Sunday, August 31, 2008

Guerre d' Algerie la valise ou le cerceuil part 1

Guerre d' Algerie la valise ou le cerceuil part 1


In the fall edition of the Revue Diasporas: histoire et sociétés, I will have an article published on the theme of "La valise ou le cercueil" 'The suitcase or the coffin' in the Pied-Noir community. This video posted at Daily Motion explains, "C’est autour de ce mot d’ordre que s’est constituée le 11 février 1961, l’Organisation de l’armée secrète (OAS), mouvement d’extrême droite, se fixant un double objectif, conserver l’Algérie française et renverser le général de Gaulle et son régime."

Other video clips in the series:

http://www.dailymotion.com/nosctt/video/x3ecfa_guerre-algerie-part-2

http://www.dailymotion.com/nosctt/video/x3ecmp_guerre-algerie-part-3

http://www.dailymotion.com/nosctt/video/x3edqh_guerre-algerie-part-4

http://www.dailymotion.com/nosctt/video/x3eql5_guerre-dalgerie-part-5

part 6

http://www.dailymotion.com/nosctt/video/x3uvko_guerre-dalg-la-valise-ou-le-cerceui_politics

part 7

http://www.dailymotion.com/nosctt/video/x3uvqn_guerre-dalgeriela-valise-ou-le-cerc_politics

Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Le 14 juillet 1962: un Français d'Algérie en parle

Grâce aux alertes de Google j'ai reçu un lien à cette vidéo. C'est un entretien avec un Français d'Algérie le 14 juillet 1962 qui a décidé de rester en Algérie après l'indépendance. Peut-être que mes contacts pieds-noirs me corrigeront, mais je ne l'appelle pas un Pied-Noir parce qu'il n'a pas quitté l'Algérie. Pour moi cet exil est un facteur important à l'identité des Pieds-Noirs. Ca ne veut pas dire que cet homme n'a pas connu un autre exil. Je suppose qu'il est devenu algérien en restant à Oran, mais il ne distingue que les Européens et les Musulmans.

Thanks to Google Alerts I received a link to this YouTube video. It's an interview with a Français d'Algérie on July 14, 1962 who decided to stay in Algeria after its independence. Maybe my Pied-Noir contacts will correct me, but I do not call this man a Pied-Noir because he didn't leave Algeria. For me, exile is a prime factor in Pied-Noir identity. That is not to say that this man didn't experience his own sort of exile. I suppose he became Algerian by staying in Oran, but I notice that in his vocabulary he only distinguishes between "les Européens" and "les Musulmans."




Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Si près


Hélène Cixous has written numerous things that have marked me, but lately I'm only interested in her remarks on Algeria. I'm reading Si près (Galilée, 2007) for a paper I'm writing on return narratives and her premise here is that she said to her 95 year old mother, "j'irai peut-être à Alger" (16). She expounds later on:

L'idée de vouloir revoir l'Algérie une dernière fois, celle-là je ne l'aurai en aucun cas. C'est une idée de mort. Cela voudrait dire que l'Algérie va mourir. Si des deux c'était moi qui allais mourir, je garderais naturellement ma mort pour moi. (42)

Monday, June 2, 2008

Algerian-born Yves Saint Laurent dies in Paris at age 71

YSL, fashion icon and Pied-Noir, died on Sunday, June 1. According to the New York Times (and multiple other sources), Saint Laurent’s career spanned from 1957 to 2002 and included putting women into traditionally male clothing … i.e. pants, peacoats, trenchcoats, and tuxedo jackets. He was known to inspire artists such as Picasso, Miró and Matisse and to dress women such as Catherine Deneuve, Paloma Picasso, Lauren Bacall, and Marie-Hélène de Rothschild. He became famous in 1958 when he was only 21 when he showed his Trapeze collection for Christian Dior after Dior’s death. After his “rich peasant” collection showed in New York, Saint Laurent said, “The clothes incorporated all my dreams, all my heroines in the novels, the operas, the paintings. It was my heart — everything I love that I gave to this collection.”

Pieds-Noirs (and others) have been busy today posting their homage to the master de couture online. One person wrote on a forum today, “Condoléances à tous les pieds noirs, dont Yves était de la famille.” Another who remembers his shop in Marseille writes, “il laisse un grand vide dans le coeur de tous les Pieds-Noirs.”

Yves Saint-Laurent was a Pied-Noir, born in Oran on August 1, 1936. His father was a lawyer and insurance broker and his mother had great style. His childhood home was a villa on the Mediterranean, the sea that dominates most Pied-Noir memories. The young Yves disliked sports – except swimming—and took to fashion at a very young age, even designing his mother’s clothes. While his parents wanted him to become a lawyer, he went to Paris at the age of 17 (around 1953, just before the tensions of the war would be felt) to work in theatrical fashion design. Dior quickly recognized his talent and snatched him up.

In September of 1960, the same year he made his last collection for Dior, Saint Laurent was called up for 27 months of military service in Algeria. According to the NYTimes, “He had previously been given deferments because 2,000 jobs depended on his talent.” About three weeks after beginning his compulsory service he was hospitalized for a nervous “collapse.” He was discharged from the army and he entered a private clinic near Paris. He returned to work on his own, having been replaced at Dior by Marc Bohan. Just months before Algerian independence, on January 19, 1962, the first Yves Saint Laurent collection was shown.

At his retirement in January 2002, Saint Laurent said, “Every man needs aesthetic phantoms in order to exist. I have known fear and the terrors of solitude. I have known those fair-weather friends we call tranquilizers and drugs. I have known the prison of depression and the confinement of hospital. But one day, I was able to come through all of that, dazzled yet sober.”

His phantoms, although personal, are shared by many in his Pied-Noir family.

