More languages
More actions
Table of contents
Psychosomatic disorders.
A marked increase in mental disorders and the creation of conditions favorable to the development of specific morbid phenomena are not the only consequences of the colonial war in Algeria. Quite apart from the pathology of torture there flourishes in Algeria a pathology of atmosphere, a state which leads medical practitioners to say when confronted with a case which they cannot understand: "This'll all be cleared up when this damned war is over."
We propose to group together in this fourth series the illnesses met with among Algerians, some of whom were
-289-
interned in concentration camps. The main characteristic of these illnesses is that they are of the psychosomatic type.
The name "psychosomatic pathology" is given to the general body of organic disorders the development of which is favored by a conflicting situation. *
The name psychosomatic is used because the determinism is psychic in origin. This pathology is considered as a means whereby the organism responds to, in other words adapts itself to, the conflict it is faced with, the disorder being at the same time a symptom and a cure. More precisely, it is generally conceded that the organism (once again we are speaking of the cortico-visceral unity, the psychosomatic unity of former times) resolves the conflict by unsatisfactory, but on the whole economical, means. The organism in fact chooses the lesser evil order to avoid catastrophe.
On the whole, this pathology is very well known today, although the different therapeutic methods proposed (relaxation and suggestion, for example) seem to us very uncertain. In the Second World War in England during the air raids and in the Soviet Union among the besieged populations of towns, notably in Stalingrad, there was a great increase in reports of the occurrence of such disorders. Today, we know very well that it is not necessary to be wounded by a bullet in order to suffer from the fact of war in body as well as in mind. Like all other wars, the Algerian war has created its contingent of cortico-visceral illnesses. With the exception of Group G described below, all the disorders met with in Algeria have already
*This nomenclature which expresses an idealist conception is less and less frequently used. In fact the terminology "cortico-visceral" inherited from Soviet research work-- especially that of Pavlov--has at least the advantage that it puts the brain back in its place, that is to say it considers the brain as the matrix where, precisely, the psychism is elaborated.
-290-
been described during the course of "traditional" wars. Group G seems to us to be specific to the colonial war in Algeria. This particular form of pathology (a generalized muscular contraction) had already called forth attention before the revolution began. But the doctors described it by portraying it as a congenital stigma of the native, an "original" part of his nervous system where, it was stated, it was possible to find the proof of a predominance of the extra-pyramidal system in the native. * This contracture is in fact simply the postural accompaniment to the native's reticence, the expression in muscular form of his rigidity and his refusal with regard to colonial authority.Psychiatric symptoms encountered.
A. Stomach ulcers.
Very numerous. The pains are felt predominantly at night, with considerable vomiting, loss of weight, sadness and moroseness, and irritability in exceptional cases. It should be noted that the majority of these patients are very young: from eighteen to twenty-five years old. As a general rule, we never advise surgical intervention. A gastrectomy was performed on two occasions, and in these two same cases a second intervention was necessary in the same year as the first.
B. Nephritic colic.
Here again we find pains which came on intensely at night. Obviously, stones are hardly ever present. These colics may occur, though rarely, in patients from fourteen to sixteen years old.
C. Menstruation trouble in women.
This pathology is very well known, and we shall not spend much time on it. Either the women affected remain three or four months without menstruation, or else con-
*The higher a person is on the neurological plane, the less he is extra-pyramidal. As we see, everything tallies.
-291-
siderable pain accompanies it, which has repercussions on character and conduct.
D. Intense sleeplessness caused by idiopathic tremors.
The patients are young adults, to whom all rest is denied because of a generalized slight shaking, reminiscent of a total case of Parkinson's disease. Here too, "scientific thinkers" could invoke an extra-pyramidal determinism.
E. Hair turning white early.
Among the survivors of the interrogation centers, the hair often turns white suddenly, either in patches, in certain areas, or totally. Very often this is accompanied by serious debility and sexual impotence.
F. Paroxysmal tachycardias.
The cardiac rhythm accelerates abruptly: 120, 130, or 140 per minute. These
tachycardias are accompanied by anxiety, and by an impression of imminent death: the end of the crisis is marked by a heavy sweating fit.
