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The attempts to reappropriate women’s history are visible today in the efforts to highlight Algerian heroines in the national narrative and make their journeys known. The magazine La Place (1), which was founded by young feminists, presents the often-hidden history of Algerian women in multiple articles across its first issues. Its second issue contains a portrait of the legendary—but very real—Fatma N’Soumer, born in 1830, the first year of French colonization. She went against all social norms and ultimately became the female symbol of resistance and the fight for freedom.
Fatma N’Soumer, “Djurdjura’s Joan of Arc” as the columnists of French colonization dubbed her, would not be the only pioneer of her stature. The liberation movement would come to know thousands like her during each of its stages.
Yet when the country regained its independence in 1962, the official version of History only recorded a few iconic faces of the martyrs of the revolution.
Celebrated for their “beauty, patriotism, and the courage they displayed alongside their brothers,” these militant women became locked in a romantic tale of planting bombs and working as dedicated nurses in the maquis, portrayed as village women preparing patties and couscous for the fighters.
The angelic face of Hassiba Benbouali, the audacity of the highly publicized Djamila Boupacha, who was defended by Gisèle Halimi against French judges and supported by Simone de Beauvoir, even painted by Pablo Picasso, and finally, the absolute icon: Djamila Bouhired, who was filmed by Youssef Chahine and sung about by Fairouz… These are all historical figures whose coverage pushed all other militant women behind the scenes of History.
The first historical works, written by male historians who were often participants in the liberation movement, only dedicate a few paragraphs to women’s patriotism and their undeniable contribution to the war effort.
Clichés of virgin fighters, “beautiful and rebellious”
It wasn’t until the 1980s that women’s existence in the national historical fabric started to be unveiled. In 1988, Djamila Amrane, née Danièle Minne, a former mujahida (militant), presented a thesis on Algerian women in the war. This work, which was published in 1991, made known previously ignored data.
Amrane’s research is based on statistics from the Ministry of Former Mujahideen and on the testimonies of surviving militant women. It teaches us that of the eleven thousand militant women officially recorded, 8% were killed by the French army. These numbers, very important for the collective memory of Algerian women, do not truly measure the extent of their sacrifices.
Louisette Ighilahriz, born in 1936, waited until June 2000, after the death of her father, to reveal that she had been raped in French prisons. This testimony, published by French newspaper Le Monde, provoked people and earned her hostile reactions and criticism from those closest to her. The cliché of female fighters being “beautiful, rebellious, and above all, virgins” has been a heavy weight for women to carry, especially those whose bodies were subjected to the torture of colonialist executioners and the machismo of national movement leaders. This machismo was quick to surface post-independence.
Resistance fighters once, resistance fighters forever
In the 1980s, the male-dominated National Popular Assembly got ready to adopt the new Family Code, which is sadly infamous among feminists as the “Infamy Code.” Baya Hocine, née Mamadi, an MP, journalist, and former mujahida—who was sentenced to death at the age of 17—took to the podium to challenge the bill. She was “mocked, hissed at, and insulted by men, none of whom had taken part in the independence war.”
It was back to the kitchen for these women of independent Algeria, which carved into stone a sub-citizen status for women, women who had given everything for their country. In the version of History written by men, women have no political role, even though they were politically active very early on. As such, the National Liberation Front (FLN) did not have any women in its leadership during the revolution, and even less in the version of the FLN as the sole party in power post-independence.
Yet the historian Malika Korso (2) recalls “the permanent struggle” of women that dates back to their resistance in the 19th century. Besides, didn’t they create associations like the Union of Algerian Women, which was close to the Communist Party in 1947?
Algerian women, and among them the former militants, have never stopped their political action to wrest their rights as citizens. They even proved it again during the resistance against armed Islamism and its terrorist groups.
They were at the forefront of the popular 2019 Hirak demonstrations, where they called for their demands despite reluctance and the famous “now is not the time.” Feminist protest has not weakened, though it is expressed today in other forms.
“Women have long been ignored by History. They are frustrated by what history recalls, a history that is practically amnesiac, that has rendered women absent from the life of the nation. They are fighting to be present in today’s struggle, just like they fought in the past to contribute to the fight for liberation,” Malika Korso emphasizes.
But it now seems that these histories are in good hands, as young women filmmakers, writers, academics, and historians are keeping these stories alive, fulfilling the aspirations of Algerian women to be recognized for their historical struggles and to achieve equality.
