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La question
Book by Alleg, Henri
96 pages, Pocket Book
First published February 12, 1958
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956 people want to read
About the author
Henri Alleg
26 books14 followersHenri Alleg, born Harry John Salem, was a French-Algerian journalist, director of the Alger républicain newspaper, and a member of the French Communist Party. After Editions de Minuit, a French publishing house, released his memoir La Question in 1958, Alleg gained international recognition for his stance against torture, specifically within the context of the Algerian War (1954–1962).
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June 12, 2024
LA BATTAGLIA DI ALGERI
L’occupazione francese dell’Algeria cominciò nel 1830. Centotrenta anni dopo (1962), quando il paese nordafricano riuscì a raggiungere l’indipendenza, i dieci milioni di autoctoni algerini** erano per legge cittadini di serie B, manodopera a buon mercato, disoccupati, espropriati delle proprie terre, sospinti verso il Sahara. A tutto vantaggio del milione di pieds-noirs che concentravano nelle loro mani potere e ricchezza.
Questo dovrebbe spiegare sia perché gli algerini non ne potevano più, sia perché i francesi abbiano reagito come se parte del paese, che so, la Corsica o la Bretagna, si volesse separare: l’Algeria veniva considerata parte integrante della patria francese.
E quindi, pochi scherzi: l’esercito francese di stanza nella colonia raggiunse le 450mila unità, una cifra molto più che importante. E il governo francese di Algeri si spinse più volte oltre le intenzioni e la volontà del governo di Parigi. Come nel caso del dirottamento del volo Rabat-Tunisi dell’ottobre 1956 che aveva a bordo i principali leader del movimento di liberazione algerino.
Da tenere presente che a metà degli anni ’50 Algeri era la seconda città più popolosa di Francia dopo Parigi (dunque, più di Marsiglia): il paese magherebino era colonia e al contempo parte della nazione.
Henry Alleg era stato il direttore del quotidiano comunista Alger Républicain, chiuso dalla polizia un paio d’anni prima del suo arresto.
Appena catturato subisce il trattamento parà completo*. Poi verrà trasferito in un campo, in seguito nel carcere di Algeri: fino ad approdare anni dopo a una prigione in Francia dalla quale riesce a evadere per rifugiarsi in Cecoslovacchia (dalla padella nella brace?).
La sessantina di pagine di cui è composta La Question – La tortura fu scritta durante la detenzione e fatta trafugare pagina per pagina. Pubblicata con l’autore ancora imprigionato in Algeria vendette subito settantamila copie, prima di essere sequestrata (censurata) con la distruzione fisica dello stampo della prefazione di Jean-Paul Sartre.
*Il trattamento parà completo consiste nella tortura: schiaffi e pugni e bastonate; scariche elettriche; grigliata; waterboarding; sodomizzato con bottiglie; impiccagione a testa in giù e percosso; torsione dei genitali; cani; bastoncini sotto le unghie; iniezioni di pentothal…
Ma Alleg non parla, non fa nomi, non si suicida (e non viene neppure “suicidato”).
La tortura non era una pratica isolata di qualche unità sadica, era la norma, era il cuore dei metodi dei militari impegnati nella battaglia di Algeri, e veniva applicata secondo modalità precise sotto il controllo degli ufficiali affinché fosse il più possibile efficace. Le torture fisiche avevano un ritmo e modalità definite, come anche quelle psicologiche (minacce di rappresaglia sui familiari, internamento nei campi in attesa di essere “ripresi” per una nuova sessione, ascolto delle urla disumane di altri torturati, prelevamenti notturni). Due sole erano le preoccupazioni dei parà: non lasciare segni sul corpo delle vittime per evitare prove di ciò che avveniva durante gli interrogatori (ecco perché, per esempio, le caviglie di Alleg furono protette da panni quando lo appesero a testa in giù) e non mettere in pericolo la loro vita, anche se poi furono più di 3000 coloro che perirono tra le mani dei torturatori e che allora furono classificati come “dispersi”, “evasi” o “suicidi”.
**
Solo dieci milioni a popolare il paese più grande dell’Africa. Perfino più grande del Congo.
L’occupazione francese dell’Algeria cominciò nel 1830. Centotrenta anni dopo (1962), quando il paese nordafricano riuscì a raggiungere l’indipendenza, i dieci milioni di autoctoni algerini** erano per legge cittadini di serie B, manodopera a buon mercato, disoccupati, espropriati delle proprie terre, sospinti verso il Sahara. A tutto vantaggio del milione di pieds-noirs che concentravano nelle loro mani potere e ricchezza.
Questo dovrebbe spiegare sia perché gli algerini non ne potevano più, sia perché i francesi abbiano reagito come se parte del paese, che so, la Corsica o la Bretagna, si volesse separare: l’Algeria veniva considerata parte integrante della patria francese.
E quindi, pochi scherzi: l’esercito francese di stanza nella colonia raggiunse le 450mila unità, una cifra molto più che importante. E il governo francese di Algeri si spinse più volte oltre le intenzioni e la volontà del governo di Parigi. Come nel caso del dirottamento del volo Rabat-Tunisi dell’ottobre 1956 che aveva a bordo i principali leader del movimento di liberazione algerino.
Da tenere presente che a metà degli anni ’50 Algeri era la seconda città più popolosa di Francia dopo Parigi (dunque, più di Marsiglia): il paese magherebino era colonia e al contempo parte della nazione.
Henry Alleg era stato il direttore del quotidiano comunista Alger Républicain, chiuso dalla polizia un paio d’anni prima del suo arresto.
Appena catturato subisce il trattamento parà completo*. Poi verrà trasferito in un campo, in seguito nel carcere di Algeri: fino ad approdare anni dopo a una prigione in Francia dalla quale riesce a evadere per rifugiarsi in Cecoslovacchia (dalla padella nella brace?).
La sessantina di pagine di cui è composta La Question – La tortura fu scritta durante la detenzione e fatta trafugare pagina per pagina. Pubblicata con l’autore ancora imprigionato in Algeria vendette subito settantamila copie, prima di essere sequestrata (censurata) con la distruzione fisica dello stampo della prefazione di Jean-Paul Sartre.
*Il trattamento parà completo consiste nella tortura: schiaffi e pugni e bastonate; scariche elettriche; grigliata; waterboarding; sodomizzato con bottiglie; impiccagione a testa in giù e percosso; torsione dei genitali; cani; bastoncini sotto le unghie; iniezioni di pentothal…
Ma Alleg non parla, non fa nomi, non si suicida (e non viene neppure “suicidato”).
La tortura non era una pratica isolata di qualche unità sadica, era la norma, era il cuore dei metodi dei militari impegnati nella battaglia di Algeri, e veniva applicata secondo modalità precise sotto il controllo degli ufficiali affinché fosse il più possibile efficace. Le torture fisiche avevano un ritmo e modalità definite, come anche quelle psicologiche (minacce di rappresaglia sui familiari, internamento nei campi in attesa di essere “ripresi” per una nuova sessione, ascolto delle urla disumane di altri torturati, prelevamenti notturni). Due sole erano le preoccupazioni dei parà: non lasciare segni sul corpo delle vittime per evitare prove di ciò che avveniva durante gli interrogatori (ecco perché, per esempio, le caviglie di Alleg furono protette da panni quando lo appesero a testa in giù) e non mettere in pericolo la loro vita, anche se poi furono più di 3000 coloro che perirono tra le mani dei torturatori e che allora furono classificati come “dispersi”, “evasi” o “suicidi”.
**
Solo dieci milioni a popolare il paese più grande dell’Africa. Perfino più grande del Congo.
November 29, 2017
This is exclusively a review of this edition, not Alleg's original text, which is as harrowing and essential a depiction of torture that I know of, and unfortunately is still essential reading in our current political climate. Alleg, in a major act of bravery, simply and directly describes his experience of being tortured by French paratroopers during the Algerian War. The horrific content makes it difficult reading, with the water-boarding scene a particular challenge, but I'm glad that I read it all the same. As with Valeria Luselli's wonderful TELL ME HOW IT ENDS, the narrative form sparks deep empathy and indignation. The truth serum sequence stands out to me as a literary achievement as well as a narrative one, as Alleg gracefully describes the odd, terrifying dream state caused by sodium pentothal.
The edition, however, is extremely padded out, with multiple introductions w/ diminishing returns that unnecessarily repeat much of the upcoming text (which unfortunately has some errors). The preface by Sartre is, of course essential (though not a match for Alleg's work), and it bundled with Alleg in shorter, simpler form would have made for a better reading experience.
The edition, however, is extremely padded out, with multiple introductions w/ diminishing returns that unnecessarily repeat much of the upcoming text (which unfortunately has some errors). The preface by Sartre is, of course essential (though not a match for Alleg's work), and it bundled with Alleg in shorter, simpler form would have made for a better reading experience.
December 18, 2009
This brief memoir, which can be consumed in an hour or two, should be read by everyone, if only to understand what human beings are capable of, in the best and worst meanings of that phrase.
Henri Alleg (who, bless his soul, is still alive today at 88) was a French Communist and editor of a left-wing newspaper in Algiers who sided with the Algerian independence movement. He was arrested in the summer of 1957 during the Battle of Algiers and tortured by the French military for a month. Not only did he survive--he resisted. Despite being beaten, electrocuted, drowned, drugged, burned, deprived of food, water and clothing, and threatened with death, he never talked.
