At a given time we understood
that we were
on our way to independence..
and by that time, people stopped waiting
It's spontaneous and not spontaneous at the same time.
Cause it still took a few people
the first ones out
to drag all the others behind.
Unless there was a watchword...
But this I don't remember.
I don't remember that.
Only one hero the people
On December 11th
it is the second breath of the revolution of November 1st, 1954.
If it hadn't been for December 11th...
We wouldn't be free
The surprise was total
including among our ranks
i.e. the GPRA itself
the Interim Government of Algeria
didn't know exactly what happened.
It took him 4 or 5 days to react.
The women have joined the guerilla
They took up arms
They were bombers
They didn't ask anyone's opinion...
When I went out to protest I was 13 years old...
I didn't ask anyone!
I didn't tell my mother
"Here, I'm going out... "
I put on my pants and I came out !
You can see that silence falling right away
people going out on the street
brave the tanks and the French army...
For us it was huge
We felt that it was the people who regained power...
who took matters into thei own hands
Where are you, mistress of the place ?
Where are you ?
Where are you, mistress of the place ?
It was raining on the black street
It was raining on the white veils
It was raining on the grey sea
France created misery in Algeria
Resident of Belcourt (Algiers) in December 1960
That's why people rebelled
We couldn't get into swimming pools
We couldn't get into movie theaters...
We couldn't afford to get dressed...
They'd tell you "You don't dress nice, you go out"
But give me the means to get dressed!
I have some vague but vivid memories...
living in Algiers in 1960.
I was told that our village, our douar...
has been decimated
The French military came
and they picked up all the men
valid or invalid
They loaded them on the trucks
They came out
a few miles from the douar...
They lined them up against a wall
And they hosed them down
They killed them, all of them
except one
Starting in 1959, my family was decimated
Demonstrator in Bou Ismaïl in 1960
My brother Mohammed was killed
My father was killed
My father was 54 years old when he was wanted...
There was fierce repression
The 2nd [Intelligence] Bureau arrested
tortured to death...
and it dumped the victims' bodies
out in the open a lot...
or barely buried in a dump
next to the military base...
From 1960
with my mother we have been arrested
taken into hostages
because they thought
my father was going to surrender
We were sequestered for eight months
we were tortured very cruelly together
which meant I was being tortured
in front of my mother
and vice versa...
And when my father was killed
denounced by informants from the 2nd Bureau
his remains were strapped to the hood of a Half Track.
He was transported to Gouraya
in front of the townhall...
where he was lynched by onlookers...
excited by the officers of the 2nd Bureau
in the presence of the mayor
and council and the military police
And we couldn't recover his body...
And so, when we got out of prison
my mother... wasn't self-sufficient anymore.
My Uncle Ali was arrested...
Niece of lawyer Ali Boumendjel
in February 1957 during the Battle of Algiers
He suffered 40 days of torture
And he died under torture
He was "suicided"
And we read about it in the papers
Meaning the army didn't even have the decency
to notify the family of his death
It's true that I've had the good fortune
FLN militant in Algiers in 1960
to live through this whole period
from my childhood, from the age of 10
in a revolutionary family
until 1962
I was arrested four times
I've been tortured four times
I've experienced all kinds of electricity
While I'm an electrician myself
I was first arrested by Bigeard's soldiers...
I was tortured at a school
in Hussein-Dey, near Leveilley
We were completely rejected
We were two Algerian girls in the whole class...
Inhabitant of Belcourt in 1960
We were living... a form of apartheid
Because our girlfriends
supposedly, weren't looking at us
They didn't talk to us
We were completely isolated
We were clinging to each other,
like around a buoy.
The others weren't looking at us
it was awful.
That's the only memory I have of it.
Through my personal case
Mujahida refugee in Tunis in 1960
I can tell you that
we rubbed shoulders without talking to each other
We were invisible to them and we saw them...
But we had no trade. Not even a word.
I went through my entire schooling from six years old to college...
without ever speaking to a classmate of mine.
Never.
We lived in completely separate communities
So we lived among ourselves
Them on their side and us on ours
The few relationships we had were with the jews.
lived and I was born at the foot of the prison
where the guillotine was...
Serkadji! Barbarossa.
Of sinister memory.
You see and hear the neighbours calling out to each other.
And say :
"Who is this unfortunate person whose throat is going to be cut? »
I could hear with my own ears :
" Silence, we're going to find out."
And it was groups of prisoners who united their voices
to say :
"Today, Abderrazak Hahad will be executed."
It was taken over by screaming tearing youyous
We saw our dads burst into tears.
I lived these executions in my very flesh.
I will carry the trauma for the rest of my life.
But despite all the repression
and all the military force that was employed
the resistance hasn't stopped for one day !
Freelance journalist, Algiers.
The conquest was made
through the most brutal military means.