G. Generalized contraction with muscular stiffness.
These symptoms are found in patients of the masculine sex who find it increasingly difficult (in two cases the appearance of the symptoms was abrupt) to execute certain movements: going upstairs, walking quickly, or running. The cause of this difficulty lies in a characteristic rigidity which inevitably reminds us of the impairing of certain regions of the brain (central gray nuclei). It is an extended rigidity and walking is performed with small steps. The passive flexion of the lower limbs is almost impossible. No relaxation can be achieved. The patient seems to be made all of a piece, subjected as he is to a sudden contraction and incapable of the slightest voluntary relaxation. The face is rigid but expresses a marked degree of bewilderment.
The patient does not seem able to "release his nervous tension." He is constantly tense, waiting between life
-292-
and death. Thus one of these patients said to us: "You see, I'm already stiff like a dead man." *
Criminal impulses found in North Africans which have their origin in the national war of liberation.
It is not only necessary to fight for the liberty of your people. You must also teach that people once again, and first learn once again yourself, what is the full stature of a man; and this you must do for as long as the fight lasts. You must go back into history, that history of men damned by other men; and you must bring about and render possible the meeting of your people and other men.
In reality, the soldier who is engaged in armed combat in a national war deliberately measures from day to day the sum of all the degradation inflicted upon man by colonial oppression. The man of action has sometimes the exhausting impression that he must restore the whole of his people, that he must bring every one of them up out of the pit and out of the shadows. He very often sees that his task is not only to hunt down the enemy forces but also to overcome the kernel of despair which has hardened in the native's being. The period of oppression is painful; but the conflict, by reinstating the downtrodden, sets on foot a process of reintegration which is fertile and decisive in the extreme. A people's victorious fight not only consecrates the triumph of its rights; it also gives to that people consistence, coherence, and homogeneity. For colonialism has not simply depersonalized the individual it has colonized; this depersonalization is equally felt in the collective sphere, on the level of social structures. The colonized people find that they are reduced to a body of individuals
*It is hardly necessary to add that there is no question here of hysterical contraction.
-293-
who only find cohesion when in the presence of the colonizing nation.
The fight carried on by a people for its liberation leads it, according to circumstances, either to refuse or else to explode the so-called truths which have been established in its consciousness by the colonial civil administration, by the military occupation, and by economic exploitation. Armed conflict alone can really drive out these falsehoods created in man which force into inferiority the most lively minds among us and which, literally, mutilate us.
How many times -- in Paris, in Aix, in Algiers, or in Basse-Terre -- have we not heard men from the colonized countries violently protesting against the pretended laziness of the black man, of the Algerian, and of the VietNamese? And yet is it not the simple truth that under the colonial regime a fellah who is keen on his work or a Negro who refuses to rest are nothing but pathological cases? The native's laziness is the conscious sabotage of the colonial machine; on the biological plane it is a remarkable system of auto-protection; and in any case it is a sure brake upon the seizure of the whole country by the occupying power.
The resistance that forests and swamps present to foreign penetration is the natural ally of the native. His point of view must be understood; it is time to stop remonstrating and declaring that the nigger is a great worker and that the Arab is first-rate at clearing ground. Under the colonial regime, what is true for the Arab and for the Negro is that they should not lift their little fingers nor in the slightest degree help the oppressor to sink his claws deeper into his prey. The duty of the native who has not yet reached maturity in political consciousness and decided to hurl back oppression is literally to make it so that the slightest gesture has to be torn out of him. This is a
-294-
very concrete manifestation of non-cooperation, or at least of minimum cooperation.
These observations, which concern the relations between the native and his work, could equally be applied to the respect the native has for the oppressor's laws, to the regular payment of rates and taxes, and to the relations which the native has with the colonial system. Under the colonial regime, gratitude, sincerity, and honor are empty words.
During the last few years I have had occasion to verify a very classic fundamental idea: that honor, dignity, and respect for the given word can only manifest themselves in the framework of national and international homogeneity. From the moment that you and your like are liquidated like so many dogs, you have no other resource but to use all and every means to regain your importance as a man. You must therefore weigh as heavily as you can upon the body of your torturer in order that his soul, lost in some byway, may
finally find once more its universal dimension. During these last years I have had occasion to see that in wartime Algeria honor, selfsacrifice, love of life, and scorn of death have taken on no ordinary forms. There is no question of singing the praises of those who are fighting. We are concerned here with a very ordinary statement which even the most rabid colonialists have not failed to make: the fighting Algerian has an unusual manner of fighting and dying, and no reference to Islam or to Paradise can explain that generous dedication of self when there is question of defending his people or shielding his brothers. And then there is that overwhelming silence -- but of course the body cries out -- that silence that overwhelms the torturer. Let us admit there here we find again that very ancient law which forbids any element whatsoever to remain unmoved when the nation has begun to march, when man affirms and
-295-
claims at the same time his limitless humanity.
