The colonial harem 9780816613830, 9780816682188, 9780816613847

Table of contents :
Frontmatter
Introduction by Barbara Harlow (page ix)
1. The Orient as Stereotype and Phantasm (page 3)
2. Women from the Outside: Obstacle and Transparency (page 7)
3. Women's Prisons (page 17)
4. Women's Quarters (page 27)
5. Couples (page 37)
6. The Figures of the Harem: Dress and Jewelry (page 49)
7. Inside the Harem: The Rituals (page 67)
8. Song and Dance: Almehs and Bayaderes (page 85)
9. Oriental Sapphism (page 95)
10. The Colonial Harem: Images of Suberoticism (page 105)
Notes (page 127)
Selected Bibliography (page 135)

Citation preview

The Colonial Harem

Theory and History of Literature Edited by Wlad Godzich and Jochen Schulte-Sasse Volume 1. Tzvetan Todorov Introduction to Poetics Volume 2. Hans Robert Jauss Toward an Aesthetic of Reception Volume 3. Hans Robert Jauss Aesthetic Experience and Literary Hermeneutics Volume 4. Peter Biirger Theory of the Avant-Garde Volume 5. Vladimir Propp Theory and History of Folklore

Volume 6. Edited by Jonathan Arac, Wlad Godzich, and Wallace Martin The Yale Critics: Deconstruction in America

Volume 7. Paul de Man Blindness and Insight: Essays in the Rhetoric of Contemporary Criticism 2nd ed., rev.

Volume 8. Mikhail Bakhtin Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics

Volume 9. Erich Auerbach Scenes from the Drama of European Literature Volume 10. Jean-Francois Lyotard The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge Volume 11. Edited by John Fekete The Structural Allegory: Reconstructive Encounters with the New French Thought Volume 12. Ross Chambers Story and Situation: Narrative Seduction and the Power of Fiction Volume 13. Tzvetan Todorov Mikhail Bakhtin: The Dialogical Principle Volume 14. Georges Bataille Visions of Excess: Selected Writings, 1927-1939

Volume 15. Peter Szondi On Textual Understanding and Other Essays Volume 16. Jacques Attali Noise

Volume 17. Michel de Certeau Heterologies Volume 18. Thomas G. Pavel The Poetics of Plot: The Case of English Renaissance Drama Volume 19. Jay Caplan Framed Narratives: Diderot’s Genealogy of the Beholder Volume 20. Jean-Francois Lyotard and Jean-Loup Thébaud Just Gaming Volume 21. Malek Alloula The Colonial Harem

L he Colonial

Translation by

Myrna Godzich and Wlad Godzich

Introduction by ,

Barbara Harlow

Theory and History of Literature, Volume 21

University of Minnesota Press Minneapolis London

Copyright © 1986 by the University of Minnesota. Translation of Le Harem Colonial: Images d’un sous-érotisme copyright © 1981 by Editions Slatkine, Genéve-Paris.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Published by the University of Minnesota Press, 111 Third Avenue South, Suite 290, Minneapolis, MN 55401-2520. Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper. Designed by Gwen M. Willems. Ninth printing, 2012

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Alloula, Malek. The colonial harem.

(Theory and history of literature ; v. 21) Translation of: Le harem colonial. Bibliography: p. 1. Women—Algeria—Social conditions. 2. Postal cards—Algeria. 3. Photography of women. 4. Harem.

I. Title. I. Series.

HQ1791.5.A7613 1986 305.4'0965 85-16527 ISBN 978-0-8166- 1383-0 ISBN 978-0-8166-1384-7 (pbk.)

The University of Minnesota is an equal-opportunity educator and employer.

This essay, which owes much to Wardiya and to Hayyem, is dedicated to the memory of Roland Barthes

BLANK PAGE

Contents Introduction by Barbara Harlow 1X 1. The Orient as Stereotype and Phantasm 3 2. Women from the Outside: Obstacle and Transparency 7

3. Women’s Prisons 17

4. Women’s Quarters 27

5. Couples 37

6. The Figures of the Harem: Dress and Jewelry 49

7. Inside the Harem: The Rituals 67 8. Song and Dance: Almehs and Bayaderes 85

9. Oriental Sapphism 95

Notes 127 10. The Colonial Harem: Images of a Suberoticism 105

Selected Bibliography 135

BLANK PAGE

Introduction _ Scene 60. Blockade rue de la Lyre. Outside. Day. Djamila is tense, pale, her features are strained. Her eyes seem even larger with make-up. Now, at the blockade at rue de la Lyre the Casbah exit is blocked. An Algerian has been discovered without documents. He argues, shouts, and says that he wants to go back. Incoherent Voices.

The soldiers try to catch him, he struggles to get free. Meanwhile the people push forward in protest. Two soldiers catch the Algerian and drag him bodily into the guard posts. The flow of people continues. Djamila steps forward, holding the cosmetic-case with both of her hands. She doesnt know how to carry it, and from time to time she changes her position. She realizes that she looks awkward. It’s now her turn. The soldiers’ tone is arrogant. The previous scene has made them nervous. An officer signals her to pass, then points to the cosmetic-case.

Officer: What’s inside? : Instinctively, Djamila lifts the case and looks at it; she feels herself failing, but makes an effort to answer. Djamila: Here?

Officer: There .. . Djamila uses all her strength to smile and she succeeds. Her eyes light up defiantly.

Djamila (provocatively): Nothing. The officer signals her to pass. (From the film The Battle of Algiers, directed by Gillo Pontecorvo, 1966.)’ ix

Introduction

Djamila, a young Algerian woman, isa = again assumed by the women of the FLN member of Algeria’s National Liberation — so that they could conceal within its folds

Front (FLN). Her cosmetic bag, which — the weapons and explosive devices they

she holds so awkwardly under the gazeof carried between the French and Arab the French soldiers as she leavesthe Arab — quarters of the city. There is, according

quarter of Algiers (the Casbah, or ma- to Frantz Fanon’s A Dying Colonialism, dina) to enter the French section (or ville his study of the Algerian revolution, a nouvelle) of the city, contains explosives ‘‘historic dynamism of the veil,’’ which destined for the milk bar inthe rued’Isly. | can be perceived over the course of Itis 1956 and the Battle of Algiersisabout — France’s colonization of Algeria. lo begin. Djamila, like many other Arab Jy, she beginning, the veil was a mech-

women 1 her country, has assumed arole anism of resistance, but its value for in her social order, one which not only she social group remained very strong. has brought her out of seclusion in the ~—-7pe yeil was worn because tradition de-

home and into the streets but has re- manded a rigid separation of the sexes, fashioned her physical and cultural — pyp also because the occupier was bent appearance. She has become a part of the on unveiling Algeria. In a second

Algerian revolution. Her eyes, which phase, the mutation occurred in conaccording tothe traditional andespecially —_, pczion with the Revolution and under Western image of the Arab woman were — sy cig] circumstances. The veil was

alone visible behind an all-concealing = gpandoned in the course of revolutionveil, are now large with mascara. Her ary action. What had been used to face and hair are exposed. The veil is pjock the psychological or political ofgone and has been replaced by Western fensives of the occupier became a clothes. The makeup, however, and the means, an instrument. The veil helped short skirt have, paradoxically, become the Algerian woman to meet the new part of the Algerian resistance to French problems created by the struggle.? colonialism. Whereas it was the veil that

had previously taken on a symbolic sig- In The Colonial Harem, Malek AInificance as an assertion of tradition and _loula has collected, arranged, and anno-

custom in Algeria, it was Western ap- tated the picture postcards of Algerian parel that early in the revolution allowed |= women produced and sent by the French Algerian women, like Djamila, to active- —_ in Algeria during the first three decades of

ly confront the colonial presence in the this century. This Algerian writer’s study streets. Later, toward the end of the revo- of the postcards, which reveals an intense

lution, when Western-clad Algerian preoccupation with the veiled female women became suspect, the veil wasonce _—_ body, engages historically in the same x

kind of social practicethatthe anthropolo- __ the gaze of the colonized upon the coloni-

gist Pierre Bourdieu has termed “chal- __zer. In their absence, that is, in the ab-

lenge and riposte.” Bourdieu examined sence of a confrontation of opposed this dialectic inthe contextofKabylianso- gazes, I attempt here, lagging far behind ciety, a Berber population in Algeria _ History, to return this immense postcard among whom he worked and where the __ to its sender.” (p. 5) Although the postexchange of challenges served to main- _ cards in this book are from the early twentain the tribal sense of honor. “The nature __tieth century, they do not represent a of the riposte,” according to Bourdieu, __ historically isolable phenomenon. They “makes the challenge a challenge, as op- _are part of a conflict whose consequences posed to mere aggression.”* The Colonial _ continue to interest contemporary global Harem presents a literary-historical ver- _ politics and which has important ramifision of riposte to the challenge of French _ cations in the intellectual arena as well.

