Epilogue

Algeria gained its independence in 1962. Since then dramatic changes have occurred in political, economic, social, and cultural spheres. The issues discussed in this book lead to inevitable questions about the developments that took place after independence and about the present-day situation. Rather than assuming the impossible task of reexamining the topics in light of the transformations of the past three decades, I chose to highlight a few themes that bridge my study to contemporary Algiers. As a conclusion to this book, I offer an open-ended inquiry that does not claim to provide comprehensive and definitive answers. My goal is modest: to begin to map in broad outlines some of the predominant tendencies in urbanism and housing since 1962 against the background of the city's colonial history and to reflect briefly and tentatively on the complicated associations that today's sociocultural scene incubates.

As the debate on the trendy term postcolonial suggests, the colonial period and what follows it are not separated by a great divide. In her thoughtful analysis of the term, Ella Shohat argues that postcolonial implies colonialism is over and thus overlooks the "economic, political, and cultural deformative traces" that are very much alive today. Masao Miyoshi makes a similar point when he states that "ours . . . is not an age of post colonialism, but of intensified colonialism, even though it is under an unfamiliar guise," and maintains that the present-day "global configuration of power and culture" must be understood in relation to the "historical metropolitan-colonial paradigm."^[1]

The mark of thirteen decades of colonial history was not erased in the aftermath of the Algerian War. Within a different framework, the colonizer/colonized dialectic has persisted. The "overlapping experiences" of Algerians and the French, together with the "interdependence of the cultural terrains" in which they "coexisted and battled each other through projections as well as rival geographies, narratives, and histories," extend into the present day.^[2] Colonial policies and cultural confrontations continue. The urban plans devised by technocrats in the colonial period were deemed universal—imbued with a scientific neutrality that could be applied to modern and independent Algeria regardless of the changes in the political structure. Yet resistance to colonial cultural hegemony and the struggle to define a distinct identity intensified and found a broad base after independence. Both trends were complex. The emphasis new Algeria placed on modernity may have played a key role in the pursuit of policies introduced during the colonial era, but now these policies carried different meanings and expressed the country's selfhood and place in the world order. Definitions of cultural identity, however, were often colored by colonial constructions of "difference."

As pointed out by Bourdieu, the war had already intensified the exchange between the colonizer and the colonized. Unlike disguised resistance, open warfare exposed everything: "Open conflict brings the two sides together just as much as it places them in opposition, because, in order to win the war, it is necessary to borrow the most efficient weapons of one's adversary, and perhaps, also, because war remains a dialogue when all is said and done." The dialogue could not be abruptly terminated once independence had been won. In effect, the themes of independent Algeria had already entered into the public realm of colonial Algeria. Again in the words of Bourdieu, "What was considered to be an imposed restraint or a gracious gift up to a few years ago is now regarded as a due right or as a prerogative won by right of conquest." During the last years of French rule, Algerians asked for their "rights" to work, to housing, to social benefits.^[3]

Algiers reflected the twisted nature of the colonial and postcolonial eras in several ways. Many decisions and policies adopted by the colonial system with regard to planning and housing remained in effect, specifically in terms of formal characteristics. The focus changed, however, shifting entirely to making Algiers the capital of independent Algeria and redirecting all housing policies to provide decent shelter for Algerians. The preservation of the casbah also gained priority, due to

the settlement's role in the war of decolonization and to its architectural and urbanistic character—marked by its "difference"—which responded to the search for an aesthetic expression of Algerian identity. As a curious footnote here, it is important to remember that at the time of independence, Algeria had only one Algerian architect and the government had to commission foreign architects and planners to develop and execute new projects.^[4]

Algerians' claim to their city gained visibility immediately after independence by the renaming of streets and public spaces. In the context of decolonization, this act of reappropriation is related to the effort "to construct, to build, to link, to make over," because names of public places "reflect the idea that a people holds regarding its own history."^[5] Street names, one of the signs of French colonialism in Algiers, were replaced by another system of signs that revealed the independence of the Algerian nation, its history, identity, and heros. The new names were written in two alphabets and two languages: Roman (French) and Arabic. If the official use of Arabic emphasized the cultural identity of independent Algeria, the pairing of two languages pointed to the connectedness of the colonial and the postcolonial eras. Bilinguality—that ambivalent condition that has continued to define and haunt Algerian culture—was inscribed into the city proper.^[6]

