Jean-Luc Einaudi : En arrière fond il y a les négociations entre le gouvernement français et le gouvernement provisoire algérien, or ces négociations ont été interrompues depuis juillet. Officiellement il n’y a plus de contact, il reste seulement des contacts secrets, par l’intermédiaire d’un diplomate suisse, qui sont en train de préparer la reprise de pourparlers. Chacun a le soucis du rapport de force. Le gouvernement français veut affaiblir le F.L.N., et donc, dans le même temps où on va vers la négociation, on voit aussi la répression se renforcer. Voilà, en gros le contexte de ces événements.

Wally : Donc, qu’est-ce qui se passe le 17 octobre ?

Jean-Luc Einaudi : Il faut remonter un peu plus loin. Fin août-début septembre il y a un durcissement de la répression, le F.L.N. reprend un certain nombre d’attentats contre des policiers, il va y avoir 11 policiers tués de la fin août 1961 au début octobre. Le 5 octobre, Papon, avec bien sûr l’accord du gouvernement, décrète un couvre feu qui s’applique à l’ensemble de la population originaire d’Algérie, qu’à l’époque on appelle officiellement ” français musulmans d’Algérie “. La fédération de France du F.L.N. décide d’appeler l’ensemble des algériens résidant en région parisienne à mettre en échec ce couvre feu le 17 octobre 1961, en se rassemblant à partir de l’heure de début de celui-ci. Chose extrêmement importante, l’ordre est donné que ces rassemblements doivent être impérativement pacifistes et qu’il est absolument interdit d’avoir quoi que ce soit qui puisse être assimilé a une arme.

Wally : Est-ce que du côté du pouvoir français, ils ont été prévenus que l’ordre avait été donné de n’avoir rien qui puisse ressembler à une arme ?

Jean-Luc Einaudi : Ils ont été prévenus par leurs informateurs, ils essayaient d’avoir des informateurs infiltrés dans le F.L.N. C’est comme ça qu’ils ont été prévenus de ces rassemblements, car il n’y a pas eu d’affiches, ou d’appel public, cela s’est fait par le bouche à oreilles peu de temps avant.

Wally : L’appel à la manifestation est pour le couvre feu, c’est-à-dire 19 h-20 h, il y a des lieux de rassemblement prévus ?

Jean-Luc Einaudi : Les lieux qui avaient été définis étaient les lieux les plus connus de l’opinion publique française et internationale. Il s’agissait de faire une grande manifestation au coeur de la capitale française, sur les lieux les plus réputés : Les Champs Élysées, les grand boulevards, boulevard Saint-Michel… Il s’agissait de rassemblements. Ce qu’il faut avoir en tête c’est que depuis des années, s’était généralisée la pratique des rafles, et souvent c’était l’occasion de violences. Depuis le mois de septembre notamment, s’était développée la pratique de noyades, c’est-à-dire que l’on entendait dire que l’on retrouvait des cadavres d’algériens, un certain nombre de policiers avaient commencé à noyer des algériens. Très vite, en fin d’après-midi, le 17 octobre, les rafles ont donné lieu à des violences, et plus on a avancé dans la nuit plus ce sont devenu des violences criminelles qui ont donné lieu à des morts. Il y a eu des morts par balles, des morts par noyades. Un certain nombre de lieux ont été réquisitionnés pour interner les algérien raflés, notamment le palais des sports à la porte de Versailles et le stade de Coubertin. Dans ces lieux, lorsque les algériens raflés arrivaient, ils étaient victimes de violences criminelles de la part de policiers qui se relayaient, et qui se baptisaient ” comités d’accueil “, et c’est comme ça que des algériens ont été tués dans ces lieux d’internement. D’autres ont étés emmenés dans la cour de la préfecture de police, où selon plusieurs témoignages convergents, plusieurs dizaines d’algériens ont été tués durant la nuit.

Wally : Dans ce que tu dis, ce qui est étonnant c’est la passivité des gens qui se font arrêter, n’y a-t-il pas eu la moindre rébellion ?

Jean-Luc Einaudi : Parler de passivité me semble inadapté, ils n’est pas question de passivité puisqu’ils allaient manifester, protester, une protestation est le contraire de la passivité, mais cette protestation devait être pacifique, cela avait notamment pour but d’essayer de retourner l’opinion publique pour montrer que les algériens voulait l’indépendance et la paix. La forme que cela allait prendre était difficilement prévisible. Des arrestations et des violences étaient prévues, mais la forme sauvage, barbare que cela a pris était difficilement prévisible, il y eut dans ces événement l’explosion d’une haine. Ce qui était prévu, était qu’il y aurait une répression, il était prévu que dans les jours suivants les femmes aillent manifester pour demander la libération des emprisonnés suite au 17 octobre. Il faut bien comprendre une chose, quand le F.L.N. donnait un ordre, et l’ordre était ” manifestation pacifique “, ce n’était pas à discuter, et de la même façon, l’obligation d’aller manifester ne se discutait pas non plus . Des militants passaient dans les hôtels, regardaient s’il ne restait personne dans les chambres… Tous devaient y aller, on ne leur demandait pas leur avis, même s’il se trouve que la grande majorité des algériens partageaient ces objectifs.