Among the characteristics of the Algerian people as observed by colonialism we will particularly notice their appalling criminality. Before 1954 magistrates, policemen, barristers, journalists, and legal doctors agreed unanimously that criminality in Algeria was a problem. It was affirmed that the Algerian was a born criminal. A theory was elaborated and scientific proofs were found to support it. This theory was taught in the universities for over twenty years. Algerian medical students received this education and imperceptibly, after accommodating themselves to colonialism, the elite came also to accommodate themselves to the inherent stigma of the Algerian people: they were born slackers, born liars, born robbers, and born criminals.
We propose here to repeat this official theory, and to recall to mind the concrete bases and the scientific arguments used to create it. Later on we shall go over the facts and try to reinterpret them.
The Algerian frequently kills other men. It is a fact, the magistrates will tell you, that four-fifths of cases brought to court deal with blows and woundings. The proportion of criminality in Algeria is one of the heaviest and largest in the world, or so they affirm. There are no minor delinquencies. When the Algerian, and this applies equally to all North Africans, puts himself outside the law, it is always outside to the maximum.
The Algerian kills savagely. First, the favorite weapon is the knife. The magistrates "who know the country" have created a minor philosophy on this subject. The Kabyles for example prefer a pistol or a gun. The Arabs of the plain have a preference for the knife. Certain magistrates wonder if the Algerian has not an inner need for the sight of blood. The Algerian, you are told, needs to feel warm blood, and to bathe in the blood of his victim.
-296-
These magistrates, policemen, and doctors hold serious dissertations on the relationship between the Moslem soul and blood. *
A certain number of magistrates go so far as to say that the reason why an Algerian kills a man is primarily and above all in order to slit his throat. The savagery of the Algerian shows itself especially in the number of wounds he inflicts, some of these being unnecessary once the victim has been killed. Autopsies establish one fact incontestably: the murderer gives the impression, by inflicting many wounds of equal deadliness, that he wished to kill an incalculable number of times.
The Algerian kills for no reason. Very frequently magistrates and policemen are nonplused by the motives of a murder; it may arise out of a gesture, an allusion, an ambiguous statement, a quarrel over an olive tree which is possessed in common, or an animal which has strayed by an eighth of an acre. Confronted by such a murder, sometimes by a double or triple murder, the looked-for cause and the expected motive which would justify or give grounds for these murders in finally found to be of disap, pointing triviality. From thence springs the frequent impression that the social group is hiding the real motives.
Finally, robbery as practiced by an Algerian is always coupled with housebreaking whether accompanied or not by manslaughter, and in any case with aggression against the owner.
All these elements which cluster around Algerian criminality have appeared to specify its nature sufficiently clearly to enable a tentative systematization to be built up.
Similar though somewhat less weighty observations were made in Tunisia and Morocco; and thus the question
*In fact we know that Islam forbids its followers to eat meat unless they are sure that the animal has been drained of its blood. This is why the animals' throats are cut.
-297-
shifted more and more onto the ground of North African criminality. For over thirty years, under the constant direction of Professor Porot, professor of psychiatry on the faculty of Algiers, several teams worked with the aim of specifying the forms of expression of this criminality and of establishing a sociological, functional, and anatomical interpretation for them.
We shall here quote the main works on this subject by the psychiatric school of the faculty of Algiers. The conclusions of the researches carried on for over twenty years were, let us recall to mind, the subject of authoritative lectures from the Chair of Psychiatry.
It is thus that Algerian doctors who are graduates of the faculty of Algiers are obliged to hear and learn that the Algerian is a born criminal. Moreover, I remember certain among us who in all sincerity upheld and developed these theories that we had learned. We even add "It's a hard pill to swallow, but it's been scientifically established."