colonialism which, despite indepen- Pontecorvo’s film The Battle of Aldence, has continued toinfluencepresent- giers was produced in 1966, four years day Algeria. To understand the nature of after the Algerian revolution had ended, that riposte, it must be examined in the — culminating in the establishment of an incontext of French-Algerian relations and dependent Algerian state following more against the background of East-Westcon- —_ thanacentury of French colonial dominatacts. The role played by women, both _ tion. Five years after its release, the film real and imaginary, has been critical to —_—- was _ still banned in France, where the

these encounters. Furthermore, despite pieds noirs, the former French settlers of the numerous studies being done on the _— Algeria, continued to protest the showing

Western vision of the Orient, or, in its ofthe internationally acclaimed film. The broadest terms, of the Other,* the cor- Algerian revolution, which lasted eight responding vision or viewpoint of the so- _- violent years, from November 1954 to called Oriental, the Arab or the Algerian, July 1962, had sharply polarized French with regard to the West” has received little public opinion and policy at the same time systematic attention. Alloula’s commen- __ that it posed serious problems for Eurotary on the postcards provides sucha per- __ pean intellectuals and leftists. The Alge-

spective. The perspective also displays rian resistance was accused of terrorism, the historical tension produced by techno- _and the French were charged with torture logical disparities and the discrepancies __ in their treatment of prisoners. The pro-

of unequal development. “A reading of — tracted debate that ensued over armed the sort that I propose to undertake,” Al- _ resistance and loyalty to the mother counloula writes, “would be entirely superflu- —_‘ try obliged prominent literary figures to ous if there existed photographic tracesof take sides, often against each other. xi

Introduction

Albert Camus, himself a pied noir and suffering and uproot the French who left Algeria in 1939, continuedtobe- people of Algeria from their native lieve in 1958 in maintaining a French — country.””

Algeria. Camus, whose influence in the Whereas Camus condemned the West derived both from his role in the | FLN for its use of terror as a tactic in its French resistance during World War If armed struggle against colonialism and and from his position within the existen- _ insisted on Algeria as a French possestialist movement, opposed in his political sion, Simone de Beauvoir challenged the

writings and statements at the time not French regime for its use of torture only the tactics but the goal of the Alge- against suspected partisans of the resisrian nationalists. In the introductiontohis tance movement. In the case of Djamila

collected essays on Algeria, Actuelles III, | Boupacha, ‘‘an Algerian girl of 23, an Camus condemned the FLN and advo- —_ FLN liaison agent, [was] illegally impriscated French commitment to a French _oned by French military forces, who sub-

Algeria: “The struggle of ideas is pos- _jected her to torture and deflowered her

sible, even if armed, and it is right to with a bottle.’’*® When this case was recognize the enemy’s reasons before brought before the French public in 1961, defending oneself against him. On both de Beauvoir became active in the attempt sides, nonetheless, terror, however long _ to gaina hearing for the young woman. In

it might last, changes the order of the her introduction to the account by Dja- | terms. When one’s own family is in mila’s lawyer of her client’s torture and immediate danger of death, one might the efforts to win her release, the French want to make it more generous and more _ feminist wrote: ‘‘From 1954 onwards we

just, one should even continue to do so, _ have all compounded our consciences but (and make no mistake here!) without with a species of racial extermination failing in the solidarity owing in such _ that—first in the name of ‘subjugating danger in order that the family at least rebellious elements’ and later in that of survive and in surviving discover the ‘pacification’—has claimed over a mil-

chance to be just.”® Camus concluded his _ lion victims.’’® | introduction by clarifying his sense of a Dyjamila was released from prison in fair solution to the Algerian question: 1962 when general amnesty was granted “An Algeria constituted of federated set- at the end of the war. The charges of tortlements and tied to France seems to me __ture that she had brought against the

preferable, without any possible com- French army in Algeria were thus never parison to simple justice, to an Algeria heard, nor was her case decided by a tied to an empire of Islam which would court of law. Three years earlier, in only bring about an increase of misery 1959, however, Ahmed Taleb Ibrahimi, xii

now a minister in the Algerian govern- Alloula, an Algerian, is examining ment, but at that time a young Algerian _- French observations of Algeria. Like the held in the French prison at Fresnes for § ‘‘sentimental spectator’? of Barthes’s subversive activities against the state, Camera Lucida, Alloula examines these

addressed an open letterto AlbertCamus postcards not only as ‘‘a question (a in which he rejected the former French theme) but as a wound.’’** And yet, unsettler’s appeals for solidarity. Ahmed like Barthes, who believed in the princiTaleb, who as a lycéen in Algeria had __ ple “‘never to reduce myself-as-subject, read and admired Camus’s writings, now — confronting certain photographs, to the

. ; L912

wrote: disincarnated, disaffected socius which

It is strange to note that you who sclence 1s concerned with, . Alloula proclaimed your love for your Arab recognizes in his own vision the influence ‘brothers” should display such an ar- of a socius, neither disincarnated nor dis-

rogant contempt for everything Arab affected but historically conditioned: Muslim and Oriental. You, who pretend What I read on these cards does not that Algeria is your “true country,” are leave me indifferent. It demonstrates to totally ignorant of its heritage even to me, were that still necessary, the desolate

the point of speaking of Algerian cities poverty of a gaze that I myself, as an ‘without a past” [from L’été]. Even the Algerian, must have been the object of at most superficial knowledge of the histo- some moment in my personal history. ry of the Maghrib would have shown Among us, we believe in the nefarious you that the Algerian nation is not an effects of the evil eye (the evil gaze). We epiphenomenon and that its destiny, conjure them with our hand spread out even if it is Mediterranean, is also Afri- like a fan. I close my hand back upon a

can and Arab. © pen to write my exorcism: this text.’’ (p.

, 5) Alloula’s conjuring act challenges the

Algeria s revolution ended finally in the reader-critic of his book to consider the

Tala a socialist historical consequences of these artifacts slam“as the stategovernment religion andwith Arabic as_ _— of 1culture. 1 popular membership in the Arab League, the = of French colonial presence in Algeria Organization of African Unity (OAU), and illustrate its distorting effects on Althe Organization of the Islamic Confer- gerian society. In the end, the French ence (OIC), and the Non-Aligned Coun- conquest of Algeria, begun in 1830 and

tries. . depicted in certain of its aspects on these

In The Colonial Har em, there are —_ postcards, was less a conquest than a de-

both French and Algerian spectators: formation of the social order. Through a xiii

Introduction

demystifying reorganization of the pho- _—polygones étoilés, might also provide tos, Alloula points out one of the modes __ material for cultural and ideological scru- | of that deformation: the photographer’s _ tiny.’* Landscape views are likewise of studio and the native models who reenact —_ interest in cases where possession and exotic rituals in costumes provided by the = occupation of the land are at stake.'®

picture-taking impresario. The post- | Women, however, have long been at the cards, inthe context of The Colonial Har- center of the conflict between East and em, no longer represent Algeria and the = West, not only as partisans in the FLN, a Algerian woman but rather the French- —_— role whichhad problematic consequences

man’s phantasm of the Oriental female within Algerian society, but also as phanand her inaccessibility behind the veilin = tasmic representations of Western dethe forbidden harem. Malek Alloula’s signs on the Orient. The misunderstandstudy can on one level be compared to the ings of the woman’s place and role in the