That is to say that
the first institutions that were set up in Algeria
from 1830 and the arrival of the French
it's been the military barracks and the whorehouses.
The conquest was first made with the objective
to destroy the economic and social organization
which was centered on the collective ownership of the land
some kind of community organization
and subsistence agriculture in most of Algeria's territories.
The conquest of Algeria lasted almost a century.
From 1830, the conquest of Algiers to 1916 approximately
with Janet's conquest in the deep South.
And that also tells us about
the extent and permanence of popular resistance...
that has taken on different forms.
For instance the history of colonial prisons
you see...
that's where the carceral system has been....
It's pre-1954
and that's where the "modern" prison system...
which is now being applied in the United States
on Black and Hispanic populations
in France, still on the Maghreb and Black populations
and in the rest of the world
it was first experienced here.
The large convict populations throughout the 20th century
The ones they called "the Apaches"...
The ones we so-call bandits of honour,
these are the people
who have not accepted colonial domination
and started robbing big settlers...
then to help their village.
You see
That myth has never left the minds of the Algerians...
and not just Algerians
I think this is true of all oppressed populations
under colonialism, enslaved...
And so this whole process has resulted in
the complete breakdown of the economic and social base...
and they implanted on that
the most ferocious capitalism.
Benghrine Lakhdar,
The land company creates an irrigation area
The land isn't yours until you pay your debt
You have four years to pay.
Look at the conditions in which Algerians lived at the time.
I'll skip over the barefoot details
This recurring repression
Historian, Algiers
it has a common denominator
It's that any form of uprising
any kind of resistance
any form of insurrection
had to be destroyed
brutally
deeply
and in a durable way.
And it targeted not only the insurgents themselves...
the arms bearers in a manner of speaking
but it was also aimed at the people.
This is not a new fact
in the history of colonial repression in Algeria
it happened back in the 19th century.
with the insurgencies in different parts of the country...
It happened in 1871
with what we called
"El Mokrani Uprising"...
It happened on May 8th, 1945
with the repression of uprisings
which in fact were a call
for the recognition of Algeria's independence...
as promised by the Atlantic Pact allies.
Historian lived in Constantine in 1960
Apart from a few events...
somewhat forgotten by historiography.
It's still one of the first irruptions
of the Algerian population in the public space
It is difficult to find traces of these demonstrations
apart from newspapers some military reports...
That's why the oral testimony
are decisive for knowledge
Things aren't that spontaneous
There are things more or less aslept
the conscience of these young high school students anyway...
they know it's a war of liberation...
They're more or less politicized
even in the absence of any organization
by the very fact that they attend every day
and within their own families and neighbourhoods
They know about the repression
They know about the situation
Even if the newspapers don't say everything
we read the paper
we know what's going on
all over the country
but also what's going on outside
For example listening to the radio
it's something that mobilizes the Algerian people a lot
I don't think there's a single home
during the war
that doesn't have his radio
To listen, not just Tunis or Cairo...
I remember
my father used to listen to a lot of London radio
And so, there's this kind of boiling...
and I think that indeed
when there are these demonstrations
it's not surprising that people shouted :
"Tahiat el Djazair! » (Long live Algeria)
We need to see what's going on inside...
among families, between families
What is said and what is argued
but all that, as an aside
It's this geography of mobilization that's unknown...
and that we should try to assess
what happened in the houses
how to pick up every penny
even if there are the children
but we give it to the revolutionary tax
And we know it's important
And we wait and we hope for independence
Demonstrator in Algiers in December 1960.
Many of our teachers were progressive
many were communists many were with us
how many times we made fun of them
because we were singing the Marseillaise...
and at the end it said "pig tail"...
and she'd say "who's saying that?
What are you saying! »
so of course we full of courage, said:
"It's us, madam!"
I was the one who read
the paper to my mother
And one day she gave me this thought :
« At this rate there won't be anyone left
if they keep killing us every day
there won't be a single Algerian left
She said :
« They lie so much
what are they doing ?
Why do they lie like that ? »
My mother was a revolutionary !
I knew it afterwards
Because she collected medicine
She hid weapons
We had benches like this they were hollow
At the bottom of the sofas
she put the weapons in there
And then every once in a while
when people would come in
they would collect them...
But one day I saw
One day I saw, yes
You've been political training since you were born
You are in direct contact
you are in a permanent intimacy
with the one who dominates you
with the one who crushes you
You are bound
as early as elementary school
because you're
one of the few people who can read and write...
to be the penholder for the adults
that will give you a way of thinking
a way of being of saying things
Who's gonna write to the inmates
apply for a job...
ask for help, a destitution card
All this, you're a child you're a teenage
you're in the process of integrating into your mind
the mode of domination and therefore
the will to get out of it...
Basically, we're going into
not in a new form
as far as colonial history is concerned
but in the history of war
we are entering a new form of war
which is an urban war
against an insurgent population
to take down a clandestine organization
It's a philosophy... of repression
of all forms of resistance in a colonial situation...
