Algerian Freedom Fighter – Arabian Records (1st post : Eid Al Fitr – 01st Shawwal 1439 (AH) / 15th June 2018 ) / (BETA testing – Research

ALGERIAN Connection in the U.S : Small American Town, Big Algerian Legacy

Until last year, 17-year-old Victoria Miller admits she would have had to search online to learn where Algeria is , let alone describe the exploits of one of its most famous heroes.

Pictorial Press / ALAMY / Abd el-Kader’s name lives on in Elkader, Iowa, pop. 1,300, the only US town named after an Arab.

.“I was really taken by Amir Abd el-Kader’s character and how he handled the multiple challenges he faced, including when some of his own people didn’t believe in him,” says Miller, who lives in the northeastern Iowa town of Decorah. On September 19 she was recognized as one of seven winning essayists in the 2016 Abdelkader Global Leadership Prize.

After reading diplomat John W. Kiser’s biography, Commander of the Faithful: The Life and Times of Emir Abd el-Kader (Monkﬁsh, 2008), for a class in human geography at Decorah High School, Miller now says she regards him as an international role model. Her new understandings, she adds, help her feel more comfortable talking to Muslims.

“Abd el-Kader’s legacy deserves to be remembered along with Nelson Mandela, Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s,” Miller enthuses, “because they were all pursuing the same dream: to reach peace.”

ABDELKADER EDUCATION PROJECT / Abdelkader Education Project co-founder and executive director Kathy Garms opened the group’s seventh annual forum on September 19 in Cedar Rapids. Students competed for scholar-ships in the Abdelkader Global Leadership Prize, and educators explored the legacy of Algerian freedom fighter and peacemaker Amir (Prince) Abd el-Kader.

Indeed, the Algerian prince (amir or emir in Arabic) united tribes in North Africa and fought for independence; later, during the 1860 Mount Lebanon civil war, he helped save thousands of Maronite Christians from massacre—an act for which President Abraham Lincoln lauded him. When the amir passed away in 1883, The New York Times eulogized him as “one of the few great men of the century. The nobility of his character won him the admiration of the world.”

Even decades earlier, in 1846, so widely admired was he that Iowa farmers named their new town after him, and today Elkader, Iowa, is the only us town named for an Arab. Since 2008 it has been reviving his legacy, thanks largely to the eight-year-old nonproﬁt Abdelkader Education Project (aep).

Kathy Garms, executive director and cofounder with Kiser of the Elkader-based aep, furthers Miller’s sentiment, explaining that the story of the amir “inspires civility, tolerance and understanding” and offers “models of ethical leadership, moral courage and humanitarian conduct.” The aep, Garms continues, works to “shape the minds, hearts, values of the next generation.” And this is where aep’s Abdelkader Global Leadership Prize essay competition comes in.

John W. Kiser, author of Commander of the Faithful: The Life and Times of Emir Abd el-Kader, and forum participant said the students stereotypes have been challenged.

Its award ceremony was held this year about 130 kilometers south of Elkader in Cedar Rapids, where it was nearly cancelled due to rising ﬂoodwaters on the Cedar River. But the student writers and their families braved the threats of high water to meet Kiser as well as teachers and leaders of civil-society groups from around the country.

Kiser says he is pleased with the results so far.

“The students’ stereotypes about Muslims and Arabs have been challenged, and their minds opened to the diversity of the Muslim world,” he observes. As a role model, he says, Abd el-Kader “is a uniﬁer … [whose] probing intellect, ethical courage, compassion, depth of knowledge … impress all who learn about him.”

And his advice to the winners was simple: “Treat others as they would want to be treated … and resist stereotyping.”

Garms afﬁrms the broadening of students’ horizons. “We started this with an essay contest for students, but we’d like to expand our programs and create additional tools to reach a wider audience of police, military and businesses to promote better intercultural understanding,” she says.

After the awards program, the winners and family members toured the Cedar Rapids Islamic Center and visited one of the city’s historic sites: the oldest standing mosque in the United States, built in 1934.

“Abd El-Kader’s legacy deserves to be remembered along with Nelson Mandela, Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s because they were all pursuing the same dream : To Reach Peace

‘ – Victoria Miller, Iowa High School Division Winner’

Elkader Mayor Josh Pope hopes the aep inspires young people “to carry on the values of the amir.” In addition to hosting the aep, Elkader is a sister city to Mascara, in northwestern Algeria, where Abd el-Kader was born in 1808. Today Mascara’s population of 150,000 dwarfs Elkader’s 1,300 residents. “Abd el-Kader serves as a great example about how people of different cultures can live together in peace and understanding,” he says

In early September Pope traveled at the invitation of the Algerian government to speak at its own Emir Abd el-Kader Award ceremony, which recognized organizations in the Mediterranean region for work in economic cooperation and interfaith relations.

