ALGERIANS REMEMBER: AN ORAL HISTORY OF FRENCH COLONIAL ENCOUNTER By KHADIDJA ARFI A DISSERTATION PRESENTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA 2014 1 © 2014 Khadidja Arfi 2 To the Algerian people and those whose testimories have been neglected in writing their histories around the world and at all times 3 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I thank my professors for their support throughout my studies at the University of Florida and many other institutions. I express my deepest thanks and gratitude to Dr. Peter Schmidt for his continuous mentoring, support, and advice. I express my gratitude to my committee members Dr. Faye Harrison, Dr. Abdoulaye Kane, Dr. Maria Stoilkova, and Dr. Paul Ortiz for their encouragement and very constructive critiques throughout this project. I am grateful to Algerians in the town and villages of Dellys, Algeria. They were most welcoming, loving, generous, and supportive in making this project a successful one. I especially remember in my prayers those among them who passed away and left this world before I was able to publish and transmit their testimonies. I thank many Dellysians who were so helpful in facilitating my stay and aiding me to access many places and institutions. I mostly present my great gratitude to my host family for their compassion and support and for providing me with delicious food and comfortable stay throughout my fieldwork. I am grateful to my parents, Mohamed Kheder and Souag Fatma, who never stopped showing their love and compassion until they passed away. I cherish their love for knowledge even though they were deprived of schooling during the colonial era. They would be very proud with this achievement. I am grateful to my family at large for their love and respect, especially, my siblings, sisters and brothers in law, uncles and aunts, cousins, nieces, and nephews who have been very supportive of this project. I thank my sister Souad for her support and enlightening chats that made my writing go smooth. I am so thankful for my daughter Soumaya whose kindness, love and friendship are beyond description. I thank her and her husband Noureddine for their words and encouragement and for giving me the chance to be a grandmother and cherish for the rest of my life my precious and amazing 4 grandkids, Mariam, Youssef, and the coming one. I thank Mariam and Youssef for their laughs making my day every time I hear them. I pray that their lives will be happy and fulfilling. I hope they would be among those who love knowledge and live in peace and harmony with the world. Finally, I cannot say enough to show my appreciation and love to my love and husband Badredine, for his continuous support throughout life and especially my studies and the writing of this dissertation. Thank you for a long life companionship. This is a life dream coming true: learning, writing and teaching. My ultimate gratitude goes to my Creator, Allah Almighty, Alhamdu li Allah. 5 TABLE OF CONTENTS page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS .................................................................................................. 4 LIST OF TABLES .......................................................................................................... 10 LIST OF FIGURES ........................................................................................................ 11 ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................... 13 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................... 15 Reflexive Thoughts ................................................................................................. 15 Significance of the Topic ......................................................................................... 16 Literature Review and Theory ................................................................................. 18 Contact or Colonialism ............................................................................................ 18 The Anthropology and History Debates .................................................................. 21 Postcolonial Approaches to Algerian Colonial Past ................................................ 22 Historicizing Subaltern Voices: the Challenge ........................................................ 27 Social Memory and Trauma .................................................................................... 28 Historicizing Dellysians’ Oral History of Colonialism ............................................... 37 2 METHOD AND SETTING ....................................................................................... 39 Method .................................................................................................................... 39 Oralities Definitions ................................................................................................. 39 Personal Interest and Academic Endeavor ............................................................. 43 Conducting Fieldwork ............................................................................................. 44 The Challenges of Social Obligation ....................................................................... 47 Setting ..................................................................................................................... 47 Pre-colonial Political and Economic Development ........................................... 48 Entering Dellys ................................................................................................. 52 3 SOCIAL TIES IN COLONIAL TIMES: WE ARE ONE BIG FAMILY ........................ 60 Marriage and kinship formation ............................................................................... 66 Marriage Formation among the Autochthons of the Casbah ............................ 68 Marriage and Kuluglis Alliances in the Casbah ................................................ 72 Marriage Connecting Casbah and Villages ...................................................... 73 The Casbah, a Place of Memories .......................................................................... 74 Subsistence and Sharing ........................................................................................ 78 Relationships with Colonials ................................................................................... 87 6 4 REMEMBERING EDUCATION: WELL-STREAMING RESISTANCE .................... 93 Colonial Impairment of Institutions of Learning ....................................................... 93 Exodus of Dellysian Minds and Defamed Zaouat ............................................. 99 Colonial Control of Land and Estate (habous) ................................................ 101 Indigenous Institutions of Learning and ‘Mission Civilisatrice’ ............................... 103 Local Remembrances of Mission Civilisatrice ................................................ 106 Recalling the French School ........................................................................... 110 Unpredictable Nationalist Consciousness ............................................................. 118 Restating the Links of the Islamic Umma and Reform .................................... 118 Introduction of the National Algerian Reformists ............................................ 119 Remembering the Reformist Movement A.’U.M.A. in Dellys ................................. 121 Memory of Abdoun School ............................................................................. 124 Sheikh Tchaklat “the Brain” ............................................................................ 128 Sidi Ammar, the Reformed Arabic School ...................................................... 131 5 THE OTHER WITHIN: CITIZENSHIP, SUBJUGATED BODIES, AVARIOUS MINDS .................................................................................................................. 138 Colonizers’ Soldiers, Workers and Bureaucrats .................................................... 139 The Goumi Phenomenon ...................................................................................... 148 The Development of Goumia in Villages ............................................................... 150 Liminal Goumia and the Lamb that Exiled a Whole Village ............................ 151 The Goumi who Gave Life and Death ............................................................ 153 The Perception of Al Goumi, the Vicious .............................................................. 154 Al Goumi: More Vicious than the French ........................................................ 155 Al Goumia, the Evil Eye and the Cow ............................................................. 156 Al Goumi the Molester and Women: Courage and Survival ........................... 157 The Tale of M.A: Remembering the Most Infamous Goumi .................................. 161 Reflections and Conclusion .................................................................................. 171 6 PRELUDE TO REVOLUTION: AWARENESS OF RIGHT FOR DIGNITY ............ 173 7 REMEMBERING THE THAWRA: THE ALGERIAN REVOLT FOR DIGNITY AND FREEDOM ................................................................................................... 185 ‘Huna Sawtu al Jazair’: Here, the Voice of Algeria ................................................ 186 Eve of Thawra