Algerian Echoes

28 Pages·2014·0.67 MB·English

by  Terence Moore

Algerian Echoes
Young Canadians look inside the Algerian revolution and
strive for a better world
Re-living the 1964 International Seminar
of World University Service of Canada
50 years later –
and where we went after that
Edited by
Terence Moore, Christina Cassels and Sheila Haniszewska
November 2014
Algerian Echoes (cid:29)(cid:1)
CContents
Page
Beverley McLachlin 3
(cid:1) peers into our dimming eyes and finds a youthful spark
Ozzie Schmidt 4
(cid:1) recalls where we went during our month in Algeria
List of seminar participants 5
Raymond Chrétien 6
(cid:1) reviews our meeting with Ahmed Ben Bella and what became
of Algeria after we returned home
Gordon Echenberg 7
(cid:1) documents the anti-Semitism that drove Jews out of Algeria
Lynn Smith 8
(cid:1) remembers Algeria’s revolutionary government decreed
gender equality — but it doesn’t work that way
Beverley Bie Brahic 9
(cid:1) savours the memories that come with her Algerian treasures
Jean-François Gautrin 10
(cid:1) raconte son évolution politique
Ozzie Schmidt 11
(cid:1) found out how vast and diverse Canada was
Roger Roy 12
(cid:1) recalls how different Algeria was from his home town
Sheila Haniszewska 13
(cid:1) learned from Algeria’s independence struggle to challenge
injustice
Gordon Parks 14
(cid:1) learned from the Algerian seminar to enjoy diversity
Len Varrasso 15
(cid:1) found he had to defend his views on Canadian unity
Who are all these people? 16
(cid:1) Our lives, briefly
In Memoriam, 25
(cid:1) Irénée Pelletier
(cid:1) Shirley Cull
Faculty Update 26
In conclusion, CChris Eaton 27
(cid:1) describes the lasting impact of the WUSC International
Seminar
Algerian Echoes (cid:30)(cid:1)
A certain wise contentedness
Alumni from the 1964 Algeria seminar of World University Service of
Canada gathered for a 50-year reunion in Montreal and Sainte-Adèle on
September 5, 6 and 7, 2014 – 50 years older and 50 years wiser.

