late 1981, the writer Lucien Elia ( The failures of the diaspora, Tinplate ), met at Publicis, where we work both on different floors, offers me to participate in a project that coordinates with his wife Miriam, a book for the general public devoted to the Blackfoot, those Europeans who settled in Algeria after the French conquest , whose publication should correspond with 20 years of Algerian independence. My task: to treat (but somewhat serious) of literature in French in Algeria from 1830 to 1962, specifically in the literature that is concerned with "local". Many books on writing already outdated when they appear, much to the reputation of authors uncertain of major exceptions, of course, but overall, authenticity (!), The tone of the momentum racialism and a surprising ... A literature-witness charming but also of darkness, who will long be to literature "metropolitan" what the French ancien regime spoke at the court of the Duke of Berry (and Quebec) was the French post-revolutionary Paris: exotic but informative.
The book was published in 1982 with Philip Lebaud, editor in Paris, with a preface by Emmanuel Robles. Here is my contribution, some free of factual errors and expanded notes probably useful for some 30 years of drift "politically correct" after. RZ .
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Dating
Through the themes it addresses and formats for our pleasure, our amusement, our construction or our confusion, characters that actually exist and live, works if it has contrasting raised, literature "Blackfoot" unfolds, throughout its short history, same adventure, passionate and difficultueuse: that of a proud tongue out of its site " natural "to meet a new earth, get exposure, tame, enjoy, perhaps abusing, surely recognize - the risk of being lost ...
A tongue of land. Which inhabits the moves, the specifies what awaits one and the other, which threatens them, too. Lively adventure, to which the violence of separation, only put an abrupt end. Pain of exile. But this will be clearly visible once the "principles" firmly established: after the military conquest, is not conducive to questions or aesthetics, is completed.
When France gained a foothold in Algeria [1] , "His glory fills the whole earth" [2] his tongue, hard to the powerful, is sweet to the ears and mouths Nations, for having sung the emancipation of peoples. French is the idiom of freedom. It is the language of universality vast and generous, which dissolves the "selfish and reactionary particularism" its usage has been taxed at all for the "common good" within the Hexagon: the cons patois and dialects which, they said, unfairly restrict the opportunities agreement between men [3] . It is this promise is this expectation that spend the Mediterranean.
And soldiers who conduct, direct descendants of a Roman Republic that had desired, a King-Roman Catholic and in need of legitimacy, then an emperor who had willingly enrolled in this relationship, find a spontaneous tone and inspiration from Julius Caesar's Gallic Wars . The noise of battle barely faded, many will deliver Memoirs, Stories and Letters: from the cruel Marshal Saint-Arnaud, adventurer schemer and without hesitation, until the terrible and famous Marshal Bugeaud.
-writers will travel to France, after them, to authenticate a stay-alibi their musings on the "East" accessible and close - inaugurating a long series of simplifications and misunderstandings. Fromentin, for example, painter and writer attracted to the desert ( One summer in the Sahara [4] ), is bringing his audience of metropolitan sedentary, apparently eager to be captivated and seduced, a set of representations that will Long life: great picture, but flimsy and unreal, a colored earth that is irresistibly reminiscent of a stage set or composition academic.
lack a voice though, and those just mentioned can take place and a voice speaking from Algeria and Algerians who will address "new way" to those who want be, to others also ... A voice restive at the joint. As if the successful conquest of the earth (the weapons first, then the cart [5] ) should still be pursued, but in a less assured - because it seeks the battle for hearts, not just the submission of body, that of words to fit on this conquest for the spirits it can "recognize" .. .
But there is no guarantee that we can tell stories innocently, without putting something infinitely precious knew and felt, often despite themselves, those who lived and spoke "on the spot "those who, wishing to writers, chose to work with the words we use to make them mechanically resonate differently.
Thus, it is under pseudonyms that appear, from 1895 to 1920, the comic adventures of Cagayous, savory character of language: the author, born "native" of the country, could not write at the cost of double pirouette. Official, journalist, columnist, songwriter, he conceals his name (Augustus Robinet, 1862-1930), signed "Lunchbox," and its hero, a familiar type, that of small malignant, end-to-train, cheeky and resourceful , expressed by altering the language: what it recognizes the local characteristic - mark Bab el-Oued district of Algiers, became legendary. But in addition, it is unfortunate and significant, Cagayous made concessions to anti-Semitism [6] : you can see a dubious tribute paid to France, then shaken and deeply divided by the Dreyfus Affair [7] , we can see Also, more hidden, a sign that the new cultural identity emerging in Algeria could arise that explicitly opposed to any foil, can not assert that mocking, even denying the other - including yourself.