And this philosophy
will be reflected in what has been called the Battle of Algiers...
what the French have called "the battle of Algiers"
On the Algerian side on the FLN and ALN side
it's not a battle in the traditional sense of the word
It's the deployment of a considerable force
of colonial France
so that any possibility of resistance
can be nullified...
and any possibility of organization
of Algerians for their independence
I know that in Bel Air for example
in our neighbourhood
we had...
a fidaia group that didn't exceed 6 or 7 people
so we couldn't get into a battle
with a group of 6 or 7 people...
this is not possible
there may have been a group like this
in every neighbourhood...
but you can't call it a battle.
But a political battle, yes
To reduce this resistance
that is...
canvass the city
that is...
putting it under siege
control all population movements
and then move on to
the destruction of the FLN clandestine organization...
In order to be able to flush out the elements of the FLN
It was absolutely necessary to torture
the whole population
But it was very quickly obvious
that it was impossible to destroy
a clandestine organization
deeply buried in families
in homes
in all private or public spaces of the city of Algiers
without drying up the source that fed it
in the true sense of the word
without being able to reduce
the possibility for the population
to support the FLN clandestine organisation
There is hardly any family
that escapes repression
So, personally I was a FLN militant.
But at that time the FLN was...
the organization had almost disappeared from Greater Algiers.
Small nuclei of individual activists remained...
but there was no more organization.
Finally if we're talking about "the battle"
about the massacre they made
they were able to effectively break up the organization.
The longer the confrontation lasted in the city of Algiers...
in what we call the Casbah
the more obvious it became
that the organization
like a phoenix
rose from the ashes.
It was becoming clear
that in order to reduce the resistance
they had to reduce the capacity of the population
to reconstitute itself as an organization
and as a force of resistance.
In 1960
the political and military arrangements
of the French state
were beginning to appear as
a will to ensure a passage from Algeria
to a form of independence
without independence.
That is to say a kind of Algeria united with France
but without questioning the relationship of dependence
from Algeria to France.
The month of December was a month
where the stakes were high.
Sociologist and witness of the demonstrations in Oran
First, there was the United Nations session
where we were going to discus
the Algerian problem.
The arrival of General de Gaulle.
He arrived in Oran on December 9
by the Paris carave at 9:45 a.m.
He landed at the Senia
but he didn't come through town.
He went straight to Tlemcen
and from Tlemcen to Aïn Temouchent
That was during the day of the 9th.
But a day before the FAF, the French Algeria Front
appealed to the European population
to trigger a general strike.
This general strike was followed
by a trip to Aïn Temouchent
to berate General de Gaulle...
and there, the Europeans in favour of French Algeria
there was in front of them the Muslim population
and there were clashes.
He avoided two major cities
He avoided the capital Algiers.
He didn't came in Algiers in December
Neither in Oran.
He made a long journey
that led him to Philippeville
currently Skikda
and from Skikda he went to Paris
It lasted a week.
And so the protests of December 9
it was in Aïn Temouchent
on the 10th in Oran
and the 11th in Algiers.
And it had the effect of a chain of violence...
throughout Algeria.
We were living on a powder keg
the fuse is lit
we've kept the population
we're under orders to continue to hold it
it's not a bunch of rebels anymore
but a whole people standing in front of us...
The French the ‘Pieds-Noirs’ (Black-Feet)
Independent researcher and demonstrator in Algiers in December 1960
they thought it was De Gaulle
who gave the order to start the Algerian-Algeria protests
it was only to say that De Gaulle would have offered independence to Algeria
when it wasn't true.
The FLN turned the situation around
saying that
it was the FLN that organized the demonstrations
when that's not true either.
It's a kid's uprising
December 11th it's a kid's uprising.
We followed by radio
the protests of Ain Temouchent
Historian and witness of the demonstrations in Oran
and spontaneously the population in Oran came out.
On the 10th, it was a rainy day.
There were women, children
there were the workers who were on strike
who haven't returned to their places of work
There were a lot of men there were young people...
many women and young women
and the old ones too
It's been a massive lift...
and on the evening of the 10th [December 1960]
we started preparing the banners
and to make the Algerian flags
that came out on the 11th.
And on December 11th there was a repression
very intense
not only were there the CRS the mobile guards
but also support from the french Navy
what used to be called the Marine Gunners.
We've never seen this before in urban protests
since 1956 and the first events
In December there was a very significant crackdown.
The French Algerian Front had decreed one day strike.
Demonstrator at the Casbah of Algiers
that day was about these ultras racist, xenophobi
who wanted to make a show of force
In their action they wanted to force
Algerian traders to pull down the curtain.
Algerian merchants have refused
and the first skirmishes began.
That's the Belcourt trigger.