Arab’s attack on Meursaultand Raymond __ respective societies have continued in Camus’s novel The Stranger,in which _ through the centuries to scar relations bethe Arab trespasses into the world of the — tween the different cultures. Herodotus, colons in order to save the honor of his __ writing in the fifth century B.c., already

sister. As Bourdieu maintains, however, had assigned primary importance to

‘*to reduce to the functionofcommunica- |= women in his account of the Persian |

tion phenomena such as the dialectic of |= Wars.

challenge and riposte, and more gener- Hitherto the injuries on either side had ally, the exchange of gifts, words and heen mere acts of common violence; women, is toignore the structural ambiv- py in what followed the Persians conalence which predisposes them to fulfilla = iJor that the Greeks were greatly to

political function of domination in and blame, since before any attack had through performance of the communica- — ppeey, made on Europe, they led an army tion function.’”’** The background of — jnto Asiq. Now, as for the carrying off

French-Algerian relations within the of women, it is the deed, they say, of a larger setting of the history of the East- rogue; but to make a stir about such as West conflict is critical tothe assessment are carried off, argues a man a fool.

of these postcards. Men of sense care nothing for such

The French, during their coloniza- women, since it is plain that without tion of the Maghrib, didnot produce post- heir own consent they would never be cards exclusively of women in Algeria; a forced away. The Asiatics, when the series of architectural representations of = Greeks ran off with their women, never mosques, traditional houses, tombs, and troubled themselves about the matter; fountains, highlighted by arabesques and but the Greeks, for the sake of a single

xiv

Lacedaemonian girl, collected a vast sonal status of women in society. These armament, invaded Asia, and destroyed reforms, which still require more strinthe kingdom of Priam. Hence they ever _ gent efforts intheir implementation, have looked upon the Greeks as their open addressed in particular issues of arranged

enemies. *° marriage, inheritance, dowry, polyg-

Later, a major thrust of the medieval “Y> and divorce (talaq).'* The popular European attack on Islam was an argu- !™7a8° of slave girls, harems, and concu-

mentum ad hominem directed at the al- bines nonetheless continued to horrify leged promiscuity of its Prophet, Mu- and titillate Western critics of the Muslim haved who was criticized for in dul- world throughout the colonial period. An ging in polygamy. Even his followers, essential part of ; Gerard de Nerval’s who were allowed just four wives and Voyage en Orient” in the mid-nineteenth

, ‘ ‘led 19

only if each could be equitably provided Or for cxamp was his mariage te

for, were similarly castigated. Inthe Ko- #~Tu2 woman in Lebanon alter the relaran. however. Allah had admonished the "0nship with his slave girl in Cairo had

Muslim believers, “If you fear that you wae , es than a ny later, will not act justly towards the orphans, 1039 ne t, ' The Seon led S marry such women as seem good to you, an A m ir Feat , ‘ a

° ? ‘ote 20 :

two, three, four; but if you fear you will ugerian Arab who refused to make his not be equitable, then only one, or what sister available to the French colonialyour right hands own; so it is likelier you ists.2° Possession of Arab women came to

will not be partial.”!7 serve as a surrogate for and means to the The question whether Islam and its political and military conquest of the

social organization of men and women Arab wor onb

represented a significant improvement © necessary Connection between over previous family patterns and cus- phantasm and political agenda is identitomary tribal law in nomadic Arabia at fied and illustrated in Malek Alloula’s the time of Muhammad (seventh century presentation of the French colonial postA.D.) continues to be debated by scholars, C@"d. ““The Orient,”” he writes, ‘is no feminists and theologians, Muslim and longer the dreamland. Since the middle of

non-Muslim alike. Especially in recent ue arian Peay it has mene decades, that is, in the period following OS€F- SOlonlalism makes a grab Tor It,

independence, the various Arabic and 4PPropriates It by dint of war, binds it Islamic countries, such as Egypt, Jordan, nd and foot with myriad bonds of exMorocco, Tunisia, Algeria, and South ploitation and hands it over to the devourYemen, have promulgated legal reforms ing appetite of the great mother countries,

designed to improve the social and per- °"" hungry for raw materials.” (p. 3) xv

Introduction | More than analogy links the imperialist the French invasion led by Abd al-Qadir, project of colonizing other lands and peo- —_ who descended from a leading family of

ples with the phantasm of appropriation | marabouts, or holy men, collapsed in of the veiled, exotic female. The similar- 1847 when the Amir surrendered to the ity between penetrating the secret, tanta- | French. In 1857, Kabylia was subjugated lizing recesses of the harem and making _—_and the French conquest of Algeria was

the masqueraded pilgrimage to Mecca complete. and the holy Kaaba of Islam, which nine- The military invasion of Algeria teenth-century travelers like Sir Richard | was accompanied in the meantime by co-

Burton and A. Kinglake did,” revealsthe lonial settlement, and by 1870 nearly many guises under which imperialism | 250,000 colons had appropriated 674, penetrated the Arab world. During the 340 hectares of farmland and 160,000

First World War, T. E. Lawrence hectares of forestland. Under Roman inclaimed to champion the Arab cause, thus _ fluence and later under Ottoman control, earning Arab robes and the title ‘‘Law- _ the production of wheat had been encour-

rence of Arabia’’, but at the Parisconfer- | aged in Algeria, as in the rest of North ence following the war, herefusedtosup- | Africa, which contributed significantly to

port their demands for the independent ‘the food supply of the Mediterranean. Arab kingdom that their British and One effect of the French colonization of French allies had promisedtheminreturn North Africa was to shift the use of the for their support against the Germansand _ land from wheat crops to viniculture, not the Turks. Britain and France instead di- | only an abuse of the soil, which is now so

- vided the spoils between themselves, depleted as to make a return to wheat and leaving only the area of Palestine to be — grain production almost impossible, but

contested in a later struggle. an offense as well against indigenous France’s colonization of Algeria, | Muslim practice, which prohibits the however, had begun in 1830 when the drinking of wine. The Islamic judiciary French sent a military expedition to that | was suppressed, and the French policy of country following a quarrel involving in- | cantonnement confined the indigenous sult and financial debts betweenthe Turk- = population to specific areas. A series of ish dey of Algiers and the French consul _ laws continued to make traditional tribal in the city. A combination of domestic _ lands available to the colons for cultivapolitics, competition with England over __ tion and settlement. According to Abdalland and influence in Africa andthe Arab _ lah Laroui, a Moroccan historian: world, and imperial designs of its own —_ The history of Algeria from 1830 to then led France to embark ona policy of — 187] is made up of pretenses: the conquest in Algeria.” The resistance to cgjons who allegedly wished to transxvi

form the Algerians into men like them- FLN, continued to seek reform rather selves, when in reality their only desire than revolution, and Messali al-Hajj was to transform the soil of Algeria into formed his own Mouvement National French soil; the military, who suppos- Algérien (MNA). On 1 November 1954 edly respected the local traditions and the Algerian revolution broke out and the way of life, whereas in reality their French government responded by sendonly interest was to govern with the ing additional troops to reinforce its army least possible effort; the claim of Napo- of 50,000 soldiers already in Algeria.

leon III that he was building an Arab The nationalism that emerged in the kingdom, whereas his central ideas early decades of the twentieth century were the ‘‘Americanization’’ of the had begun as a demand by Algerians for French economy and the French coloni- _ full rights as French citizens without sur-

zation of Algeria.** rendering their personal status as MusTensions between Algerian Arabs lims. Even this agenda, however, proved and French settlers intensified, especially threatening to the French Sense of their after World War I. Of the 173,000 Alger- OW? Cultural and political superiority,

ian Muslims who served in the French and they undertook a program of active army , 25,000 lost their lives. Since their “!"0Tts to divert and neutralize any tenloyalty to France was neither recognized dency to develop an independent Alge-

nor rewarded, and since the French gov- ren national een With the suppresernment continued to respond to the set- on ane nee AAD Senoo's. Seca tlers’ pressure for disenfranchisement of the French we Algerian Arabs were the Muslim population, Algerian nation- schooled if at all, in French language alist sentiment began to find expression in history an d culture Those students who

various political movements and organi- ; __ ; leerians. which succeeded according to French standards

saa tote ang . ounted Farhat “re described by the French as évolués.