Although one cannot talk of a methodical approach to the process of renaming, certain trends stand out. A place, not associated with a personality but making a political statement, was renamed following the same logic: perhaps the most symbolic public square in Algiers, the Place du Gouvernement (representing France), became Place des Martyres (in memory of the martyrs of the Algerian resistance); a modest street in the Agha Quarter, Rue des Colons (Street of Settlers), was translated into its opposite, Rue des Libérés (Street of the Liberated). Personality names would usually replace each other. For example, a main square or avenue bearing the name of a famed French military figure would find its equivalent among Algerians: hence Place Bugeaud, entitled in honor of Marshal Bugeaud, who later became the governor general of Algeria, became Place Abdelkadir, after the leader of the Algerian resistance to Bugeaud and his armies in the 1830s and the 1840s (Fig. 101); similarly, Colonel Salah Zamoum toppled Colonel Driant on a small street in the heights. Equal rank was not always an issue: the name of a legendary resistance fighter without any official title, such as Ali la Pointe, could take over a prominent historic military figure, such as General Randon, who fought in the Bône region in the 1840s and

Figure 101.
View of Place Abdelkadir. General Bugeaud's statue was replaced by the statue of Abdelkadir.

later became the governor general of Algeria. In addition, many main avenues were renamed after Third World leaders to whom Algeria felt a political affiliation: Patrice Lumumba and Che Guevara thus entered the daily life of Algiers, together with Frantz Fanon.

In the Algerian discourse during the early years of independence, the casbah emerged as an embodiment of the essence of Algerian cultural identity—a thesis that was revisited repeatedly in the three decades that followed. The "authenticity" of its form, its mythical associations, its resilience to colonial interventions, as well as its legendary status in the war, made it an obvious symbol of national culture in a pattern that is representative of decolonization projects. As Fanon observed, "native intellectuals" searched passionately for "a national culture which existed before the colonial era," both as a precaution against being overwhelmed by Western culture and as a matter of pride and self-respect.^[7]

Lesbet, for example, established a strong connection between the casbah and Algerian identity: "It is there that Algerian identity is forged and constantly reinforced. It is one of the most important basins of Algerian nationalism. The casbah expresses a triple artistic, cultural and political dimension, which gives it a national importance." Mostefa Lacheraf made a similar point by arguing that, with its "rich architectural experience" and as a site "adjusted for longevity," the casbah provided "concrete support" for "facts and acts, mental and other habits, reference points of a society, of a civilization of taste, measure." Moreover, this "civilization, stationed on the heights of the city, and notably in the courtyards, patios, [and] small streets, resisted [colonial invasion] like a last square on the battlefield."^[8]

Algerians' privileging of the casbah was not entirely independent of the French discourse, however, not only because it employed a similar terminology in describing the beauties of the city, but also because it capitalized on the "difference" from French architecture and urban forms. In addition, considering the casbah as the symbol of resistance was not restricted to Algerians. The French, perhaps even reinforcing the Algerian viewpoint, also repeatedly acknowledged the adversarial position the casbah occupied during the war.

Dissociating themselves from former proposals to turn the casbah into a museum, the architects, planners, and social scientists working on the casbah after 1962 insisted that the urban fabric should be preserved in its entirety and as a living city. It was necessary to approach the casbah with a "new look" that would save it from "a certain historic marginality inherited from the colonialist vision" that regarded it as a folk-

loric artifact for touristic consumption.^[9] A major shift in the approach after independence was the unprecedented emphasis placed on the residents of the casbah. As a first step in the rehabilitation process, a series of interviews was conducted with the inhabitants over a period of two years. Then an urbanistic analysis was carried out by COMEDOR, after which would come the preparation of intervention plans. Under the leadership of architect André Ravéreau, the "Atelier de la Casbah" documented the houses of the casbah and prepared a detailed program to be carried out in four stages, varying from urgent measures to prevent inevitable decay, to short-term operations from 1980 to 1982 that centered on three experimental construction sites, to a systematic restoration of entire blocks between 1982 and 1992, and finally to long-term projects that included the complete reconstruction of the Marine Quarter in accord with its historic structure. The latter decision, based on the rationale that the colonial interventions were not compatible with the scale of the old town, illustrates well the ultimate goals and ambitions of the project.^[10]

