A pause. We need a break away . Things move fast, so fast that we hardly have time to enter all the mutations. We are in the pure result. Only now and ephemeral decides the course of our days. We run in all directions except those without clear goals to satisfy our desires access to primary and selfish comforts. But as the saying goes Kabyle: "It wanted to fly like the partridge, and he lost the approach of the hen. "For to live alone too far, too much worship the desire to run behind the comfort too selfish we are reduced to people without souls, uprooted and disoriented people who vegetate on the low side of civilization pending its eminent demise. The proverb is appropriate to inaugurate "The last Kabyle" , Rachid Oulebsir first novel, published in July 2009 by Editions Tira, Algeria.
Child of country first, a former teacher and journalist, Rachid Oulebsir here offers a realistic story based on careful observation and lucid criticism of Kabyle society today. Structured around 12 parts and sub-chapters simply numbered as Kundera, "The last Kabyle" is the story of an official Kabyle who chose to renounce "comfort" of Algiers, capital, to move back to his native village, Ighil in the aarch of Melikeche Has a large community of villages in Lower Kabylie whose capital is the town of Tazmalt. This novel is based on elements autobiographical essential is remarkable in two respects: First, by his writing that is a copy of the information flow on the mind of the author and his generosity, then by his subject: "The last Kabyle" is a state places of Kabylia today. The author does not address the political problems facing the region or even millennia, but its identity claims questions the Kabyle themselves, what they were and what they became in their lifestyles. I would even say that they hold them accountable! Is this not just for accountability when it failed to keep his legacy?
The novel is written in first person singular, but the narrator remains discreet, almost to the margin. Here, it is not "I" that tells us the reality of Kabylia, but rather the secondary characters. Through the trajectories of each author manages to define his field and ask a problem that goes beyond the strict framework of his story: What is modernity? Is being modern means having a big house, a car and money? Is being modern means to cut the bridges with tradition? Is being modern is to live in town or abroad where his village is reduced to the simple term negative "home" and its people from "backward" ? Is this modernity? Because in the villages which are not Kabylia "remain the old, the museum pieces that death irreducible kleptomaniac visit to subtract one after the other lots of value. The museum will close sooner or later. Children who remain masters of medieval distill fear of the day, hate the game, the refusal of life, the uncertainty of the future and the inevitable divine punishment. "(p.29) We will be without souls, or at best be anonymous. And this is where the title is meaningless. "The last Kabyle" are those who still live Kabylia as it always was: needy, warm, generous, cheerful and deeply jealous of her and very proud of what it is . And there are those Kabyle endangered. After them will remain a world without color or fragrance, a universe or living together will almost meaningless. Kabyle values: Amar-Touil, one of the characters novel to be reminded of what Kabyle: "The Kabyle who does not realize his house is not a man in our values. Edifier his home, earn bread for her children, to protect his wife, enhance its properties and participate in Tiwizi, collective effort, that among other foundations of kabylité. The Nif is everything that goes into relationships with others: paying its debts, redeem the land of their ancestors, defend the village, to honor the region, save the orphan and the widow or protect the disabled. Horma is what the button inside: fill his wife, protecting her daughters through education, define his territory, his house, and preserve privacy, defend their own against any predator. The rifle is the defense of Nif and Horma. "(P.68) The novel takes its depth from there. The universe and its imaginary sensory Kabyle is narrated by the author as could an old Kabyle of the early twentieth century with boldness and tenderness.
Through its characters, Rachid Oulebsir Kabyle reminds us that being first and foremost be achieved through sheer force of his arms and his intelligence. Then be able to live in it Kabyle community, namely to help and give as we receive. Kabyle be, finally, is attached to the earth, love and work that requires the safeguarding of its businesses and its know-how. Because any time is the earth that has given so much to the Kabyle autonomy for which they have always fought. With a rare curiosity, the author paraded before us all the craftsmen of ancient times who were the foundations of social cohesion and balance between man and nature: coppersmiths, potters, goatherds, blacksmiths, shepherds, jewelers, weavers etc .... That was before, long before sustainability becomes a theme electoral politics and thus! What remains about those trades and that way of being today? Varzaq Aisha, a female character in the novel and which embodies all the wisdom of her sex replied "Tala (the fountain) is silent, the verb becomes dry, the language is lost, the walls crack, the beams are rotten, the cake smells burnt, the loom is attached, and jars of ancestors are displayed on the highways, refuse to foraging bees, the birds sing no more, no cows calve addition, older girls and found no suitors, the Boys are afraid to make their homes, life stops ! We still Sidi Lmoufaq of At-a Saint-Mlikeche to cushion our descent into hell! "(P.128) The Farther Hacen-The former, another character says: " Salaries of state pensions and the mandates of emigrants have created other social values of other yardsticks. The work, effort, creativity is no longer space for vitality. Is consumption, easy profit, small business, see the conditions that have become illegal land of competition, rivalry. This is who will sell best. The Nif and Horma are now topics songs for Idhebbalen, the drummers. "(P.186)
Loss Trades: The portion of the agricultural era to the industrial age has been brutally. Yet none has questioned the very necessity of the passage. It was the era of time that's all. Globalization, or rather the uniformity of thought and way of life had not anticipated the era of the Internet! In the end, popular culture, traditions and know-how have been sacrificed to some roads, and a monthly salary for electricity. The exodus to the cities to complete the rest of the social and cultural life in the old. This was, indeed, perfectly studied by sociologists Pierre Bourdieu (1930-2002) and Abdelmalek Sayad (1933-1998) just after the country's independence and their study resulted "Uprooting" an excellent book published in Rural Sociology in 1964 by Editions de Minuit. In Kabylia
today the architecture of the houses no longer reflects the social imperative. There is no limit between the living space and activity space. Cities Housing built by the state or the contractors complete the remaining life of the community. As individuals each improvising in his own way. Nowadays fashion is to be constructed along existing roads to erect garages to rent for sheet metal workers, mechanics, innkeeper and other convenience stores. The village as an area of social life tends to disappear. Everything is linear in length and where the meeting space and exchange is not expected. The individual material comfort engendered by "modernity" allowed everyone to have a car and a salary either domestically or abroad. The field work and crafts befall than the poor who have no alternative! Hand Amazigh, another character in the novel, illustrates the cultural decadence that follows: "When the tree dries out, words that designate its roots, its trunk and branches are dying too. When an animal of any species disappears, his name will be forgotten, inevitably. Plowing with oxen drawn is expressed by a very rich lexicon which languished with the latest plows and yokes hardwood. "(P.197) . Amazigh right hand. Time of our grandparents even discussions were illustrated fables, proverbs, maxims of wisdom and teaching. Sharing with one of our elders is a privilege that we realize that after their disappearance. That "Civilization, Mother! ... ", to borrow the title of a famous novel by Moroccan writer Driss Chraibi (1926-2007).