"Abbas among its leaders, sought assimi- smeae’s Caliban, whose profit’ from

lation into France on terms of equality. In \ ng the Eneli ‘ hl hat h

1926, the Etoile Nord-Africaine was earning t © mangas anguage was that he founded by Messali al-Hajj to coordinate hove knew how 0 curse went on to

Les : ecome leaders in the independence

activities of the North African workers in movement. At the same time. however

France. Both of these men would later be F +6 «civiligi sare Alver; , active in the Algerian revolution, al- Fance § GNM ZINg MAssion in “Algeria

though neither of them initially supported produced what Malek Haddad described the FLN. Farhat “Abbas, who eventually ina speech in Beirut in 1961 as , the most negotiated independence on behalf of the perfidious case of depersonalization in XVil

Introduction

history, a case of cultural asphyxia.’’** velop as a progressive Algerian conThis cultural tension is still evident today sciousness, too extensive an assimilation in the problems encountered by the Al- | would have been counterproductive, and gerian government’s ongoing program of __ thus French policy also included the sysArabization in education, inthe bureauc- —_ tematic subversion of the Algerian social

racy, and in daily life. Many of the most __ structure, traditions, and habits. Such a

prominent Algerian writers, like their program was not unique to the French. Tunisian and Moroccan counterparts, in- | The British too had attempted in India and

deed like Malek Alloula himself, an Al- Africa to collaborate with the women gerian living in France, continue to write under the pretext of liberating them from in French, a practice which remains cen- oppression by their own men: ‘‘brown tral to the contemporary Maghrib’s liter- | women saved by white men from brown ary debate. On the one hand, to write in men,’’ as Gayatri Spivak formulates the French is criticized as continued submis- _ practice in her analysis of widow sacri-

sion to the literary and ideological influ- fice, or suttee, in India and the British ence of the former colonizer. Abdelkebir —_ colonial efforts to intervene and allegedly

Khatibi, the Moroccan writer and critic, | reform the custom.’’ Similarly, in Kenmaintains, on the other hand, inhis study ya, in the 1920s, British missionaries | Le Roman maghrébin, that the use of the = were active in instigating the ChristianizFrench language by North African ing campaign against the tradition of fewriters can produce a kind of ‘‘irony malecircumcision. In his novel The River which would not only be a form of re- Between,”* the Kenyan writer Ngugi wa venge on the part of the colonized who Thiong’o describes the dilemma created had been oppressed and seduced by the _ by British interference and co-optation West, but would also allow the franco- _ for those who wished to reform the sociphone North African writer to distance ety from within. Kikuyu women in Kenya himself with regard to the language by _at that time began to demand the right to inverting it, destroying it, and presenting © womanhood through circumcision as an

new structures such that the French assertion of their Kenyan identity against reader would become a stranger in his _ the British imperialists. Fanon has ana-

own language.’’”® lyzed an analogous case in Algeria: _

“In the colonialist program,’” ac- The officials of the French administracording to Frantz Fanon, “‘it was the tion in Algeria, committed to destroying woman who was given the historic mis- yp, people’s originality, and under insion of shaking up the man.’ *° Although structions to bring about the disintegra-

education was one method the French tion, at whatever cost, of forms of exisused to assimilate what threatened tode- son ce likely to evoke a national reality xviii

directly or indirectly, were to concen- find on this soil. I needed to pretend it trate their efforts on the wearing of the was beautiful before daring to admire it veil, which was looked upon at this so passionately. It was in the days juncture as a symbol of the status of the — when I willingly confused art and na-

Algerian woman.”? ture. Now, what I like in this land is, I As would happen later in Iran during the am well aware, its wery hideousness, its

Khomeini-led revolution against the intemperate climate. what compels all

art not to exist . . . or to take refuge ;4:;, .elsewhere. *°

Shah’s dictatorship, Algerian women col-

lectively reassumed the veil, which previously had been predominantly anurban Michel, the hero of Gide’s L7mmoraiiste,

phenomenon, redefining it firstasasym- displays the same refusal to recognize in bolic, and later as a practical, instrument — the Algerian landscape the life and histor-

in their resistance to French domination. ical presence of a people. The children, The French found an independent whom the ailing Michel had met on his Algerian Arab social order compromis- _first visit to Biskra, are no longer intering to their political and cultural hegem- __ esting to him on the occasion of his sec-

ony over the country, and their concern ond encounter, when he finds them to with the existence and historical dynamic have grown two years older and to have of that order was largely negative. Their developed new activities and habits bindprogram, when not calculated to maxi- _ ing them to the social life of the oasis. mize exploitation, was the suppressionof _Bachir is now washing dishes in a cafe;

indigenous customs. The neglect for Ashour is employed breaking stones on

which Ahmed Taleb had reproached the highway; still another is selling Camus, who wrote of Algerian cities bread; Agib has become a butcher; Bou‘sans passé,’’ is evident as well in the baker is married. “And was this all that writings of other literary Frenchtravelers remained?” Michel responded to the to the North African coast. Their texts changes in the Algerian youths, “All that demonstrate the larger biases ofthe time. _ life had made of them?”*! The children’s In Amyntas, his collection of travel writ- very claim to a historicity of their own is ings from North Africa at the turn of the anathema to Gide’s aestheticism.

century, André Gide describes his enam- In The Stranger, Camus described ored response to the country andthe utter _ the violent intervention of Meursault and

‘“‘nothingness’’ he discovers there. his compatriot Raymond into Algerian

‘There was a time,”’ he writes, society but never recognized, acknowwhen I dared not admit to myself how ledged, or even named it as a society with

little refuge and nourishment art can its own internal structure, mores, and contradictions. The postcards presented xix

Introduction

in The Colonial Harem produce asimilar appropriation.** The Algerian nationalist

effect. They wrest certain features of | response, however, radically altered the Algerian life from their indigenous con- picture. When the French were chaltext only to reinscribe them within a _ lenged, not by the local appropriations of framework that answers to the political ethnically exclusive filial loyalties they and psychological needs of the imperial- had sought to exploit, but by the progres-

ist’S appropriation of the Orient. The _ sive affiliations of a resistance moveseries of postcards assembled inthechap- _ment, they, like Gide’s Michel, turned to

ter entitled ‘‘Couples’’ purport, for ex- refuge in the sheltering bosom of their ample, to represent Algerian life, notin motherland. Kateb Yacine, an Algerian the harem, which the Orientalist has al- —_ writer, accepts no excuse for such an atti-

ready isolated from its placeinthe home, tude, which he sees epitomized in Cabut in its domestic setting. For the pro- _mus’s capitulation to power: ducers and consumers of the images, 47 one time he was the friend of the “the Algerian couple is,” Alloulacom- people. This was understandable during ments, ‘‘just as counterfeitable as the rest the period of paternalism when the for the sake of the cause.” (p. 37) The im- power of the popular front had not yet position of the Western couple as the come into being. But this popular front model for family relations on a society — is now present and he is afraid; he that depends for the strength of its fabric pjjges himself behind attitudes such as: on kinship and an extended family net- if I had to choose between justice and work serves, as the commentary main- my mother, I would pick my mother.*4

tains, to “‘break up the very kernel of the

resistance to colonial penetration: thetra- ___+~—«-F Ae ~concern with genealogy and

ditional family.” (p. 39) lineage in modern Algerian novels, from As the Algerian novelist Rachid Kateb Yacine’s Nedjma (1956), dealing Boudjedra claims, ‘‘in Muslim societies, With the disarray pr oduced by the mixed

there is one reserved, almost taboo, do- ‘Marriage between an Algerian Berber main: the domain constituted by the prob- 494 a Frenchwoman, to Rachid Boudlems of the family.’’ The photographer’s jedra’s Les 1 001 années de la nostalgie entry into the home, with itshighly devel- (1979), which responds to the effects of oped organization of space consonant pan-Arab nationalism, testifies to the lar-

