Women from different socio-economic, educational, and geographical backgrounds contributed as fighters, nurses, community organizers, educators, and civilians to the struggle for Algerian independence.
It predominantly recognizes women who joined the urban guerrilla fighters of the National Liberation Front FLN , the main anti-colonial faction. Equally important, if less spectacular, was the support for independence offered by women in rural Algeria, who ensured the viability of the resistance by hiding, feeding, and nursing fighters. In rare instances when women are evoked, they figure merely as symbols of a collective and sacrificial struggle against colonialism, revealing little about how women lived through the Algerian War of Independence.
Turning women into icons of decolonization fuels their hypervisibility as image, simultaneously flattening their experiences and subjectivities. It mobilized the image of the heroic Algerian woman to present itself as progressive and egalitarian β a party of all Algerians. Alternatively, it pictured women as victims of excessive colonial violence that was successfully halted by the FLN.
Cast either as heroines or victims, women became relegated to the realm of the symbolic, hindering inquiries into their lived experiences during the war. Not entirely forgotten, but also not fully remembered, women continue to hold a tenuous place within narratives of the war. Language as Rhymes In the video, the actress makes cautious attempts to embody Bouhired, while remaining hesitant whether to take on this role.
Kader Attia , Colonial Melancholia , , Video color, sound , min still. In an effort to approach the historical figure, the actress begins to speak as Bouhired. She does not recall the glory of the anti-colonial struggle, reflecting instead upon gender inequalities in the FLN ranks.