Alleg's memoir, written with astounding clarity and calm and smuggled out of the prison where he was still being held, is a rare window into the minute-by-minute dynamics of resistance to extreme repression. With the lucidity of a veteran reporter, Alleg not only documents his own suffering with remarkable precision, but has the presence of mind to offer sharp insights into the behavior of his torturers and the operation of the "torture factory" in which he finds himself as well.
In the brilliant preface, almost as inspiring as Alleg's words themselves, Jean-Paul Sartre pinpoints the power that a resistance narrative like Alleg's can have: "The reader identified himself with him passionately, he accompanies him to the extremity of his suffering; with him, alone and naked, he does not give way....The victim saves us in making us discover, as he discovered himself, that we have the ability and the duty to undergo anything."
Sartre also notes the way in which torture in asymmetric conflicts functions as a microcosm of the dynamics of the entire struggle--the interrogator, with access to vast amounts of violence and total control of the environment, versus the prisoner, armed only with the will to resist, which is founded on the strength of his or her political beliefs and the desire to protect friends, family and comrades. An interrogation is essentially a contest between force and will. In his triumph over his torturers, Alleg proves that will is the stronger of the two.
Henri Alleg (who, bless his soul, is still alive today at 88) was a French Communist and editor of a left-wing newspaper in Algiers who sided with the Algerian independence movement. He was arrested in the summer of 1957 during the Battle of Algiers and tortured by the French military for a month. Not only did he survive--he resisted. Despite being beaten, electrocuted, drowned, drugged, burned, deprived of food, water and clothing, and threatened with death, he never talked.
Alleg's memoir, written with astounding clarity and calm and smuggled out of the prison where he was still being held, is a rare window into the minute-by-minute dynamics of resistance to extreme repression. With the lucidity of a veteran reporter, Alleg not only documents his own suffering with remarkable precision, but has the presence of mind to offer sharp insights into the behavior of his torturers and the operation of the "torture factory" in which he finds himself as well.
In the brilliant preface, almost as inspiring as Alleg's words themselves, Jean-Paul Sartre pinpoints the power that a resistance narrative like Alleg's can have: "The reader identified himself with him passionately, he accompanies him to the extremity of his suffering; with him, alone and naked, he does not give way....The victim saves us in making us discover, as he discovered himself, that we have the ability and the duty to undergo anything."
Sartre also notes the way in which torture in asymmetric conflicts functions as a microcosm of the dynamics of the entire struggle--the interrogator, with access to vast amounts of violence and total control of the environment, versus the prisoner, armed only with the will to resist, which is founded on the strength of his or her political beliefs and the desire to protect friends, family and comrades. An interrogation is essentially a contest between force and will. In his triumph over his torturers, Alleg proves that will is the stronger of the two.
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June 28, 2021Impressionante!
September 25, 2013
Must Be Read In his preface to The Question, Jean-Paul Sartre states that the real battle between torturer and victim is to determine who belongs to the human race. They both fight as if they can’t both be human at the same time. The Question was written while its author, Henri Alleg was imprisoned during the war in Algiers.
In the U.S., we tend to gloss over, if not outright ignore, what happened in Africa, so the struggles that various countries went though in their fight to regain independence tend to be forgotten. We don’t know very much about the Dirty War as it is sometimes called.
This book doesn’t detail the war; it details one event that happened to one man. It details torture, not in the screaming yet slight suffering way that Hollywood portrays it but it’s reality and what it does to all those involved.
The book is not easy reading, but strangely (or not strangely) the most disturbing passages are when Alleg related the threats that include what his tormentor/guards would do to his wife and children. Alleg doesn’t go into overstatement; it’s the understatement. That and when you reach and remember that Alleg was somewhat well-known and French, not Algerian, so he got the light treatment as it were.
The various introductions to this edition spend quite a bit of time tying the book into the questions about torture that the War on Terror has raised (yet leave out the torture that had been used by several countries already. One wonders if the introduction was similarly crafted during The Troubles), so the in the introduction at times runs to the preachy.
The body of book is so powerful that an over preachy introduction (regardless of how the reader feels about its rightness) is forgotten and the Question is always present.
In the U.S., we tend to gloss over, if not outright ignore, what happened in Africa, so the struggles that various countries went though in their fight to regain independence tend to be forgotten. We don’t know very much about the Dirty War as it is sometimes called.
This book doesn’t detail the war; it details one event that happened to one man. It details torture, not in the screaming yet slight suffering way that Hollywood portrays it but it’s reality and what it does to all those involved.
The book is not easy reading, but strangely (or not strangely) the most disturbing passages are when Alleg related the threats that include what his tormentor/guards would do to his wife and children. Alleg doesn’t go into overstatement; it’s the understatement. That and when you reach and remember that Alleg was somewhat well-known and French, not Algerian, so he got the light treatment as it were.
The various introductions to this edition spend quite a bit of time tying the book into the questions about torture that the War on Terror has raised (yet leave out the torture that had been used by several countries already. One wonders if the introduction was similarly crafted during The Troubles), so the in the introduction at times runs to the preachy.
The body of book is so powerful that an over preachy introduction (regardless of how the reader feels about its rightness) is forgotten and the Question is always present.
May 18, 2021
Bárbaro.
O relato do qual é composto o livro é nada menos que bárbaro, abominável e cruel, dado que, narrado em primeira pessoa, é uma descrição das torturas pelo qual Henri Alleg sofreu, sendo ele membro do Partido Comunista da Argélia.
Diretor do jornal Alger Républicain — que abria espaço em suas colunas para opiniões democráticas —, Alleg foi capturado em junho de 1957, sendo mantido em sequestro por um mês inteiro e torturado por diversos dias, sem qualquer denúncia ou fase de instrução instaurada em um tribunal comum.
Sua denúncia acerca dos horrores que viveu buscou tanto influenciar no julgamento e detenção dos torturadores, como de trazer luz ao que ocorria àqueles que eram detidos ilegalmente pelo 10ª DP de paraquedistas em El-Biar, Argel. É, portanto, uma obra que conta todo o período de tortura sofrido pelo jornalista, com precisão de detalhes quanto aos choques, afogamentos, sufocamento e espancamento que vivenciou.
É, assim, um relato essencial, para que nunca mais deixemos florescer ideias e práticas tão brutais e desumanas, menos ainda, a chegada de militares novamente ao poder.
O relato do qual é composto o livro é nada menos que bárbaro, abominável e cruel, dado que, narrado em primeira pessoa, é uma descrição das torturas pelo qual Henri Alleg sofreu, sendo ele membro do Partido Comunista da Argélia.
Diretor do jornal Alger Républicain — que abria espaço em suas colunas para opiniões democráticas —, Alleg foi capturado em junho de 1957, sendo mantido em sequestro por um mês inteiro e torturado por diversos dias, sem qualquer denúncia ou fase de instrução instaurada em um tribunal comum.
Sua denúncia acerca dos horrores que viveu buscou tanto influenciar no julgamento e detenção dos torturadores, como de trazer luz ao que ocorria àqueles que eram detidos ilegalmente pelo 10ª DP de paraquedistas em El-Biar, Argel. É, portanto, uma obra que conta todo o período de tortura sofrido pelo jornalista, com precisão de detalhes quanto aos choques, afogamentos, sufocamento e espancamento que vivenciou.
É, assim, um relato essencial, para que nunca mais deixemos florescer ideias e práticas tão brutais e desumanas, menos ainda, a chegada de militares novamente ao poder.
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July 4, 2023Henri Alleg, a former editor of Alger Républican, was arrested and subjected to a month of torture in the late 1950s during the Algerian War of Independence. French paratroops served a menu of beatings, electric shocks, intravenous drugs, blackmail and a form of waterboarding to induce him to talk, to tell of his contacts. M. Alleg refused and lived to write this short account. As proof of its shock value, this book was banned in France shortly following its initial publication. With the public accounts of American military detention practices through the past two or three decades – and with what has occurred recently in Ukraine – I do wonder whether a book like this still can produce the level of disgust as it likely did upon its release. What has become of our concern for torture?
November 6, 2018
Not a book for the feint hearted. You sometimes wonder what the limits of the human being are. What heights he or she is capable of reaching and what we are capable of doing. At the opposite end of the scale it sometimes shocks me to my bones when you hear about what man is capable of doing to fellow man. This is a book written in 1958 at the time of the Algerian war of independence from France. It is a book about torture and it’s about the torture that Henri Alleg, the editor of a newspaper in Algeria and someone who was clearly pro-Algerian independence. He was caught by the French authorities there and subjected to horror for about 3 or 4 weeks. He endured it all. He was a small man but with a mountainous will and determination not to give up in incredibly inhumane conditions. What he had to endure and what he survived is still playing on my mind weeks after having finished this book. He wrote this book to challenge the mindset of the French authorities and to tell the public back in Paris what their government was doing in the name of the fraternite, egalite and liberte that his country lived by so profoundly. This book challenged people back in France and around the world to the core. THe war of independence for Algeria ended in 1962. Here are the best bits from the book:
• I suddenly felt proud and happy. I hadn’t given in. I was now sure that i could stand up to it if they started again, that I could hold out to the end and that I wouldn’t make their job easier by killing myself.
• I have seen prisoners thrown down from one floor to another who stupefied by torture and beatings could only manage to utter in Arabic the first words of an ancient prayer.