The interfaith aspect of Abd el-Kader’s life impresses Miller deeply.

“I’m a Christian, and I’ve had my own difﬁculties—though certainly on a different level—but I know it’s important to stay positive and hopeful,” she says.

Now, she wants to add study of comparative religions and “the psychology of how we learn and react to stereotypes” to her aspirations for a career in medicine.

“Victoria grew a lot in the process of reading about el-Kader and writing her essay,” says Miller’s mother, Yvette Powers, noting diplomatically that her daughter was not always supported by some members of her extended family.

“I believe people need to accept all races and creeds,” she declares. “I hope she was able to open some eyes.”

Brian Miller, Victoria’s father, says he and his daughter talked about the life of Abd el-Kader when she was writing her essay.

“It opened up quite a discussion,” he says. “I believe there are good Muslims and bad Muslims, just like all people.”

Forum attendees received a tour of the “Mother Mosque of America,” built in 1934 in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, by immigrants from what is now Syria and Lebanon. Although not the first mosque built in the US, it is the oldest standing mosque; its proximity to Elkader, 130 kilometers away, is coincidental.

Abd el-Kader, he says, “was a good guy,” adding that he hadn’t ever really thought much before about why the town was called “Elkader.”

National high school division winner Daud Shad lives far from Iowa, more than 1,600 kilometers east, in New Jersey. He says his elder brother encouraged him to read Kiser’s biography and enter the contest.

“I’d never heard of el-Kader, ‘the George Washington of Algeria,’” says the 17-year-old, whose parents were born in Pakistan. “There need to be more leaders on all sides like el-Kader because he embodied the best of religion and humanity.”

Samantha Wiedner, 18, grew up in Elkader, and she won the high school competition for her town.

“I knew Elkader was named after the emir, and I knew where Algeria was, but that was about it,” says Wiedner, now a freshman studying Russian and international relations at the University of Iowa.

University of Iowa freshman and winner in the contest’s Elkader High School Division, Samantha Wiedner, right, talks with Jefferson High School tenth grader Lena Osman outside of the Islamic Center of Cedar Rapids. “Being intolerant to other cultures and religions isn’t going to get us anywhere,” Wiedner says. “Despite all our differences, we should be able to co-exist.”

She says she learned that “being intolerant to other cultures and religions isn’t going to get us anywhere. Despite all our differences, we should be able to coexist.”

Noureen Choudhary, 20 and a student at Villanova University, learned about the essay contest from her mother, who was born in Algeria.

“I first heard the name Abd el-Kader in a song popularized by Algerian musicians Khaled, Faudel and Rachid Taha,” says Choudhary, who was born and raised in Philadelphia. Though she was only four, she says the memorable tune and appealing lyrics made her wonder who it was about.

“My mother told me he was an Algerian hero,” she continues. “I now realize he is a figure widely heralded as an ideal Muslim, humanitarian, warrior, leader and source of Algerian national pride of the 19th century.”

Choudhary initially thought Abd el-Kader was “too obscure for Westerners to know about.” She was stunned to learn that a small town in Iowa was named for him, and that there is a group devoted to the study and promotion of his life and work.

“Not many people achieve great things like he did,” she says. “He practiced his faith in an exemplary manner.”

source/content: aramcoworld.com (headline edited) / Brian E. Clark

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ALGERIA: The Battle of Algiers: an iconic film whose message of hope still resonates today

Saadi Yacef, the Algerian revolutionary leader who fought for his country’s liberation from French colonial rule, died on 10 September 2021. Yacef is perhaps one of the better known of Algeria’s resistance fighters because of the role he played in the creation of the film The Battle of Algiers , directed by the renowned Italian film maker Gillo Pontecorvo.

The Battle of Algiers was filmed in 1965 as a co-production between an Italian creative team and the new Algerian FLN (Front de Libération Nationale) government, whose representative Yacef produced the film and stars as the character of Jaffar.

One of the most extraordinary films ever made, The Battle of Algiers is an emotionally devastating account of the anticolonial struggle of the Algerian people and a brutally candid exposé of the French colonial mindset. Many French people were unhappy with the representation of their army and country in the film. It was not officially censored in France , but the general public and all cinemas boycotted it. It was seen as anti-French propaganda.

In later years, the film was screened to groups classed as revolutionaries and terrorists, apparently becoming a “documentary guidebook” in the Palestinian struggle, and for organisations such as the Irish Republican Army and the Black Panthers, who examined its detailed representation of guerrilla tactics.

It was also shown in the Pentagon in 2003, in the middle of the Iraq War. US Counterterrorism experts Richard Clarke and Mike Sheehan suggest that the film showed how a country can win militarily, but still lose the battle for “hearts and minds”.

What relevance does The Battle of Algiers hold today, 55 years after it was first released?