Like this one, Saadi Mustapha
He's one of those who started the protests in Belcourt
He wasn't alone
there were the schoolchildren and all that.
Most of them were what we call petty thugs.
I was young.
We were supposedly little thugs...
So to get money what did we do?
Carjacking.
We'd steal things out of cars.
We'd sell them and then we'd get dressed.
They went to Belcourt.
They saw two settler men asking for papers...
to Muslims
And then sometimes they'd hit them
So the kids started breaking
people started screaming
They went to Simca's house
they broke everything.
and then
when they arrived in the European quarter...
The Europeans started shooting at them.
Bullets.
hey also threw grenades heavy objects...
They went back up to Laguiba
and you could hear the women's youyous...
They started screaming.
And that's how it started at Belcourt.
There was an incident that triggered the Belcourt protests...
This is the place.
It's the locals who started saying "Algerian Algeria"
They started burning down factories.
Over there was a refrigerator factory.
The Algerians burned it down.
Because of the anger...
They burned the refrigerator factory and Monoprix...
the supermarket that was over there
Belcourt was the Halles centrales
There were the trucks
that brought the merchandise...
in every corner of Algeria
Which is why
they were bringing the information back.
On December 11th
There is a terrible hubbub
The youyous. In the street.
Demonstrated in Algiers in December 1960
Something you couldn't hear back then.
At that time, there were no youyous.
Because we were in a revolution
We were at war we had no right to be happy
to be joyful
There were only youyous
when someone died
if he died a martyr's death...
Now we hear youyous.
And I hear a terrible hubbub
I'm going to the balcony
and I see coming this... rush
of women, men, especially young people
and almost in the front row I see my brother.
And with the flags
They all had Algerian flags that they were waving
and youyous and "Algerian Algeria! " "Algerian Algeria! »
I can see that that's extraordinary.
I want to get out.
But I'm thinking :
"My God I'm going to fall... »
But this is very fast.
We don't take time to think.
It's, "I'm going! I'm going now! "
Instantly I go.
It was full of people with lots of flags...
and people would come down
so we could all get together...
and they'd take the street to Belcourt.
To get to Belcourt, Champ de Manoeuvres...
...to Martyrs' Square.
Of course we'd get beaten up before then.
Especially at the Ravin de la Femme Sauvage
There were tanks.
They'd been there a long time.
They were starting to point their cannons at us.
They were starting to maneuver.
That's when we got scared.
But since there were small cross paths...
In the whole district of Ruisseau there are lots of cross paths...
if we take them we'll land in Kouba.
It's little climbs little paths...
And that's how I demonstrated on December 11.
My first manifestation. For a free and independent Algeria.
When I see the result today I say to myself "My God. »
But then again
you mustn't regret it. I didn't regret it.
Here, we're in the Mahieddine quarter...
Where the old shantytown used to be.
It was one of the largest slums in Algiers
if not the biggest.
Between 10,000 and 20,000 people were there.
It was a place where they were landing
all the Algerians who came looking for
a job to survive
because in the country it was misery.
It came from all over Algeria.
It was the melting pot of Algerian nationalism.
Cause this is where people started.
to understand that
they were Algerians in their misery too.
Before, everyone was in their own corner
in their own little town.
It was done through
acts of solidarity with each other.
The Mahieddine quarter is halfway between the Clos-Salembier
from which the demonstrations began
and Belcourt
when the crowd descended from the Clos Salembier.
It went down Boulevards des Martyrs.
to get to Belcourt
The people of the Mahieddine quarter have joined.
They came down this way. They came from above.
And came down this way.
To get to...
downstairs
the path Datcha.
And also other protesters who lived around here...
came to join the demonstration
Because these were Algerian neighbourhoods.
those houses over there
they were Algerian neighbourhoods
so probably other Algerians joined the crowd.
during the event
I was maybe 8 or 9 years old on December 11, 1960.
I just remember that
Inhabitant of Algiers in 1960
in the neighbourhood everyone flocked descended on Bab El Oued...
to go to the events of December 11th
It came from all over the neighbourhood.
Young people, old people
Women there were lots of them
with their haiks.
And this is the place for the big meeting.
We weren't allowed to go downstairs
Because there were the CRS.
Then, it went off like a wildfire.
It's reached every outlying district in Algiers.
It started in Belcourt then it went to Clos Salembier
El Madania, the riverside districts...
it reached the Casbah.
How did it start in the Casbah?
The next day
we heard foreign radio stations.
Especially Monte Carlo because we, in the Casbah
we listened to Monte Carlo
we listened to Sawt El Arab from Tunis
They talked about the protests in Belcourt
Afterwards, what did we say ?
We said "What? Belcourt demonstrated !
What about us, we don't protest? »
Someone told us
" It's impossible to demonstrate here
because there's military on the terraces
We wanted to do a fedayeen action...