with an evolved social order, extends 8 literary project undertaken by conthe militant offensive of the colonial ‘¢mporary Maghrib writers. Such a promale’s intrusion into the protected space ject contends with the necessity of reof the harem. Each violation reenacts the | Working the lost order of the past into a

colonial phantasm of exploitation and future vision. That vision must not only XX

restore the interrupted history but reor- __ ture of the Eastern world, demands a reient it in terms that take into account the _ciprocal reorganization of the relations of intervening developments of colonial- power. ‘‘Above and beyond the anecdote

ism, revolution, and independence, as which ornaments it, the ‘harem connecwell as the combined influences of the tion’ betrays its deep affinity with an OcThird World and the former colonial — cident which is beginning to question the mother, France. Access tothe archivesof principles of its political institutions, the

history, which include oral tradition, aims of education, the role of the family, written narratives, photographs, and the _ the enigma of the relations between the documents and artifacts of the past, and § sexes—all questions which involve, even

the assumption of a historical role are more profoundly than may appear, the equally critical to this project. The popu- _— essence of its metaphysics.’’*®

lar memory must be restored but not Women writers of the Maghrib without a radical reexamination of the have already offered searching critiques cultural and political values that sustained of their contemporary societies and their

the colonial enterprise in its attempted historical conditioning. These writers, suppression of that memory through an _ like Fatima Mernissi from Morocco in enactment of its own fantasies of power. Beyond the Veil: Male-Female Dynamics Abdelkebir Khatibicommentsinhis in a Modern Muslim Society and the Alstudy of North Africa, Maghreb pluriel, — gerian Fadela M’rabet in her essays ‘‘La

on the historical coincidence of decon- Femme algérienne” and “Les Algéristruction and decolonization.**> In The — ennes,” have broached an area of interColonial Harem, Malek Alloula elicits —_ rogation from within their own traditions the combined force of the two tasks from _ that calls into question not only tradition, the point of view of the formerly colo- convention, and religion but the modern nized subject. His choice of the harem as _ uses of power in postindependence North topos suggests the various fronts, cultural Africa as well. Assia Djebar’s series of and political, on which the struggle has _histoires, Les Femmes d’Alger dans leur been played out andthe arenainwhichhis appartement, ‘‘translates,’’ she says, the own discourse will stand. Like the un- —_ polyphonic memory of the contemporary

named Arab in The Stranger, Alloula Algerian woman. ‘‘But from what lanchallenges the aggressor of his country- guage? From Arabic? From a popular women, but that challenge necessitatesan Arabic, or a feminine Arabic? One might

elaboration of the terms to be used inthe as well say, from a subterranean Araconfrontation. The commonplace of the __ bic,’’*’ Djebar evokes the heroines of Alharem, essential as a product of the West- _—_ gerian history: Messaouda, from the time

erm imagination and as a socialized fea- of Abd al-Qadir; Kahina, the ancestral xxi

Introduction

queen-mother of the Berbers; and Dja- —_ words, according to the perspective of the mila, too, from the Battle of Algiers. But} Moroccan critic Abdelkebir Khatibi:

the heroines of the stories themselves are = yo the point of view of what is still the generations of women of modern Al- called the Third World, we cannot pregeria. Her critique is thus addressed not eng thar decolonization has succeeded only to the former occupiers of Algeria in promoting a radically critical mode but also to those responsible for the pres- of thinking with regard to the ideologient condition of the Algerian woman, cal machine of imperialism and ethnooften referred to as the second of *‘two centrism, a decolonization which would colonialisms.”* *"That look was thought —_ pe at the same time a deconstruction of for a long time to be a stolenone because 4) 0.05 discourses which participate in

it was that of the stranger, from outside arious, more or less dissimulated, ways the home and the city. For several de- —j, imperial domination, understood here cades now, as one nationalism after an- aj. as the power of the word [parole]. other is successful, one realizes that in- No, we have not yet reached that decoloside that Orient delivered unto itself, the nization of thought which would be, over image of the woman is no differently per- 6, qhove a reversal of that power, the ceived: by the father, the husband, and in affirmation of a difference, and free and a way more troubling still, by the brother Gye ojute subversion of the spirit. There is

and the son.’°** there something like a void, a silent interUntil now, there have been two — yqj between the fact of colonization and

spectators, French and Algerian, in- shat of decolonization. Not that, here and volved in the observations of and on these there, there aren’ subversive and responpostcards; a third spectator is introduced gp 76 words which break forth and are with the English translation of Malek Al- elaborated, but something choked and alloula’s study. American readers of The most ost remains unspoken, does not as-

Colonial Harem, whether photog- gine the power and the risk.>

raphers, historians of colonialism, feminist theorists, or literary critics, bring to | Khatibi goes on to propose a double task

the photographs another socius, other for the Arab world, namely, the deconconditions of observation. These are not _—‘ struction of logo- and ethnocentrism,

directly involved perhaps in the French- | accompanied by the critique of selfAlgerian controversy, but they arecom- _—‘ reflexive discourses elaborated by the plicit nonetheless in the global politics of | different Arab societies. Malek Alloula’s

history and literature and in the regional The Colonial Harem rings a like chaldistribution of power whichis the context | lenge to Western readers and critics.

of these picture postcards. In other B.H. XXxil

The Colonial Harem

BLANK PAGE

Chapter 1

The Orient as Stereotype and Phantasm @

Arrayed in the brilliant colors of exoti- _ nialism makes a grab for it, appropriates cism and exuding a full-blown yet uncer- _it by dint of war, binds it hand and foot tain sensuality, the Orient, where unfath- with myriad bonds of exploitation, and omable mysteries dwell and cruel and hands it over to the devouring appetite of barbaric scenes are staged, has fascinated —_ the great mother countries, ever hungry and disturbed Europe for a long time. It —_ for raw materials.

has been its glittering imaginary but also Armies, among them the one that

its mirage. landed one fine 5 July 1830 a little to the Orientalism, both pictorial and lit- east of Algiers, bring missionaries and erary,/ has made its contribution to the — scholars with their impedimenta as well

definition of the variegated elements of as painters and photographers forever the sweet dream in which the West has _ thirsty for exoticism, folklore, Orientalbeen wallowing for more than four cen- _ism. This fine company scatters all over turies. It has set the stage for the deploy- _— the land, sets up camp around military

ment of phantasms.? messes, takes part in punitive expeditions There is no phantasm, though, with- (even Théophile Gautier is not exempt), out sex, and inthis Orientalism, aconfec- and dreams ofthe Orient, its delights and tion of the best and of the worst—mostly __ its beauties.

the worst—a central figure emerges, the What does it matter if the colonized very embodiment of the obsession: the Orient, the Algeria of the turn of the cenharem.’ A simple allusion to itisenough _ tury, gives more than a glimpse of the to open wide the floodgate of hallucina- _ other side of its scenery, as long as the

tion just as it is about to run dry. phantasm of the harem persists, espeFor the Orient is no longer the _ cially since it has become profitable? Oridreamland. Since the middle of the nine- _ entalism leads to riches and respectabil-

teenth century, ithasinchedcloser.Colo- ity. Horace Vernet, whom Baudelaire _ | 3

The Orient as Stereotype and Phantasm justly called the Raphael of barracks and __ card, there is the suggestion of a complete

bivouacs, is the peerless exponent of this | metaphysics of uprootedness.

| smug philistinism. He spawns imitators. Itis also a seductive appeal to the spirVulgarities and stereotypes draw upon __itofadventure and pioneering. In short, the the entire heritage of the older, precolo- _ postcard would be a resounding defense of nial Orientalism. They reveal all its pre- _‘ the colonial spirit in picture form. It is the

suppositions to the point of caricature. comic strip of colonial morality. It matters little if Orientalistic paint- But it is not merely that; it is more. ing begins to run out of wind or falls into _It is the propagation of the phantasm of mediocrity. Photography steps into take the harem by means of photography. It is up the slack and reactivates the phantasm _ the degraded, and degrading, revival of atits lowestlevel. Thepostcarddoesitone this phantasm.

