Trapped in the Cage of the Past, Algeria Must Navigate the Line Between Memory and Moving Forward as Paris Olympics Stirs French-Algerian Wounds

 

Algeria has much to celebrate with the end of the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris, taking the podium in gymnastics, boxing, and athletics. Yet while the country celebrates the victories, its athletes share the spotlight with headlines focusing on the country’s history with France. Newspapers described the sight of the Algerian flag and its anthem in Paris with symbolic weight, celebrating these feats as a point of pride for the country, which started its war of independence from its former French colonizer 70 years ago on November 1, 1954. According to Algerian novelist and journalist Said Khatib, these are victories in a battle no other country is competing in, let alone concerned with.

 

History and memory occupy the foremost discussions surrounding Algeria and its path from 132 years of French colonial rule. Political talks between Algerian president Abdelmadjid Tebboune and French President Emmanuel Macron about a ‘renewed partnership’ between the two countries have gone on for years of lukewarm results. France’s reluctance to acknowledge its part in erasing Algerian memory remains the most significant contention. This year’s Olympics, bringing the world’s eye to France’s capital city, became another reminder of the countries’ complicated relationship, disappointing some.

 

Said Khatib airs out his frustrations in Al Quds Al Arabi, criticizing Algerian media’s obsession with the presence of a flag and anthem over the athletes who won medals. This points to a more significant issue: this attitude paints Algeria as if it is still in an ongoing war with France, unable to move on from the past to focus on the present, writes Khatibi.

 

Experiences and immediate memories of the Algerian war are far removed from large portions of Algeria’s population. Khatibi points out that the Algerian athletes participating in the Olympic games have no connection to the colonial era outside of history lessons in school, “yet they found themselves trapped in this cage of the past as if the past is what guides our steps toward the future, not the present.” Unlike Algeria, other countries in previous Games paid no particular attention to their flags or anthems while on the playing fields of their former colonizers. He suggests France would not bat an eyelid at its own flag or anthem in Algeria. Rather than a source of pride, Khatibi views the media response as an embarrassing indicator of Algeria’s inability to separate itself from the shadow of its former colonizer.

 

Khatibi evokes the arguments of French Afro-Caribbean philosopher Frantz Fanon, who stressed the necessity of liberating Algerian imagination from its inferiority to France. According to Fanon, France’s 132-year-long colonization produced two groups in Algerian society: the civilized (the colonists) and the uncivilized (natives). He describes how after the country’s independence, people sought to resemble the colonists, becoming a mirror of the French while desiring their acceptance and validation. The dichotomy was apparent in the region’s adoption of colorist beauty standards and its attachment to the French language, which remains Algeria’s most spoken language to this day. In the words of Khatibi, “Algerians are divided into two groups: one group wants to imitate the old colonizer and integrate with him, while the other group fails and demonizes him.” Over 60 years since independence, the Algerian imagination has become consumed by ghosts of the past to the point that it cannot define its identity outside of the war.

 

 

 

 

 

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