We bought two bottles of lemonade
I even remember that lemonade was called Pam Pam.
at the time.
We wanted to fill them with oil
we wanted to put wicks
and dump them
in Bab El Oued [settler neigbourhood]
But we couldn't get through.
This is my neighborhood.
I'll even show you where I used to live.
We wanted to retreat.
By chance, a European was coming down the stairs
He started to whistle "French Algeria."
A comrade we called him Mizato at that time
He saw him whistling "French Algeria"
He went up to him he hit him, he beat him up
he knocked him down
he even left his satchel
and he ran off
But down below
there were the Zouaves [colonial soldiers].
We ran away, we came back to our neighbourhood
As soon as we arrived at the Casbah our neighborhood
right next to the Nedjma cinema the blue street.
This is the Nedjma cinema.
I used to live across
the street from the cinema.
16 years old
In the morning when we went out
we gathered here, the youngs
we talked about Belcourt
Here, here. In the stairs.
Then the trigger, here.
We were here.
And on this side too.
The youngs We were the seven of us.
We started shouting "Algerian Algeria! »
"Algerian Algeria, Algerian Algeria! »
Suddenly, youyous!
The first youyous came from
that building there.
I'm even telling you
the first youyou started then the second one.
Then there was a coffee shop
they all went out form the coffee shop
they came: "Algerian Algeria! »
and suddenly it started
this is the trigger for the demonstrations.
We came down this way
the first procession of the Casbah
There were women who would enter the parades
There were children mostly children
it was full of children.
We've been there.
Some people were throwing cologne on the protesters
some of them had honey that they gave to people to shout.
to scream louder.
And people would come out of the houses
The procession was getting bigger
We formed ranks and we went down.
slogans and all that follows
we got within a few feet
we found an impressive device
Barriers have been placed
a troop of experienced paratroopers
and mobile guards as well :
"No! You are not going to Belcourt! »
"Go home, or else! " threats...
They were in a state of incredible anxiety.
The troop!
And then, at some point
I heard behind me
a din, voices in unison.
saying : "the passage, the passage! »
I turned around, what was it?
They were veiled women
who were behind and wanted to be in the front row.
We let them pass.
They were in the front row
The dialogue has changed
These women have changed their methods
They would tell them in a more determined way
We want to go to Belcourt! Let us go.
The answer was right there :
"No, go home! "
And they were pushing
They were trying to intimidate them.
They would respond with what?
They were doing the youyous.
I've seen psychologically how youyous
may have had an effect on the soldiers.
During the first youyous
I've seen soldiers, officers, lose control.
Draw their weapons, unbelievable!
The women were the first to move towards the barriers.
They took the first soldiers.
They fought back.
First machine-gun fire
And I saw with my own eyes
a dove, a white veil...
turn into red porridge.
The big event of Décembre 11th for the family
is that my grandmother which is her mother.
was hit by a bomb
someone threw a bomb at her.
it's a grenade that practically tore his leg off.
She screamed when she saw her like that.
She saw her leg cut in two
she was soaking in her own blood.
And ironically
my grandmother was being treated.
And they bring back his son
who was his big brother.
who had been tortured almost to death.
There were a lot of wounded.
And it was curfew around 3:00 on Sunday.
So many paratroopers, the red berets...
They repressed it. It was repression. Manhunt.
Neither the children nor the women escaped repression.
The caning.
People who were more or less active
or who were identified as activists and all that
they were rounded up at night.
I was at home
I heard people
Demonstrator in Constantine in December 1960
shouting "independent Algeria".
I went out.
But then the military came.
They fired into the air. And they took us.
The youngest ones they gave them chores.
But the older ones they tortured them.
They ridiculed them.
Afterwards
and then they...
drew a cross on our head and they shaved us
and they dropped us off dozens of miles away from our home.
and we had to get there before curfew
because at that time, beyond curfew...
they were shooting without warning.
Whether in Oran, Constantine, or all over Algeria
except in some places
where simply the order was given
but the FLN didn't start the protests.
Like Batna, like Bechar and Annaba.
There, the FLN gave the order
to the Algerian people to start the demonstrations
But it didn't start the protests.
The people rose up on its own
all over the country.
I remember a neighbour, she's dead now,
Resident of Algiers in 1960.
she had two children
who were already in the guerilla, in the FLN.
Aunt Kheira, we all remember
she's a heroine.
For us, she was a hero.
We were outside with the neighbours.
The paratroopers came to
get her son
one of her sons.
She stopped them from coming home.
She stood up.
That I remember very well.
She stood up.
That's how she did it.
She said, "What do you want? »
They named his son.
She told them, "He's not there. »
They tried to force their way into his house.
She just stood there and told them:
"Shoot! Shoot me. I'm not letting you in.
And they didn't have the courage to push her
In Muslim culture
women don't go to the cemetery on the day of burial.