This practical difficulty to compare themselves to the country, language and yourself is even better illustrated if we dare say, by Isabelle Eberhardt, who to speak and write, was hidden under several masks, which cover much of denials or impossibilities, and earned him disapproval and misunderstanding: Swiss origin, married to a Muslim French citizen, NCO spahi, she was crisscrossing the back country, dressing and behaving like a man, she claimed to have been Muslim [ she converted to Islam in 1897 ] , and he happened to sign Mahmoud. It will disappear in 1904, twenty-seven years in flooding. Ultimate withdrawal, his books, which show a great affection for the earth and its inhabitants before the conquest [ she took an active part in the struggle some against the French presence ] , not published until after his death In the warm shade of Islam , Notes road, tramps , etc..
This reminder should assess the significant contribution of Louis Bertrand, who was able to stop the swing between language and land, and highlighting some of the features identified above, provide the framework solids in which cultural identity "Blackfoot" was formed, which has invented the subject attractive she was electively fed for a long time. He was able to solve "preferably" the contradictions that had embarrassed some of his predecessors, calling otherwise they could not do the land in question ... France is, according to him, almost at home in Algeria - it will be seen by what process. Better than a conquest, it would be a reunion!
For Louis Bertrand, historian, essayist and future academician (he held the chair in 1926 by Maurice Barres) is more than a belief: it is a necessity.
In 1891, after passing through Aix-en-Provence and Bourg-en-Bresse, he was in high school Bugeaud in Algiers: it is twenty-five years and rebellious impatience. Lorraine, where he was born, for too long now, ceased to be French, like Alsace. The loss of these provinces, beloved of all, a wound is still as strong [8] : will find it substantially modified and the significance of the conquest and the symbolic value of Algeria - which ends up making Figure counterpart territorial compensation in the cruel and humiliating between France's strict parent to Prussia. But more than a reasonable consolation, it is a call Louis Bertrand awaits on the other side of the Mediterranean, leaving behind a country exhausted, defeated, irresolute, he discovered a country strong and willful, staggering beauty, the past gives him vertigo and hope.
Possession warrior will gradually give way to orderly occupation, who will sit down to detail the installation and enable sustainable development: it builds, you dig, one terrace, open roads and highways [9] . At the same time you build the future, it brings to light the hidden treasures. Roman ruins, roman remains. From then on, everything becomes simple and bright: France is coming to repossess his Roman heritage - not so much republican or imperial Christian, this land watered with the blood of martyrs (title of a novel by L. Bertrand), still rustling the preaching of Augustine and Bishop Cyprian incandescent controversies with heretics and pagans. Each excavated ruins, fragments of concrete memory, the comfort found in France a portion of his property, she had legitimate title to assert on these places ...
Much therefore followed with herself: "other" were not quite there for them, or at least, could not avail themselves of rights and books as old. He had to learn as a result of L. Bertrand, not to focus exclusively on the "Arabs" [10] , and to the credit of new (re) from the value of their involvement in the ancient and new Numidia.
With Blood breeds , The Cina, Pepete and Balthazar, Ms. Grant The Petitgand , The Roman conquest , and many other books, he says, Africa and Latin Berber, Numidia Christian [11] , Valour and courage of the settlers, their eagerness, their nobility and heroism discreet, he will applaud the birth of a new "type of man" is experienced during exercise, challenge and ambition builder: heir and dynamic voluntary opposing brilliantly mannered fearful of "rentier" metropolis, the moral resources dwindled.
He will also say, in a page of his memoirs , having earlier raised his eyes lower, farther on Roads South (title of a section of the book), and found the presence threatening the evil tempter, the enemy still waiting for his time ...
In this appeal, L. Bertrand, persuasive message, will the Mediterranean past, make a work compelling. It will echo amplified: first ideological and aesthetic theme, which will release an organized literary movement, the Algerian , it will turn, oversimplified, a belief in politics - when the literary movement will begin to decline [12] .
This shows that at the time of beginnings, where it's all about "who speaks? "It goes without saying that literature is perspective, entertainment or fiction frank: neither the authors nor the readers. It would be closer to the story "fictionalized" or chronic "realistic." And dangers, the inevitable is not sensitive when the literary dimension, which is essentially a distance, are great: literature is a matter Esthetics and is not meant to be consensual or prove the accuracy or veracity of his arguments ...
continued ...
Notes:
[1] recall that the conquest of Algeria, then under Ottoman rule and full inner turmoil, was undertaken by France to secure shipping routes and stop the piracy of "barbarian" rapteurs great Christians of the Mediterranean coast for slavery [Added August 2010] .
[2] Isaiah VI, 3.
[3] Abbé Grégoire Report on the need and means to annihilate the patois and to universalize the use of French , 1794: " can standardize the language of a great nation, so that all citizens who compose it can no obstacle to communicate their thoughts ... " [Added August 2010].
[4] One summer in the Sahara , which dates from 1857, should not be confused with A year in the Sahel of that Fromentin, which dates from 1859.
[5] Bugeaud's motto was: Ense and Aratro "by the sword and the plow" [Added August 2010] .