better; it becomes the poor man’s phan- The question arises, then, how are tasm: for a few pennies, display racks full | weto read today these postcards that have of dreams. The postcard is everywhere, superimposed their grimacing mask upon

covering all the colonial space, immedi- the face of the colony and grown like a ately available to the tourist, the soldier, | chancre or a horrible leprosy?

the colonist. It is at once their poetry and Today, nostalgic wonderment and their glory captured for the ages; itisalso _—' tearful archeology (Oh! those colonial

their pseudoknowledge of the colony. It days!) are very much in vogue. But to produces stereotypes in the manner of _ give in to them is to forget a little too great seabirds producing guano. It isthe quickly the motivations and the effects of

fertilizer of the colonial vision. this vast operation of systematic distorThe postcard is ubiquitous. Itcanbe __ tion. It is also.to lay the groundwork for found not only at the scene of the crime it its return in a new guise: a racism and a perpetrates but at a far remove as well. xenophobia titillated by the nostalgia of Travel is the essence of the postcard, and __ the colonial empire.*

expedition is its mode. It is the fragmen- Beyond such barely veiled apolotary returntothe mother country. Itstrad- _gias that hide behind aesthetic rationali-

dles two spaces: the one itrepresents and zations, another reading is possible: a the one it will reach. It marks outthe pere- symptomatic one.

grinations of the tourist, the successive To map out, from under the plepostings of the soldier, the territorial thora of images, the obsessive scheme spread of the colonist. It sublimates the that regulates the totality of the output of spirit of the stopover and the sense of this enterprise and endows it with meanplace; it is an act of unrelenting aggres- _ ing is to force the postcard to reveal what

sion against sedentariness. In the post- _it holds back (the ideology of colonial4

ism) and to expose what is repressed init takes in such violence; it extends its ef-

(the sexual phantasm). fects; it is its accomplished expression, The Golden Age of the colonial no less efficient for being symbolic.®

postcard lies between 1900 and 1930.° Moreover, its fixation upon the Although a latecomer to colonial apolo- _woman’s body leads the postcard to paint getics, it will quickly make up for its be- this body up, ready it, and eroticize it in latedness and come to occupy a privi- order to offer it up to any and all comers leged place, which it owes to the infatua- from a clientele moved by the unambigtion it elicits, in the preparations for the uous desire of possession.

centennial of the conquest, the apotheosis To track, then, through the colonial

of the imperial epoch. representations of Algerian women—the In this large inventory of images figures of a phantasm—is to attempt a that History sweeps with broad strokes double operation: first, to uncover the na-

out of its way, and which shrewd mer- ture and the meaning of the colonialist chants hoard for future collectors, one gaze; then, to subvert the stereotype that theme especially seems to have found isso tenaciously attached to the bodies of favor with the photographers and to have women.

been accorded privileged treatment: the A reading of the sort that I propose

algérienne.°® to undertake would be entirely superfluHistory knows of no other society in _ ous if there existed photographic traces of

which women have been photographed the gaze of the colonized upon the coloon such a large scale to be delivered to _ nizer. In their absence, that is, in the ab-

public view. This disturbing and para- sence of a confrontation of opposed doxical fact is problematic far beyond the gazes, I attempt here, lagging far behind capacity of rationalizations thatimputeits History, to return this immense postcard occurrence to ethnographic attempts ata __to its sender.

census and visual documentation of hu- What I read on these cards does not

man types.’ leave me indifferent. It demonstrates to Behind this image of Algerian me, were that still necessary, the desolate women, probably reproduced in the mil- poverty of a gaze that I myself, as an Allions, there is visible the broad outline of gerian, must have been the object of at one of the figures of the colonial percep- some moment in my personal history. tion of the native. This figure can be es- Among us, we believe in the nefarious sentially defined as the practice ofaright effects of the evil eye (the evil gaze). We of (over)sight that the colonizer arrogates conjure them with our hand spread out to himself and that is the bearer of multi- like a fan. I close my hand back upon a form violence. The postcard fully par- pen to write my exorcism: this text. 5

BLANK PAGE

Chapter 2

Women from the Outside: Obstacle and Trans parency The reading of public photographs is always, at bottom, a private reading. Roland Barthes, Camera Lucida

The first thing the foreign eye catches concrete negation of this desire and thus about Algerian women is that they are brings to the photographer confirmation

concealed from sight. of a triple rejection: the rejection of his No doubt this very obstacle to sight desire, of the practice of his ‘‘art,’’ and of

is a powerful prod to the photographer his place in a milieu that is not his own.

operating in urban environments.’ It also Algerian society, particularly the determines the obstinacy of the camera world of women, is forever forbidden to operator to force that which disappoints him. It counterposes to him a smooth and

him by its escape. homogenous surface free of any cracks

The Algerian woman does not con- through which he could slip his indiscreet

ceal herself, does not play at concealing lens.

herself. But the eye cannot catch hold of The whiteness of the veil becomes her. The opaque veil that covers her the symbolic equivalent of blindness: a intimates clearly and simply to the pho- leukoma, a white speck on the eye of the

tographer a refusal. Turned back upon photographer and on his viewfinder. himself, upon his own impotence in the Whiteness is the absence of a photo, a situation, the photographer undergoes an veiled photograph, a whiteout, in techniinitial experience of disappointment and cal terms. From its background nothing rejection. Draped in the veil that cloaks emerges except some vague contours,

her to her ankles, the Algerian woman anonymous in their repeated resemdiscourages the scopic desire (the voy- blance. Nothing distinguishes one veiled eurism) of the photographer. She is the woman from another. 7

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10

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Young Moorish woman. 24

But, in barely perceptible fashion, 7 . — ee the of this will| :j llte| 2 y r * i losemeaning its fixedness and imprisonment progressively glide

toward an even more explicit expression * 5, A

of the sexual nature of the phantasm. % am Set. For indeed, these women are first » ~" gee ,

going to be stripped of their clothing by z | fa

the photographer, in an effort to render ¥ } a 1 \

their bodies erotic. These bodies may be wae : os ve.

out of reach, but their very remoteness s Bi ; reveals the voyeurism of the camera “Fe | oy f #

operator. This supplemental connotation —. 2 4 | af é allows us to consider the colonial post- 4 ~ r { . ee. fi

card, in its ‘‘eroticized’’ form, as the N., Ys a. \ ¢ ‘< BY mise-en-scéne by the photographer of his W. Gag / { bs * _

own voyeurism. To ignore this aspect, a a; , fe “ this index of obsessiveness, is to risk en- (Baw fy, ya dowing thethat colonial a i i) wis 4 ta. meaning was postcard never itswith own, except in = A .

masked form. a pe ‘ r illustration of the sexual connotation of - ~~ G One of the cards provides dramatic ae eo

confinement that is overdetermined by ‘ ; the phantasm of the harem. In it, the imprisonment of women becomes the equiv-

alent of sexual frustration. On the other side of the wall, a man is desperately

clutching the bars that keep him from the

object of his unequivocal yearning. The . , grimacelike countenance of his face, the4?¥ mask of suffering that is imprinted on it, leave no doubt about his intention to be united with the prisoner, the woman in ‘ , a

the harem. -" D Phe ' ‘ Vanresuue Moorish woman. 25

Women’s Prisons

§. here. : a aoe This ‘‘elaborated’’ staging (the tell‘ Ss 7 ie / : taleness of the postcard), which presupRe ee Shi ee en \ \) poses that the photographer is inside the

\i; 4LF ae ~ :>- »ay\Fe a) ~y \ place is highlyofrevealing. )cINNs } ISS \Y ' Itofis confinement, the imaginary resolution the hiatus ive , : Tee | Mest Xai that differentiates the inside from the outYY side; two spatial loci categories perded f. 8> )peFeaoe \ ceived as these the respective of theare fulfill-

‘ i 7 . fi) \ Ai ment and nonfulfillment of sexual desire. ‘ ws é Ff . AN It is also, for the photographer who must ) ) ‘ia. a : ' have gained access to the female world on

' i ‘fe i aa. } the other side of the bars, that is, must fa \S i haveexpression penetrated the the most iy$ZN xovercoming powerful ofharem, the symbolic ; a : yi]Ls*| aq of the obstacle.