• I bit the material with all my might (in the midst of the worst pangs from the torture) and found it almost a relief.
• I rubbed the tips of my fingers against the rough cement in order to make them bleed and take away a little of the pressure from my swollen hands.
• I felt so little fear and almost reassured myself with the thought that my hands had only 10 nails.
• I don’t believe that there was a single prisoner that did not weep like myself with hatred and humiliation on hearing the screams of the tortured for the first time.
• (when being administered drugs) Underneath the blanket I slide my left hand stiff and numb, into the pocket of my trousers and through the cloth, pressed it against my thigh, forcing myself to think that as long as I felt the contact I would know I was not dreaming and would be able to remain on guard.
• It was raining and drops shining in the darkness fell across the bars of my cell. All the shutters had been closed by the guards but we were able to hear one of the condemned men cry out before he was gagged and put into the noose to be hanged: Tahia El Djezair! Vive L’Algerie! And with a single voice no doubt at the very moment when the first of the three mounted the scaffold the anthem of free Algeria rose from the women’s section of the prison.
Out of our struggle
Rise the voices of free men
They claim independence
For our country
I give you everything I love
I give you my life
O my country. O my country
• I suddenly felt proud and happy. I hadn’t given in. I was now sure that i could stand up to it if they started again, that I could hold out to the end and that I wouldn’t make their job easier by killing myself.
• I have seen prisoners thrown down from one floor to another who stupefied by torture and beatings could only manage to utter in Arabic the first words of an ancient prayer.
• I bit the material with all my might (in the midst of the worst pangs from the torture) and found it almost a relief.
• I rubbed the tips of my fingers against the rough cement in order to make them bleed and take away a little of the pressure from my swollen hands.
• I felt so little fear and almost reassured myself with the thought that my hands had only 10 nails.
• I don’t believe that there was a single prisoner that did not weep like myself with hatred and humiliation on hearing the screams of the tortured for the first time.
• (when being administered drugs) Underneath the blanket I slide my left hand stiff and numb, into the pocket of my trousers and through the cloth, pressed it against my thigh, forcing myself to think that as long as I felt the contact I would know I was not dreaming and would be able to remain on guard.
• It was raining and drops shining in the darkness fell across the bars of my cell. All the shutters had been closed by the guards but we were able to hear one of the condemned men cry out before he was gagged and put into the noose to be hanged: Tahia El Djezair! Vive L’Algerie! And with a single voice no doubt at the very moment when the first of the three mounted the scaffold the anthem of free Algeria rose from the women’s section of the prison.
Out of our struggle
Rise the voices of free men
They claim independence
For our country
I give you everything I love
I give you my life
O my country. O my country
May 14, 2009
Torture. In context.
January 4, 2021
A first-hand account of torture methods used by French paratroopers in the Algerian War, Alleg’s The Question was immediately censored in France. However, the 60,000 copies that remained in circulation were widely read and crucially changed French public opinion by negating the statist rhetoric that the war in Algeria was one that was “essential” to French sovereignty.
In revealing the electric and water torture, as well as the “truth serum” deployed in extracting information from prisoners, Alleg, the editor of Alger Républicain, describes the days he spent in the El-Biar facility despite having no official charges levied against him. Although French amnesty laws written in effect conceal the full extent of military misconduct in the Algerian War from public discourse, the use of torture— be it in the Vietnam War, Guantanamo bay in Cuba, the invasion of Iraq— further continue to violate Geneva conventions on torture even today as nations fail to uphold the very humanitarian values they seem to idealise.
Sartre’s introduction here serves as a polemic for a nation that only years prior suffered the same brutality under Nazi-occupied France only to become the executioner a decade later. Alleg’s work does not indulge in sentimentality but rather voices his account as one amidst countless others who faced the same fate, albeit even worse if you were North African as Alleg himself notes. Rather than a panoramic indictment of the entirety of France he begins with the lines “by attacking corrupt Frenchmen, it is France that I am defending.”
Most of all, it is a story that I think unfailingly affects the reader. The Question’s historicity in causing widespread moral outrage in France to me atleast, means that it is not that we are collectively immoral or passive. War, even today, is justified on the basis of a disillusionment that relies on patriotic sentiments, where the true realities are concealed from public discourse to advance the interests of the status quo through propagandist means. It is accounts like The Question, and various other narratives that negate these notions and reach for a humanity through which a better future can be realised. Perhaps it is because I’ve always been interested in the history of the Algerian War, especially after watching Marker’s La Jetée (1962), but nonetheless some books really categorically impact you, and The Question was one of those for me.
In revealing the electric and water torture, as well as the “truth serum” deployed in extracting information from prisoners, Alleg, the editor of Alger Républicain, describes the days he spent in the El-Biar facility despite having no official charges levied against him. Although French amnesty laws written in effect conceal the full extent of military misconduct in the Algerian War from public discourse, the use of torture— be it in the Vietnam War, Guantanamo bay in Cuba, the invasion of Iraq— further continue to violate Geneva conventions on torture even today as nations fail to uphold the very humanitarian values they seem to idealise.
Sartre’s introduction here serves as a polemic for a nation that only years prior suffered the same brutality under Nazi-occupied France only to become the executioner a decade later. Alleg’s work does not indulge in sentimentality but rather voices his account as one amidst countless others who faced the same fate, albeit even worse if you were North African as Alleg himself notes. Rather than a panoramic indictment of the entirety of France he begins with the lines “by attacking corrupt Frenchmen, it is France that I am defending.”
Most of all, it is a story that I think unfailingly affects the reader. The Question’s historicity in causing widespread moral outrage in France to me atleast, means that it is not that we are collectively immoral or passive. War, even today, is justified on the basis of a disillusionment that relies on patriotic sentiments, where the true realities are concealed from public discourse to advance the interests of the status quo through propagandist means. It is accounts like The Question, and various other narratives that negate these notions and reach for a humanity through which a better future can be realised. Perhaps it is because I’ve always been interested in the history of the Algerian War, especially after watching Marker’s La Jetée (1962), but nonetheless some books really categorically impact you, and The Question was one of those for me.
April 16, 2024
Read for Colonial North Africa class. Absolutely harrowing. I feel like I need to revitalize my political convictions. Inspiring in that sense.
June 7, 2020
A must read book to better understand the atrocities my noble people had gone through during the war of independence.
It has been offered to me by an American friend , the disappointment in her face was unbearable when she realized that I didn't know who Henri Alleg was. What a shame!!!
Names like Henri Alleg, Maurice Audin, Djamila Bouhired, Djamila Boupacha and many others, regardless of their religious beliefs or political orientations, should be engraved in the memory of every Algeria and remembered as heroes as they sacrificed with blood and flesh for a free Algeria.
Extracts:
Jean Paul Sartre: "those men who had been tortured by the Nazi could become Nazi-like torturers themselves". This reminds me of "où j'ai laissé mon âme" by Jérôme Ferrari.
"For most Europeans in Algeria, there are two complementary and inseparable truths. That they have the divine right, and that the natives are sub-human."
"All we can say is something he (Henri Alleg) never mentioned: that he paid the highest price for the simple right to remain a man among men."
"En attaquant les Français corrompus, c'est la France que je défends.-- Jean-Christophe"
It has been offered to me by an American friend , the disappointment in her face was unbearable when she realized that I didn't know who Henri Alleg was. What a shame!!!
Names like Henri Alleg, Maurice Audin, Djamila Bouhired, Djamila Boupacha and many others, regardless of their religious beliefs or political orientations, should be engraved in the memory of every Algeria and remembered as heroes as they sacrificed with blood and flesh for a free Algeria.
Extracts:
Jean Paul Sartre: "those men who had been tortured by the Nazi could become Nazi-like torturers themselves". This reminds me of "où j'ai laissé mon âme" by Jérôme Ferrari.
"For most Europeans in Algeria, there are two complementary and inseparable truths. That they have the divine right, and that the natives are sub-human."
"All we can say is something he (Henri Alleg) never mentioned: that he paid the highest price for the simple right to remain a man among men."
"En attaquant les Français corrompus, c'est la France que je défends.-- Jean-Christophe"
September 23, 2023
O livro é um relato das torturas que o jornalista - autor da obra - sofreu durante a guerra da independência da Argélia.
O texto é cru, quase jornalístico, em primeira pessoa. Realmente impressionante; quanto mais leio sobre períodos violentos, mais me indigna quão umbilicalmente ligadas estão a violência e o sadismo.
O texto é cru, quase jornalístico, em primeira pessoa. Realmente impressionante; quanto mais leio sobre períodos violentos, mais me indigna quão umbilicalmente ligadas estão a violência e o sadismo.
October 19, 2020
Relato sóbrio e livre de paixões sobre a mais abjeta das práticas da maldade humana. Livro vivo em tempos de defesas ferrenhas de ditaduras, sejam de qual polo for.
Ditadura nunca mais. Tortura nunca mais.
Ditadura nunca mais. Tortura nunca mais.
September 4, 2020
Excellent portrayal of an Algerian journalist representing his experience reporting despite government arrest and torture. Chilling, no wonder it was banned in France. Should be mandatory reading.