The North African is a criminal; his predatory instinct is well known; his intense aggressivity is visible to the naked eye. The North African likes extremes, so we can never entirely trust him. Today he is the best of friends, tomorrow the worst of enemies. He is insensible to shades of meaning, and Cartesianism is fundamentally foreign to him; the sense of balance, the weighing and pondering of an opinion or action clashes with his most intimate nature. The North African is a violent person, of a hereditary violence. We find him incapable of self-discipline, or of canalizing his impulses. Yes, the Algerian is a congenital impulsive.
But we must be precise. This impulsiveness is largely aggressive and generally homicidal. It is in this fashion that we come to explain the unorthodox behavior of the Algerian who is a prey to melancholia. The French psy-
-298-
chiatrists in Algeria found themselves faced with a difficult problem. They were accustomed when dealing with a patient subject to melancholia to fear that he would commit suicide. Now the melancholic Algerian takes to killing. This illness of the moral consciousness, which is always accompanied by auto-accusation and auto-destructive tendencies, took on in the case of Algerians heretodestructive forms. The melancholic Algerian does not commit suicide. He kills. This is the homocidal melancholia which has been thoroughly studied by Professor Porot in the thesis of his pupil Monserrat.How did the Algerian school deal with such an anomaly? First, said the school of Algiers, killing oneself is a turning into and against oneself; it implies looking at oneself; it means practicing introspection. Now the Algerian is not given to an inner life. There is no inner life where the North African is concerned. On the contrary, the North African gets rid of his worries by throwing himself on the people who surround him. He does not analyze.
Since by definition melancholia is an illness of the moral conscience it is clear that the Algerian can only develop pseudo-melancholia, since the precariousness of his conscience and the feebleness of his moral sense are well known. This incapacity on the part of the Algerian to analyze a situation and to organize a mental panorama is perfectly understandable if we refer to the two classes of causality set forth by French writers.First we must notice intellectual aptitudes. The Algerian is strongly marked by mental debility. If we are to really understand this datum we must go back to the semiology established by the Algerian school of psychiatry. The native, it is stated by them, presents the following characteristics:
Complete or almost complete lack of emotivity. Credulous and susceptible to the extreme.
-299-
Persistent obstinacy.
Mental puerility, without the spirit of curiosity found in the Western child. Tendency to accidents and pithiatic reactions. *
The Algerian does not see the whole of a question. The questions he asks himself always concern the details and exclude all synthesis. He is a pointillist, clinging to objects, lost in details, insensible to ideas, and impervious to concepts. Verbal expression is reduced to a minimum. His actions are always impulsive and aggressive. He is incapable of grasping detail when looking at the whole, and he absolutizes the element and takes the part for the whole. Thus, he will have total reactions when confronted with particular incitements and with insignificant causes such as a fig tree, a gesture, or a sheep on his land. His congenital aggressivity finds ways of expressing itself on the slightest pretext. It is a state of aggressivity in its purest form. †
Leaving the descriptive stage, the Algiers school begins on that of explanation. It was in 1935 at the Congress of Mental Specialists and Neurologists that Professor Porot defined the scientific bases of his theory. In the discussion that followed the report by Baruk on hysteria, he pointed out that "the native of North Africa, whose superior and cortical activities are only slightly developed, is a primitive creature whose life, essentially vegetative and instinctive, is above all regulated by his diencephalon."
** Professor A. Porot, Medico-psychological Annals.
†In the mouth of the doyen of the judges of a court in Algeria, this aggressivity on the part of the Algerian is expressed by his love of the "fantastic." "We are wrong," he stated in 1955, "in believing this whole revolt to be political. From time to time that love of a scrimmage that they have has to come out!" For the ethnologist, the establishment of a series of tests and projective games which would have canalized the global aggressive instincts of the native would have had in 1955-56 the power to bring the revolution in Aurès to an end.
-300-
In order to estimate the importance of this discovery of Professor Porot's, we should remember that the characteristic of the human species when compared to other vertebrates is that it is corticalized. The diencephalon is one of the most primitive parts of the brain and man is above all the vertebrate in which the cortex dominates.