The message of the film is ultimately one of hope: the oppressed multitude will eventually triumph because their cause is just. The images of revolutionary crowds in the film recall the jerky, grainy footage that has emerged from a wave of recent protests in the last decade, from the Black Lives Matter movement to Extinction Rebellion . Pontecorvo thrillingly captures the power and possibility of large gatherings of citizens, who come together to demand rights, putting their bodies at risk to create social and political change.

Additionally, the film refuses to condemn any of the agents in this conflict. As Pontecorvo has stated

in a war, even if from a historical standpoint, one side is proven right, and the other wrong, both do horrendous things when they are in battle.

A film of contrasts

Shot in black and white, the film is difficult to classify in terms of style. Its military action sequences and tactical montages remind us of films like Zero Dark Thirty and The Eye in the Sky; indeed, it is almost impossible to film a scene of politically-motivated torture without having The Battle of Algiers as an implicit or explicit point of reference.

The collective aspect of the film’s creation, and the socialist ideals that inspired it, link it to what’s called Third Cinema. This was a kind of revolutionary cinema, a cinema of the “Third World”, that was designed to overthrow the systems of colonialism and capitalism.

The Battle of Algiers is also an example of Italian neorealism, a major film movement coming out of mid-twentieth century Italy. The neorealists made films that opposed Mussolini’s fascist regime, and they focused on the hardships of the working class in Italy. Neorealism was a moral and aesthetic system: it brought art and politics together to expose the ills of society and bring about social change.

The Battle of Algiers was shot entirely on location in Algiers, and Colonel Mathieu was the only professional on set. Pontocorvo selected the other actors from the local population based on their faces and expressions.

Other elements of the neorealist style was the use of techniques that create a documentary aesthetic such as the hand-held camera. Pontecorvo also uses extracts from real-life FLN and police communiqués, letters, and title cards. And he used newsreel stock, which was cheaper, but also added to the sense of verisimilitude in the film.

Although he believed the Algerians cause to be just, Pontecorvo wanted to create a nuanced and fair account of the war. Therefore, he sets up a series of contrasts to reflect this opposition between French and Algerian. This is present in the original musical score by Ennio Morricone: while groups of French soldiers rampage through the Casbah to the sound of jaunty military drums and horns, a haunting flute theme accompanies sequences which feature Algerian civilians.

Contrast is also evident in the use of light and shadow: there are strong chiaroscuro effects, perhaps reflecting the themes of right and wrong in the film. Pontecorvo also uses shadow to highlight the covert operations of the Algerians: Ali La Pointe’s face is filmed with deep shadows, and the face of Colonel Mathieu is always brightly lit.

Space provides another important contrast in the film. Frantz Fanon, a famous theorist of the Algerian revolution, describes the colonial world as a world “cut in two” because of the stark divide between the coloniser and the colonised. In The Battle of Algiers, the wide boulevards of the European quarter are juxtaposed to the narrow, winding, labyrinthine alleyways of the Casbah. Space is also divided vertically and horizontally – the European quarter is flat, while the Casbah is steep and sloping.

This opposition of space highlights the gap between rich and poor, coloniser and colonised.

The question of bias

The biggest contrast in the film is of course between the French and Algerians. The embodiment of French and European values in the film is Colonel Mathieu. He is a suave figure, confident and controlled in army fatigues, stylish sunglasses and slick speech – he has more dialogue than other characters in the film. A number of critics have argued that Mathieu is far ‘too cool’, given that he is a practitioner and a proponent of torture.

Yet Colonel Mathieu is not depicted as an ogre: above all, he embodies reason. We see this in his statements about the use of torture, when he uses solid rhetorical devices to justify it. He says:

…do you think France should stay in Algeria? If you do, you have to accept the necessary consequences.

This is persuasive as a logical argument – if you want French Algeria, you have to accept the actions that result in this outcome – torture.

If Mathieu and the French have reason, what do the Algerians have?

Firstly, they have raw, visceral emotion and the power of the group. The victory at the end of the film is a victory of the masses, embodied in two figures – the martyr Ali La Pointe, the illiterate everyman who becomes a hero for the revolution, and the gyrating, anonymous Algerian women, whose gaze outwards to the future closes the film.

This takes me to the final point about what the Algerians have on their side – the power of historical right. We see this through Pontecorvo’s use of chronology – the narrative proceeds as a flashback, until we leap forward in time to the euphoria and mania of the end of the war and the triumph of the revolutionaries. Pontecorvo here glosses over the fact that the real Battle of Algiers was lost by the Algerians, and jumps into a future of eventual victory in the war.

This is how he views the process of history – the masses, with moral right on their side, will eventually win.

source/content: theconversation.com (headline edited)

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Yacef Saadi (R), military leader of the FLN National Liberation Front networks of the autonomous zone of Algiers, poses after being captured at the end of the “Battle of Algiers”. Photo by -/AFP via Getty Images

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ALGERIA