By Beverley McLachlin
S
ainte-Adèle was the same — bucolic, quiet, quaint and a little out of date. But
everything else had utterly changed — or so I thought at first.
For starters — and what could I have expected? —we all looked different.
Fifty years is fifty years; that was then and this is now. I thought that on the whole we
looked better. Sure we were a little portlier, sure we had wrinkles, sure we had different
coloured hair and sometimes less, but the fresh dewy uncertainty of fifty years ago had
been replaced by a certain wise contentedness that sat on us well.
For
seconds, we acted
different. We
talked less and
about different
things. Then we
talked about food,
dates and
Marxism. Now we
talked about —
well let’s face it —
grandkids,
grandkids and
more grandkids.
For thirds,
most of us came
with permanent
partners. Then we were a bunch of fanciful kids on our own. Now we were accompanied
and encumbered. The partners were wonderful. Even those who did not bring a partner
paid tribute to their partners in their comments. I realized how much better our life
companions had made us, how they had enriched what we had and what we were.
So much had changed. But some things were the same.
Our enthusiasm was the same. As we shared our memories informally and at the
closing dinner, the idealism of 1964 shone through, the relish of the new and the unknown
was evident. Most of us, we discovered, had spent the intervening half-century doing
mostly what we talked about doing then –- writing, public service, using our abilities and
assets such as they were to try to make the world a bit better.
We had not changed all that much after all.
Algerian Echoes (cid:31)(cid:1)
If it’s Saturday, this must be Beni Isguen
Our month-long look at the Algerian revolution
By Ozzie Schmidt
O n Thursday June 18, forty-three students (15 females and 28 males) from 33
universities in all ten provinces gathered at Dorval airport and were bused to
Sainte-Adèle, for a one-week orientation for their visit to Algeria, WUSC’s first
seminar in North Africa. We had been divided into five thematic groups: Education, led by
Prof. Maurice Barbeau (also the Seminar’s overall Director) from Laval; Political Science,
led by Prof. John Wood from UBC; Law and Constitution, led by Prof. Desgagné from
Laval; Geography and related Sciences, led by Prof. Paul Vandall from Windsor
University; Medicine and Health, led by Dr. Marcel Drolet from Sherbrooke. Shirley Cull
organized our travels and Uwe Reinhardt ably provided administrative support throughout
the seminar.
On Wednesday June 24, the group flew to Paris Orly airport, transferred to the
Gare de Lyon for a day-long train trip to Marseille. On Saturday 27 June the group
embarked on the SS Kairouan to Algiers, and reached the Cité Universitaire de Ben
Aknoun late the next day. During the following week there were daily activities between
more serious learning: on Monday June 29 an overview of Algiers by bus, and an evening
performance by the Algerian National Theatre; Tuesday July 1, the Canadians presented
hastily-rehearsed skits and songs at the university; on Friday July 3, a day trip by bus from
Algiers via Zaralda and Tipaza to the town of Cherchell, lunch and afternoon in Tipaza;
Sunday July 5, the Algerian Independence Day celebration; Monday July 6, a day trip to
Beni Yennie in the Kabylie in the Atlas mountain range via Tizi-Ouzou and return to
Algiers via Boghni, Dra-El-Mizan and Palestro; Tuesday afternoon July 7, at the beach of
Sidi Ferruch and an evening of films about Algeria; and on Wednesday afternoon July 8, a
meeting with Algeria’s President Ahmed Ben Bella. Then ensued frantic packing for the
bus tour southwards into the Sahara desert.
Thursday July 9, we got underway at 5 a.m. in two buses of the Office National
Algérien du Tourisme (ONAT). We drove westwards and then south through the
Northern Atlas mountain range, lunched at the town of Djelfa with the mayor, and arrived
in the town of Ghardaia after nightfall. It was pitch black. On Friday the 10th we focused on
the town itself: the market, the mosques, the former Jewish quarter, and the surroundings.
Saturday 11th we went further afield and saw the nearby towns of Mélika Bounoura, El
Ateuf and Beni Isguen (with a very holy tradition), and the oases associated with the towns.
After we left Algiers, the day-time temperatures were high. We rose early, travelled
early, and had a siesta in the hot afternoons. Very early on Sunday July 12th, the two buses
parted company: the Political Sciences and the Law and Constitution groups travelled
north west to Sidi-Bel-Abbès, the Islamic centre of Tlemcen, Oran and along the coastal
plain back to Algiers, and then by train to the eastern town of Annaba for the final
residential part of the seminar. The remaining three groups took an eastern route.
The bus on the eastern route reached the town of Ouargla (via Zelfana) by 8 a.m.,
and the seminar members were shown around the town and environs. On Monday 13th,
there was a day-trip to Hassi Messaoud to see the first oil extraction location of the Société
Nationale de Recherche et d’Exploitation des Pétroles en Algérie. On Tuesday 14th, we
travelled from Ouargla to the town of Touggourt. We included a camel ride. On
Algerian Echoes (cid:32)(cid:1)
Wednesday the 15th we reached the town of Biskra and had two days there. On Friday the
17th we reached Batna, and visited the nearby ruins of the old Roman town of Tamugadi.
On Saturday the 18th , we left the desert and had two days in the historic and fascinating city
of Constantine. Finally, on Monday July 20th, we reached our accommodations in Annaba,
La Maison des Enfants du Peuple, a barracks-like set of buildings by the side of the
Mediterranean. The groups from the eastern and western routes were reunited, and the
final part of the seminar began: comparing experiences, assessing and summarizing what we
had learned.
The Egyptian ship, Star of Alexandria, exploded in the Annaba port around 10 pm
on Thursday the 23rd July.
The seminar ended at Annaba on Tuesday July 28. Individuals spent the next three
weeks as they wished before reassembling in Paris for the return flight to Canada.

List of participants
These are the 42 Canadian students who went to Algeria in 1964

