817?seq=1&cid=pdf-reference#references_tab_contents You may need to log in to JSTOR to access the linked references. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at https://about.jstor.org/terms Oxford University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to History Workshop Journal This content downloaded from 130.235.66.10 on Tue, 25 Sep 2018 11:09:52 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Germaine Tillion in discussion at St Mande, date and companion unknown. Re-viewing The Battle of Algiers with Germaine Tillion by Donald Reid Whatever the outcome of this Algerian war, it is certain that in fifty years, one hundred years, the Algerians will remember. They will teach their children what that year 1957 was. Legends will be born of the time when the Casbah, the most profound symbol of their community, was night and day under siege, when terror reigned as absolute master, when each of the inhabitants could at any time say: 'In an hour, maybe they will knock on my door and take me away forever Pierre Leulliette, a paratrooper in Algiers1 I learned from the newspapers that in the Algiers Casbah a leader of the FLN [Yacef Saadi] and his young woman companion [Zohra Drif ] were holding out against the assaults of the French army.
    [Show full text]
  • The Military's Role in Counterterrorism
    The Military’s Role in Counterterrorism: Examples and Implications for Liberal Democracies Geraint Hug etortThe LPapers The Military’s Role in Counterterrorism: Examples and Implications for Liberal Democracies Geraint Hughes Visit our website for other free publication downloads http://www.StrategicStudiesInstitute.army.mil/ To rate this publication click here. hes Strategic Studies Institute U.S. Army War College, Carlisle, PA The Letort Papers In the early 18th century, James Letort, an explorer and fur trader, was instrumental in opening up the Cumberland Valley to settlement. By 1752, there was a garrison on Letort Creek at what is today Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania. In those days, Carlisle Barracks lay at the western edge of the American colonies. It was a bastion for the protection of settlers and a departure point for further exploration. Today, as was the case over two centuries ago, Carlisle Barracks, as the home of the U.S. Army War College, is a place of transition and transformation. In the same spirit of bold curiosity that compelled the men and women who, like Letort, settled the American West, the Strategic Studies Institute (SSI) presents The Letort Papers. This series allows SSI to publish papers, retrospectives, speeches, or essays of interest to the defense academic community which may not correspond with our mainstream policy-oriented publications. If you think you may have a subject amenable to publication in our Letort Paper series, or if you wish to comment on a particular paper, please contact Dr. Antulio J. Echevarria II, Director of Research, U.S. Army War College, Strategic Studies Institute, 632 Wright Ave, Carlisle, PA 17013-5046.
    [Show full text]
  • Senses of Vulnerability: Gender, Embodiment, and Dis-Orientation from the Algerian War To
    UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Santa Barbara Senses of Vulnerability: Gender, Embodiment, and Dis-Orientation from the Algerian War to the War in Iraq A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Comparative Literature by Alexandra Magearu Committee in charge: Professor Maurizia Boscagli, Co-Chair Professor Dwight Reynolds, Co-Chair Professor Catherine Nesci Professor Eric Prieto Professor Elisabeth Weber September 2018 The dissertation of Alexandra Magearu is approved. ____________________________________________ Catherine Nesci ____________________________________________ Eric Prieto ____________________________________________ Elisabeth Weber ____________________________________________ Maurizia Boscagli, Committee Co-Chair ____________________________________________ Dwight Reynolds, Committee Co-Chair September 2018 Senses of Vulnerability: Gender, Embodiment, and Dis-Orientation from the Algerian War to the War in Iraq Copyright © 2018 by Alexandra Magearu iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This project could not have come into being without the support of mentors, family, and friends. I am deeply grateful to my mentors in the American Studies department at the University of Bucharest, Mihaela Precup and Ruxandra Rădulescu. Their warmth, their passion, their dedication and their integrity have inspired me to pursue a degree in the humanities and research social justice issues. Mihaela’s friendship, her sense of humor, her energy, and her feminist commitments have provided a model of ethical living for me. Ruxandra’s wisdom, her kindness, and her empathy have inspired me to become a better person. I am also grateful to my committee, whose feedback, critical comments, and invaluable advice have considerably shaped and improved this book. I would like to thank Maurizia Boscagli for her unwavering support, her critical intensity, and for encouraging me to persevere in my writing in moments of disorientation.
    [Show full text]
  • Book Reviews
    Critical Sociology 35(6) 893-908 http://crs.sagepub.com Book Reviews Torture and the Twilight of Empire: From Algiers to Baghdad. By Marnia Lazreg. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008. Pp. 335. $29.95 (paper). ISBN: 069113135X. In this study, Marnia Lazreg gives us a new and original account of torture during the Algerian war of 1954–62. A second notable feature of this book is its theoretically rich discussion of torture at a more general level, which furnishes important insights into political power at both the macro and the micro levels. Finally, Lazreg’s book helps us to theorize the US Government’s resort to torture under the Bush administration. Although the torture policies of the French military during the Algerian war are well known, and were debated at the time by Jean-Paul Sartre and others, Lazreg’s first achievement is to present all of this in a new light. She has drawn upon a wealth of new source material, from both the French and the Algerian sides, much of it available only in the last decade. Her new sources include French military archives, as well as first-hand accounts published in recent years, most notably the memoirs of an unrepentant torturer, retired French General Paul Aussaresses, and a book by one of the most prominent vic- tims, former National Liberation Front (FLN) militant Louisette Ighilahriz, both of them published in 2001 amid great controversy in both France and Algeria. Lazreg effectively mines the military archives for material on the strategic thinking of the French military leadership, which saw Algeria as a new kind of war – guerre révolutionnaire – that needed new strategies and tactics, among them the rapid gathering of information to thwart terrorist attacks and protect French civilians.
