Hadj-Moussa 289(Fatiha, 28 years old). This mirror function not only operates at the level
of comparisons between France and Algeria; it is also concerned with the
international visibility of the Algerian drama. It is through the mediation
of images disseminated from France that Algeria becomes visible. But it
is a problematic visibility since the gaze from France is judged negatively.
France “knows nothing about Algeria” (Djamel) and its claims are vain
(Hammoud):
I was telling you earlier that they [the French media] indulge
from time to time in spreading disinformation. We have been
enemies for 130 years. That cannot be erased simply in a week
or in a few years. Time needs to run its course. It’s normal!
They will visit a polling station where there are only two chaps
but will not go to the one with 10,000 people.atellite television offers viewers the opportunity to gain critical dis-S
tance, to compare their lived experience with that of other populations,
to reimagine alternative histories. Participants point to “that other great
repressed thought of the 20th century in France... which is that of colo-
nialism and notably the war in Algeria.”^52 The “deep connection” linking
Algeria to France, as Grandguillaume argues, corresponds to a long-bur-
ied memory and a long-suppressed perspective on the course of events.
However, the lengthy and difficult process of imbuing material traces with
meaning has begun with the emerging discussions in France around the
issue of torture. The Algerian press has commented on it and it has been
widely picked up by the French networks. Opening up the issue assisted
Algerians tortured under Le Pen during the war in coming forward to
bear witness and to respond to the images coming from elsewhere, and
has allowed the French to avoid falling for the line set by the FLN.^53
rance, “our F saboteur,”^54 is also a model. Despite “the gaps in its
memory... its unhealthy connection to the [dark] zones of its past”^55
and despite the “presentness of its past,”^56 France is the example through
which a political identification is possible. Whereas cultural identification
is ambiguous and oscillates between the poles of repulsion and attraction,
political identification is most often chosen. I have discussed elsewhere
the possibilities created by satellite television and have insisted on the
opportunities it presents for political education as well as the openings it