From Hussein Dey’s surrender on the 5th of July 1830 until its independence in 1962, Algeria belonged to the French Empire. Though the main recognised constituents of its war of independence were indeed men, to gloss over the efforts of women during this fight would be to ignore the torture they had endured to see their country free once again. However, to focus on the women and their experiences of liberation is to witness once again that, for millennia, women have been viewed as the unequivocal spoils of war – ready to satiate perverted sexual desires. One is left wondering how far this war of independence can be said to have liberated Algerian women if it simultaneously oppressed them too.
Before discussing whether this war was indeed a liberating experience, it would perhaps be useful to clearly define what it means ‘to liberate’. The Oxford English Dictionary sets out three main definitions, which all seem to agree on the idea that ‘to liberate’ is synonymous with ‘to free from an obstacle’. The first definition means ‘to set free (someone or something confined or in servitude)’, i.e., to liberate someone from prison; the second means ‘to free (esp. women) from restrictive or discriminatory social conventions and attitudes’; the third definition, which applies to Algeria as a whole, defines the word as meaning ‘to free (a region or its people) from an oppressor or occupying force.’
During French colonial rule, women were subjected to many restrictions and suffered many oppressive moments. In keeping with their values of secularism, France banned the wearing of the hijab and any displays of religion, which arguably may have led in turn to the over-sexualisation of Algerian women. Taking inspiration from Delacroix’s ‘Women of Algiers’ (1833) which depicts essentially shirtless women, Picasso’s ‘Les Femmes d’Alger’ (1954) epitomises this depiction of Algerian women as sexualised ‘exotic’ creatures who serve to satisfy the West’s libidinal fantasies. However, after gaining independence, the second meaning of ‘to liberate’ comes into play, as women were free from secularism and sexualisation.
Nevertheless, this sexualisation, coupled with the restriction of religion and the lack of education, arguably encouraged women to fight for independence with the FLN (National Liberation Front) in 1954. Using female resistance fighters was not a novel idea, with the French themselves using women like Cécile Rol-Tanguy to aid in the WWII resistance efforts against German occupation by hiding weapons in their children’s prams. In this sense, the war of independence was indeed a freeing experience as it allowed women to take something which had previously been used to suppress them (their gender) and use it to their advantage to bring the French to their knees, thus once again demonstrating the second definition of ‘to liberate’.
With an estimated 11,000 women fighting in the war, it is no surprise that some women made a name for themselves as resistance fighters, with the likes of Zohra Drif being considered to this day as a hero of the war. Drif’s most famous exploit is perhaps the Milk Bar Café bombing in 1956. Responsible for the death of three women and the injuries of multiple adults and children, Drif’s actions are classed as one of the main events of the war of independence. Though Drif was imprisoned in 1957 and liberated in the first definition of the word by Charles de Gaulle in 1962 after Algerian independence, her time in prison could be classed as freeing in that she went on to become a member of the Algerian Council of the Nation. Here she fought for an amicable relationship between France and Algeria, claiming that the war of independence was not against the French public, but rather against colonial rule.
However, as inspiring as Drif’s story is, it is only one experience amongst those of other female resistance fighters who were not as fortunate as Drif in coming out of the war relatively unscathed. Louisette Ighilahriz, much like Drif, joined the FLN and smuggled weapons throughout Algiers. Captured in September 1957, Ighilariz was kept completely naked for the entirety of her prison sentence, facing sexual violation and torture in the most egregious manner by French commandants in a bid to make her reveal vital information about the FLN. Upon her release, Ighilariz was convinced by her family to withhold her story of the violation that she had endured, for fear she would bring the family into disrepute. She initially acquiesced, though in 2001 she released her memoir ‘Algérienne’ which detailed her experiences during prison, including rape and torture. Consequently, though she was liberated in the first meaning of the word, Ighilariz was in fact further oppressed after the war of independence.
Ultimately, the answer to the question at hand is far more ambivalent than one would wish. Though all citizens were liberated in the third sense of the word (being freed from an oppressor), some, like Ighilariz, had experienced moments which oppressed them further, and so they were not fully ‘liberated’ in the second meaning of the word (being freed from social constraints). As a whole, it ostensibly seems as though the war of independence was perhaps a liberating experience for women like Drif, although when one focuses on individual testimonies, it becomes evident how much of Algeria’s post-colonial foundations are built on the traumatic and oppressive experiences of women.