It is an unknown part of the History of France. This Friday, Algeria recovered during a solemn military ceremony the remains of 24 of its combatants killed at the beginning of French colonization in the 19th century.
Skulls returned by France in a gesture of appeasement, which for decades were stored at the Musée de l'Homme in Paris. The coffins of the "martyrs" were greeted by Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune and a military hedge of honor. Before their transfer to the Palace of Culture, where they will be exhibited throughout the day on Saturday. They will be buried the next day, Independence Day, in the Martyrs' Square in the cemetery of El Alia in Algiers.
"The heroes of the People's Revolt return to the lands for which they sacrificed their lives," said chief of staff Said Chengriha in a speech, blasting "ignoble colonialism".
This restitution is a strong sign of a thaw in relations between Algeria and the former colonial power, marked since independence in 1962 by recurrent controversies and tensions.
It was only in January 2018 that Algeria officially asked France to return the skulls and the colonial archives. During a visit to Algiers in December 2017, French President Emmanuel Macron undertook to return the Algerian human remains pic.twitter.com/3PgpKE2XAD
- Farid Benamer-B (@faridbbf) July 3, 2020“This gesture is part of a process of friendship and lucidity on all the wounds in our history. This is the meaning of the work that the President of the Republic has undertaken with Algeria and which will be continued, with respect for all, for the reconciliation of the memories of the French and Algerian peoples, "declared the French Presidency.
"Out of oblivion from the dark pages of our history"
“Through this kind of gesture, France rediscovers its History. This helps to get out of the dark pages of our history. One had the feeling that the colonial conquest had been brief. But the construction of large Haussmannian cities like Algiers or Oran, roads, hospitals ... Was built on massacres, on terrible things, "recalls historian Benjamin Stora, interviewed by AFP.
This war of conquest started in 1830 until the capitulation of Emir Abd el-Kader 17 years later. But the war will be far from over.
A war marked by military violence. "And then a pseudo-scientific aspect. It was a question of hierarchizing the races, the species. The combatants' skulls were transferred to France (they were beheaded after being shot, note) to find out why they had been so resistant to "the penetration of civilization". We had to understand why "they didn't understand". This will be the case throughout the 19th century, ”continues the historian.
We therefore talked a lot about violence and atrocities during the Algerian war (1954-1962) "we discovered that there was another, even more insane violence that deeply shook Algerian society from 1830 to 1902 with the complete conquest of the Sahara ”, underlines Benjamin Stora who evokes in particular the episode of Zaâtcha, place of a revolt in 1849 directed by the emir Bouziane whose skull is part of the remains given to Algeria.
At a time when we unbolt the statues of actors in colonialism, the historian would rather be for the fabrication of a place, a space or a museum, "where we would group and explain for the young generations who were these characters, what this French history has been ”.
- Colonization
- History
- Society
- Algeria