3.5
I’m being a bit biased here because it’s my ancestor’s history but I enjoyed reading this. I read it in small sections over the course of 2 months and as I’d never read about the initial colonization of Algeria and the defeat of the Ottoman rule in Algeria, I learnt a lot. The ambush of the tribes that sided with France during the wedding was crazy to read, but it made me glad that we’ve always been rebelling and that even when the rebellions were kind of quashed by 1900, the spirit was still there and it reignited again enough to give us independence. Ofc you can’t talk about this story without talking about the women, the cloistering and hyper regulation over the bodies of Algerian girls and women is seen as they navigate spaces controlled by the colonists, the French, and in spaces of the Algerians, the home. So many sentiments and beliefs that permeated the culture back then still do to this day and reading it I felt a partial sense of being seen for the first time in any book ever. From the way marriage is the start of a cold constant war between in laws, a fight for which side is ‘better’, to the constant cloistering or restriction of women and their actions, to the point where even the most minuscule movement or sound becomes too much for anyone to bear, too sexual too much of something that must be kept concealed. I felt the power of being concealed and seeing and observing others and the weakness of being concealed and being invisible. I felt it was a book speaking to me, telling me stories I’d already partially lived but in a parallel world. The writing was beautiful, my favourite parts were learning of Asia’s childhood in the beginning chapters, the ambush at the wedding with Ben-djinn and the other fighters, and the tales of Lla Zhor, Cherifa and other resisting, and assisting in the mountain regions of the Ben Menacer tribe. It was interesting to see that under colonial rule women are the ultimate sufferers, to be involved in fighting against their oppressor and dying in battle is the way a lot of oppressed people would prefer to go out. But to be women, forced to wait at home, in the guise of protection, as the maquisards and their supporters, all men, run away and hide and the women must face the oppressors head on every time, not allowed to flee to prepare a target or attack, forced to wait and wait and give and give when the freedom fighters come as they take and take, and then they leave and you wait again. In silence, that sort of suffering is the worst. The ululation the only outlet.