Beverley Bie, UBC Margita Kacerovskis, York
Sheila Dyer, UBC Norman McLeod,
John Boyle, Loyola Saskatchewan
Susan Bricker, Toronto Louise Million, Saskatchewan
Stuart Brown, Carleton Terence Moore, Manitoba
Christina Cassels, Brandon Aileen O’Leary, St Mary’s
Francine Charbonneau, Gordon Parks, Western
Montreal Irénée Pelletier, St. François
Raymond Chrétien, Laval Xavier
Peter Culbert, Toronto Robert Reynolds, Bishop’s
Walter Devenney, Toronto Claude Rondeau, Montreal
Carol Ann Dinning, Roger F Roy, Mt Allison
McMaster Rosalind Saginur, McGill
David Dodge, Queen’s Robert Samson, Montreal
Gordon Echenberg, McGill Guy Savard, Laval
Marcien Ferland, Manitoba Pierre Savoie, Laval
Jean Gautrin, Montreal Roger Savoie, New Brunswick
Beverley Gietz, Edmonton Ozzie Schmidt, Toronto
Jean Gobeil, Ottawa Fred Sexsmith, UBC
Marlene Grandmaître, Carol Lynn Smith, Calgary
Lakehead Ronald Stewart, Acadia
Enid Green Dalhousie Leonard Varasso, Windsor
Gaétan Grondin, Laval Arthur Young, Waterloo
Barbara Janes, Memorial
Algerian Echoes (cid:33)(cid:1)
Non-aligned – but not for long
The Algeria we visited was dreaming of non-alignment between the Soviet
Union and the West. A year later, the dream abruptly ended.

By Raymond Chrétien
O ur seminar took place at a time when the struggle between communism and
capitalism was strong. The Soviet Union and the United States of America were
the two main powers involved, with most countries of the world aligning
themselves with one side or the other. But a number of countries did not accept this
division of the world in two blocs and created instead the so-called Non-Aligned
Movement, regrouping a few dozen countries. Yugoslavia and Algeria were amongst the
leaders of that group. Presidents Tito of Yugoslavia and Ben Bella of Algeria were usually
the spokesmen of the group. I remember listening to the world news at that time. For any
serious news in the world, the major channels would show first the leaders of the USA and
the Soviet Union, and then the announcer would say: “Let us now go to Algiers to find out
the viewpoint of the Non-Aligned Movement”. In that context, the then young President of
Algeria, Ahmed Ben Bella, was a figure known throughout the world.
On June 19, 1965, less than a year after we met him, Ahmed Ben Bella was
toppled by Houari Boumediene who ran Algeria for eleven years while still promoting
socialism as the way of the future. Always a highly controlled country, Algeria became
almost a police state with heavy security throughout the country -- almost as a communist
state, with centralized powers and hostile to foreign investment, especially from the West.
But, thanks to huge reserves of oil and natural gas and a highly educated civil service,
Algeria managed to make important strides in developing its educational and social
services.
Later on, the rise of radical Islam provoked a tremendous setback for Algeria.
When the Islamic Salvation Front won the national election in 1991, the army intervened
and denied the Islamic Salvation Front the victory they had won at the polls. A bloody and
violent civil war ensued, during which it is estimated that between 200,000 and 300,000
people died. Since then, the army has reinforced its control over the country. When I
recently visited Algeria in June 2014, I was struck by the number of controls everywhere,
not only in Algiers but in the small cities and villages around the capital, even at the
entrance of all major hotels. On this recent trip, Algiers was no longer Alger la Blanche
but now greyish and dilapidated. The Islamists have not disappeared and are probably
biding their time. But, after discussing this issue on my recent trip to Algeria, I came to the
conclusion that the vast majority of Algerians do not want them to come back to power in
their country.
For us, young men and women coming from various parts of Canada, the long
meeting we had with Ahmed Ben Bella, at the Palais du Peuple, on Wednesday July 8,
1964, was the highlight of our time in Algeria. If my memory is correct, Ben Bella received
us very warmly. He was clearly a leader at the top of his form. He told us we could ask
him any question, however tough. We did just that and asked him many difficult questions
which he answered candidly. And our group was very fortunate that Professor Paul
Vandall took notes of that meeting. Attached to this note, you will find a summary of the
Algerian Echoes (cid:34)(cid:1)
answers provided by Ben Bella. In my view, this is a historic document that, at some stage,
we should pass on to the Ambassador of Algeria in Ottawa.

After the revolution:
President Ahmed Ben Bella told us the aims of independent Algeria’s ruling
party, eleven and one-half months before his arrest and imprisonment. These
excerpts are drawn from the interview notes kept by Prof. Paul Vandall.

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The animosity was palpable
The Arab neighbours went to war against Israel in 1967, but in 1964
the anti-Semitism in Algeria was already evident.