' ai nS 7 In the paltry space of its representa‘: a. the postcard at long lastofoffers the : 2,: \8‘%| tion, photographer the possibility roaming

|

if alae©Xthrough the the siteanxiety of his that phantasms, andin-it 7 a | eR melts away attends the yy “hk * ce | Ss ability to achieve self-realization.

3 4 wk Q 7 mee) a 5 da, \s' \

Types Algériens, — Femme Mauresque, — ND Phot

ey _ ee eS a ec te...

a yay Zr:

S Cece cots gece 4 0 ae amee

i sare. ty Leles cout Ate low i yw b neni. ic.) FA.

| PE\~ BRAN | |hci

ee»/ . mn oa ™~ \ ae fft,P;wr mo te | ia v ' ~ Xie . ad. ey h 9 ; Pe ws) , in Xo y > “i j J ? oa . (TAKIN me ~~ “cps AS| fmy Ayfn |‘~ . ote S a . -_-7:.:;:-:-

na a } :, —eS) coalCn i om XSMe. i dees 1 i- OME PeaTe ie =ie: Si f

Pd id ° = is > : "> st . a Ex. « ~ Pa ' . . ; as - = ‘ » ‘ . Algeria. Group of Moorish women. (Written on card: Don’t get bored [signed:] L. Maurice.)

32

.‘t™ > ff }. >» \ a : : > 1D ‘an . } * ~ a “ ‘ : .A€ 2"). ; “ . Se Pas . } p . > ant ' ; a? x a, wi: f \ ~ * a _& »\e, .ay, Q?; ;fNS ‘,es a °Pam. b> ; / .ma F. hoe _s. Vie ::Fee :’q)i;:;e, t4ho) — :™! 7=ie! f;|qae yf; ,ay ?.rse.Sife lite , .. = -| }. a\ \\yy| a‘~“t ‘ d ; es ' . } Di” xiang ‘ ‘ gaat es wn alBite pA| , Me. wee iy¥ 4? " . .3 .y, ers™/*, .es .an At e:~~ 4, i -@l ’>} M;3 ,< ay dSee, 4a *sae |rae ee

4‘\ hh.. i!™Ty: < F Wizea—> Se =

» . wo fh “ la” a ‘Lo 4 SAM Vos) |“Ay ft eed / ieeta.Tira gt ‘

‘ ‘: 4;.\-‘2 \ : he & ~ ta " E) . \ a " ae . ¥ A 4;é«a3 ,: . + :}S~. >,oe iet1_. a> eb -/j “ an :\oa >7fi ‘— .i“:“J) 4 “Nee :ee > ¥\ .>

,“a » —_ ' ms! : 7: : ke *. NAY PY st > . o oy : ; — “L —e ‘=~ “ay .— a ,-

. 4ayF‘4 ozA =Hes, eo. ' 1% LYi ea = | 5 : : . j \ Jy a 2 oP : ; . : 4 : ; _ : Te "ee eee. © | 461 Mauresques dans leur intérieur J. Geiser, phot.-Alger

Moorish women in their quarters.

33

Women’s Quarters

The women’s quarters that the post-

. card sets out to explore cannot sustain the . “> illusion after a while, alibi however, even . though the ethnographic seems to

. suit it perfectly.

;7_in: & Again, the model and the studio will greatly compensate for the weakness of

. i! “ 3 tion.

~ the theme and the poverty of the imagina-

| Ss ee) e | EY q A few young women, seated on aS . 7B SR . XE AS _ . mats, posing in front of a hanging carpet

~~ mo; | Pe ‘a: Ze ~~ Vi will suffice to suggest the familiarity of c. De mk tase @ Pea eee : the photographer with the inside of this “a A aw

: fii a = models.

+ ° ; ° ° ‘ , ot "4, ; a meen . . :

7‘Ruta eee | The that exhibit this 0o4postcards Y for themselves: f | eee | theme¢ speak for examA rir TAL. TA ple, the squatting woman whose expres/ Pa A sion is the epitome of boredom while her

forever at attention. It :\ y. companions f . a is easy to stand imagine the photographer mov> . t z ing among the models, issuing instruc: Phin (ie HE ’ : a : tions on posture, and generally improv-

ial pa my aa ing the group’s photographic appearssn a ve ot a9 ge < ance, which, incidentally, calls to mind

tS ae, : ee the passing in review of the troops so dear tee. , ‘ a yostesD =) to colonial sensibilities. oe me a FO OB Besides the obvious fact of their ren’ v fabrication, these photos bring forth an i ae illusion, the first victim of which is the

tf, _ 7 , ™ ; a °

er X photographer,'® who is content to be re ae Og taken in. Like a new Alice, the camera ery de. operator has gone through the looking glass. But what he discovers, upon land-

Algeria. Beautiful Fatmah. ing at the end of his leap, is only the re34

flection that he elicits himself and elab- of Algiers and of Ingres’s Turkish Bath. orates. What he brings back from his Such a “pictorialism,” to apply Barthes’s expedition is but a harvest of stereotypes formula (Camera Lucida, p. 31), “is only that express both the limits of fabricated an exaggeration of what the Photograph realism and those of models frozen inthe _ thinks of itself.”

hieratic poses of death. For the colonial postcard, whose To photograph these women in _ daily lot is the stereotype, this exaggera‘‘their’’ quarters, ‘‘their’’ interior,istan- _ tion turns to madness, harem madness. tamount for the photographer, however,

to have come, on discrete tippy toes, close to a highly eroticized reality of the

Oriental world that haunts him: the harem. A lascivious world of idle women that lie adorned as if ready for unending festivities, the harem is deeply fascinating and equally disturbing. No doubt the conjunction of both of these responses is the basis for the photographic success of

the postcard on p.33. Having closed in upon something other than the unrelieved and boring expression of a stereotype, the photographer manages to convey a little of his excitement, of his jubilant vacillation.

Is it the aesthetically perfect presence of these ten women, whose gazes converge upon the one who is looking at them, that holds our attention? A sort of calm aura of harmony and equilibrium gives the composition an ambience rarely found elsewhere.’’ What is also striking about this postcard is no doubt its power of evocation, which turns it into a sort of masterpiece of the genre. When one looks at it, one can-

not help but see it as a kind of photographic synthesis of Delacroix’s Women 35

:;

, ; J oh ' re d ; ” ; Pex f = ae / 4 '~ ‘ / , eee) i. ba ’ .. 5 7 . — . or ati on ‘ ra v> hy Ai a. ‘Monk I ae . . ’. [+9 ¢ a. >”,a Women's Quarters

‘ Pol ’ hy ~ / 5% p > oeif) | oiSS| .2rey Nese ws 2 | Ay ae & STs Saale 3 ;We 2} ;uf 4) ? ? tA : , ew ‘ a3 zx : > 4 —_ : » mr ;Nie -NF—. a “aS

>OF :.; .* ax 7: at" Wee %, by’, +5 { Pte). : Psst ! i \g sms Ef%Qs Fy FAR ~m CoS «;Gx /;>.fi a3:| P;heh S fe ARS . ' PJ ~¢Px, “A 4 Fee ys & =::‘f s «, ; r Naan as = . top eae Wie Hy y 4. » hie ' ‘+. . Sy LFS hI } ‘ ’”” ‘\t we pe Pe - ~FN tye Sees “iete Hh .-,— Os.-ARS > *-— 4 °oN

, i.,oy sid nae . Cherie» SO a > ay ed | a= : vy ae}yo ee -. ———-

Se Re be ;

1 Se” FealOS (fp | ew as _: ;‘= ~ ¥. OM * te, EE » hd ages z S< Ale 4 $ " oe . , ——.. he ra yg ys ; \ a “hy ‘ atSn -PS -—‘eS ;ee 4ae .Lia , %.oyA » en Oe .~ ; pe, ee.een nr-oD o Meek 53 es e' Mauresques dans leu? intePiei”” —— “ satin

Collections ND Phot

Moorish women in their quarters.