These undertakings were much more comprehensive than any during the colonial era. Many houses on the verge of collapse were propped up; an experimental laboratory of several structures was established for analysis and to teach restoration techniques; and a pilot block of twenty-five houses was rehabilitated with financial help from UNESCO. The plans of "Atelier de la Casbah" were comprehensive, but though they produced detailed research, they remained largely unrealized in a pattern reminiscent of colonial times.^[11]

Meanwhile, the problems of the colonial era continue to escalate. Densities in the casbah remain very high; houses rented out room by room are occupied in patterns they were not designed for; services are few, hygienic provisions poor, and lack of maintenance rampant—all adding to the ever-growing fragility of the built fabric. The majority of the old residents have left for "better" parts of Algiers, turning the casbah increasingly into a concentration of the subproletariat and an "antechamber of the city" for waves of rural immigrants. According to Lesbet, while in the past people lived in the casbah to "affirm" themselves, now they do so because they lack other options.^[12] This situation shows a major deviation from the socioeconomic structure of the casbah in precolonial and colonial times, when a mixture of all income levels resided there.

Despite the changes and deterioration, the casbah maintains its privileged place in Algerian culture and memory and still stands as the political symbol of resistance and decolonization. Its decrepit state does

not prohibit it from serving as the "universal symbol," the "inevitable sign" of Algiers that represents the city whenever it is "to be stated as an image."^[13] At the same time, the political battles of contemporary Algeria refer back to the casbah to form a bridge to history. Consider, for example, the demonstration held by women demanding equality between genders, on 4 March 1985: as a reminder of Algerian women's long-term involvement in their country's destiny, they gathered in the casbah at the location where Hassiba ben Bouali was killed by French forces in 1957.^[14]

Transformations in the casbah reflect developments in the entire city. The greatest issue is population growth (according to the 1987 census, over 1.5 million people lived in Algiers), around which all planning decisions revolve. It has become commonplace to blame the urban problems of Algiers on the new cross-section of its population, two-thirds of which are immigrants from the countryside. The changes brought to the capital in the last two generations have led to the emergence of the term rurbanity to define the dominant character of contemporary Algiers.^[15] Another peculiarity of the population that complicates urban problems and calls for a radical rethinking of the housing patterns is the age factor: approximately 60 percent of Algerians are below the age of twenty.^[16]

Deluz distinguishes two phases in the urbanistic activities in Algiers following independence. The first phase, which lasted until 1968, is characterized by a straightforward adoption of the plans and projects undertaken by the colonial administration, but continued under new teams. The novelty was in the emphasis given to research: a vast sociological inquiry was initiated to determine the dwelling and neighborhood types. The second phase put aside research and focused on construction. The urgency of controlling and directing the "tentacular" growth of Algiers determined the structure of the master plans drafted after 1968. Recalling the colonial schemes, they proposed to extend the city toward the heights, decrease the densities in the center, place the services on the coastal band, and concentrate industrial zones in the east. The plans from the 1970s onward devised regional solutions to "put brakes on the rural exodus" to the capital by means of decentralization. A series of settlements around the city, complete with economic and social functions, was proposed, limiting the concentration in Algiers to "capital functions" such as government, central administrations, and national scientific, social, and cultural centers.^[17]

The plans were applied piecemeal, leading to the persistence of the problems inherited from the colonial period. Consequently, the coast-

line became heavily built, rural immigration reached a massive scale, and a serious housing crisis resurfaced and was accompanied by a rapid proliferation of shantytowns. Furthermore, land use patterns of the colonial city resulted in neighborhoods segregated according to income.^[18]

Housing remained central to all planning operations. The new concept of ZHUN (zone d'habitat urbaine nouvelle, or new urban housing zone) worked well with the logic of regional planning and continued the former practice of ZUPs with grands ensembles whose urban design and architectural qualities replicated the housing schemes of the late 1950s. Due to the efficiency it brought to the building process, prefabrication became widespread, standardizing plans and facades, and compromising the quality of construction, the latter stemming from the nature of materials involved and the technical difficulties in assembling components that resulted in poor joints. Extensive areas dotted by grim uniform blocks of four to five stories high, with desolate spaces between them, now surround the city on all sides (Fig. 102). They recall the depressing environments of the Plan de Constantine projects and should be considered their descendants due to the single-minded concern for numbers as the impetus behind their spatial and aesthetic characteristics.