By Gordon Echenberg
A
s our ship approached the Algerian coast, Prof. Woods warned us that the world
we were about to enter was a more accurate reflection of the broader world than
the privileged Canadian experiences we lived. Algeria might seem different, but we
were the ones who were different because we and other privileged societies only
represented about two per cent of mankind.
Algerian Echoes (cid:35)(cid:1)
Independent Algeria, already burdened by a French-imposed bureaucracy, quickly
wrapped itself in the blanket of Arab socialism. This independence often expressed itself
through the army and the clergy. “Civil society” as we know it, was largely absent. Ahmed
Ben Bella, when we met him at the Palais du Peuple, told us that Algeria was
philosophically Muslim and economically Marxist. Capitalists were considered cold and
bourgeois.
The political leadership seemed imbued with a sense of moral superiority. An
example was Ben Bella’s assertion was that while Algeria was “hostile to Israel” there was
“no racism against Jews”. That patently false assertion is still advanced today. It is today as
it was then, no more than a transparent form of anti-Semitism, as distinct from legitimate
and balanced criticisms of Israel or its policies.
Racism against Jews was evident in the city of Oran, which once housed a Jewish
population of approximately 50,000. There remained a remnant Jewish community of
about 28. Those who fled were part of the 800,000 Jewish refugees who were forced out of
Arab lands after the founding of the State of Israel. As I toured the city, the empty
synagogues and their cemeteries, I was offered three circa 1850 antique scrolls. These
scrolls, ‘Megillah’ read by Jews on the Festival of Purim, contain the Book of Esther. As
the donor handed them to me, he said with resignation “We won’t be using these
anymore”. Indeed, I was invited to take almost whatever I wanted. One of those Megillah,
which I retrieved from my synagogue’s museum, was on display at our 50th reunion.
Another example mirroring this animosity toward both Jews and Israel, happened
while visiting a farm. I inquired why they did not adopt the “drip irrigation system”
developed in Israel for their fields. The reply was “We do not use anything developed in
Israel”. That attitude is unfortunately still present among some.
While secure in my Canadian Jewish skin, it was the first time that I had concerns
about Israel’s future. I became acutely aware of the depth and breadth of that animosity
and how it was expressing itself in 1964, a mere three years before the Six Day War. It
became obvious to me that numbers count and so does oil.
Not having been exposed to the Arab world, my eye-opening experience was
exposure to the multi-faceted Arab culture. The openness, warmth and pride of ‘ordinary
people’ made us feel welcome. The Arab strong sense of family and allegiance to their
culture, tradition and religion is somewhat similar to that of their “linguistic cousins” (as
Ben Bella put it), the Jews. Unfortunately, that similarity in no way bridged the chasm of
animosity and ill-will directed at Israel or the hardships that had been inflicted on the
Jewish population that fled.

Long, slow road to women’s equality
The route toward equality has to be defined by those
who will be taking the journey.

By Lynn Smith
I
n 1964, the recent revolution had not only expelled the French from Algeria and
ended its status as a French colony, but also had promised transformative economic
and social changes. Equality of status for women was among those promised changes.
Algerian Echoes (cid:36)(cid:1)
It was said that Algerian women had fought side by side with their brothers for Algerian
independence and that the revolutionary state would treat them as equals. My interest in
feminism was largely theoretical at that stage; I had read a few books like Le Deuxieme
Sexe, but had not engaged with women’s rights issues in any practical way. I eagerly seized
the chance to look at the Algerian government’s efforts to re-write the legal and social rules
for women (for example by increasing women’s mobility, access to higher education and
political life).
There were not so many opportunities to speak with Algerian women or to learn
how Algerian women viewed the changes that had arrived in their lives, beginning with the
franchise in 1962. In one of the small towns some of us had a meeting with a few Algerian
women, but communication was difficult because none of us spoke Arabic and their
French was not strong. Despite the absence of both data and significant direct contact with
Algerian women, my somewhat naive belief was that an inevitable process toward equality
had begun.
With the benefit of reflection, hindsight and 50 more years of experience, I realize
that the liberation of women by governmental fiat is unlikely to be successful if women
themselves are not shaping the agenda for change. Bringing about equality for women is a
long, slow process anywhere, let alone in the context of a very traditional, patriarchal
society. And although I believe that there are some norms that should be universal (among
them, that human beings should not be allocated pre-ordained roles in society according to
their gender or race) I also have realized that there is not a universal “woman”, just as there
is not a universal “aboriginal” or “African”. The route toward equality has to be defined by
those who will be taking the journey.
I think that all of us who were so fortunate as to attend the seminar were greatly
affected by it. I was a first-year university student, and had travelled very little beyond those
places within driving distance of Calgary. Sailing into the harbour of Algiers as the sounds
and smells of the city gradually revealed themselves was a breathtaking experience, as was
every day of the rest of our time there. I did not manage to keep any photographs or
physical mementoes, but what I did take home, and have still, is a deep respect for people
who struggle with the ravages of war, with food insecurity, and with prejudice and
discrimination, but who have taken steps to seize their own destiny.
What I took home from Algeria forms part of my strong interest in human rights. I
spent a good portion of my legal and academic career, before I became a judge, trying to
make the law a better tool for alleviating the effects of discrimination against women and
other disadvantaged groups. It seems to me that the progress we have made in Canada
toward gender equality is impressive, but slow. I fear that progress in other parts of the
world, including Algeria, is even slower. The ranking of Algeria on the World Economic
Forum’s World Gender Gap Report 2013 is 124; the lowest ranking is held by Yemen, at
136.