December 27, 2017
Il disait encore: — A ceux qui ignorent, enseignez-leur le plus de choses que vous pourrez; la société est coupable de ne pas donner l'instruction gratis; elle répond de la nuit qu'elle produit. Cette âme est pleine d'ombre, le péché s'y commet. Le coupable n'est pas celui qui y fait le péché, mais celui qui y a fait l'ombre. (Hugo, Les Miserables)
Un 'sac de sable,' un 'gibier,' jeté comme une 'balle par les gifles et les coup de pieds'—toutes des épithètes qui veulent simplement dire "un mort en sursis," ce qui vient de définir l'existence d'Alleg pendant son séjour à El Biar.3 Il s'agit d'un cri du corps ainsi que de l'esprit mais également d'un cri tellement prolongé, provoqué par des coups qui touchent l'âme elle-même et la battent afin de la maîtriser. En effet, on peut dire que cette procédure longue et ardue a vraiment apprivoisé même les sentiments les plus primitifs dans lui—la douleur, le désespoir, la volonté de vivre—dont émerge un homme détruit, "tout à fait insensible" mais aussi une âme renaissante, plus sage avec une nouvelle pulsion; ce sont cette mission d'attraper l'expérience commune de l'injustice odieuse ainsi que sa découverte à travers le creuset de la torture qui intéressent aux Editions de Minuit, ayant le but d'exposer les combats inaperçus.
Ce qui rend le 'procès-verbal' d'Alleg tellement frappant, toutefois, c'est ce même processus de domination qui le rend incapable de raconter son histoire en tant que victime typique, incapable de parler de son épreuve sauf avec ce 'style nu' et sans émotion, comme s'il n'est pas le sujet de ces traitements mais quelqu'un d'autre qui lit un témoignage. Alors, comment maîtrise-on les cris dans cette mesure? Qui les maîtrise, à quelle fin, et comment est-ce qu’un tel procédé manifeste-t-il à travers le texte?
Au niveau littéral, les prisonniers sont maîtrisés par les paras de la même façon qu'on "traine un chien:" bien qu'Alleg, encore sauvage au début, résiste aux tortionnaires avec passion et des condamnations comme "vous vous en repentirez!"4 sa lutte externe est bien écrasée après sa soumission continuelle à la torture, notamment par l'eau et l'électricité (25, 24). Dans ce sens, la domination s'agit de tuer le vieil Alleg, de lui fait savoir rien que la souffrance. On remarque qu'il ne peut s'empêcher de s'adapter à sa programme pénible lorsqu'il trouve "presque un soulagement" en serrant la boule entre ses dents pendant les secousses de magnéto, et effectivement cette torture comble vite la totalité de sa vie (25).5 Par nature, la gégène "poursuit encore" ses victimes après les heurts par leur faire trembler et sursauter, mais également la mentalité et même la parole6 d’Alleg se mettent à imiter les chocs de l’électricité et de l'eau (41). Pendant que les séances avec les soldats dictent le rythme de sa vie, il s'essouffle en vain à garder son vrai soi. Il croit même entendre "la voix de Gilberte" dans la prison—sa femme, la seule mémoire qui reste—et avec ce dernier cri un passé auquel le supplice d'El Biar va succéder s'évanouit (50). Sans plus de liaisons avec son identité originale, Alleg devient maîtrisé en tant qu’instrument dans la production de douleur que travaillent les paras. Ils le laissent blessé et épuisé pendant les répits, sans aucune énergie juste comme un appareil éteint; toutefois avec "un seul coup" d'électricité il reprend "entièrement conscience," alors l'électrocution n'est plus la torture pour lui mais son existence, son monde entier et ce qui lui donne vie (58).7 En fait Alleg "[se gifle] pour être certain" qu'il est dans la vie réelle, la souffrance est tout ce qu'il connaît (61). Pourtant, en apprenant vivre dans la torture (et non pas avec elle) il cherche continuellement pour quelque bonheur ou satisfaction. Mais ne trouvant que du mal, sa nature humaine le pousse plutôt à comprendre la torture elle-même comme un examen absurde ou un sport entre prisonnier et tortionnaire,8 au prix de sa propre dignité et son état psychologique.9 Cette dégradation de soi arrive peut-être inévitablement, et le langage fantastique comme une "disparition," être "prit en mains," et un "spectacle" qui abrite tout le monde de la vérité sur ce que se passe est une autre preuve de la normalisation du meurtre10 dans cette dystopie (12, 22).
Ce traitement sans espoir, cette maîtrise absolue de tous les prisonniers ainsi que leur acceptation de leur incapacité d'arrêter la torture indiquent une efficacité dans la mesure où il faut qu'elle vienne d'un système bien huilé, et en effet si on regarde Alleg vraiment comme un "grosse légume," comme une matière première à traiter les parallélismes entre prison et usine deviennent claires (18). On dit "qu'on tortura jusqu'à l'aube," c’est la "routine de la maison"—alors les tortionnaires deviennent des ouvriers avec leurs heures de travail, essayant d'optimiser leur production (51). Comme n'importe quelle profession, il faut apprendre le métier. Un débutant "essaie comme ses chefs de [l'intimider]," et ils lui enseignent les meilleures techniques11 de torture "pour ne pas perdre de temps" (20, 27). Comme n'importe quelle industrie, "on a des moyens scientifiques" qui mettent à jour l'exercice (53). Quoique la manière 'sèche' dont Alleg parle du système expose le cadre d'exploitation dans le camp, elle est également une réflexion d'un statu quo qui se préserve impitoyablement et anéantit chaque anomalie, dont le style 'maîtrisé' est une suite logique, une nécessité pour y survivre.
Or même si ce 'cri maîtrisé' est un résultat du système, il n'est certainement pas celui qui exige des soldats. En réalité on voit qu'un tel cri est vraiment le dernier moyen restant pour résister à eux. Dès le début Alleg proclame sa force mentale en disant "chaque coup...me raffermissait dans ma décision : ne pas céder à ces brutes" mais hélas, le corps est limité là où l'esprit n'est pas, et même quand il "décide à ne plus remuer les doigts" l'électricité vainc ses ordres—malgré lui, "tous les muscles...se bandaient inutilement"; malgré lui, "les doigts s'agitèrent follement" (29).12 Cette déconnexion entre corps et esprit est donc peut-être ce qui définit le cri d'Alleg: l'enfant d'une tête qui ne sent plus sa chair et d'un corps qui n'entend plus l'esprit. En fait, il est précisément ce lien rompu qui lui permet d'étreindre la souffrance, d'examiner la "différence de qualité"13 dans elle sous les différents appareils (27). Pendant que son corps atteint sa limite de la douleur, il décrit en passant les paras qui "[vident] des bouteilles de bière," ce qui ajoute un air d'absurdité ainsi que d'horreur à la situation (24). Même en écrivant son témoignage, Alleg semble exister en dehors de sa chair en parlant très indirectement de lui-même comme "je m'entendis répondre" (57).14
Cependant, même sans une conscience de son corps, il n'est pas du tout facile à persévérer dans la prison. Et Alleg sait bien que "ces facilités" ne sont pas "offertes volontairement," qu'il a un devoir de "[battre] jusqu'au bout" (62, 63). Pourquoi? Parce qu'il fait partie d'une expérience humaine commune et éternelle, l'expérience de l'impuissance complète face au mal, l'expérience d'endurer la torture jour après jour pour ses propres principes. Donc son devoir vient de la dignité d'un algérien libre ainsi que de quelqu'un faussement abusé, mais surtout de l'art, de la muse qui représente la souffrance cachée et porte la flamme d'espoir au cours du temps.15,16 C'est une muse qui le conduit à analyser son état et son chagrin durant l'épreuve, d'apprendre la machine derrière tous ces malheurs pour qu'il puisse l’exposer sous forme d'écriture afin de l’arrêter. Comme Sartres, "je la dévoile...pour la changer."17 Mais pour présenter le point de vue de la victime d'une façon claire et franche, il doit mettre de côté ses réactions naturelles. Il doit maîtriser son propre cri, en se donnant à une mission beaucoup plus grand que la souffrance d'un homme, celle qui exige la volonté d’être un témoin idéal malgré toutes les impulsions de lâcher. Après tout, El Biar n'est pas la seule telle prison—donc il faut qu'Alleg expose les faits de son histoire pour l'objectif selon Simonin "d'imposer à l’opinion publique de prendre position"18 sur la systématisation de la torture en Algérie, non pas seulement pour son propre peuple19 mais pour "tous ceux qui chaque jour meurent pour la liberté de leur pays," car les atrocités commises là-bas sont éclairées par "les lueurs de la ville," car "ce qu'on fait [là], on le fera" ici, car "il pourrait être...chacun" entre nous et par conséquent, car l'ignorance n'est jamais l'innocence (80, 14).
- On saura comment je suis mort, lui dis-je.
- Non, personne n'en saura rien.
- Si, répondis-je encore, tout se sait toujours.20
Un 'sac de sable,' un 'gibier,' jeté comme une 'balle par les gifles et les coup de pieds'—toutes des épithètes qui veulent simplement dire "un mort en sursis," ce qui vient de définir l'existence d'Alleg pendant son séjour à El Biar.3 Il s'agit d'un cri du corps ainsi que de l'esprit mais également d'un cri tellement prolongé, provoqué par des coups qui touchent l'âme elle-même et la battent afin de la maîtriser. En effet, on peut dire que cette procédure longue et ardue a vraiment apprivoisé même les sentiments les plus primitifs dans lui—la douleur, le désespoir, la volonté de vivre—dont émerge un homme détruit, "tout à fait insensible" mais aussi une âme renaissante, plus sage avec une nouvelle pulsion; ce sont cette mission d'attraper l'expérience commune de l'injustice odieuse ainsi que sa découverte à travers le creuset de la torture qui intéressent aux Editions de Minuit, ayant le but d'exposer les combats inaperçus.