These projects, however, are not the only kind of new housing in Algiers. Another dominant pattern has developed since 1974, when a legislation was passed that gave each commune the right to develop the land it owned. The outcome is a curious pattern of attached or freestanding two- or three-story houses, densely packed together. While these houses are large, "luxurious," and reveal in their decorative ambitions the comfortable living standards of their owners, they do not coalesce into desirable environmental conditions, because they lack communal open spaces such as parks, playgrounds, and private gardens. The "spontaneous" bidonvilles on any available land around the city form the third category of new housing; "not always legal, but often legalized," their development has remained uninterrupted by political changes. Contemporary Algiers has many shantytowns scattered throughout the city: the "saturated" old bidonvilles that could not extend any further, former temporary housing projects that have turned into bidonvilles (usually in the vicinity of the HLMs), and new developments that mushroomed in the east, west, and northwest of Algiers and next to major construction sites. Their patterns reiterate the precolonial prototypes.^[19]

Reacting to the grimness of new residential architecture, to the "social ruptures" attributed to collective housing blocks, and to the

Figure 102.
New housing on the outskirts of Algiers.

persistent indifference among technocrats and policymakers to discussions about "typification," "normalization," and prefabrication, Algerian critics have brought back the idea of the "traditional house" and "traditional construction methods"; they argue for a nuanced synthesis of modern technology and the "cultural schema" offered by older patterns. In addition, they maintain that "modern architecture" overlooked sociocultural factors such as the family structure, the nature of social relations, the place of women, and the importance of privacy—the same issues that the architects of the colonial era attempted to address in a different framework and with a different agenda. The definitions of the "traditional Algerian house" (with specific references to the casbah of Algiers and to houses of Kabylia and Mzab) also recall the familiar colonial plans in singling out certain architectural features, such as the court, the blank facades to the street, the terrace.^[20]

While the debates continue, housing presents such a serious problem in contemporary Algeria, and especially in the capital, that it is commonly considered one of the reasons for the political malaise, together with other socioeconomic issues such as employment and political freedom.^[21] Scarcity of services adds to problems of space and maintenance. For example, water shortages are rampant, burdening all residents—but especially the women of the capital—with extra hardship and confining their daily lives to a tight routine of household chores. The often violent insistence of the "religiose" movement on the encloistering of Algerian women within the domestic realm, coupled with the overall housing

Figure 103.
Eugène Delacroix, Femmes d'Alger dans leur appartement (1834). Oil on
canvas, 180 cm × 229 cm.

situation, brings the home and its association with women to the political foreground once again.^[22]

In a manifestation of the complexity of contemporary Algerian culture and its entanglements with the colonial era, much of the recent discourse that interweaves political and cultural fields refers to colonial formations in order to draw familiar frameworks that serve as lieux de mémoire . This is especially prevalent in discussions on women's seclusion and the physical environments it involves. For example, in her renowned book Femmes d'Alger dans leur appartement, Algerian writer Assia Djebar writes about the central role the home can play as a prison or as a setting of serenity by juxtaposing paintings by Eugène Delacroix and Pablo Picasso, also titled Femmes d'Alger . One canvas marking the beginning of French colonization, the other the end, the paintings evoke strikingly different interpretations for Djebar, sparked by differences not only in the visions of the two European artists, but more important in the transformations brought by the French occupation and the decolonization war. Djebar reads the women in Delacroix's painting as prisoners of their houses, passive and resigned to the space around them, dimly lighted from an ambiguous source (Fig. 103). In his second

Figure 104.
Pablo Picasso, Femmes d'Alger (1955). Oil on canvas, 113 cm × 145.5 cm.

version of the same painting (1849), Djebar notes, Delacroix enhanced the enclosed status of these "still waiting" women by exaggerating the ambiguity of the room, enlarging the space, and diminishing the size of the female figures.^[23]

