In addition to their positioning/representation of men and women, post-colonial France and Algeria also share an important parallel in their structuring of social space. As regards France, Kristin Ross has described how 1950s’ and 1960s’ French society witnessed a number of socio-spatial shifts engendered by the advent of decolonization and the largely state-led modernization drive (1995: 150). Perhaps the most obvious of these shifts was the splitting of the nation-state; between new metropolises driven by professional opportunities and new consumerism, and a rural France profonde
increasingly associated with a nostalgic and idealised provinciality. During these years France also witnessed the influx of an unprecedented number of immigrants27 arriving from France’s newly emancipated colonies. A large percentage of these immigrants were from Algeria,28 often affected by agricultural reforms initiated in 1945 or exiled from their homeland for supporting colonial forces (for example les harkis and les pieds-noirs). In response to these waves of immigration, a post-war urban housing crisis, and a government backed slum clearance,29 urban planners decided to construct utopian social-housing projects situated on the outskirts of cities – known as HLM (Habitation à Loyer Modéré) or collectively as les grands ensembles in a process known as rénovation (Marchand 1993: 291). Often populated by a mixture of working-class French and North African communities, these areas (including the Parisian districts of La Courneuve, Clichy-sous-Bois and Aulnay-sous-Bois) quickly became hot-beds of racial exclusion and economic disenfranchisement. As Stora illustrates,
‘enfin, en toile de fond de ces mutations, le paysage urbain se modifie profondément. La fin des années algériennes, c’est la construction des grands ensembles, l’accroissement des banlieues et un nouveau moyen de vivre (mal?)’ (1998 : 213). Certain theorists have associated the socio-spatial dynamics at work in the post-colonial metropolis with those inherent within the archetypal colonial city; a hypothesis certainly supported by the fact that during the years of decolonization, many personnel involved in running political
27 I have chosen the term ‘immigrants’ here as, although French colonial officials gave the Algerian population the chance to become French citizens, very few individuals took up this offer – primarily as it involved renouncing Islam (Evans 2007: 41; Evangelista 2011: 40).
28 The number of immigrants arriving from Algeria was only eclipsed by Italian and Spanish populations (Roach cited in Etcherelli 1985: 13). According to Bernard Marchand, more than a million pieds-noirs relocated in France during these years after being effectively hounded out of Algeria and the Maghreb (1993: 284).
29 For more details relating to this slum clearance see Ross (1995: 153), Marchand (1993: 291) and, in particular, Feldman (2014: 41-74).
decisions within the colonies (councillors, for example) were transferred to a similar role in the metropolis (Ross 1995: 8). However, this observation nevertheless
underplays France’s desire to retain symbolic (if not literal) power over its formally colonial subjects in a process that Sophie Body-Gendrot has termed the “third-worldisation” of the national space (1993: 81). In other words, as with the archetypal colonial city, post-colonial France continued to control the rise of Algerian nationalism by splitting metropolitan space in terms of a dichotomy; between a powerful ‘visible’
centre and a dispossessed, ‘invisible’ periphery, populated largely by displaced
Maghrebi communities. According to Stephan Kipfer, these socio-spatial processes had the effect of ‘peripheralizing the working-class, imposing much of the weight of reproduction onto women, whilst banishing immigrants to “neo-colonial” shantytowns and the worst public housing tracts’ (2007: 202). Hannah Feldman has also shown how this desire to structure and sterilize the body-politic was reflected in André Malraux’s decision to ‘whitewash’ the facades of Parisian buildings (in particular the Marais district) as part of a process of ‘preservation’ (2014: 46). In her words, ‘this symbolic investment in “whitening” correlates very specifically with France’s refusal to account for the different ethnic traditions that had come to compromise the new nation’ (2014:
48).
On a similar note, Kristin Ross has illustrated how France responded to the waves of immigration flooding the nation by redefining and reconceptualising the modern home as a hygienic, functional, and – most importantly – hermetically sealed space, free from the ‘archaic’ traces of a colonialism deemed increasingly anathematic to France’s modernised future, despite the fact that many immigrants lived in close proximity to post-war baby-boomers who had relocated to les grands ensembles (1995:
149). Within the popular publications of the period such as Marie-Claire, Elle and Femmes d'aujourd'hui, the modernized domestic realm thus became a site of neo-colonial power which reiterated the dialectics of racial exclusion and inclusion characteristic of colonial discourse. That said, it is important to acknowledge the inherent ambivalence which characterised this realm – as a site of colonial control and gendered subjugation. With this in mind, Claire Duchen has shown how sociological surveys conducted at the time appear to show a major disjuncture between these images of idealized domesticity and the everyday reality of French women, who often felt disempowered, disenfranchised and alienated from their concrete surroundings, particularly when these modernist archipelagos became a ‘city of women’ during the
day (1994: 89).30 Bernard Marchand has also described ‘la sarcellite’ as ‘une maladie des habitants des grands ensembles [qui] venait d’un sentiment d’isolement, d’abandon au milieu de grands barres monotones’ (1993: 283). It is this sense of disjuncture that can be seen as the defining feature of a post-colonial French society split between idealised popular discourses and the sobering everyday reality experienced by la nouvelle vague generation (and, in particular, French women). In chapter two, I will show how French films of the period mediate this disjuncture in an ambivalent manner, critiquing colonial policies whilst remaining subtly conservative in their representations of gender.