36

Chapter 5

Couples Photography is worse than eloquence: it asserts that nothing is beyond penetration, nothing is beyond confusion, and that nothing is veiled. Paul Morand, Le Réveille-Matin (1937)

We know henceforth that the photogra- _ of the sexes that is presupposed by photopher has adequate means athisdisposalto —_ graphing a couple is doubly inconceivdeal with any subject, in his own way of able in the Algerian family at the begincourse. One such subject is couples, and _ ning of the century.

it presents a compelling ethnographic in- But none of that can dissuade the terest. As the constitutive unit of society, photographer from his undertaking. The the couple cannot be photographically § Algerian couple is just as counterfeitable

. avoided. as the rest of his subjects for the sake of However, in contrast to the series _ the cause. And so the photographer car-

on “women’s quarters” in which the doc- _ ries out, around this new theme, a proceumentation is relatively large, the series dure that could already be seen at work in on couples turns out to be quite lean. The — what has preceded and which once again nature of the subject as well as the diffi- | makes apparent the consequences of the

culty of finding male models no doubt distortion introduced by staging the phoexplains this shortcoming of photograph- _tograph.*®

ic “inspiration,” this thematic gap. A society in which social space is Moreover, if itis true that Algerian _ strictly divided into an inside and an outsociety is generally loath to let itself be | side cannot possibly accommodate a gaze

photographed, it makes sense that it — that, by definition, abolishes this rigid would be, a fortiori, even more loath to partition and seeks to make public that do so in the case of couples. The mixing — which is concealing itself. The photog37

Couples

rapher’s gaze reflects his dream of total transparency, of an absence of shadows, of a world in which uninterrupted com-

—mutually municationexclusive would reignspaces. between two eS. ga-~ sa When it undertakes to represent the

ora 9 couple, the postcard does much more than om ay ; ot it intends: it juxtaposes two perfectly hetera. a 4 N ett ogeneous spaces without any regard for a Seo att i os social equilibrium that it can neither unte , ! Hy derstand norupsets accept.the Theestablished artificiality order of the a , ly pose, which

. Ly (and the partition of space is part of this or-

+% SDFae eeRa f de visible in theof self-concious and as’ & :TE) 4 | der), Se ie |is sumed attitudes the models supposed to oa _ 4 a reconstitute couples in front of the lens. Ms Ee... p This suggests that such an order, which the

at \ ‘ “9 have interiorized since they ‘a ~ARq eemodels are partmust of Algerian society, sets up resisanne @ tances thatconditions are not very of easy to overcome a Sa Gp even under simulation. he wg AF The very idea of the couple is an

an ~ Ge Bie imported one which is applied to a society

- ~ cates i ee that operates on the basis of formations

| i - yet aS that are rm greater than simple twoness, such “* : as the extended family, the clan, or the

E tribe. The couple, in the Western sense, - | is; ‘enaatieadlte an aberration, a historical error, an un‘ a thinkable possibility Algerian society. =F , La FANCAISE a Beyond ain simple photographic act

\

_ ee ate ® pr ¥ that, in a sense, would either proclaim its ‘ hi aaa & innocence or assert its commonplace, the Hastings thie. Oe | ‘ ii representation of the couple is the expres8. ALOERIE —~ Fens eee sy Po sion of a double symbolic violence perpe-

ee e trated upon Algerian society: it rear-

ranges its space and its structure on the Algeria. Native family. basis of alien criteria. 38

We have here the implementation of

an arbitrariness that precedes the post- , wt card and provides it with its **moral’’ jus- .

tification: colonial arbitrariness. For its ) : part, the colonial postcard offers ittoobvithis ; >) original arbitrariness—which ously doesthat notissee in these terms—an expression perniciously idealized ait “aa — 4| Coa because it presents it as “‘objectively’’ Ps | ¥ Ignite nes. accomplished (the of objectives photographic /. 7“a2 He:i xse evidence), of one of credit the chief a y |-wu of colonization, namely the breakup of am | ’ ; 4 / aS \ the very kernel of the resistance to colo- R P i mw | } | *s

nial penetration: the traditional family. ee Te ‘* / } ie

First colonized, then rearranged ete , ae PY he

family becomes, incriteria, the postcard, only thePS, = ao, —a along bourgeois the Algerian s .©| 7fs~\ f, exotic (see the dress) replica of its Euro- ey [ ~ rA\ \ \

pean counterpart. ee an 4 FS: ») 3 | - q . ; \ In the imaginary space of the post- as fe Re katy cALE. | ; ie card, where all social connections have | te wee a i | Bi « 4 been reduced and put out of sight, the —% 3 Se \ 4 fy 3 zs > . f

ideal social unit in which the modern 7 =o en HX | . 1 i couple, of a more | epee 0 0k \ i. ee rationalitself ordertheofexpression which colonization is \ oy | | (yy 5i supposedly the purport, finally makes its oe ‘et, on -

appearance and takes the place of the if : aN . 7

family. . ray ¥ ee 7b ‘“‘anarchic,’’ irreducible, traditional :

6282, SCENES ET TYPES. — Famille Mauresque. ~— LL.

Scenes and types. Moorish family. 39

Couples

The photographer makes these cou- _ the family. It aims to evoke the idea of a

ples posing in the studio express more _ birthrate perceived as being out of conthan they are capable of saying. He man- _ trol, which colonial ideology attributes to

ipulates, in spite of them (note the stiff “cultural belatedness” and to stagnation.

and reticent attitudes), a meaning of It suggests the swarming of an anarchic which their bodies (forced to stand side progeny that certainly received its share by side in the representation of the cou- _ of critical attention in colonial literature,

ple) are the silent yet eloquent signs. where it was denounced as a sequela to There is also evident here another aspect the state of barbarism that preceded of the symbolic violence, but this time it colonization. The postcard takes over this is carried out upon individuals who are — bromide in order to illustrate it in its own

made exemplary by the postcard. The way, that is, by making it visual. photographer frees himself of the respon- From this perspective, the postcard sibility for this violence by the remunera- _onp. 42 is of arare eloquence since it pre-

tion given to the model, thus acquitting sents, against the backdrop of a natural himself of the violation that he secretly decor, acouple with a child, in which the

perpetrates. spouses are no more than twelve or thirIf one examines these photographic teen years old. The very possibility of documents a little more closely, another such a falsification tells us a great deal objective becomes apparent beyond the about the permanence of the great coloethnographic concern of the photog- nialist stereotypes and about their almost raphers. He hastakencareto preserve the obsessive character. What this document everday appearance of the couples that insists upon, beyond any possibility of are immortalized inthem: they wear ordi- _ verisimilitude, is the idea of a monstrous nary clothing. This forced ‘‘realism’’ is | barbarism that does not even spare child-

supposed to suggest a scene taken from hood.

life, a snapshot, that is, to guarantee addi- To the innocent games of adolestional truthfulness, something that the cence, barbarism substitutes the weight postcard is particularly eager to have of premature paternity and maternity. since that is what it most lacks.'? Young girls do not play with dolls but alThese photos of couples have an- ready rock flesh-and-blood babies in their other characteristic linked to their preoc- arms—when they are not feeding them cupation with realism: children appear from their barely formed breasts.

alongside their fictional parents. This ‘‘laying waste’’ of childhood is This addition of children answers to further aggravated, if that is possible, by

another necessity as well, less easy to the photographer, who adds here and acknowledge than the idyllic portrait of there redundant signs that serve as the 40

P , €th-. =, p ae ; ta#*:’oe 2 ‘ od & od

‘ te 7 a | a ro Fi. “AP | rot hd '(a \ | 37, - fae sor . a / i ; ~ ~—« we :% \ ae ae 6boaneteiyae“ ag evag¥ SS StaofSS ,1®*7% CY,_a;

a > iL = _ abe ‘apg sity

~ ~~ . ——_ 7 h. 4Ma ; 4SS 2~ “N pa ony . ~~ .