Ce qui rend le 'procès-verbal' d'Alleg tellement frappant, toutefois, c'est ce même processus de domination qui le rend incapable de raconter son histoire en tant que victime typique, incapable de parler de son épreuve sauf avec ce 'style nu' et sans émotion, comme s'il n'est pas le sujet de ces traitements mais quelqu'un d'autre qui lit un témoignage. Alors, comment maîtrise-on les cris dans cette mesure? Qui les maîtrise, à quelle fin, et comment est-ce qu’un tel procédé manifeste-t-il à travers le texte?
Au niveau littéral, les prisonniers sont maîtrisés par les paras de la même façon qu'on "traine un chien:" bien qu'Alleg, encore sauvage au début, résiste aux tortionnaires avec passion et des condamnations comme "vous vous en repentirez!"4 sa lutte externe est bien écrasée après sa soumission continuelle à la torture, notamment par l'eau et l'électricité (25, 24). Dans ce sens, la domination s'agit de tuer le vieil Alleg, de lui fait savoir rien que la souffrance. On remarque qu'il ne peut s'empêcher de s'adapter à sa programme pénible lorsqu'il trouve "presque un soulagement" en serrant la boule entre ses dents pendant les secousses de magnéto, et effectivement cette torture comble vite la totalité de sa vie (25).5 Par nature, la gégène "poursuit encore" ses victimes après les heurts par leur faire trembler et sursauter, mais également la mentalité et même la parole6 d’Alleg se mettent à imiter les chocs de l’électricité et de l'eau (41). Pendant que les séances avec les soldats dictent le rythme de sa vie, il s'essouffle en vain à garder son vrai soi. Il croit même entendre "la voix de Gilberte" dans la prison—sa femme, la seule mémoire qui reste—et avec ce dernier cri un passé auquel le supplice d'El Biar va succéder s'évanouit (50). Sans plus de liaisons avec son identité originale, Alleg devient maîtrisé en tant qu’instrument dans la production de douleur que travaillent les paras. Ils le laissent blessé et épuisé pendant les répits, sans aucune énergie juste comme un appareil éteint; toutefois avec "un seul coup" d'électricité il reprend "entièrement conscience," alors l'électrocution n'est plus la torture pour lui mais son existence, son monde entier et ce qui lui donne vie (58).7 En fait Alleg "[se gifle] pour être certain" qu'il est dans la vie réelle, la souffrance est tout ce qu'il connaît (61). Pourtant, en apprenant vivre dans la torture (et non pas avec elle) il cherche continuellement pour quelque bonheur ou satisfaction. Mais ne trouvant que du mal, sa nature humaine le pousse plutôt à comprendre la torture elle-même comme un examen absurde ou un sport entre prisonnier et tortionnaire,8 au prix de sa propre dignité et son état psychologique.9 Cette dégradation de soi arrive peut-être inévitablement, et le langage fantastique comme une "disparition," être "prit en mains," et un "spectacle" qui abrite tout le monde de la vérité sur ce que se passe est une autre preuve de la normalisation du meurtre10 dans cette dystopie (12, 22).
Ce traitement sans espoir, cette maîtrise absolue de tous les prisonniers ainsi que leur acceptation de leur incapacité d'arrêter la torture indiquent une efficacité dans la mesure où il faut qu'elle vienne d'un système bien huilé, et en effet si on regarde Alleg vraiment comme un "grosse légume," comme une matière première à traiter les parallélismes entre prison et usine deviennent claires (18). On dit "qu'on tortura jusqu'à l'aube," c’est la "routine de la maison"—alors les tortionnaires deviennent des ouvriers avec leurs heures de travail, essayant d'optimiser leur production (51). Comme n'importe quelle profession, il faut apprendre le métier. Un débutant "essaie comme ses chefs de [l'intimider]," et ils lui enseignent les meilleures techniques11 de torture "pour ne pas perdre de temps" (20, 27). Comme n'importe quelle industrie, "on a des moyens scientifiques" qui mettent à jour l'exercice (53). Quoique la manière 'sèche' dont Alleg parle du système expose le cadre d'exploitation dans le camp, elle est également une réflexion d'un statu quo qui se préserve impitoyablement et anéantit chaque anomalie, dont le style 'maîtrisé' est une suite logique, une nécessité pour y survivre.
Or même si ce 'cri maîtrisé' est un résultat du système, il n'est certainement pas celui qui exige des soldats. En réalité on voit qu'un tel cri est vraiment le dernier moyen restant pour résister à eux. Dès le début Alleg proclame sa force mentale en disant "chaque coup...me raffermissait dans ma décision : ne pas céder à ces brutes" mais hélas, le corps est limité là où l'esprit n'est pas, et même quand il "décide à ne plus remuer les doigts" l'électricité vainc ses ordres—malgré lui, "tous les muscles...se bandaient inutilement"; malgré lui, "les doigts s'agitèrent follement" (29).12 Cette déconnexion entre corps et esprit est donc peut-être ce qui définit le cri d'Alleg: l'enfant d'une tête qui ne sent plus sa chair et d'un corps qui n'entend plus l'esprit. En fait, il est précisément ce lien rompu qui lui permet d'étreindre la souffrance, d'examiner la "différence de qualité"13 dans elle sous les différents appareils (27). Pendant que son corps atteint sa limite de la douleur, il décrit en passant les paras qui "[vident] des bouteilles de bière," ce qui ajoute un air d'absurdité ainsi que d'horreur à la situation (24). Même en écrivant son témoignage, Alleg semble exister en dehors de sa chair en parlant très indirectement de lui-même comme "je m'entendis répondre" (57).14
Cependant, même sans une conscience de son corps, il n'est pas du tout facile à persévérer dans la prison. Et Alleg sait bien que "ces facilités" ne sont pas "offertes volontairement," qu'il a un devoir de "[battre] jusqu'au bout" (62, 63). Pourquoi? Parce qu'il fait partie d'une expérience humaine commune et éternelle, l'expérience de l'impuissance complète face au mal, l'expérience d'endurer la torture jour après jour pour ses propres principes. Donc son devoir vient de la dignité d'un algérien libre ainsi que de quelqu'un faussement abusé, mais surtout de l'art, de la muse qui représente la souffrance cachée et porte la flamme d'espoir au cours du temps.15,16 C'est une muse qui le conduit à analyser son état et son chagrin durant l'épreuve, d'apprendre la machine derrière tous ces malheurs pour qu'il puisse l’exposer sous forme d'écriture afin de l’arrêter. Comme Sartres, "je la dévoile...pour la changer."17 Mais pour présenter le point de vue de la victime d'une façon claire et franche, il doit mettre de côté ses réactions naturelles. Il doit maîtriser son propre cri, en se donnant à une mission beaucoup plus grand que la souffrance d'un homme, celle qui exige la volonté d’être un témoin idéal malgré toutes les impulsions de lâcher. Après tout, El Biar n'est pas la seule telle prison—donc il faut qu'Alleg expose les faits de son histoire pour l'objectif selon Simonin "d'imposer à l’opinion publique de prendre position"18 sur la systématisation de la torture en Algérie, non pas seulement pour son propre peuple19 mais pour "tous ceux qui chaque jour meurent pour la liberté de leur pays," car les atrocités commises là-bas sont éclairées par "les lueurs de la ville," car "ce qu'on fait [là], on le fera" ici, car "il pourrait être...chacun" entre nous et par conséquent, car l'ignorance n'est jamais l'innocence (80, 14).
- On saura comment je suis mort, lui dis-je.
- Non, personne n'en saura rien.
- Si, répondis-je encore, tout se sait toujours.20
September 2, 2015
Un seul mot pour décrire ces tortionnaires:"Lâches"
S'en prendre ainsi à ceux qui ne clamaient que leur libérté violée mais aussi à ceux qui ont eu le courage d'être à leur coté.. Henri Allag relate dans les moindres détails des séances de torture qu'il a subit même en étant un européen.. De l'éléctricité à l'eau, au penthatol, toutes les méthodes ont été experimentées mais lui et tant d'autres ont tenu le coup, à vous je présente mes respects les plus profonds..
"II y a quelques jours à peine, le sang de trois jeunes Algériens a recouvert dans la cour de la prison celui de l’Algérien Fernand Yveton. Dans l’immense cri de douleur qui jaillit de toutes les cellules au moment où le bourreau vint chercher les condamnés, comme dans le silence absolu, solennel, qui lui succéda, c’est l’âme de l’Algérie qui vibrait. Il pleuvait et des gouttes s’accrochaient, brillantes dans le noir, aux barreaux de ma cellule. Tous les guichets avaient été fermés par les gardiens, mais nous entendîmes avant qu’on le bâillonne, l’un des condamnés crier : « Tahia El Djezaïr ! Vive l’Algérie ! »
Et d’une seule voix, au moment même sans doute où le premier des trois montait sur l’échafaud, jaillit de la prison des femmes la chanson des combattants algériens :
De nos montagnes
La voix des hommes libres s’est élevée :
Elle clame l’indépendance
De la patrie
Je te donne tout ce que j’aime,
Je te donne ma vie,
O mon pays... O mon pays.