Well, during the war of liberation and during these demonstrations.
when there were deaths
the burial was with men and women.
the women went to the cemetery just like the men did.
It meant, "I want equality with men."
Symbolically, that's what it meant.
Still, the Algerian woman has made many conquests.
She has conquered an important place
which she has snatched away...
we can't say it was given by X or Y.
Overnight, women started to become liaison agents
carrying guns
collecting dues...
Historian, lived in Constantine in 1960.
sewing, making clothes
not just patches for soldiers or flags...
but sewing entire outfits
because we need them in the bush.
The women were involved in the care,
they participated in supplying the djounouds [fighters],
the mujahideen
They used to cook for them
they took a lot of things with them...
and then for these big events
not only did they participate fully
they were in the demonstrations
and they participated as much as the men...
and it's true that
they were the ones making the flags...
that were deployed on the day of the demonstration.
It was the women, secretly, without anyone knowing...
Even the kids at home didn't know about it.
Demonstrator in Algiers in December 1960.
Women, from upstairs, from balconies and windows
They were throwing sugar at us
they were throwing perfume on us
Vinegar for the eyes? For the tear gas?
Yeah, they were throwing a lot at us.
We were all better than the men
There were the men, it's true.
But the women were
Bombs!
The fallout has been very beneficial for us
First, there was De Gaulle's illusion:
"I can create a third force..."
All this, he ended it.
That's it
and he saw that there was only one way
it was to parley with the representatives of
the Algerian people
which is the FLN
and to move towards Algerian independence.
It is a Dien-Bien-Phu of the population.
civilian populations, unarmed populations
that's what you mustn't forget.
The only fact that at that point
the Algerian population recognizes itself
or is attached to the National Liberation Front
to the GPRA
to the fact that Ferhat Abbas' name is being chanted
that's the kind of rupture.
It's a symbolic rupture, but
there is no more French Algeria.
I remember a headline in the newspaper El Moudjahid
which appeared at the time in Tunis:
"the days of December 1960 equal:
a psychological Dien-Bien-Phu".
That sums it all up.
Then the crucial moment was
the debate at the United Nations on the Algerian question.
on support from Afro-Asian, Arab and Eastern countries
led by the USSR and China.
So, it weighed very heavily
All units
that had been mobilized to destroy the National Liberation Army...
in the mountains, in the bush
have redeployed to the cities, have retreated to the cities
to control the cities
and it breathed new life into the units on the plain
that have recovered very quickly.
It was a never-ending war
but an endless war can be waged by a people
From generation to generation, people pick up the torch
and it becomes a glory title for them
to reintegrate the resistance.
or to integrate for the first time the resistance
and this resistance is becoming more and more radical.
It's that, in fact, that all colonial war theorists
and the so-called counterinsurgency theorists
or counter-revolutionary
have once again had a lesson that
it is impossible to defeat
a people who want independence.
in the long run.
Everybody knew at the time that
militarily speaking
you couldn't win the war
We won the war differently.
Freelance journalist Algiers
Through diplomacy, through football, for example.
There are even football players who created their own team in 1957.
That, that went down as a not-so-important event.
but it's actually the first time, you know, in history
where we involve sports activity
which is the only liberating activity, in quotes
of the proletariat and people under domination
that gets them out of the harsh reality of the neighbourhood.
she's been involved in a revolutionary process that's really...
Besides, sport was important
for the very organisation of the revolution.
The history of the Mouloudia d'Alger or USMA
is very much linked to other forms of political power.
because classical forms have been banned for Muslims.
unfortunately.
In the shadow of secularism, by the way.
It was forbidden for Muslims to have a union.
it was forbidden to organise into a political party.
almost all the parties were dissolved very quickly...
so we had to organise differently.
We had to offer spaces for young people
you know
So that they could
already communicate
So that they can get off the streets.
So what was Zohra doing ?
I remember something.
There was the curfew.
We had relatives who lived at the Golf
We lived at La Redoute
And she had heard that
the water had been poisoned.
She went out at night, after curfew.
she went up to the Golf, she went to warn them
and she came back
She must have snuck in so one couldn’t see her.
or there were no patrols at the time I'm not sure.
But I know it's been an event
because my mom scold her
by telling her, you risked your life.
I was a shepherd
there was a commando unit made up mostly of former fighters...
who had rallied the French forces
Demonstrating in Bou Ismaïl in 1960
It would ambush my runs by night
When they 'd hide, they'd have to hide in a grove.
The grove is occupied by wildlife
This fauna, it reacts
So in the morning when I woke up
I would listen, I would watch...
I was watching the behaviour of my very fearful goats...
None of the ambushes of these former maquisards
have succeeded
So when in my valley, in the morning, everything is quiet...
that they're definitely not here
I could warn the FLN fighters
I was in fact the shepherd of the FLN.