For Professor Porot, the life of the native of North Africa is dominated by diencephalic urges. It is as much as to say that in a way the native North African is deprived of a cortex. Professor Porot does not shrink from this contradiction and in April, 1939, in the Southern Medical and Surgical Gazette he states precisely, in collaboration with his pupil Sutter who is at present professor of psychiatry in Algiers: "Primitivism is not a lack of maturity or a marked stoppage in the development of the intellectual psychism. It is a social condition which has reached the limit of its evolution; it is logically adopted to a life different from ours." Finally, the professors come to the very basis of the doctrine:
This primitivism is not merely a way of living which is the result of a special upbringing; it has much deeper roots. We even consider that it must have its substratum in a particular predisposition of the architectonic structure, or at least in the dynamic hierarchization of the nervous centers. We are in the presence of a coherent body of comportment and of a coherent life which can be explained scientifically. The Algerian has no cortex: or, more precisely, he is dominated, like the inferior vertebrates, by the diencephalon. The cortical functions, if they exist at all, are very feeble, and are practically unintegrated into the dynamic of existence.
There is thus neither mystery nor paradox. The hesitation of the colonist in giving responsibility to the native is not racism nor paternalism, but quite simply a scientific appreciation of the biologically limited possibilities of the native.
-301-
Let us end this review by seeking a summing-up which takes the whole of Africa for its field from Dr. A. Carothers, an expert from the World Health Organisation. This international expert brought together the essentials of his observations in a book which was published in 1954. *
Dr. Carothers' work was carried on in Central and East Africa, but his conclusions form a group with those of the North African school. For in fact the international expert states: "The African makes very little use of his frontal lobes. All the particularities of African psychiatry can be put down to frontal laziness." †
In order to make his point clearer, Dr. Carothers establishes a lively comparison. He puts forward the idea that the normal African is a "lobotomized European." We know that the Anglo-Saxon school believed that they had found a radical cure for certain serious forms of mental illness by practicing the section of an important part of the brain. Since then, however, the esablishment of the fact that this method seriously impaired the personality has led to its being abandoned. According to Dr. Carothers, the likeness existing between the normal African native and the lobotomized European is striking.
Dr. Carothers, having studied the works of different authors working in Africa, offers us a conclusion which is the basis of a uniform conception of the African. He writes:
Such are the given facts of the case which do not concern European categories. They have been gathered in different regions of East, West, and South Africa, and on the whole each author had little or no knowledge of the work of the
*A. Carothers, "Normal and Pathological Psychology of the African," Ethno-psychiatric Studies (Ed. Masson).
†Op. cit., p. 176.
-302-
others. The essential similarity of these researches is therefore quite remarkable. *
We should point out before concluding that Dr. Carothers defined the Mau-Mau revolt as the expression of an unconscious frustration complex whose reoccurrence could be scientifically avoided by spectacular psychological adaptations.
So it was that unusual behavior--the African's frequent criminality, the triviality of his motives, the murderous and always very bloody nature of his brawls--raised a problem in observers' minds. The proposed explanation, which has come to be taught as a subject in the universities, seems in the last analysis to be the following: the layout of the cerebral structures of the North African are responsible both for the native's laziness, for his intellectual and social inaptitude and for his almost animal impulsivity. The criminal impulses of the North African are the transcription into the nature of his behavior of a given arrangement of the nervous system. It is a reaction which is neurologically understandable and written into the nature of things, of the thing which is biologically organized. The lack of integration of the frontal lobes in the cerebral dynamic is the explanation of the African's laziness, of his crimes, his robberies, his rapes, and his lies. It was a sub-prefect who has now become a prefect who voiced the conclusion to me: "We must counter these natural creatures," he said, "who obey the laws of their nature blindly, with a strict, relentless ruling class. We must tame nature, not convince it." Discipline, training, mastering, and today pacifying are the words most frequently used by the colonialists in occupied territories.
If we have spent a long time in going over the theories
*Op. cit., p. 178.
-303-
held by colonialist scientists, it was less with the intention of showing their poverty and absurdity than of raising a very important theoretical and practical problem. In fact, Algerian criminality only represented a sub-section of the questions which were raised by the revolution, which could be reasoned out on the level of political discussion and de- mystification. But it so happens that the talks which formed the subject of this theme were so fruitful that they allowed us to understand and discern more deeply the idea of social and individual liberation. When in revolutionary practice the question of Algerian criminality is raised in the presence of leaders and militants, when the average figures of crimes, misdemeanors, and robberies are cited for the period before the revolution, when it is explained that the nature of a crime or the frequency of offenses depends on the relations which exist between men and women and between persons and the state, and when everybody understands this; when we see before us the breaking-up of the idea of the Algerian or the North African who is a criminal by vocation, an idea which was equally implanted into the consciousness of the Algerian because after all "we're a quick-
tempered, rowdy, bad lot; that's the way it is": then it can be said for sure that the revolution is making progress.