Tout cela, je devais le dire pour les Français qui voudront bien me lire. Il faut qu’ils sachent que les Algériens ne confondent pas leurs tortionnaires avec le grand peuple de France, auprès duquel ils ont tant appris et dont l’amitié leur est si chère.Il faut qu’ils sachent pourtant ce qui se fait ici EN LEUR NOM.
Novembre 1957"
Un grand merci Henri Allag, Maurice Audin ainsi qu'aux autres encores inconnus, qui n'ont pas hésité à aider les combattants algériens même au détriment de leurs vies...
S'en prendre ainsi à ceux qui ne clamaient que leur libérté violée mais aussi à ceux qui ont eu le courage d'être à leur coté.. Henri Allag relate dans les moindres détails des séances de torture qu'il a subit même en étant un européen.. De l'éléctricité à l'eau, au penthatol, toutes les méthodes ont été experimentées mais lui et tant d'autres ont tenu le coup, à vous je présente mes respects les plus profonds..
"II y a quelques jours à peine, le sang de trois jeunes Algériens a recouvert dans la cour de la prison celui de l’Algérien Fernand Yveton. Dans l’immense cri de douleur qui jaillit de toutes les cellules au moment où le bourreau vint chercher les condamnés, comme dans le silence absolu, solennel, qui lui succéda, c’est l’âme de l’Algérie qui vibrait. Il pleuvait et des gouttes s’accrochaient, brillantes dans le noir, aux barreaux de ma cellule. Tous les guichets avaient été fermés par les gardiens, mais nous entendîmes avant qu’on le bâillonne, l’un des condamnés crier : « Tahia El Djezaïr ! Vive l’Algérie ! »
Et d’une seule voix, au moment même sans doute où le premier des trois montait sur l’échafaud, jaillit de la prison des femmes la chanson des combattants algériens :
De nos montagnes
La voix des hommes libres s’est élevée :
Elle clame l’indépendance
De la patrie
Je te donne tout ce que j’aime,
Je te donne ma vie,
O mon pays... O mon pays.
Tout cela, je devais le dire pour les Français qui voudront bien me lire. Il faut qu’ils sachent que les Algériens ne confondent pas leurs tortionnaires avec le grand peuple de France, auprès duquel ils ont tant appris et dont l’amitié leur est si chère.Il faut qu’ils sachent pourtant ce qui se fait ici EN LEUR NOM.
Novembre 1957"
Un grand merci Henri Allag, Maurice Audin ainsi qu'aux autres encores inconnus, qui n'ont pas hésité à aider les combattants algériens même au détriment de leurs vies...
February 8, 2009
Henri Alleg was editor of Alger Republicain from 1950 until the paper was banned by in 1955. He managed to hide until 1957 when he was taken prisoner by French paratroopers and tortured, even though he was a French citizen (thus the torture was illegal). His account of his horrific experiences was smuggled out of the prison and published in 1958, with an introduction by Sartres discussing the dehumanizing effects of torture on society as a whole.
Read
April 27, 2023France is evil. I hate France. Death to France.
April 13, 2026
"For ten years, fifteen years they've all had the same idea, that if captured they must say nothing: and there is no way to change them"
This is a memoir by Henri Alleg, a French journalist and former editor of Alger Républicain (1950-1955), a newspaper known for its opposition to French colonial rule in Algeria and its support for Algerian independence. The paper was banned in 1955, forcing Alleg into hiding to escape internment before being arrested in 1957.
He was held for around a month in prison, during which he managed to document his torture at the hands of French forces and smuggle it out. Shortly after its publication, The Question was banned, becoming the first book to be censored in France since the 18th Century.
What follows is not merely a record of imprisonment, but a stark and unfiltered account of the systematic torture carried out by the French military. Alleg was beaten, electrocuted, waterboarded, burned, drugged, and starved. Yet he refused to speak. In a setting where absolute power is exercised over the body, the environment, and even the perception of time, silence becomes an act of defiance.
He describes brief encounters with Algerian prisoners, fleeting moments as they were moved between cells, during which they offered quiet solidarity.
Even in the face of death, resistance persists. At one point, a condemned man's cry "Tahia El Djezair! Vive l'Algerie!" (long live Algeria) echoes through the prison before being silenced, while the anthem of a free Algeria rises from the women's section, "Out of our struggle Rise the voices of free men: They claim independence For our country. I give you everything I love, I give you my life, O my country... O my country." These are not just scenes of suffering, but of solidarity, dignity, and unwavering belief.
In the preface, Jean-Paul Sartre argues that torture is not merely about extracting information, it is about reducing a human being to something less than human. He draws parallels between French outrage at Gestapo torture during World War II and the same methods later being used by the French in Algeria. He recalls how the French used to watch German soldiers and say, "They look like us. How can they act as they do?" taking pride in their inability to comprehend such cruelty only for that same cruelty to be reproduced in Algeria years later. His argument is clear, torture is not an aberration of colonialism, but a reflection of its very logic. The belief that some lives matter less, the idea that the native is subhuman, makes such violence possible.
Alleg also recounts French paratroopers, some of whom expressed sympathetic admiration for his courage and silence, speaking about it casually as though recalling a football match, even congratulating him on his endurance. Yet only days later, Alleg sees one of the said paratroopers "shrivelled up and disfigured by hatred", violently beating an Algerian prisoner simply for not going fast enough down the stairs. The soldier’s transformation from sympathetic observer to agent of violence highlights how deeply ingrained racial perceptions shape both behaviour and moral judgment. Alleg recognises that, despite the brutality he endured, his position as a Frenchman set him apart, and that Algerian prisoners existed within a broader, racialised system of dehumanisation.
Alleg concludes by reminding the French public that when violence is committed by the state, it is done in the name of its citizens, and therefore can not be met with ignorance. Instead, it demands recognition and accountability, forcing the reader to confront the reality that such violence is never distant, but is always carried out in the name of its people. Alleg’s warning remains relevant today, as modern states continue to justify violence in the name of their people, even as those same people may remain divided, misinformed, or unaware of its full realities.
"I owe it to all those who, each day, die for liberty"
This is a memoir by Henri Alleg, a French journalist and former editor of Alger Républicain (1950-1955), a newspaper known for its opposition to French colonial rule in Algeria and its support for Algerian independence. The paper was banned in 1955, forcing Alleg into hiding to escape internment before being arrested in 1957.
He was held for around a month in prison, during which he managed to document his torture at the hands of French forces and smuggle it out. Shortly after its publication, The Question was banned, becoming the first book to be censored in France since the 18th Century.
What follows is not merely a record of imprisonment, but a stark and unfiltered account of the systematic torture carried out by the French military. Alleg was beaten, electrocuted, waterboarded, burned, drugged, and starved. Yet he refused to speak. In a setting where absolute power is exercised over the body, the environment, and even the perception of time, silence becomes an act of defiance.
He describes brief encounters with Algerian prisoners, fleeting moments as they were moved between cells, during which they offered quiet solidarity.
"In their eyes I read a solidarity, a friendship, and such complete trust that I felt proud, particularly as a European, to be among them."
Even in the face of death, resistance persists. At one point, a condemned man's cry "Tahia El Djezair! Vive l'Algerie!" (long live Algeria) echoes through the prison before being silenced, while the anthem of a free Algeria rises from the women's section, "Out of our struggle Rise the voices of free men: They claim independence For our country. I give you everything I love, I give you my life, O my country... O my country." These are not just scenes of suffering, but of solidarity, dignity, and unwavering belief.
In the preface, Jean-Paul Sartre argues that torture is not merely about extracting information, it is about reducing a human being to something less than human. He draws parallels between French outrage at Gestapo torture during World War II and the same methods later being used by the French in Algeria. He recalls how the French used to watch German soldiers and say, "They look like us. How can they act as they do?" taking pride in their inability to comprehend such cruelty only for that same cruelty to be reproduced in Algeria years later. His argument is clear, torture is not an aberration of colonialism, but a reflection of its very logic. The belief that some lives matter less, the idea that the native is subhuman, makes such violence possible.
Alleg also recounts French paratroopers, some of whom expressed sympathetic admiration for his courage and silence, speaking about it casually as though recalling a football match, even congratulating him on his endurance. Yet only days later, Alleg sees one of the said paratroopers "shrivelled up and disfigured by hatred", violently beating an Algerian prisoner simply for not going fast enough down the stairs. The soldier’s transformation from sympathetic observer to agent of violence highlights how deeply ingrained racial perceptions shape both behaviour and moral judgment. Alleg recognises that, despite the brutality he endured, his position as a Frenchman set him apart, and that Algerian prisoners existed within a broader, racialised system of dehumanisation.
“For most Europeans in Algeria, there are two complementary and inseparable truths: that they have the divine right, and that the natives are sub-human.”
Alleg concludes by reminding the French public that when violence is committed by the state, it is done in the name of its citizens, and therefore can not be met with ignorance. Instead, it demands recognition and accountability, forcing the reader to confront the reality that such violence is never distant, but is always carried out in the name of its people. Alleg’s warning remains relevant today, as modern states continue to justify violence in the name of their people, even as those same people may remain divided, misinformed, or unaware of its full realities.