As regards Algeria, one of the ways in which France maintained its dominance over the colonized population was through the control, manipulation and appropriation of space. It is for this reason that in his 1961 work Les Damnés de la terre, Frantz Fanon describes the colonized cityspace in dichotomous terms, as a world ‘cut in two’
(2001 [1961]: 37) split between the ‘strong’ and ‘easygoing’ settlers’ town, ‘always full of good things’, and ‘the native town’, as ‘a crouching village […], wallowing in the mire’ (1961: 39; see Evans 2012: 34; MacMaster 2012: 10). Delineating the contours and boundaries of the colonial cityspace would also be a central feature of what is known as the battle of Algiers (1956-1957), a particularly intense period of guerrilla warfare during which ‘les quartiers arabes’ were ‘bouclés’ (Stora 2010) in a temporarily successful attempt disrupt the flow of sensitive information and clandestine weapons.
Similarly, in rural areas, including Northern Kabylia and the central eastern Aurès Mountains, colonial forces pursued a policy of quadrillage or partitioning, that is the spreading of large numbers of appelés across Algeria (in farms, roads, railway lines etc) with the immediate aim of safeguarding people and property and the long-term goal of ‘a radical “top-down” reform on a recalcitrant periphery’ (MacMaster 2012: 9).
Nevertheless, colonial forces were less successful in controlling these regions, primarily due to their sheer magnitude and frequently hostile climate. Indeed, in 1956, 34
members of the FLN managed to attend the highly significant Soummam Conference in rural Northern Kabylia, despite the fact that the region was supposedly occupied and controlled by the French army. As I will later show, it is due to this form of nationalist activity (amongst others) that rural areas would come to occupy such a privileged space in the post-independence cultural imaginary. In terms of representation, colonial
30 See Jean-Luc Godard’s 1967 2 ou 3 choses que je sais d'elle for an in depth exploration of the relationship between gender and les grands ensembles (although one which moves away from discussions regarding the Algerian War).
discourse reflected – at least initially – the diametric spatial logic of inclusion and exclusion characteristic of the archetypal colonial city. It is for this reason that Julien Duvivier’s famous ‘colonial’ film Pépé le moko (1937) represents Algiers in terms of a stark dichotomy, split between the reassuring and familiar settler quarters and the indigenous Casbah as the embodiment of a ‘radically other social order’ predicated upon ‘social chaos’ (Morgan 1994: 640). Joseph McGonagle and Edward Welch have also described how colonial discourse represented the Casbah as an ‘unknowable, ungraspable place’, ‘mysterious and opaque in its nature’ (2013: 32). However, in the aftermath of the Second World War, the visibility of the divided colonial cityspace (alongside imagery associated with the harem) waned, as France was confronted with increasingly violent bouts of pan-African nationalism. Instead, dominant discourses of the period (such as the popular press and the TV series 5 colonnes à la une) reiterated a particular strand of Orientalist/colonial discourse in representing Algeria as ‘empty [rural] landscapes’ populated – during the conflict – almost exclusively by French soldiers (Austin 2007: 185). It is precisely these images of division and ‘nothingness’
(Austin 2007: 185) that post-independence Algerian cinema sought to critique through its representation of gendered, spatial transgression.31
Numerous historians have illustrated the profound socio-spatial shifts that characterised Algerian society with the attainment of national sovereignty – especially in relation to women (see, for example MacMaster 2012; Stora 1998). Of particular note were the waves of rural to urban migration that took place in the immediate
post-colonial period, as thousands of nationalist supporters were freed from the kind of rural detention centres depicted in Lakhdar-Hamina’s Le Vent des Aurès. Arriving in the northern cities, many occupied buildings that were left vacant by the mass exodus of almost 700,000 pieds-noirs between the years 1961 and 1962. However, these vacancies were unable to stem the emergence of a profound housing crisis (including
overpopulation and crowding) caused by a toxic combination of domestic migration, demographic expansion and state-led modernization. Indeed, whilst the state was busy mythologizing and lionizing the martyrs of the Revolution, moudjahiddine often returned traumatised from the rural maquis to find ‘une Algérie nouvelle bouleversée, détournée du fleuve de sa tradition’ (Stora 1998: 217). During the post-independence period, Algerian women were increasingly expected to resume their roles as wives and mothers in the domestic realm. As Neil MacMaster has shown, this reassertion of
31 Benjamin Stora has also talked about the sensation of ‘absence [et] amnésie’ (1998 : 248) that characterises French discourses of this period.