Wally : On parlait de passivité. On peut s’étonner de la ” passivité ” des forces politiques, syndicales et sociales lors de ces événements du 17 octobre. Est ce qu’elles étaient prévenues par le F.L.N. ?

Jean-Luc Einaudi : Là, on peut effectivement parler de passivité. Au fond, il y avait une rupture entre la classe ouvrière française et cette partie importante de la classe ouvrière qui était originaire d’Algérie; il y avait très peu de rapport entre les deux. Sur le plan politique, il y avait une rupture avec le monde politique et syndical (le P.C.F., la S.F.I.O.…). Il y eut, quelques jours avant le 17 octobre, une reprise des contact rompus depuis 1956 avec la direction du P.C.F. qui avait été informée. C’est comme ça que ces manifestations du 17 octobre ont eu lieu en dehors des partis et des syndicats français. Dans les jours qui ont suivi il y a eu une déclaration commune des syndicats français (C.G.T., C.F.T.C., F.E.N.) qui a été lue séparément, disant que si cela devait se reproduire, ils appelleraient les travailleurs de la région parisienne à réagir. Si cela devait se reproduire. Sur le plan politique, il y a eu des protestations et des demandes de commission d’enquête parlementaire de la part des élus (aussi bien communistes que socialistes et même au-delà), et quelques protestations dans les assemblées, mais un seul parti a appelé à manifester, le P.S.U. le 1er novembre 1961. Il y a eu des réactions ponctuelles (manifestations d’étudiants dans les jours qui ont suivi au quartier latin, manifestations des travailleurs à Boulogne Billancourt), mais il n’y a pas eu de réactions à la hauteur de ce qui venait de se produire de la part des grandes organisations. Mais il faut dire, sans sous-estimer ce que je viens de dire, que dans le même temps il y a eu un complot du silence et l’organisation systématique du mensonge de la part de l’État. Tout a été mis en œuvre pour que l’on ne sache pas la vérité, et aujourd’hui encore Papon, malgré sa condamnation pour complicité de crime contre l’humanité, sévit encore et met tout en oeuvre pour que cette vérité reste cachée. À l’époque, malgré les demandes, il n’y a pas eu de commissions d’enquête, Papon, très habilement, a fait ouvrir des informations judiciaires, et ces informations judiciaires ont été évoquées pour qu’il n’y ait pas de commission d’enquête, parce qu’on ne peut pas enquêter quand il y a une information judiciaire, et en 1962 toutes les informations judiciaires ont été closes par des non lieux. Dans le même temps des journaux et des livres ont été saisis, un film aussi. Autrement dit il y a eu la volonté d’étouffer.

Wally : Pour faire le lien entre le passé et le présent, est-ce que l’on ne risque pas de voir réapparaître de tels drames ?

Jean-Luc Einaudi : Déjà, l’histoire ne se répète jamais, ceci étant dit je pense qu’il faut toujours être extrêmement vigilant et ne pas croire qu’on est à l’abri de crimes. On se dit qu’aujourd’hui, les médias et les moyens de communication font que s’il se passe quelque chose ont le sait immédiatement, la preuve que non : Aujourd’hui on parle de cette jeune femme étouffée par les gendarmes belges dans un avion, sait-on qu’il y a sept ans, en France, il s’est passé la même chose ? Un sri-lankais qui refusait d’être embarqué a été étouffé lui aussi, et il en est mort ! Non ! Cela a été ” étouffé “. Une information judiciaire a été ouverte, mais à ce jour il n’y a eu aucune suite. Par rapport aux sans papiers, un état d’esprit s’est très largement répandu, qui est que : ” Ces gens là, il faut les virer ! ” Pourquoi ? Parce qu’ils n’ont pas de papiers justement. Autrement dit on porte sur eux un regard qui n’est qu’administratif, plutôt que de les regarder comme des êtres humains avec leur propre histoire, leur propre vie. À partir de ce moment-là on peut en arriver à tuer ces gens (comme cela s’est passé ici avec ce sri lankais, ou en Belgique avec cette femme), parce qu’ils cessent d’être des hommes et des femmes comme les autres.

Wally : Si je comprends bien, c’est un problème de contexte ? Les structures et les états d’esprit n’ont pas changé depuis octobre 61.