The important theoretical problem is that it is necessary at all times and in all places to make explicit, to de-mystify, and to harry the insult to mankind that exists in oneself. There must be no waiting until the nation has produced new men; there must be no waiting until men are imperceptibly transformed by revolutionary processes in perpetual renewal. It is quite true that these two processes are essential, but consciousness must be helped. The application of revolutionary theory, if it is to be completely liberating and particularly fruitful, exacts that nothing unusual should exist. One feels with particu-
-304-
lar force the necessity to totalize the event, to draw everything after one, to settle everything, to be responsible for everything. Now conscience no longer boggles at going back into the past, or at marking time if it is necessary. This is why in the progress made by a fighting unit over a piece of ground the end of an ambush does not mean rest, but rather is the signal for consciousness to take another step forward, for everything ought to keep pace together.
Yes, the Algerian of his own accord accepts the verdict of the magistrates and the policemen. * So we had to take this Algerian criminality which was experienced on the narcissistic level as a manifestation of authentic virility, and place the problem on the level of colonial history. For example, we had to show that the criminal tendencies of Algerians in France differed fundamentally from those of the Algerians who were submitted to exploitation which was directly colonial.
A second thing ought to be noticed: in Algeria, Algerian criminality takes place in practice inside a closed circle. The Algerians rob each other, cut each other up, and kill each other. In Algeria, the Algerian rarely attacks Frenchmen, and avoids brawls with the French. In France, on the other hand, the emigrant creates an intersocial and intergroup criminality.
In France, Algerian criminality is diminishing. It is directed especially at the French, and its motives are
*It is moreover clear that this identification with the image picture produced by the European was very ambivalent. In fact the European seemed to be paying homage--an equally ambivalent homage--to the violent, passionate, brutal, jealous, proud, arrogant Algerian who stakes his life on a detail or on a word. We should point out in passing that in their dealings with the French of France, the Europeans of Algeria tend to identify themselves more and more with this image of the Algerian in opposition to the French.
-305-
radically new. A certain paradox has helped us considerably in de-mystifying the militants: it has been established that since 1954 there has almost been a disappearance of crimes in common law. There are no more disputes and no longer any insignificant details which entail the death of a man. There are no longer explosive outbursts of rage because my wife's forehead or her left shoulder were seen by my neighbor. The national conflict seems to have canalized all anger, and nationalized all affective or emotional movements. The French judges and barristers had already observed this; but the militant had to be made conscious of it; he had to be brought to understand the reasons for it.
It remains for us to give the explanation.
Should it be said that war, that privileged expression of an aggressivity which is at last made social, canalizes in the direction of the occupying power all congenitally murderous acts? It is a commonplace that great social upheavals lessen the frequency of delinquency and mental disorders. This regression of Algerian criminality can thus be perfectly explained by the existence of a war which broke Algeria in two, and threw onto the side of the enemy the judicial and administrative machine.
But in the countries of the Magrab which have already been liberated this same phenomenon which was noticed during the conflicts for liberation continues to exist and even becomes more marked once independence is proclaimed. It would therefore seem that the colonial context is sufficiently original to give grounds for a reinterpretation of the causes of criminality. This is what we did for those on active service. Today every one of us knows that criminality is not the consequence of the hereditary character of the Algerian, nor of the organization of his nervous system. The Algerian war, like all wars of national liberation, brings to the fore the true protagonists. In the
-306-
colonial context, as we have already pointed out, the natives fight among themselves. They tend to use each other as a screen, and each hides from his neighbor the national enemy. When, tired out after a hard sixteen-hour day, the native sinks down to rest on his mat, and a child on the other side of the canvas partition starts crying and prevents him from sleeping, it so happens that it is a little Algerian. When he goes to beg for a little semolina or a drop of oil from the grocer, to whom he already owes some hundreds of francs, and when he sees that he is refused, an immense feeling of hatred and an overpowering desire to kill rises within him: and the grocer is an Algerian. When, after having kept out of his way for weeks he finds himself one day cornered by the caid who demands that he should pay "his taxes," he cannot even enjoy the luxury of hating a European administrator; there before him is the caid who is the object of his hatred--and the caid is an Algerian.