patriarchal ideology came as a surprise to many women, primarily as a result of the levels of independence experienced by the moudjahidat (female freedom-fighters) during the conflict,32 but also due to the ‘radical mutation’ in gender relations
previously theorised by the figurehead of the post-independence regime, Frantz Fanon (1959: 10, 14 cited in MacMaster 2012: 381). As the FLN bomb-carrier Baya Hocine claimed, ‘we [Algerian women] broke through the barriers and it was very difficult for us to go back to how things were. In 1962 the barriers were rebuilt in a way that was terrible for us’ (cited in MacMaster 2012: 381). The reassertion of masculine
domination has been interpreted in a number of ways. On the one hand, the resequestration of women can be seen as an indirect response to a colonial project which had, since the generals’ revolt in 1958, pursued a campaign of ‘modernization’,
‘civilization’ and ‘emancipation’, inspired by the radical secularism of the Jacobin Revolution and propagated through mass unveiling parades. These parades formed part of a broader strategy to ‘maximise disarray in the FLN by seizing on a latent
contradiction between the growing liberty of women militants […] and the weight of conservative and patriarchal values’ (MacMaster 2012: 334). In this respect, the state’s attempts to redefine the domestic sphere as the province of women should be seen within the wider framework of a pervasive anti-colonial sentiment which touched upon every aspect of post-colonial life. On the other hand, post-colonial resequestration can also be seen as response to masculine anxieties relating to the increase in female agency during the war; 33 anxieties aggravated by the mixing of genders caused by the post-independence housing crisis (MacMaster 2012: 384, 371; Stora 1998: 227).
In terms of setting, post-colonial Algerian cinema tended to privilege the vast, rural plains of Northern Kabylia and the central eastern Aurès Mountains over northern littoral towns (including Algiers, Bone, Constantine), primarily as it was in these
regions that the Revolution was initiated, fought and organised (see, amongst others, the long history of Berber-nationalist activity against Arab, Ottoman and French forces [Kabylia], the violent insurrection of All Saints Day [the Aurès Mountains, 1954] and the Soummam Conference [Kabylia, 1956]). In their depiction of rural conflict, films such as Le Vent des Aurès, L’Opium et le bâton and La Nouba des femmes du Mont Chenoua thus arguably represent the Revolution in far more accurate terms than, for
32 Feeling of disillusionment were particularly prevalent amongst the unveiled carriers of weapons and information known as fidayate [fire-carriers]) (see Vince 2009; MacMaster 2012).
33 Neil MacMaster has illustrated the profoundly patriarchal values that lay at the heart of the FLN, despite the fact that women were permitted to fight in the maquis during the conflict (2012: 17).
example, Pontecorvo’s La Bataille d’Alger, which focuses almost exclusively upon the shift from maquis to urban, guerrilla warfare that characterized the later stages of the war. Indeed, Guy Austin has shown how, rather than reflecting the everyday reality of the conflict, Pontecorvo’s choice of urban setting instead mirrors trends within
European cinema, and, in particular, Italian neo-realism (2012: 37). Finally, post-colonial Algerian cinema (and visual culture) can be seen to invert the post-colonial spatial logic (division and ‘nothingness’), instead proposing a universe characterised by communality, contiguity, and gendered, spatial transgression (although, as I show in chapter three, section two, this observation is slightly problematized in relation to the
‘framing’ of women).
1.3.3 Summary
As this contextualisation has shown, a number of parallels exist between post-colonial French and Algerian society. In France, the end of the Algerian War coincided with de Gaulle’s revival of the Resistance hero, whilst in Algeria, Ben Bella appropriated Fanon’s notion of the New Algerian Man as a homosocial model for self/nationhood.
Both of these discourses proposed retrograde masculine ideals which stood in
counterpoint to the traumatic reality of men returning from conflict. In contrast, French women found themselves defined by the highly influential discourse of la presse féminine, whilst, in Algeria it was the official discourse of the one-party state which formed the primary arbiter of women’s role in society. Inherent within both of these discourses was a highly retrograde conception of post-colonial womanhood inextricably intertwined with the domestic realm. As I have shown, in the immediate post-colonial period, both countries also witnessed number of socio-spatial shifts engendered largely by mass domestic migration. In Algeria, these waves of migration contributed to existing masculine anxieties relating to women’s active role in combat (leading to a reassertion of patriarchal values through resequestration), whilst in France, the arrival of immigrants from North Africa – and, in particular, Algeria – led to the privatisation and reconceptualisation of the domestic realm as a hermetically sealed (feminine) space, free from the ‘contaminating’ effects of the foreign ‘Other’, and by analogy, France’s colonial past. In the following chapters, we will see how these historical and cultural trends were reflected in the cinematic narratives of the period.