Jean-Luc Einaudi : Effectivement, le contexte est très différents en ce sens qu’en 1961 il y avait une situation de guerre qui durait depuis plusieurs années, et cela change beaucoup de choses, mais aujourd’hui on a aussi un autre contexte, qui est celui de la crise, de la poussée d’un courant fasciste, un contexte où l’immigration est présentée comme la source d’un grand nombre de problèmes, etc. Ce contexte là est différent, mais la mentalité consistant à se considérer comme supérieur et à considérer une partie de la population comme méprisable, et en tous les cas comme n’étant pas constituée d’êtres humains, cela n’a pas changé.

Wally : La logique de l’État, elle, n’a pas changé ?

Jean-Luc Einaudi : La logique de l’État., c’est une réalité, mais l’État. est constitué d’hommes et de femmes, d’individus qui ont des mentalités, et qui doivent être confrontés à leur responsabilité personnelle aussi. Cela serait trop facile de se retrancher derrière une abstraction qui serait l’État., chacun doit prendre position vis-à-vis de ce qui se passe. Parlons des centres de rétention, c’est très caractéristique, ces centres de rétention, moi je considère que c’est des zones de non-droit, quel regard extérieur peut voir ce qu’il s’y passe véritablement ? On en sait pas grand chose, c’est comme ça que l’on apprend régulièrement que tel flic a violé une femme, que telle ou telle violence a été commise, on l’apprend incidemment. Comment considère-t-on les personnes qui y sont enfermées ?

Wally : Il y a une institutionnalisation déterminée de créer des zones de non-droit, et encore, quand tu parles de camps de rétention tu parles de ceux qui sont connus, il y a quelques années on a découvert par hasard qu’il en existait un à Gennevilliers que personne ne connaissait, il a fallu plusieurs années de pressions pour aller voir ce qui se passait dans les zones de la préfecture de police.

Jean-Luc Einaudi : Pour faire le lien avec les événements dont on parlait tout à l’heure, quand on ne veut pas faire la lumière sur de tels événements, et qu’on ne veut pas ensuite en tirer les leçons, ce qui les a sous-tendu se perpétue nécessairement. Puisque c’est la préfecture de police qui était concernée par ces événements, je crains fort que les mentalités qui étaient à l’œuvre à ce moment là se soient perpétuées par la suite, et transmises au fil des années.

David Walsh and Joanne Laurier spoke with French director Alain Tasma in Toronto.

WSWS: What is your particular interest in this incident?

Alain Tasma: I respond as a French citizen, someone who is aware, like everyone French, that there is an unease between the young generation of Algerian origin and the rest of the French population. This history, which has never been officially recognized, which absolutely never appears in school books, indeed the entire Algerian war is poorly treated, is certainly one of the reasons for the malaise. It is not the only one, but it contributes to the creation of this malaise. Thus if film artists can do their work as citizens, it is all to the good.

WSWS: Is this incident well known?

AT: If one interests oneself, yes. There are books that have come out every year for the last decade, newspapers like Libération, Le Monde, have done major articles. It’s not that it is unknown, simply that such articles slide by, one piece of information among others. It has absolutely not entered into the consciousness of the French people. Absolutely not. In fact, people confuse this with the Charonne incident. I don’t know if you know this. There was a Communist Party demonstration against the OAS [right-wing, pro-colonial movement] attacks at the Charonne Metro station in Paris. There were nine dead. That is enormously talked about, because there were nine Communists, French, white.

Yes, if someone is interested in the 1961 massacre, there is information, but this film is a supplementary blow of the hammer on the same nail.

WSWS: Is there new research, are there new books, open archives?

AT: The reference on this is a work by Jean-Luc Einaudi La bataille de Paris, who had access to the FLN archives, who himself conducted an extensive investigation, who obtained a great deal of testimony, and who wrote a book which is considered the central text. There is a historian, Jean-Paul Brunet, who had access to the police archives. His work consists of contesting the work done by Einaudi, relying simply on the police reports.

It is obvious that when a policeman kills someone, throws him in the Seine, he doesn’t write it down. But Brunet discusses only the facts. He says, I don’t see this [the police massacre] in the archives, therefore I don’t believe it.

So there is an effort going on to deny what happened. But to film in Paris, we needed to have police authorization, in order to block certain streets, park trucks and so forth, and the Paris police read the scenario, and didn’t argue with any of it. Thus, they admit it more or less.

WSWS: What do the police say about this incident?

AT: The young policemen—I had police advisers, because I’m not a policeman and I needed advice on the police operations in the film—who saw the film surprised me, they had no critical attitude toward the police actions. They said, I understand quite well the police of that time. What we showed about the conditions of life, about the combination of cowardice and… There was a quite definite group of racists, of colonialists who agitated for the OAS, and the rest were just like is often the case, as it was during the Second World War, of people who were hesitant, who see-sawed from one side to the other.