    [Show full text]
  • French Colonialism in Algeria: War, Legacy, and Memory Haley Brown Bucknell University, [email protected]
    Bucknell University Bucknell Digital Commons Honors Theses Student Theses Spring 2018 French Colonialism in Algeria: War, Legacy, and Memory Haley Brown Bucknell University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.bucknell.edu/honors_theses Part of the African History Commons, European History Commons, and the French and Francophone Language and Literature Commons Recommended Citation Brown, Haley, "French Colonialism in Algeria: War, Legacy, and Memory" (2018). Honors Theses. 456. https://digitalcommons.bucknell.edu/honors_theses/456 This Honors Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Student Theses at Bucknell Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Honors Theses by an authorized administrator of Bucknell Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. FRENCH COLONIALISM IN ALGERIA: WAR, LEGACY, AND MEMORY by Haley C. Brown A Thesis Submitted to the Honors Council For Honors in French and Francophone Studies Approved by: _________________________ Advisor: Renée Gosson _________________________ Co-Advisor: Mehmet Dosemeci _________________________ Department Chair: Nathalie Dupont Brown 2 Acknowledgements First and foremost I would like to dedicate this work to my parents who have fostered in me a love of history and other cultures. It is with their support that I even believed I could take on a project this large and that I was able to pursue my intellectual passions. Your generosity helped me write these pages. Next I would like to thank both of my advisors on this project who have molded me into an honors student. Professors Gosson and Dosemeci have spent endless hours teaching me about both the French language and history, mentoring me into a student who is now ready to move onto graduate school and the beyond.
    [Show full text]
  • Download/Csipubs/Modernwarfare.Pdf
    DOING WHAT YOU KNOW THE UNITED STATES AND 250 YEARS OF IRREGULAR WAR DAVID E. JOHNSON DOING WHAT YOU KNOW THE UNITED STATES AND 250 YEARS OF IRREGULAR WARFARE DAVID E. JOHNSON 2017 ABOUT THE CENTER FOR STRATEGIC AND BUDGETARY ASSESSMENTS (CSBA) The Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments is an independent, nonpartisan policy research institute established to promote innovative thinking and debate about national security strategy and investment options. CSBA’s analysis focuses on key questions related to existing and emerging threats to U.S. national security, and its goal is to enable policymakers to make informed decisions on matters of strategy, security policy, and resource allocation. ©2017 Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. All rights reserved. ABOUT THE AUTHOR David E. Johnson is a Senior Fellow at CSBA. He joined CSBA after eighteen years with the RAND Corporation, where he was a Principal Researcher. His work focuses on military innovation, land warfare, joint operations, and strategy. Dr. Johnson is also an adjunct professor at Georgetown University where he teaches a course on strategy and military operations and an Adjunct Scholar at the Modern War Institute at West Point. From June 2012 until July 2014, he was on a two-year loan to the United States Army to establish and serve as the first director of the Chief of Staff of the Army Strategic Studies Group. Before joining RAND, he served as a vice president at Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) following a 24-year career in the U.S. Army, where he served in command and staff positions in the Infantry, Quartermaster Corps, and Field Artillery branches in the continental United States, Korea, Germany, Hawaii, and Belgium.
    [Show full text]
  • Download Thesis
    This electronic thesis or dissertation has been downloaded from the King’s Research Portal at https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/ Between History and Fiction The Destabilisation of Masculinist History in Contemporary Algerian Women's Fiction Kosniowski, Jennifer Awarding institution: King's College London The copyright of this thesis rests with the author and no quotation from it or information derived from it may be published without proper acknowledgement. END USER LICENCE AGREEMENT Unless another licence is stated on the immediately following page this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International licence. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ You are free to copy, distribute and transmit the work Under the following conditions: Attribution: You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work). Non Commercial: You may not use this work for commercial purposes. No Derivative Works - You may not alter, transform, or build upon this work. Any of these conditions can be waived if you receive permission from the author. Your fair dealings and other rights are in no way affected by the above. Take down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact [email protected] providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. Download date: 30. Sep. 2021 Between History and Fiction The Destabilisation of Masculinist History in Contemporary Algerian Women's Fiction Jenny Kosniowski King's College London Department of French Submitted for the degree of Doctor Of Philosophy in September 2014 Abstract Masculinist constructions of Algerian history relegate women to symbolic roles.
    [Show full text]
  • Natalya Vince, Colonial and Post-Colonial Identities
    Colonial and Post-Colonial Identities 153 Colonial and Post-Colonial Identities: Women Veterans of the “Battle of Algiers” Natalya Vince* When seventeen-year-old student Baya Hocine was put on trial in Algiers in late 1957, accused of planting bombs for the Algerian Front de Libération Nationale (FLN), the French colonial authorities sought out her school reports for the case file. Baya Hocine’s teachers describe an excellent student: extremely intelligent with a lively personality, although reluctant to express any unhappy emotions.1 Could her teachers have guessed that this high-achieving pupil of the French education system in colonial Algeria would go on to commit such a violent expression of anti- colonialism, planting a bomb in an Algiers stadium that killed two people and injured 24 others? It seems unlikely. Unrepentant, Baya Hocine was condemned to death, then reprieved, and passed the rest of the liberation struggle in prison until Algerian Independence was finally won in 1962. Twenty years later, she was a deputy in the Algerian National Assembly during the debates around the introduction of a Family Code. Baya Hocine energetically argued against the Code, which institutionalized gender inequality and reduced women to the status of minors for life, only to be * Natalya Vince received her Ph.D. in 2008 from the University of London (Queen Mary) for her thesis, “To be a Moudjahida in Independent Algeria: Itineraries and Memories of Women Veterans of the Algerian War.” Her research interests lie in twentieth century French and North African history, politics and society. She is a lecturer in the School of Languages and Area Studies at the University of Portsmouth.
    [Show full text]