Picasso obsessively reworked Delacroix's Femmes d'Alger during the first months of the Algerian War. From December 1954 to April 1955, he produced fifteen paintings, numerous drawings, and at least two lithographs.^[24] Djebar argues that in Picasso's work, the universe of the women of Algiers was completely transformed from the precious "tragedy" into a "totally new happiness" by means of a "glorious liberation of place, [an] awakening of the body in dance, energy, free movement" (Fig. 104). Their hermetic situation has been preserved, only to be reversed into a condition of serenity, at peace with the past and the future. Djebar associates the "liberation" at home with the occupation of the city's public spaces by women resistance fighters taking part in the war.^[25]

Djebar's reading of Delacroix's and Picasso's works to frame the dramatic change in women's lives during the country's nuit coloniale calls for continued debate and possibly disagreement, especially given Picasso's "continual struggle in the Femmes d'Alger series to reconcile distance with presence, possession, and watching."^[26] What matters, however, is the fact that Djebar reestablishes the connection between domestic spaces and women's lives and that to do so she chooses to rely on the authority of one of the most blatant cultural symbols of French colonialism (Delacroix's painting) and the artistic tradition based on the reproductions and reinterpretations of this symbol, thereby accentuating the entanglements of her message. Her stand does not imply "giving in" to the colonizer culture, but rather deploying it to broaden her critique. Djebar is not alone in reloading colonial cultural formations with new meanings and providing complicated linkages between contemporary Algerian questions and the country's recent history. For example, in Kamal Dahane's 1992 documentary film, itself titled Femmes d'Alger , Delacroix's painting reemerges: the famous setting is recreated in the last scene, but now is emptied of women.

Djebar carries her association of home and prison from the colonial period to home and tomb in postcolonial times. As pointed out by Woodhull, in Djebar's novel A Sister to Scheherazade , the heroine is confined to a modern apartment, with a "kitchen that is like a tomb." Her struggle is to "unearth" herself from "spaces of confinement" to "spaces of liberation," which are "spaces of the town."^[27] In Merzag Allouache's feature film Bab el-Oued City (1993), his poignant exposé of daily life in contemporary Algiers includes two female leading characters who are forced to spend their lives at home; the roof terraces continue to function as women's gathering spaces. In Dahane's documentary, too, women talk about their introverted lives and some emphasize the importance of making a statement by simply occupying the public spaces of Algiers. They assert this is an effective way of voicing their opposition to current religious-political trends aimed to keep them invisible. The interiorization of the home is juxtaposed with the publicness of urban spaces, and the sharp divide between the two deeply affects urban life.

In closing, it is proper to cast a glance, albeit a very brief one, at the cities of France. The colonial experience changed the colonizer as well, and its impact on French society and culture is there to stay. With 3.5 million North Africans living in France today, French cities display certain characteristics that recall the urban centers of Algeria. Projec-

tions point to the increase of this population to six to eight million around the turn of the twentieth century, interlocking the fates of cities and urban culture on both sides of the Mediterranean perhaps even more intimately than in the colonial era.^[28] Housing is the major issue, and the edges of French cities have demonstrated developments similar to those observed in Algiers. From the bidonvilles of Nanterre (now demolished) that swelled with Algerians beginning in 1954 to the government-subsidized housing projects where immigrants continue to concentrate (despite various attempts at integration), the environments display similarities to their counterparts in Algiers. As urban character is a matter not only of form, but also of other signs and sensuous cues,^[29] the distinctiveness of immigrant quarters is derived from the signs, the smells of goods sold in stores, the names of shops and cafés, the sounds of various languages and music, the patterns of social interaction, and the uses of public spaces.

These city fragments are filled with an urban life that reflects the "pluralities of the postcolonial heritage" and contributes to contemporary French urban culture. For the second generation of North African immigrants, identity formation is a crucial struggle within the dominant society and it is founded on biculturalism.^[30] Calling themselves "Beurs" (a play on the word arabe pronounced backward), this group has actively carved its presence into the urban scene. The Beurs' definition of identity centers on contesting and negotiating urban spaces: they claim the urban outskirts and the housing projects as their legitimate and permanent spaces, but maintain their places of origin always in the background. Their national origins carry mythical meanings and enable the construction of a complex identity, revealed in a rich repertoire of cultural productions.^[31]

Cultural intersections thus occur on both sides of the Mediterranean. If they take different forms in response to the specificity of their socioeconomic frameworks, they also enhance the deep involvement of the two places and the two eras.