"I owe it to all those who, each day, die for liberty"
October 8, 2018
This is a short book, and it has a reason for being short; Henri Alleg penned it on brown wrapping paper while still in prison, and had it smuggled to France for publication. In The Question, he recounts how he was tortured by the notorious Paras (the elite paratroop division of the french military in Algeria) because he, as a communist,supported the cause of the Algerian people. Aleg is taken to the 'centre de tri' after he is captured. He is beaten, water boarded,savagely electrocuted, and burnt in sensitive places with fire. All the while, his torturers want the names of the people who helped him go into hiding, and provided him with safehouses. Although Alleg makes it very clear in the beginning that he would not answer any questions,even the simplest ones, the torturers keep on, with the hope that he will break down at some point.
The episodes of torture described by Alleg are blood-curdling. Especially his experiences with the electric shocks made me clench my teeth with sympathy for his pain. The longer lasting effect on the reader, though, stems from the way the french soldiers, only fifteen years after their nation's experience with fascism, practice a racist kind of fascism themselves, even telling Alleg at one point that they are worse than the SS themselves. The torturers are not acting solely to gather information, of course. They are acting out of their racism and hate towards someone who dared to side with the "wogs" although he was a Frenchman himself. This becomes clear from the way the torturers talk to Alleg, and how they treat the Algerian prisoners even worse. The experimental truth serum pentothal is also used at some point. Alleg's description of this experience is very interesting; he talks about dreaming that he was walking in the streets of a city he didn't know, followed by the man questioning him, and finding it very difficult not to answer his questions.
Sartre has written an introduction to the original publication in French, and that introduction is also translated here. This beautiful text on torture makes Alleg's story all the more lucid and relevant by putting it into the context of racism and colonialism. As Sartre observes, the fact that there are french soldiers all too ready to torture others after occupation by the Nazis shows that who tortures whom is merely a question of occasion; given the reasons, all nations will find the torturers among them and put them to work. The invalid conclusion from this is to think that we as humans are inherently inhuman, and the descent into uncontrolled violence is ineluctable. Alleg's --and of those who dare to stand to their torturers and not betray their companions-- achievement is to show what a sordid game the torturers are playing, and reclaim humanity.
Alleg has written another postscript for this edition, and the publishers a foreword connecting his story to the revelations of torture carried out by the US armed forces in Iraq (although extraordinary rendition has been practiced a long time before that,and should also be counted as active participation in torture). It's interesting that the first method the Paras used on Alleg was waterboarding, which the US American authorities called "enhanced interrogation", and defended as not being torture. Judging from the circumstances, Alleg's and Sartre's precious lesson that torture can be done only when the victim is dehumanized is unfortunately still bitter reality, and all the more reason to read this book.
The episodes of torture described by Alleg are blood-curdling. Especially his experiences with the electric shocks made me clench my teeth with sympathy for his pain. The longer lasting effect on the reader, though, stems from the way the french soldiers, only fifteen years after their nation's experience with fascism, practice a racist kind of fascism themselves, even telling Alleg at one point that they are worse than the SS themselves. The torturers are not acting solely to gather information, of course. They are acting out of their racism and hate towards someone who dared to side with the "wogs" although he was a Frenchman himself. This becomes clear from the way the torturers talk to Alleg, and how they treat the Algerian prisoners even worse. The experimental truth serum pentothal is also used at some point. Alleg's description of this experience is very interesting; he talks about dreaming that he was walking in the streets of a city he didn't know, followed by the man questioning him, and finding it very difficult not to answer his questions.
Sartre has written an introduction to the original publication in French, and that introduction is also translated here. This beautiful text on torture makes Alleg's story all the more lucid and relevant by putting it into the context of racism and colonialism. As Sartre observes, the fact that there are french soldiers all too ready to torture others after occupation by the Nazis shows that who tortures whom is merely a question of occasion; given the reasons, all nations will find the torturers among them and put them to work. The invalid conclusion from this is to think that we as humans are inherently inhuman, and the descent into uncontrolled violence is ineluctable. Alleg's --and of those who dare to stand to their torturers and not betray their companions-- achievement is to show what a sordid game the torturers are playing, and reclaim humanity.
Alleg has written another postscript for this edition, and the publishers a foreword connecting his story to the revelations of torture carried out by the US armed forces in Iraq (although extraordinary rendition has been practiced a long time before that,and should also be counted as active participation in torture). It's interesting that the first method the Paras used on Alleg was waterboarding, which the US American authorities called "enhanced interrogation", and defended as not being torture. Judging from the circumstances, Alleg's and Sartre's precious lesson that torture can be done only when the victim is dehumanized is unfortunately still bitter reality, and all the more reason to read this book.
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January 14, 2025Écrit en 1958 par Henri Alleg, alors directeur du journal "Alger républicain", ce récit autobiographique décrit les tortures qu'il a subies pendant un mois aux mains des parachutistes français à El-Biar. Alleg relate les faits sans fioritures ni emphase, ce qui rend son témoignage d'autant plus percutant. La publication du livre, préfacé par Jean-Paul Sartre, a provoqué un scandale retentissant en France, menant à sa censure immédiate par le gouvernement.
Alleg a contribué à éveiller les consciences sur la réalité de la guerre d'Algérie pour devenir un plaidoyer universel contre la torture. Chomsky specifically cited "La Question" in his critiques of intellectual complicity with state power (his coverage of Abu Ghraib and the War on Terror provide direct parallels to the French use of torture in Algeria.) He used the French intellectuals' response to the Algerian War (including their reaction to Alleg's book) as a case study in how intellectuals often fail to speak truth to power.
He was particularly interested in how French institutions and media handled the torture revelations in Alleg's book. (Few exceptions - la Déclaration sur le droit à l'insoumission signed by Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, and Breton)..While in the U.S. you might find some acknowledgment of historical wrongs (however inadequate) in mainstream discourse, French politicians like Macron still dance around terms like "crime against humanity," then quickly retreat when faced with backlash.
When Macron commissioned historian Benjamin Stora to write a report on France-Algeria memory issues, he specifically stated there would be "neither repentance nor apologies” but this position macronienne reflète plus largement sa gouvernance : une façade de modernité et de rupture qui masque mal une continuité avec les mécanismes traditionnels du pouvoir français..tandis que l'extrême droite, représentée par Le Pen et Zemmour, continue à défendre l'héritage colonial. (Jean-Marie Le Pen served as a paratrooper in Algeria and was accused of participating in torture though he denied this...and took that secret to the grave).
Bon, je ne peux m'empêcher de penser à mon grand-père, lui aussi torturé par les forces françaises, les mêmes tortures qu'Alleg décrit dans son livre - l'électricité, la baignoire, les coups - des méthodes utilisées systématiquement contre les Kabyles, considérés comme particulièrement résistants à la présence française. Zizou said it best -- "Chaque jour je pense à d'où je viens et je suis toujours fier d'être ce que je suis : d'abord un Kabyle de La Castellane, puis un Algérien de Marseille, et enfin un Français.” A great read (only 65 pages)...and a heartfelt one.
Alleg a contribué à éveiller les consciences sur la réalité de la guerre d'Algérie pour devenir un plaidoyer universel contre la torture. Chomsky specifically cited "La Question" in his critiques of intellectual complicity with state power (his coverage of Abu Ghraib and the War on Terror provide direct parallels to the French use of torture in Algeria.) He used the French intellectuals' response to the Algerian War (including their reaction to Alleg's book) as a case study in how intellectuals often fail to speak truth to power.
He was particularly interested in how French institutions and media handled the torture revelations in Alleg's book. (Few exceptions - la Déclaration sur le droit à l'insoumission signed by Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, and Breton)..While in the U.S. you might find some acknowledgment of historical wrongs (however inadequate) in mainstream discourse, French politicians like Macron still dance around terms like "crime against humanity," then quickly retreat when faced with backlash.
When Macron commissioned historian Benjamin Stora to write a report on France-Algeria memory issues, he specifically stated there would be "neither repentance nor apologies” but this position macronienne reflète plus largement sa gouvernance : une façade de modernité et de rupture qui masque mal une continuité avec les mécanismes traditionnels du pouvoir français..tandis que l'extrême droite, représentée par Le Pen et Zemmour, continue à défendre l'héritage colonial. (Jean-Marie Le Pen served as a paratrooper in Algeria and was accused of participating in torture though he denied this...and took that secret to the grave).
Bon, je ne peux m'empêcher de penser à mon grand-père, lui aussi torturé par les forces françaises, les mêmes tortures qu'Alleg décrit dans son livre - l'électricité, la baignoire, les coups - des méthodes utilisées systématiquement contre les Kabyles, considérés comme particulièrement résistants à la présence française. Zizou said it best -- "Chaque jour je pense à d'où je viens et je suis toujours fier d'être ce que je suis : d'abord un Kabyle de La Castellane, puis un Algérien de Marseille, et enfin un Français.” A great read (only 65 pages)...and a heartfelt one.
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April 28, 2023Regarding The Question itself, there are not many words; all one can write is a case for the importance of reading an account of torture, despite its difficulty. The laughter of the French torturers lingers, as does the singing from the Algerian women prisoners after executions.