Tokens

By Beverley Bie Brahic
T
he summer of 1964 in Algeria comes back in objects. A wide silver bracelet, close
at hand, embedded with coral and blue stones, the clasp a silver pin, like a latch for
a door, but vertical. There was a shop, a silversmith? I feel the smooth silver and
Algerian Echoes (cid:28)(cid:27)
the lumpy stones and see the road to a village (Tizi Ouzou? Beni Yenni?) in Kabylie, past
barbed wire, rubble—signs of Berber resistance, the digging-in of indigenous peoples.
A small brass tray engraved with arabesques, a knife in a painted wooden sheath, its
halves wired together: they sit on a table in the front hall. Letters get dropped in it, coins,
paperclips, things that need a place to be. I bought it in the Casbah, where my bare arms
were pinched by—I don’t remember—an old woman, a man—a lesson in differences, not
perhaps one I wanted to hear.
The scarlet dress trimmed with blue rickrack—so much gayer than the street wear of
Algerian women. A red and yellow shawl with silky fringes. Dress and shawl have hung—the
only decoration besides an embroidered cloth purchased in a Nigerian village a year or two
later when I was a CUSO volunteer in West Africa—for years from a nail in an attic in the
south of France. You couldn’t wear this dress or look at it without feeling joy.
Sahara towns, picturesque, yes, but with a hidden life impervious to a group of
travelling students. Today I know more about the clash of cultures, their impenetrable
layers. If I can live decades in a European country and discover with each passing year how
much escapes me, how many lifetimes would it take to understand the Maghreb?
Our group was, it seems to me, equitably divided between men and women. (I am a
little surprised by this in retrospect: when I went to the Columbia University School of
Journalism three years later, there was a quota for women.) I don’t recall much discussion
during our seminar about the place of women in the colonial and post-colonial Muslim
world—maybe I have forgotten or not then been attuned—I do remember feeling anger at
the sight of women upholstered in black watching their children play on the beach—in
Annaba?
Years later I translate Hélène Cixous’s books about the painful divide between
colonized and colonist during her Algerian childhood; and of the anti-Semitic policies of
the Vichy regime, which affected her family. Through it all her visceral love for Algeria in
the sights, sounds and smells of Oran and Algiers in the years between the Second World
War and the war for independence. She calls it her “algeriance.” My superficial algeriance
will translate her deeper one.

Mordu du désir de vivre au tiers monde

Par Jean-François Gautrin
D
onc cette année (1964), j’appartenais au contingent de l’Université de Montréal
avec Francine Charbonneau, Claude Rondeau et Robert Samson. Tous de
gauche, un peu têtes brûlées, nous étions membres ou sympathisants du
Rassemblement pour l’Indépendance National (RIN) et bien excités à l’idée de voir un
jeune pays indépendant s’aventurant sur la voie du socialisme. Mes idées politiques avec
l’âge ont beaucoup changé.
Je garde un très bon souvenir de l’aventure algérienne. Contrairement à
l’expérience de certains, c’est sans doute là que j’ai été mordu du désir de vivre et de
travailler dans les pays en développement.
Going to Algeria in 1964, two years after its independence was very special for me.
Though I am Canadian, I was born in France and came to Canada in 1957. La guerre
d’Algérie started in 1954 and I remember the frequent demonstrations in Paris of the “pro