The Algerian Civil War of the 1990s

Algeria, a country the side of the American Midwest and located in North Africa, was colonized by the French in 1830 and won its independence after a violent revolution in 1962. The ruling revolutionary party ran the country until the late 1980s when it opened up to a multiparty election. Religious conservatives and Islamists were on a path to win the election when the military-industrial power stepped in. A civil war broke out between them which targeted ordinary people as well as Algerian intellectuals and artists who remained culturally connected to the former colonial power, France, and whose lives were shaped by Western standards of dress and social interaction and not the standards of a growing Islamic fundamentalism. The war caused a reported 200,000 deaths and ended when a revered Algerian political figure was assassinated and the military leaders instituted an amnesty program. One of the particularities of this war was how little it was reported on both in Africa and abroad, a hidden tragedy that foreshadowed what would happen later during the “Arab Spring” when people in Tunisia, Egypt and Syria called for democratic reform.

Gender Roles and Spaces

The Mediterranean has always been a stronghold of patriarchal rule in the public square and matriarchal power in private spaces. Female characters in literature and film often symbolize the emergent nation from the male point of view, and the threshold between these two gendered spaces is a theater of tension. No doubt, Algerian women suffer today from societal and often familial patriarchal dominance whenever they seek to fulfill themselves personally, sexually and professionally. Even though women have legal rights, many are discouraged by social expectations and abide by cultural norms rather than new laws. Yet, as the film shows, Algerian women are strong! They fought side by side men in the War of Independence, and, in the last decades, especially during the recent Hirak uprising, which sought to move the country towards democratic norms, many women have protested and insisted on having their voices heard. Women students are now the majority in universities and often employed in the judiciary. Papicha investigates the power relations between genders during the fraught decade of the civil war.

Amazigh symbolism

Although the film does not directly represent issues pertaining to Amazigh identity, when the main character seeks courage and moral clarity take note: the filmmaker introduces Amazigh elements. Look out for these!