13.10. The C-130 Hercules aircraft of the air Forces of the algerian landed in a roar of propellers while it is high, on the tarmac overheated by the blazing sun, the voice of the military officer with the place of the ceremony : “Welcome, hero, welcome in your land “. The plane will make a turn at the top of the capital then flowed out of youyous balconies algiers… The audience was like paralyzed, while decreased little by little the din of the Hercules carrying since France, the mortal remains of 24 resistant algerians kept, for more than a century and a half, at the natural history Museum of Paris.
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Home solemn
The three fighter aircraft Sukhoi that accompanied the Hercules on its entry in the airspace of algeria have redone a passage in ebp-motte, the paratroopers have jumped on the tarmac of the airport Houari Boumadyan with flags algerians deployed. The guns of the republican guard and warships of the navy were fired in volleys. No doubt, the authorities have really cared for the official reception of the mortal remains of the chiefs-resistant as Chérif Boubaghla, who died in 1854, Sheikh Bouziane, head of the revolt of the Zaatchas, shot and then beheaded in 1849, or If Mokhtar ben Kouider al-Titraoui. “All private for more than 170 years of natural right and human to be buried “, in the words of the president Tebboune the day before.
The coffins were carried by young cadets of the nation, students of preparatory schools, military, marching like soldiers under the rhythm of rolling drums. The descent of the plane, they began a slow procession in front of the units of the various army corps which had made the tributes to arrive at the entrance hall of the memorial hall of the airport, where they expected the senior civilian and military officials, Abdelmadjid Tebboune at their head. This last past her mask of protection, was moved to tears…
Object of blackmail “
The day before, he had announced the return of the bodies stating : “The repatriation of the mortal remains of other war victims [martyrs] deported post-mortem will follow, because the State is committed to carry out this business to bring all our war victims on this land they have so long cherished and for which they have sacrificed what they had most dear, their lives.” According to the ministry of Moudjahidine (war veterans), 31 skulls have already been identified until January 2019. The operation continued and a technical commission of experts algerians has been put in place to enable the identification of the skulls of these resistant algerians. The coffins covered with flags algerians were then deposited into the large reception room of the Salon. An imam has recited the Fatiha of the Qur’an, followed by the speech of the chief of staff of the army, general of army corps Said Changriha, which stated, inter alia, that ” these heroes stayed for more than a century and a half in the basement of the colonizer have been the object of blackmail on the part of lobbies residues of colonization and racist “.
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Tribute popular…
The remains will then be forwarded to the Palace of culture on the heights of Algiers to expose them to the public until Friday. The funeral will take place on Sunday 5th July in the Square of the Martyrs in the cemetery of El Alia-the resting place of the great figures of algerian history, as the Emir Abdelkader, of which the remains have been repatriated from Damascus in July 1966 by president Houari Boumadyan .
as a reminder, it is at the initiative of the historian of the algerian Ali Farid Belkadi that a petition has been launched in may 2001 to require the restitution of the skulls of the fighters algerians. This appeal was launched a year after the vote by the French Parliament of a law requiring ” restitution [to New Zealand] of all the heads of maori held in France “. The academic and writer algerian Brahim Senouci had also launched a new call for that to be returned to the ” heads of the resistance fighters algerians held by the Museum of man “, in order that their country honors, this time with an echo of a much wider.
… and work of alarm memory
In 2017, another petition has relançé the debate. It was signed by algerian intellectuals and French as historians Benjamin Stora, Mohammed Harbi and Malika Rahal or even the writer Didier Daeninckx. “Support the calls of algerian citizens to repatriate these remains to their country, to give them a dignified burial, as was done for the rebel maori or resistant kanak Ataï and his companions [in 2014], never to return no way for us to give in to any tendency of “repentance” or a supposed “war of memories”, which would have strictly no sense. It is only of help to get out of oblivion one of the pages in the dark history of France, those in which erasing is currently participating in the drift xenophobic that gangrènent the French society “, as stated in this call. In the same year (2017), the secretary-general of the national Organization of the mujahideen (ONJ), Said Abadou, reiterated, on the occasion of the celebration of the national Day of immigration, the need to demand the French authorities apologize to the algerian people, compensation for the wealth being dispossessed during the colonial period and the restitution of the skulls of veterans affairs ” to be buried in the cemeteries of war victims [martyrs] in Algeria.”
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Ethnocentrism and racism
Commenting on the preservation of the skulls of the resistance and algerian in a French museum, the sociologist Hassan Remaoun, has estimated that the sequestration of these human remains, during a long period of time, was not ” a decision of war, but a crime absolute against humanity “, calling this act ” morbid and criminal.” “The physical Anthropology of western footprint at the time of ethnocentrism and racism, was in need of these relics to “prove” the physical superiority and moral of “the white man” and, therefore, his predisposition to deploy a civilizing mission through the rest of the world, ” said the researcher to the official agency APS. It cites the case of the Herero of namibia, which, after having been subjected to a veritable ethnocide, have had their bones transported in Germany, for support through so-called scientific studies, theories that will help to pave the way for nazism “.
And to conclude : “the bones of the colonial era no longer have the same meaning in this beginning of the Twenty-first century, where the statues of slavery and the general colonial tend to be déboulonnées in their country of origin (…).It is still the case that, while getting rid of exhibits blatant showing of the colonial past of their country, the French authorities have without a doubt given to this action like a gesture in the direction of our country, and it will be possible to accept it as such, if it is followed by other in the future “.
writing will advise you
Ben Jelloun – France-Algeria : a novel to appease the memory hurt Algeria : the Assembly sanctuarise in the Memory of the “crimes of colonialism” Algeria : the remains of the first resistant anticoloniaux return Narratives from Algeria : Algeria in the picture all summer in Switzerland