From the Foreword: “This is why the testimony of Henri Alleg reverberates today. Alleg revealed to the French public that torture, once accepted in “exceptional” circumstances, becomes routine when the enemy is dehumanized in the ordinary daily practice of soldiering and policing…The Americans - soldiers, civilian contractors, intelligence agents, even doctors - torturing prisoners today in Cuba, Iraq, Afghanistan, Diego Garcia, and elsewhere are the heirs of that imperialist process.” (ix) [2006]
+ French military officers of the Algerian War were sent to Fort Bragg, NC to train US military personnel on their ‘interrogation techniques’ and rulers of South Africa during Apartheid and South American dictators solicited French torturers who operated in Algeria
The preface by Jean-Paul Satre is impressive. He equates torture, the desire to reduce man to sub-human, to the entire colonization project. He begins by writing about hearing the screams of men in the Gestapo headquarters in Paris in 1943, and French men believing they could never make another man scream in that way, only to be doing just that in Algeria in 1958.
As was compelling in Bryan Stevenson’s Just Mercy, a case for ending capital punishment in the United States, Alleg finished his account by reminding the French public that when violence is committed by the state, it is done in the name of its citizens. This responsibility creates an obligation for readers to resist the continuation of such practices.
From the Foreword: “This is why the testimony of Henri Alleg reverberates today. Alleg revealed to the French public that torture, once accepted in “exceptional” circumstances, becomes routine when the enemy is dehumanized in the ordinary daily practice of soldiering and policing…The Americans - soldiers, civilian contractors, intelligence agents, even doctors - torturing prisoners today in Cuba, Iraq, Afghanistan, Diego Garcia, and elsewhere are the heirs of that imperialist process.” (ix) [2006]
+ French military officers of the Algerian War were sent to Fort Bragg, NC to train US military personnel on their ‘interrogation techniques’ and rulers of South Africa during Apartheid and South American dictators solicited French torturers who operated in Algeria
The preface by Jean-Paul Satre is impressive. He equates torture, the desire to reduce man to sub-human, to the entire colonization project. He begins by writing about hearing the screams of men in the Gestapo headquarters in Paris in 1943, and French men believing they could never make another man scream in that way, only to be doing just that in Algeria in 1958.
As was compelling in Bryan Stevenson’s Just Mercy, a case for ending capital punishment in the United States, Alleg finished his account by reminding the French public that when violence is committed by the state, it is done in the name of its citizens. This responsibility creates an obligation for readers to resist the continuation of such practices.
July 4, 2024
I had my own apprehensions picking up that book. For it contains extremely graphic imagery on the torturing that Henri Alleg was subjected to during his captivity by the French in the then occupied Algeria of 1957.
I then thought if Henri Alleg and other fellow human being were and still are on the receiving end of all the brutal inhumane torturing, intimidation and all sorts of obnoxious treatments that my mind is simply not able to comprehend. If they are subjected to that and bravely survive it and find the courage and heroism to write about it, I can surely put up with reading it in the midst of the extremely comfortable and privileged life that I lead.
As expected, ‘La question’ was a deeply painful and yet an essential read. It is a sharp reminder of the atrocities some human beings are capable of inflicting on other humans.
The book is a brave account of the author captivity and torture by the french. It is a vivid recounting of the hideous torturing and intimidation to which he, all the Algerians that dared to stand up for themselves as well all the decent europeans that spoke up was subjected. The crime the author was punished for is nothing other than doing his job as journalist, taking a stand with the truth, with the right of human being to freedom and self determination.
Those events are part of history yes but they sadly remain very timely. While the British media is keeping us distracted with the Euros, Wimbledon, Glastonbury and the despicable clown performances that the UK and the US election are. The ongoing Genocide in Gaza seems to be taking backstage. The suffering, torment and plight of the Gazans for it is far from being over.
I read that book while I was basking under the beautiful sun of Free Algeria. A country that is still grappling with its own problems, a country that has paid and is still paying a steep price for the savage French occupation . But Algeria is Free today and so will be Palestine one day liberated (from the river to the sea) off the shackles of the terrorist, apartheid, suppremesist entity that Isreal is.
I then thought if Henri Alleg and other fellow human being were and still are on the receiving end of all the brutal inhumane torturing, intimidation and all sorts of obnoxious treatments that my mind is simply not able to comprehend. If they are subjected to that and bravely survive it and find the courage and heroism to write about it, I can surely put up with reading it in the midst of the extremely comfortable and privileged life that I lead.
As expected, ‘La question’ was a deeply painful and yet an essential read. It is a sharp reminder of the atrocities some human beings are capable of inflicting on other humans.
The book is a brave account of the author captivity and torture by the french. It is a vivid recounting of the hideous torturing and intimidation to which he, all the Algerians that dared to stand up for themselves as well all the decent europeans that spoke up was subjected. The crime the author was punished for is nothing other than doing his job as journalist, taking a stand with the truth, with the right of human being to freedom and self determination.
Those events are part of history yes but they sadly remain very timely. While the British media is keeping us distracted with the Euros, Wimbledon, Glastonbury and the despicable clown performances that the UK and the US election are. The ongoing Genocide in Gaza seems to be taking backstage. The suffering, torment and plight of the Gazans for it is far from being over.
I read that book while I was basking under the beautiful sun of Free Algeria. A country that is still grappling with its own problems, a country that has paid and is still paying a steep price for the savage French occupation . But Algeria is Free today and so will be Palestine one day liberated (from the river to the sea) off the shackles of the terrorist, apartheid, suppremesist entity that Isreal is.
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September 13, 2019Fransız Gazeteci Yazar Henri Alleg'in Cezayir'in Fransa tarafından işgâl edildiği ve savaşın sürdüğü yıllarda yaşadığı olayları anlattığı "Sorgu" kitabı, Cezayir Sorunu ile ilgili Türkçe'de yayınlanmış az sayıdaki kitaplardan biridir. Fransız Gazeteci Yazar Henri Alleg, Fransa'nın Cezayir'i işgâl savaşına karşı çıkmış bir Gazeteci idi, bu nedenle Cezayir'de bir süre "hapishane"de kalmış, "işkence" görmüş ve Fransız "yeni-kolonici"lerin ağır baskıları ile Fransız Yazar Jean Paul Sartre gibi Fransa'da bir süre Gazetecilik yapması engellenmişti. Daha sonra, Fransız Gazeteci Yazar Henri Alleg, Fransız Sosyalist Partisi'nin kurduğu Koalisyonlar sırasında Gazeteciliğe yönelmiş, Cezayir'le ilgili yaşadıklarını "Sorgu" kitabında anlatmıştı. Henri Alleg, Cezayir Sorunu'nun "işgâl" ya da "savaş" gibi "şiddet" yolları ile aşılamayacağını, Cezayir'in de öbür eski "koloni"ler gibi bağımsızlığa kavuştuğunu ve Birleşmiş Milletler Üyesi bir ülke olarak, demokrasiyi dünya standartlarında uygulamaya haklı olduğunu ve uygulayacağını yazıyordu. Henri Alleg, Cezayir'de, sosyal demokrasinin, modern sosyalist rejimin yürütülmesinin Cezayir Halkı açısından en iyi seçenek olduğunu yazılarında, kitaplarında yazdı.
October 21, 2019
This was post french revolution and the enlightenment. France occupied Algeria and tried to control the arabs. A left wing editor and a communist Henry Alleg was captured and tortured for a month.
This was an account of how he did not break under torture. One passage that rings with me is:
“I suddenly felt proud and happy. I hadn’t given in. I was now sure I could hold out to the end, and that I wouldn’t make their job easier by killing myself.”
Sartres introduction about the nature of the torturer and the tortured being different sides of the same coin and that each considers the other inhuman is enlightening.
This was an account of how he did not break under torture. One passage that rings with me is:
“I suddenly felt proud and happy. I hadn’t given in. I was now sure I could hold out to the end, and that I wouldn’t make their job easier by killing myself.”
Sartres introduction about the nature of the torturer and the tortured being different sides of the same coin and that each considers the other inhuman is enlightening.
April 30, 2021
"(...) aquele "centro de triagem" não era apenas um centro de tortura para os argelinos, era também uma escola de perversão para os jovens franceses".
Este livro narra de forma factual as torturas que Henri Alleg sofreu nas mãos dos franceses, sendo um relato cru e honesto, sem floreios nem tentativas de poetizar a narrativa. O posfácio do tradutor Samuel Titan Jr. também é muito bom (e sua menção ao presidente brasileiro que enaltece torturadores mais que pertinente). Recomendo muito essa leitura.
Este livro narra de forma factual as torturas que Henri Alleg sofreu nas mãos dos franceses, sendo um relato cru e honesto, sem floreios nem tentativas de poetizar a narrativa. O posfácio do tradutor Samuel Titan Jr. também é muito bom (e sua menção ao presidente brasileiro que enaltece torturadores mais que pertinente). Recomendo muito essa leitura.
June 11, 2023
This is not really a book. This is a first hand account by Alleg, a French reporter, of the torture he went through in one of the many French secret prisons in Algeria during the war.
Alleg was tortured for around a month. This book describes every single torture method employed by the French paratroopers, and names all who could be named. Alleg names the Algerians who died in his prison, and details how the French 'disappeared' certain prisoners.
I wouldn't recommend this book or read it again.
Alleg was tortured for around a month. This book describes every single torture method employed by the French paratroopers, and names all who could be named. Alleg names the Algerians who died in his prison, and details how the French 'disappeared' certain prisoners.
I wouldn't recommend this book or read it again.
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