From the Arts Voyager Archives: Theodore Gudin (1802-1880), “The Conquest of Algiers,” circa 1830. Oil on canvas, 46 x 60.5 cm. Inscribed on the back: “On June 29, 1830, at 3 in the morning, the army advanced against Algiers: The Third Division, of the Duke of Escars, forming the left wing, was the sole engaged and… the enemy from position to position all the way up to the heights of Boud Jerah (in the middle of the painting), which it occupied by 6 a.m….the fleet only recommenced its attacks July 1.” Image copyright Artcurial.
Extract from “Our Wealth,” by Kaouther Adimi, copyright Editions du Seuil, 2017
Translated by Paul Ben-Itzak. French president Emmanuel Macron will commemorate the 60th anniversary of October 17, 1961, this weekend.
“The day will come when the stones themselves cry out at the great injustice which has been leveled on the men of this country….”
— Jean Sénac, “Letter from a young Algerian poet to all his brothers,” cited by Kaouther Adimi on the frontispiece of “Nos Richesses” (Our Wealth)
“However well disposed one may be toward the Arab demands, one has to admit that, as far as Algeria is concerned, national independence is a conception springing wholly from emotion. There has never yet been an Algerian nation. The Jews, the Turks, the Greeks, the Italians, the Berbers would have just as much right to claim the direction of that virtual nation.”
— Albert Camus, “Algeria 1958,” collected in “Actuelles III,” copyright 1958 Librairie Gallimard, as translated by Justin O’Brien in “Resistance, Rebellion, and Death,” Albert Camus, copyright 1960, Alfred A. Knopf, Inc..
Paris, 1961
The rain is falling. The sky is gray. The wind is blowing briskly near the Seine. There are children’s hats, well-dressed young women, leather purses, clothing which is second-hand but clean. Amongst family or with friends, laughing or with grave expressions, together, we march to protest against the curfew imposed on the Algerians of France.
These Arabs. These melon-heads. These crouilles. These rats. These little rats. These little shits. These scrapings. Beat them up. Massacre them. Reduce them to nothing. Use them as projectiles. Utilize batons. Utilize our police specials. Utilize bricks. And kill as many as possible. Kill tens of them. Massacre these people who have no business being in Paris, in front of the Seine, in front of our statues, in front of our trees, in front of our women. Massacre them. Beat them up. Toss them into the river. See the bodies of Algerians sink into the muddy waters. Brown bodies, far away. That they disappear. Quickly. Violent charges. Rat raids in Paris. Paris! Paris kills with the police of [Prefect of Police Maurice] Papon [successfully tried three decades later for war crimes committed during the Occupation]. Savage. Pursuit in the streets of Paris. Nothing to be embarassed about; throw them over the walls, into the Seine. Broken bodies. Bat and club blows. Bodies hung in the Vincennes woods. Seine filled up with cadavers. Hate liberated. Noise. Chaos. Police batons on tensed-up bodies, on bloody craniums, on defenseless people. The silence of Parisians. New charge. People flattened out on the street. Blood everywhere. Ambulance sirens. More blows and bodies in the Seine. A raid in 1961. [Lit. ‘raid,’ here the term ‘rafle’ might also refer to the Rafle of the Vel d’hiver of 1943, when thousands of Jews were rounded up in Paris to be deported to the German death camps.] Disinfect France of its Arabs. Purify the avenues. Massacre the assassins. Repression. Tragic. Paris kills since this morning. To the police, the national guard, and the highway patrol, add the Forces of the Auxiliary Police, brigades made up of Harkis [indigenous Algerians who fought with French forces]. Zero tolerance. Initial arrests even before the demonstrations start. Insults, blows, bullying. Cigarettes forced down the throat. Water mixed with bleach. Brutal raids. Blood on Arab visages. Legs broken. Beatings. Sicking of dogs. The sun-burnt are lined up against the walls. Driven off in police cars. Their curly hair is seized in the middle of the street…. Stones are thrown. They’re drowned. For the rest of the month, bodies are fished out of the Seine. It doesn’t stop for days. Cadavers in the Seine. Hands tied behind the backs. Bodies strangled by their own belts. Bodies tied up and precipitated into the water. Informed in Algeria, their families don’t understand what’s transpired. We bury them as we’re able. Paris!
Bars searched. Beatings. Revolver bullets in the head. Bodies interred in mass graves. Bullets in the stomach. Bodies on the ground curled up in the fetal position to protect themselves. Iron bars and lead canes. Paris! Systematic interpellations. Faces against the walls. Pallid visages. Puddles of blood. Trembling hands. Fearful eyes. Noise of clubs, of bats, of feet kicking. Arabs knocked out and tossed. Executed. Hundreds of men. In interminable lines. Hands in the air. They’re arrested. They’re struck.
Night has fallen. Windows open. Our heads full of anger, our bodies exhausted, we scream out piercing “Youyous.” A final salutation to our dead.
The Paris Tribune 