Rachid Oulbsir much in his novel insists on the importance of trade in social cohesion and the preservation regional culture. Observe the dialogue between characters in the novel around the traditional olive press :
"-The old mills are part of the soul Kabyle (...)," said Malek
- The idealization of the old press of Aristeas does not, unfortunately, before the laboratory ( ...) says Takfarinas-Farmers do not care technical arguments (...) the reasons are not only cultural and sentimental. They do not want the machine without soul offload their know-how, asserts the respectable Aissa.
-The old mill was working a lot of people. In addition to the team of lads who looked after the manual press, he was hired the scourtinier that weaves flat bags of vegetable fiber, the stonemason who makes the fields of grinding, dripping and master class oiler oils, the lumberjack providing the wood for the boiler, the soap maker who wins the pomace to make soap, ordinary workers who unload the olives and fill the grinding track! says Tahar-le-blind (...)
-The old mill was a very important structuring power. The leather goods company that produces clothing and leather aprons were sought. The dinandier provided on its side all utensils and conservation measures, liter, decalitre, ensue or brass. Any trades a waterwheel revolves around the old mill stone and wood! Amar-added Touil "(p.268)
absurd Death of Civilization:
We can clearly see that man was the center of the traditional economy. In the case of the olive press at least 10 traditional crafts were solicited! But modernization of production tools, has completed all those trades in profile of a single machine that does everything. Beyond the reduced labor force, the machine has eliminated the social bond as the basis for the life of society and that Rachid Oulebsir poses the question with clarity of meaning that work can have today in our societies. Because when the work is devoid of its social dimension, it becomes a chore or a form of slavery.
In Kabylia, the abandonment of trade has led to increased dependence on new modes of production and consumption and this has undermined the autonomy that has always characterized ancestral inhabitants. This dependence has also had the effect "privatization of the individual" to use the Greek philosopher Cornelius Castoriadis (1922-1997). That is to say that what constitutes the center of life today is the individual and his family and not the community at large. The absence of exchange that follows causes the poverty of communication, loss of language, rituals and traditions that make up the specificity of these people. Rachid Oulebsir is, moreover, left a simple question to build its history: what is being Kabyle today? Because "today, the Kabyle loses its identity without acquiring a new one. It depersonalized, which makes him a ball shot between East and the West, "Tahar meets the blind, another character in the novel.
"Modernity" understood as individual comfort, mechanization and standardization of lifestyles and thought was right for the people who knew how to defy time. The negligence of its members is another reason. Chapter 12-the last-Rashid Oulebsir illustrates the lives of Latter Kabyle by an image of high symbolic value: the arrival of electricity in the village of Ighil, symbolizing "modernity" and death the day even the oldest villagers, Aunt Adada. "It leaves us then what happens electricity! "Amar-Touil remark (p.338). "Happy Adada, she will not live our decline, our downfall! " says Aisha. (P. 341) This is the modern standardization that ends the old world!
The loss of jobs, the lack of consideration for the Nif and Horma, individualization and the trivialization of our ancestral heritage are not necessarily elements of a work pessimistic. They are the elements of a realistic work that hides a lot of hope. Through her eyes just full of generosity and the author invites Kabyle in a moment of reflection and deep, beyond all of humanity that appeals to the importance of culture, diversity and color in the human world. The text of Rashid Oulebsir remember well, another piece of Mouloud Mammeri (1917-1989), "The senseless deaths of the Aztecs" who opened his work "The Banquet" (1973), a text in which he sent this warning to all humanity: "The Aztecs were yesterday, we still live the adventure that has seen him fight and die. Their story is ours. They have had the privilege fatal come early and afford without guile and without the screen shots of a destiny which we are still suffering stops. They offer a naked version of the tragedy became global: now we all know that we are mortal, that support should be at arm's universe, to prevent it from falling into the deleterious effects of a fission of atom that is the image of the fission of our reason (...) Now that we delete any difference, by any means whatsoever, is an absolute crime: nothing will replace most, and increases the risk of death death for others. "Yes any difference that we remove nothing will replace it. Nothing.
Hakim AMARA
P / S. Rachid Oulebsir also published in July 2008, Editions l'Harmattan, an essay entitled "The olive tree in Kabylie between myth and reality"
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