I had the reputation that when I set foot on my routes
they were spotted immediately.
And I can say that I've made dizzy some officers
who had graduated from the best schools.
It allows me to pay another tribute
to this extraordinary baker...
who was Spanish,
who escaped from the Spanish Civil War...
We loved him very much.
because he just lived in the house next door to us.
He had a bakery.
So there was the bakery and everything.
The morning
during the strike
he'd call me.
With my little brother, he'd call me
he would give us loaves of bread
and with the bassinet, we'd put 3 or 4 loaves of bread...
and I was distributing them.
And I was blonde
and wearing a lot of ribbons.
so I went unnoticed or almost unnoticed.
Because before, there was still the barracks
especially the ones with the paratroopers.
they were really very unfriendly people.
I was handing out this bread.
And I made four or five shuttles with my brother.
I didn't just stay in Kouba...
I walked down to Ruisseau.
I was 13 years old.
It was his way of contributing to this revolution
which, in his eyes, was legitimate.
He wanted this independence for Algeria.
and then I knew he was very, very progressive.
that he had worked a lot with the FLN.
and that he had hidden a lot of fighters in his bakery.
Oh yes, my sister, she made flags.
Because she was trained as a seamstress.
We understood, at some point
that we were moving towards independence
She started making flags at home...
She made flags out of them...
lots and lots and lots and lots...
And of course we had them that day.
She even gave injections, she'd learned.
The army threw grenades at us
offensives
They're grenades, when they explode, they release lead shrapnel...
So I was wounded here in the leg...
I fainted.
I was taken to a house to be treated...
There were women, youyous
when they were bringing in the wounded, there were youyous...
We were beginning to treat us in the ways and means...
Everybody's participating.
It's not : "You, you do this! You there, you do that! "
Everyone was participating.
Whoever has medicine, he gives medicine.
It was not planned.
First there were the instructions:
you must not close the doors of the houses
in case the police charge the demonstrators.
so that they can take refuge in the houses and find shelter.
and then
prepare handkerchiefs soaked in vinegar and lemon.
against tear gas grenades
and especially opening mosques, opening schools.
to house the wounded.
And that's when it started to happen.
a semblance of spontaneously set up Algerian hospitals.
in mosques, in homes, in schools...
So, it was a form of organisation.
and then in the slogans, in the making of the flags.
and in the making of signs and banners.
that's very important.
It's a people who have had years
maybe even decades
who's been...
It's like someone who had something in their heart
and who got him out.
Careful, on December 11th, you have to see what happened.
The children, the women, all
they even went to the tanks
They're not even afraid of tanks!
And even the women
when they did the youyous on December 11th.
it's as if they've had the independence.
The youyous, they express
either moments of joy
Historian, Lived in Constantine in 1960
or moments of extreme tension
and it's to galvanize, as a sign of courage, daring...
It is said that many mothers
when they were told
of the death of their child, their husband...
have been pushing youyous
It's for courage.
You have to have experienced it in a procession of demonstrations
to measure its impact.
And the youyou doesn't work alone.
Psychoanalyst in Paris and Algiers.
It's women's youyous
and so, there's a kind of portage.
that's going to bring to a rhythmicity
an impulse and a rhythmicity
that will pass through other bodies
It's about being part of the revolt.
This can't be an individual case.
No liberation, on the scale of a society
is an individual matter.
You know
let's say, a form of collective unconsciousness
of collective memory
wound-ridden
pain-ridden
that is not driven by a hypothetical future
like we're gonna build socialism
and we'd know what socialism is
and how we're going to build it.
It's more animated by collective wounds.
You see.
These are all the wounds that inflicted colonial rape.
That's what can create a collective reaction.
It's kind of a... no trance but...
it's some kind of delusion
but it's a delusion that, in reality...
thinks about the necessary reason.
I became a choreographer
and one day I saw some traditional dances
and I understood what a real traditional dance is...
and at that point, I went even more towards trance rituals.
ecstatic rituals
and contrary to what one might imagine
in trance rituals, people don't get up and dance...
they dance because they can't help but dance.
We dance because we can't help it.
So, there's already a holdback that makes
when you get up
there's an explosion
A given group will meet
and is going to call in the insiders
to come to a certain place
to do this ritual
So it's all about community art.
where everyone has their place
the one who won't do it, the one who won't dance.
the one who's going to dance
the one who's going to free himself
the one who's going to come into possession
the one who's going to make the food
the one who cleans the one who kills the animal.
Everyone participates in the ritual.
Everybody.
What Fanon tells us about the body of the colonized
and colonial violence
is that the colonized
is someone who is excluded from humanity
That's how he's being treated politically...
And so it's a body that's very rigid.
high-stressed
and finally, it contains a permanent explosion
For him
liberation, in this colonial context
can only be achieved by
releasing the vital energies in the body.