Sunday, June 1, 2008

Blogging ... and not blogging

[Photo taken May 2008 in Vieux Montréal]

I've recently become an avid reader of multiple blogs, most of them written by Americans living in Paris, and I realize that what keeps me going back to them is knowing there will be somewhat regular posts, creatively written, and engaging. I have not done a great job, if I have any regular readers, of keeping my blog up to date, but I also have not forgotten the very specific topic that I've chosen.

Right now I'm in Montreal (and soon in Quebec City) with a Canadian Government "faculty enrichment" research grant and my topic is not Pied-Noir studies. Instead, I am working on including Canadian (Quebec) content into my commercial French course and textbook which is in development. While this has been my focus for the past several months, I have not stopped working on Pied-Noir literature. I am in the process of reworking a paper for publication on Pied-Noir Photo-documentary works and I'm writing another about the recent Pied-Noir returns to Algeria for presentation in July. My first article in French, “« La valise ou le cercueil » : un aller-retour dans la mémoire des Pieds-Noirs” should be coming out later this year in the Revue Diasporas: histoires et sociétés later this year.

As I finish up my work in Canada in a couple of weeks, I will be getting back to my passion and hopefully finding my blog-voice. Part of the issue is that I'm still grappling with what I, a young American French professor, have to say about the traumas of the Pieds-Noirs. I have much to say ... in English or in French ... but to whom, here in a blog post, written in English?

Wednesday, April 9, 2008

Témoignages des Français de Tunisie et Maroc / Testimonials from the French citizens of Tunisia and Morocco

Another youtube video picked up by Google Alerts, "Les Français d'Afrique du Nord" interviews early exiles from Tunisia and Morocco who were forced to leave in 1958. I especially appreciated the descriptions of cultural (or more specifically, agricultural) differences between North Africa and France. René Domergue provides a detailed exploration of these differences through testimonials in his work, L'Intégration des Pieds-Noirs dans les villages du Midi (Harmattan, 2006).

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Traffic: La Valise ou le Cercueil (the suitcase or the coffin)

Cet objet d'art, que j’ai découvert grace aux Alertes de Google, me trouble terriblement (http://moooonriver.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!F50083AB13224D70!8134.entry). L'artiste, Mona Hatoum, est de Beyrouth, née en 1952.


Mona Hatoum, Traffic, 2002
Suitcases, metal, plastic, human hair (valises, métal, plastique, cheveux humains)




"Inspired as much by her exile from war-torn Beirut as by her sensitivity to contemporary racial and gender issues, Hatoum's works are both deeply personal and quietly political. Without being didactic, she invites viewers to see the world through her eyes while also encouraging them to trust their own reactions to her evocative works."


Inspirée autant par son exil de Beyrouth (ravagé par la guerre) que par sa sensibilité aux problèmes actuels de race et genre, les œuvres de Hatoum sont profondément personnelles et tranquillement politiques. Sans être didactique, elle invite ses spectateurs à voir le monde à travers ses yeux pendant qu'elle les encourage à faire confiance en leurs propres réactions à ses œuvres évocatrices. (my translation)

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Le "Jeu" des Pieds-Noirs?

I learned of this game - "Le Parcours du Pied-Noir" - through a regular e-letter I receive from the Jeune Pied-Noir (purchasing information follows below). While the psychoanalytic applications of the Fort-Da seem apparent to me (creating a game to master the past), I would really like to hear thoughts from members of the community. Is playing this type of game enjoyable? Is this part of the mission to preserve and transmit the past in an entertaining way? Does it make the painful past more tolerable? forgettable? accessible? Perhaps I should purchase the game next time I'm in France. I'd really like to know what "parcours" is represented on the game board and which pictures Solange de Martini chose to represent the monuments of the past. More on this in my next presentation - and eventually in my book.

[J'ai appris de l'existence de ce jeu - "Le Parcours du Pied-Noir" dans le journal électronique de l'Association du Jeune Pied-Noir (pour l'acheter, voir en bas). Même que l'usage de la technique psychanalytique du Fort-Da me semble évident (créer un jeu pour maîtriser le passé), j'aimerais recevoir les commentaires des membres de la communauté. Est-ce agréable de jouer ce genre de jeu? Est-ce une partie de la mission de sauvegarder et transmettre le passé dans une manière divertissante? Est-ce que ça rend le passé douloureux plus tolérable, oubliable, ou accessible? Je dois acheter le jeu la prochaine fois que je suis en France. J'aimerais vraiment savoir quel 'parcours' est représenté sur le tableau de jeu et quelles images Solange de Martini a choisies pour représenter les monuments au passé. J'écrirai plus dans ma prochaine présentation - et éventuellement dans mon livre.]



LES PIEDS-NOIRS CREATIFS !

JEU "LE PARCOURS DU PIED-NOIR"

de Solange de MARTINI

PASSEZ UN BON MOMENT EN FAMILLE AVEC VOS PETITS-ENFANTS

A PARTIR DE 10 ANS - DE 2 A 5 JOUEURS

450 questions (et réponses naturellement !) sur l'histoire, la cuisine, les villes, le langage... de notre Algérie avant l'exode. 50 cartes de gages illustrées de photos de là-bas pour ceux qui ne sont dans l'erreur !

Prix : 37,10 euros port compris

A COMMANDER DIRECTEMENT A
Solange de MARTINI
Courriel : mailto:de_martini@hotmail.fr - Tel : 04 67 53 73 63
Courrier : 1, rue Lt Marius Bazille - 34200 SETE

Trouvé dans: JEUNE PIED-NOIR INFORMATION
Voir pour plus de détails le site JPN : http://perso.wanadoo.fr/jeunepiednoir/jpn.wst
jeunepiednoir@wanadoo.fr - Tel : 06 80 21 78 54
Diffusion du dimanche 10 février 2008