ABDELHAMID MEHRI ON THE RADIO
“Arabization was imposed on us by De Gaulle”
He believes that the differences were ideological and not military.
“Arabization was imposed on us by General de Gaulle,” said the former secretary general of the FLN, Abdelhamid Mehri, who was yesterday the guest of the Hassad Ethakafa program on Cultural Radio. “He wanted to implement a strategy to facilitate the control of a society in rebellion. He made it obligatory, including for the French; the decree was signed by Debré and De Gaulle with, of course, political ulterior motives,” he continues. Mehri calls for a global vision of languages to protect them from political exploitation.
Speaking on the theme of writing history, the former Algerian ambassador to Paris indicated that it was “unfair” and “incomplete” in the sense that there was “concealment of a part of history to leave the field open to its political exploitation.
He considers that “collective experience” far exceeds personal considerations. It is true that “the group of 22” was at the origin of the “creation” of history or its genesis but the rest became the business of a people.
The appeal of November 1st was “the kick-off of a solid political culture” but “those who opposed it were thinking like soldiers”. The success of the revolution is the result of a strategy, he continues. Confusing.
When we want to write history, we must take this aspect into account. He believes that the main thing is to testify. But a given testimony only reflects a vision from one angle. It will therefore be necessary to bring together the tools that will help to facilitate the task of historians.
Mehri did not come to make simple rhetoric. The journalists did not fail to ask their questions. At the top is a comment on Sarkozy's visit to Algiers. Mehri replies: “I don’t give it any importance other than that which can help resolve the problems. It cannot therefore answer all the questions which encompass Algerian-French relations which are complex. He considers that the community of Algerian origin is classified in “second category” alongside other French people. It is therefore not a simple question of visas, he says to close this chapter.
Addressing another aspect, he said that the Soummam Congress is a continuation of November 1st to the extent that its initiators wanted to hold the constitutive congress during the first year of the war. He believes that the differences were ideological, without however noting an ideological distinction between the text of November 1, 1954 and the Soummam platform. To say today - as has been reported in many writings - that the conflict was between politicians and the military is far from being faithful to reality, he points out. “Who was a soldier and who was a political activist in the ALN?” he asks.
According to Mehri, the cultural project of the revolution was partly carried out during the first years of independence. There was a real cultural dynamic. But instead of making the FLN a force for reunification, we made it a logic of exclusion. Reducing history to public holidays is the responsibility of generations of leaders.
Source: websites