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Colonial Memory. Lieux de la mémoire coloniale Weeks 3 & 4. Les Lieux de mémoire (Pierre Nora).
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Colonial Memory Lieux de la mémoire coloniale Weeks 3 & 4
Les Lieux de mémoire(Pierre Nora) • […] a lieu de mémoire is any significant entity, whether material or non-material in nature, which by dint of human will or the work of time has become a symbolic element of the memorial heritage of any community (in this case, the French community). Quoted from Pierre Nora, ‘Preface to the English-Language Edition’, in Realms of Memory, p. xvii.
Realms of Memory is thus, in its own distinctive way, an attempt to subvert as well as to exemplify and magnify that traditional genre known as “history of France”. The archetype of that genre, its canonical and to this day unsurpassed model, is the 27 volume Histoire de France by Ernest Lavisse, a powerful attempt – at the beginning of the 20th century when the Third Republic was at its height – to reknit the garment of history rent by the French Revolution and create one seamless, synthetic nation: France and the Republic. The originality of Realms of Memory consists in the effort to decompose that unity, to dismantle its chronological and teleological continuity, and to scrutinize under the historian’s microscope the very building blocks out of which traditional representations of France were constructed. […] The goal is to pass French identity through a prism, to relate the symbolic whole to its symbolic fragments. It is one thing to describe the prehistoric paintings on the walls of Lascaux and quite another to analyse, using the speech of the President of the Republic on the fiftieth anniversary of the cave’s discovery, how archaeology provided France with a memory extending back in time well beyond “our ancestors the Gauls”. Ibid., p. xix.
Forgetting • The purpose of sites of memory is to stop time, to block the work of forgetting. • HOWEVER: some aspects are silenced: the Holocaust, Napoleonic wars, and the colonial past, despite Charles Ageron’s article on the “Exposition coloniale” of 1931 (‘Le Tour du monde en un jour’!).
Verne’s colonial memory • Colonial legacy: globalisation • French decline and Franco-British rivalry: 1756, Chandernagor, and 1857 Indian Rebellion.
‘Je ne me rappelle pas sans émotion le jour… où notre professeur d’histoire… nous apprit, à notre déception, que la France n’était pas la première nation du monde, mais battue par l’Angleterre à la faveur de ses colonies, de quelques milliers de kilomètres carrés. Sur quoi l’on nous demanda de jurer que nous rendrions à la France sa suprématie perdue. Et je prêtai serment, avec tous mes petits camarades (Jean Paulhan, quoted by M. Cornick, in ‘Representation of Britain and British Colonialism in French Adventure Fiction, 1870-1914’, pp. 138-139).
17 October 1961 – ‘Ratonnades’ Leïla Sebbar's novel recounts an event in French history that has been hidden for many years. Toward the end of the Algerian war, the FLN, the Algerian nationalist party, organized a peaceful demonstration in Paris to oppose a curfew imposed upon Algerians in France. The protest was brutally suppressed by the Paris police (Maurice Papon) Between 50 and 200 Algerians were killed and their bodies were thrown into the Seine.
Le 17 octobre 1961, à Paris, des Algériens manifestent contre l’instauration du couvre-feu : violence de la police du préfet de Paris Maurice Papon, arrestations massives, matraquages, meurtres...Depuis, silence sur ces journées de massacre.1996, Paris.Amel, seize ans, née à Nanterre.Omer, vingt-sept ans, né en Algérie : il est journaliste réfugié politique.Louis, vingt-cinq ans, né en France : il réalise un film documentaire.Amel et Omer vont retracer la géographie parisienne du martyr algérien.Ils conjurent ensemble, avec les images de Louis, la voix de la mère d’Amel qui manifestait ce jour d’octobre, et le silence et l’oubli. Ce qui frappe dans ce roman polyphonique et fragmentaire, c’est l’effort consenti par Sebbar pour confronter une série de témoins (victimes et coupables) et pour démontrer ainsi combien il est difficile de reconstituer le passé (et de juger ses acteurs).
Characteristics of the novel • Private Vs. public memories: 35 years after the events (1996); • ‘Polyphonic narration’: Amel 2nd generation French/Algerian; Omar: political refugee from Algeria (Civil War); Louis, French and son of a ‘porteuse de valises’ [collaborator of FLN in France]– is making a documentary on 17 October 1961 • Fragmented point of view; confrontations of antagonistic viewpoints (victims, witnesses, and culprits
Les Indigènes de la république or ‘les oubliés de la République’ • In 1942, ‘indigènes’ from Maghreb and sub-SaharanAfricaweredraftedinto the French army to reconquer Europe. • In 1959 (duringdecolonisation), the ‘loi de cristallisation’ispassed by the French AssembléeNationale: the pensions were frozen – ‘crystallised’, in the official language - meaning that 80,000 veterans in 23 countries receive less than one-third of the amount given to their French counterparts. • Scene 4 of film: equality in the French army? See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fIsK35A5zvI&list=PL5mR0PxdNDZ7rlAic_Y5r-4O7LqOqinVn&index=2 clip2 (12:12); beg. Clip 3.
Musée de la portedorée: from colonial museum to ‘Musée de l’immigration’
Exposition coloniale de Vincennes (1931): ‘Le tour du monde en un jour’
La place Blanche… • Pépé and Gaby on Paris: • Pépé: Rue St Martin • Gaby: Les Champs-Elysées • Pépé : Gare du Nord • Gaby : L’Opéra, boulevard des Capucines • Pépé : Barbès, La Chapelle • Gaby : la rue Montmartre • Pépé : Boulevard Rochechouart • Pépé & Gaby : la place Blanche
