Traces of Colonisation
L’Algérie Algérienne
Picture this, you’re living peacefully, minding your own business in your homeland, until some envious, greedy leader wants what your country has, and, in France’s case, they wanted to clear their debts without actually paying.
Suddenly, you become a stranger in your own home, lands get stolen, mass murder, and many horrible things, I’m using euphemistic language, I don’t want anyone to get sick.
By the way, does that sound familiar? that’s exactly what’s happening in Palestine, but I’m praying it won’t them take 132 years of colonisation to get their independence.
62 years after breaking free from the occupation, yet, there are still some traces left, but they’re slowly disappearing.
“سجل
Write down
انا عربي
I am an Arab
ولون الشعر فحمي ولون العين بني
Hair colour: coal-like; eye colour: brown
وميزاتي: على رأسي عقال فوق كوفية
Distinguishing marks: I wear a headband on top of a keffiyeh
وكفي صلبة كالصخر… تخمش من يلامسها
And my palm is rock-solid, scratches whoever touches it
وعنواني: انا من قريــــة عزلاء… منسية
As to my address: I am from an isolated village, forgotten
شوارعها بلا اسماء
Its streets are unnamed
وكل رجالها… في الحقل والمحجر
And all its men are in the field or in the stone quarry”
-Mahmoud Darwish- (Identity Card)
The very first thing any coloniser does is attacking the colonised country’s identity, the language, religion, and customs, many of my old relatives don’t know how to read and write in Arabic, why? because the French regime made sure to erase Arabic at that time, and even after, at school, my parents had to study almost all subjects in French.
But my generation won’t speak French, nope, it was forced on us, we didn’t choose it, English on the other hand is spreading like wild fire, and the next generation is worse, so yeah, it’s getting forgotten.
Despite the fact that I speak French well, I grew up in a francophone household, my dad’s obsession with Francis Cabrel, Victor Hugo and Jean Jacques Rousseau became my obsession, yet, I still refuse to use it more than Arabic.
I have a friend who really loves French, and is always like: “Come on, it’s a romantic language”, I’m not going to lie and say that it doesn’t have a certain musicality, but that’s the difference, he likes the language, so, it’s okay, I’m not going to judge him and say “You traitor!”, plus, I don’t hate French people, we can’t blame them for their ancestors’ sins.
Algeria is not the country of one million and half of martyrs, no, because that’s the death toll from 1954 to 1962, it’s more than 10 million, and there are many bodies that are still missing, and many others who were used as laboratory mice for the nuclear testing that France conducted in the Algerian Sahara, EVEN AFTER INDEPENDENCE, the first test 1960 was called “Blue Jerboa” the nuclear bomb was three times bigger than the one dropped by USA on Nagasaki, I can’t write more on this topic without getting sick myself, here is an article related to it https://bbc.com/news/world-africa-56799670
There is a lot more to write about Algerian history, I just can’t share everything in one article.
I’ll always be grateful to be born after independence, and grateful for my people for fighting to release our country from the colonisers’ grip.
Peace to you all 🍉
