A book a day: Henri Alleg: La question

Original language: French

Original title: The question

Translation: Beatriz Morales Bastos

Year of publication: 1958

Valuation: Alright

In 1954, less than ten years after the end of the Second World War, the Algerian War broke out, driven by a guerrilla movement that sought the independence of the French metropolis. Colonized for more than a century, the African country had known different statuses, many of its natives had fought to liberate France from Nazism, and the independence movement grew fueled by discriminatory treatment, the foreign exploitation of natural resources and the seizure of awareness that in a large number of countries gave wings to the decolonization processes of the 50s and 60s.

Henri Alleg, editor of the newspaper Algiers Republican, He was also a member of the Algerian Communist Party, and an enthusiastic defender of the right to self-determination. He was detained by General Massu’s paratroopers, sent to quell the rebellion, and tortured for months to obtain information about the rebels and his accomplices. The book is Alleg’s account of his internment and a denunciation of the torture systematically practiced during the conflict.

Alleg does not spare details about the different techniques of which he was a victim. She coldly and precisely describes the procedures applied: beatings, electric shocks, solitary confinement, drowning, psychological violence, drug administration. It must be said in all fairness that, perhaps because we have seen and read a lot since then, these methods, no matter how brutal they may be, are almost never particularly horrifying compared to the savagery that has been practiced in many other places and situations.

However, the true value of the book lies in the impact it had on French public opinion. Written while still in prison, from where he emerged with the collaboration of his lawyers, its publication in 1958 opened the eyes of society to the atrocities that the military was committing on Algerian soil, as would happen shortly after with the Vietnam War, and influenced that France finally decided to end the conflict by withdrawing from the colony.

From the reader’s point of view the book has a somewhat strange tone. As I pointed out before, it is a rather objective story, full of proper names, which hardly lets any emotions show through. Alleg must have been a cold guy, determined from the first minute not to give in, and indeed the process ends without him having sung. There is in his words a background of pride for having resisted, something that somewhat disturbs the perspective on our protagonist, and that somehow alters the natural predisposition to be participants in his suffering. Alleg seems so whole, so irreducible in his position, that it is easy to go from admiration for his strength to doubt about the crudeness of the torture. But it would seem cynical to me to question what he says, and perhaps all this is nothing more than an effect of the very human self-vindication of someone who has gone through such an extreme experience. In any case, this integrity makes it somewhat difficult to empathize with the character from an emotional point of view.

Alleg is certainly a blackleg militant, which is very clear in the somewhat long interview that completes the edition that I have read. In addition to highlighting the systematic practice of torture by the French military in Algeria, it critically examines the position held by successive governments, including General de Gaulle, who is credited (erroneously, according to Alleg) with having knew how to recognize the need to put an end to the colonial period. And, not without a certain pamphletary tone, the author goes on to explain his position regarding the colonialism that he helped fight.

As I said before, the value of the book is above all historical, not so much for the account of torture practices as for its public impact, an important factor among those that determined the end of a period of domination. Similar situations of colonialism have multiplied throughout the world for many decades, and with many probabilities similar practices of torture, repression and discrimination will have been carried out by different occupying powers. This is therefore a testimony, an example among many others that made us reflect in its time, and even today should serve to question certain behaviors.