And trance and dance
are the best way to release those energies.
that are encysted in the body
that are prohibited from movement
to release them
also reconnecting
with the function of dance and trance
in the traditional system.
We were, I'll tell you what
I'm going to use words.
we were spellbound
and it lasted eight days and eight nights.
We slept neither day nor night.
In the morning we demonstrated
and in the evenings we'd all meet up with our families.
no one was keeping an eye out.
The day the president of the Algerian provisional government
gave the order
I listened to it myself
I was a teenager...
he gave the order to stop
that the demonstrations should end.
Well, I assure you that tonight
it was sad for us young people
Why?
Because we'd gotten used to the protests
That day, I assure you we were sad.
It's a joy, it was freedom!
FLN militant in Algiers in 1960
We felt like we were gonna...
I don't know what actually made us say
we're finally going to express ourselves
we're finally going to cry out for our freedom
So, we were...
emotionally we weren't exactly sure anymore
myself, even those around me
I couldn't tell who's who.
There are words that they told us
that have left their mark on us
This is your country.
Colonialism wants to take it
We're not leaving it!
Then each one fills with strength
But we didn't know how to do that
so we went out with them.
To scream that this is our country.
We're staying here, free.
I remember, we're this human wave
and then, well, we get caught up in the crowd
like Edith Piaf said.
We're stuck in a crowd.
And I find myself at the Wild Woman's Ravine.
and when I look up, I see a stream coming down.
those of human beings
it's people walking down the street.
but it feels like it's a river coming down on you.
because we're down here and they're up there.
It's an historic injury
and that's the necessity of it
to collectively deal with this injury here.
that makes it possible for there to be like this
kinds of awakening, of collective connection
and it's the memory of all the pain
that woke up a collective body
Besides, in Islam, there are many hadiths of the Prophet
that say that, you know, Muslims are like a body.
when someone's in pain,
it's the whole body that suffers...
and now the whole body was in pain
because everyone else was in pain...
So, everyone agreed that it was necessary that
the pain was unbearable
and that it had to manifest itself in any way
Afterwards, you even have people's subconscious
that becomes a kind of lucid subconscious
you know
that tells you to go anyway.
It's instantaneous. I did that without thinking.
Of course I knew why.
But I wasn't thinking.
I just had to do it.
Just like everyone else.
Because one drop with several drops
it creates rivers.
Me with all the others
It was a nice rush to something.
towards an ideal.
It's like... the boiling point.
There was a boiling point.
The people had the opportunity.
« That's it, I'm fed up, I'm expressing myself. »
« I'm going out in the street, I don't care... »
« France can shoot at me, I'm out anyway. »
That's what December 11th is about.
And the past is archived
As the voice of freedom
The fifth term will follow
Between them the case is concluded
And the past is archived
As the voice of freedom
It's also a rather gigantic anguish
that manages to transform itself
because it's driven by political thought.
because it's carried by the collective.
It's not just rebellion like that.
It's generations and generations
that contained something absolutely unbearable to live with
and at that point, being caught up in a collective
in a mass rejection
to make room for the living in his body...
There's a collective catharsis
there is a collective release
in insurrection, revolt
and revolution.
The slave can only come out of slavery through the master's door.
in a way, in a colonial situation
the slave can only get out of slavery by kicking the master out of the house
Although it's not a definitive way to solve the problem
because after the master left
the master is still in our heads.
It's every day, the struggle is daily
We women haven't stopped...
Until today.
I'm 75 years old, I've never stopped...
Because the fight didn't stop in 1962
that's where it started.
They shook the throne
People, there's nothing stronger
They’re the hero,
They’re the dignity
They’re everything.
The revolution was made by the people.
Now it's been diverted.
It's no longer the people.
It's the mujahid.
But everyone participated.
Now they say: "This one is a hero".
Now, there's the super-Algerian and the Algerian...
There's the Algerian who allows himself to take everything...
and there's the Algerian who has nothing.
All this colonial repression,
with all the abuses we know about, torture, war crimes...
imprisonment, kidnapping...
Even that's not enough to get the fish out of the water.
Even when you empty the water, the fish stay alive.
Because you can't fight the fury of the sea, you see.
It always comes back.
We don't fight hurricanes, brother.
What creates the rule in history
is to find the solution to
the relationship between master and slave.
And the relationship between the master and the slave
contemporary
today, it still exists.
In dehumanization, in precarization
in the disintegration of the world-being
of most of humanity.
So, to rise up
and become a full-fledged global being...
it's a rule in history
It always has been and it always will be.
It is thanks to this that the Algerian people were able to defeat
the world's fourth largest power
It's just...
there was this giving of yourself, for a cause.
Freedom. There was nothing stronger than freedom.
And for freedom, we gave everything.
Freedom, you have to pay for it first.
You can't give it away on a silver platter.
You have to fight for it.
Because freedom is priceless.
Freedom is priceless.