The Algerian, exposed to temptations to commit murder every day--famine, eviction from his room because he has not paid the rent, the mother's dried-up breasts, children like skeletons, the building-yard which has closed down, the unemployed that hang about the foreman like crows--the native comes to see his neighbor as a relentless enemy. If he
strikes his bare foot against a big stone in the middle of the path, it is a native who has placed it there; and the few olives that he was going to pick, X--'s children have gone and eaten in the night. For during the colonial period in Algeria and elsewhere many things may be done for a couple of pounds of semolina. Several people may be killed over it.
You need to use your imagination to understand that: your imagination, or your memory. In the concentration camps men killed each other for a bit of bread. I remember one horrible scene. It was in Oran in 1944. From the camp where we
were waiting to embark, soldiers were throwing bits of bread to little Algerian children who fought for them among themselves with anger and hate. Veterinary doctors can throw light on such problems by reminding us of the well-known "peck order" which has been observed in farmyards. The corn which is thrown to the hens is in fact the object of relentless competition. Certain birds, the strongest, gobble up all the grains while others who are less aggressive grow visibly thinner. Every colony tends to turn into a huge farmyard, where the only law is that of the knife.
In Algeria since the beginning of the war of national liberation, everything has changed. The whole foodstocks of a family or a mechta * may in a single evening be given to a passing company. The family's only donkey may be lent to transport a wounded fighter; and when a few days later the owner learns of the death of his animal which has been machine-gunned by an airplane, he will not begin threatening and swearing. He will not question the death of his donkey, but he will ask anxiously if the wounded man is safe and sound.
Under the colonial regime, anything may be done for a loaf of bread or a miserable sheep. The relations of man with matter, with the world outside, and with history are in the colonial period simply relations with food. For a colonized man, in a context of oppression like that of Algeria, living does not mean embodying moral values or taking his place in the coherent and fruitful development of the world. To live means to keep on existing. Every date is a victory: not the result of work, but a victory felt as a triumph for life. Thus to steal dates or to allow one's sheep to eat the neighbor's grass is not a question of the negation of the property of others, nor the transgres-
*Mountain village in Algeria.--Trans.
sion of a law, nor lack of respect. These are attempts at murder. In order to understand that a robbery is not an illegal or an unfriendly action, but an attempt at murder, one must have seen in Kabylia men and women for weeks at a time going to get earth at the bottom of the valley and bringing it up in little baskets. The fact is that the only perspective is that belly which is more and more sunken, which is certainly less and less demanding, but which must be contented all the same. Who is going to take the punishment? The
French are down in the plain with the police, the army, and the tanks. On the mountain there are only Algerians. Up above there is Heaven with the promise of a world beyond the grave; down below there are the French with their very concrete promises of prison, beatings-up, and executions. You are forced to come up against yourself. Here we discover the kernel of that hatred of self which is characteristic of racial conflicts in segregated societies.
The Algerian's criminality, his impulsivity, and the violence of his murders are therefore not the consequence of the organization of his nervous system or of characterial originality, but the direct product of the colonial situation. The fact that the soldiers of Algeria have discussed this problem; that they are not afraid of questioning the beliefs fostered among themselves by colonialism; that they understand that each man formed the screen for his neighbor and that in reality each man committed suicide when he went for his neighbor: all these things should have primordial importance in the revolutionary conscience. Once again, the objective of the native who fights against himself is to bring about the end of domination. But he ought equally to pay attention to the liquidation of all untruths implanted in his being by oppression. Under a colonial regime such as existed in Algeria, the ideas put forward by colonialism not only influenced the European minority, but also the Algerians. Total liberation is that which concerns all sectors of the personality. The ambush or the attack, the torture or the massacre of his brothers plants more deeply the determination to win, wakes up the unwary and feeds the imagination. When the nation stirs as a whole, the new man is not an a posteriori product of that nation; rather, he co-exists with it and triumphs with it. This dialectic requirement explains the reticence with which adaptations of colonization and reforms of the façade are met. Independence is not a word which can be used as an exorcism, but an indispensable condition for the existence of men and women who are truly liberated, in other words who are truly masters of all the material means which make possible the radical transformation of society.