[6] In fact, Cagayous (which means "the shit" means "the bleary," in Occitan language), a leading figure of the lumpen proletariat of Algiers, thug living in small and petty theft scams ladles, delighting with his band to play wicked tricks on his contemporaries, and Gavroche reactionary popular great figure of French Algeria, is constitutively and pathologically anti-Jewish. One of his adventures (released 1898) is titled "Cagayous anti-Jewish", in which Musette wrote in the preface: "anti-Jewish Cagayous! ... He is from the soles of feet to the hairline ... It could, moreover, develop differently this wildflower Algerian pad, push in saltpetre and dung under a rising sun "... See Paul Siblot, "Cagayous anti-Jewish." A speech prey to colonial racialization , words. The language of politics ( ENS-Editions ), No. 15, 1987 [Added August 2010].
[7] The final sequence of anti-Jewish Cagayous Drumont reports the election, in 1898 became member of Algiers, a city just held the bloody anti-Jewish riots resulting from the condemnation of Dreyfus , involving many "Patriots" and indigenous [Added August 2010].
[8] Tales Monday (1873) by Alphonse Daudet, for example, bear testimony. There will be more sensitive than the same Daudet, who knew how to be open to this drama then, did the previous year, proof of his inability to understand Algeria - in his Tartarin Tarascon disappointing from that point of view. He has a numerous posterity ... As for the famous book Barres The Uprooted, it dates 1897.
[9] And we "civilized"! P. Siblot in De anti-colonialism to anti-racism: from silence in contradiction, " words. The language of politics ( ENS-Editions ), No. 18, 1989, pp. 61-63, a few reports about well-intentioned: " I think our new conquest is something happy and great. It works on civilization barbarism. It is an enlightened people who will find a people that night. We are the Greeks [!] the world is for us to illuminate the world. Our mission is accomplished, I do not sing qu'Hosanna [ Victor Hugo ] ; " It is because of the qualities of a loser who can not 'collapse 'that Marshal Bugeaud advocates' tender by all means we treat the Arabs, to gradually change their habits [ ... ] It seems infinitely wiser (that quartering) to meddle in our society, and have them enjoy all the benefits it "" While the Arabs are not French, no governor, no army can not guarantee one month duration of peace " [ writes Louis Catholic traditionalist Veuillot ] ;" In 1883, Jules Ferry extends to indigenous people of Algeria's Law on Public Education the name of 'duty of superior races to civilize the inferior races' "... - Which shows that "race" has not yet fully acquired in France that the hideous color the late nineteenth and twentieth e th centuries give him, despite the efforts of Drumont and his acolytes, and does not necessarily command sequences that we are "regulars" [Added August 2010].
[10] By abuse of language going back to the time of the Conquest French (and which continues today) was called "Arabs" all Muslims in Algeria, when it came to most populations Islamized local time of the Arab conquest (often after having first been Judaised and Christianized), Arabized course on the language, but certainly not become "Arab" in a strict sense. How to merge into a single signifier warriors from Arabia and the people who heard their message and decided to keep it, which facilitates identification fantasy ... [Added August 2010].
[11] "There is (...) (...) here that lives forever, for what we are eternally contemporary in the most distant history, "L. Bertrand, Sanguis Martyrum , 1918, Prologue - highlighted by the author.
[12] strange character that Louis Bertrand (1866-1941), whose work is now abundant forgotten Normale Associate of letters, he abandoned teaching to devote religiously Letters; author of a thesis entitled " End of classicism and return to antiquity in the second half of the eighteenth century th and early nineteenth th century France "Dreyfus believes it will eventually evolve to the right for combat convert to Catholicism; publicist, he visited Hitler in 1935 to get information, visit he will pull a book, Hitler (Paris Fayard, 1936) in which he outlines the reasons why France should pay attention to the demands of Germans but disclaims Hitler; Gallicanism converted to a renovated, there will share the conviction of Mussolini, that unity the Mediterranean is in its Latin past-Roman and the Arab conquest is a closed parenthesis after ... His death, war broke out in Algeria, he became the ancestor (often without their knowledge) of "ultras" as they called the most radical supporters of French Algeria.
It should be noted that when Louis Bertrand, trying to mourn the loss of the eastern provinces, and partly influenced by the Félibrige Frederic Mistral (which belonged to Charles Maurras ), proposes to base the new France on the "recovery" of the territories conquered by Rome (and Vatican), extending and politically metaphysically an imaginary genealogy already well established in France (among Republicans close to the Church, among the anti-nationalists and republicans ultramontanes), many German intellectuals and ideologues working to complete construction of their cons-genealogy imaginary, initiated by the Romantics: Greece and Lutheranism. Politics, metaphysics and "race" under the Nazis (because it is the role of an imaginary 's incarnate) would necessarily follow, as the bloody conflicts [Added August 2010].
Written sun © Copyright 1982-2010 Richard Zrehen
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