The cops saw principally the climate of fear, which seemed important to them, and which helped explain the unleashing of such violence.

WSWS: Were there openly fascist tendencies among the police?

AT: Yes. Remember, there was the fear of a [right-wing] coup d’état at the time. The DeGaulle government was afraid of being overthrown. [Paris police chief Maurice] Papon could not afford to detach himself too far from his police. That’s why he says at one point, things are getting too restless in the police stations, we have to take measures. The rift between the authorities and the police was real.

WSWS: Was this operation directed from on high, by DeGaulle, or …?

AT: It’s just as the journalist says at the end, when he says, it was a police operation for DeGaulle, he didn’t interest himself. What is certain is that DeGaulle could not accept that the FLN flag fly in the center of Paris while he was in negotiations. There was a relationship of forces to consider. That was unacceptable. DeGaulle never gave written orders to throw Arabs into the Seine, that’s certain also.

The history between France and Algeria is extremely painful. Simply the fact that it was clear by this point that Algeria would become independent rendered the OAS hysterical. It was an extraordinarily conflicted, complex situation at that time in France. Even today, when we raise the question of Algeria it remains very painful.

The film opens October 19 in France. I think it will produce a polemic. Today nobody denies that there was a massacre. That’s why at the end of the film we estimate the number of victims as between 50 and 200, we didn’t want to polemicize about the number, that doesn’t seem to me that important. Whether there were 50 or 200, the horror of it is the same. The current argument about the number of deaths is a diversion, it’s secondary. It conceals the real issues.

I think the reactions will be passionate, because it remains impossible to talk about the Algerian war. It is accepted that there was officially sponsored torture in Algeria, one can make a film in which one shows French soldiers torturing, no one will say it’s not true. Ten years ago, that might not have been the case. Today nobody will deny that there was such an outburst of violence. Nobody.

There will be a polemic simply because the subject of the Algerian war produces strong reactions.

In the US, you have the ability to discuss contemporary history; in France, we don’t have that. You have certain films about Algeria. There was a beautiful film, Avoir 20 ans dans les Aurès [To Be Twenty in the Aurès, 1972], there is Battle of Algiers, but that is not a French film—Pontecorvo is Italian. We have a difficult time in France treating current events.

WSWS: How do you explain, not the actions of individual policemen, but the level of brutality, of cruelty, on the part of the French state toward the Algerians?

AT: There is of course the relationship of a colonializing people in the face of a colonialized people. There is the contempt of the colonialism: here is the indigenous population, there is the occupier. I show at the beginning of the film that a Moroccan is treated more or less in the same fashion as an Algerian. So that’s the first thing, the contempt of the colonialist.

Aside from that, there was the climate of fear. There had been 21 French policemen killed.

And you had [police chief] Maurice Papon, who in 1944 had handed over Jews in Bordeaux to the Nazis, who had with extreme brutality delivered Jewish children to the Nazis when the Nazis demanded it, this man who demonstrated total indifference, total inhumanity. Cold, a technician, who never asked himself once what was a Jewish child or an Algerian worker. He was a police mathematician, if one asked him to do a certain thing, he did it. When he said for each one of us, we’ll do ten of them, he let loose, he opened the door for the violence.

WSWS: What is the relevance of the film in the present situation?

AT: Unhappily, the scenes in the police stations that I show in the film are no doubt still taking place today. There are scenes of humiliation. Perhaps not in the same form, but other forms of humiliation.

What does the film say? It also says, be vigilant in regard to the people in power. It’s above all that. We give our power to people who utilize it to do things that appall us. How to become adult, to become politically responsible? How to try, together, not to be under the sway of a supreme savior, DeGaulle at one moment, Mitterrand at another. It’s rather that, think.

WSWS: The “shantytowns” shocked me, that they existed in the 1960s.

AT: The last shantytown disappeared in 1970, not very long ago. It’s very exact in the film. We made them as they were at the time. It took a long time to do that set.

Dignity, that was very important for me. Someone harassed me about the French spoken by the Algerians in the film. ‘I lived in Paris at the time, the Arabs didn’t talk like that.’ If I had made them speak as they did at the time, it would have been a caricature, they would have instantly lost their dignity.

My hope is that the reaction of young people of North African origins … the actor who played Abde, for him it was the first time he could speak about this in his family. They lived in the shantytown in Nanterre at the time. French families didn’t speak about it, but neither did the Algerian families. For the Algerian families, there was shame, a strange shame, about allowing themselves to have been massacred, humiliated. For him it was a positive development, to talk about these things in his family. I hope it will help people recover a certain dignity.

There have been very good documentaries, books, articles, on these events. But the strength of fiction is that people will see, will sympathize with each of the characters. I think that will have more weight.

WSWS: What role does cinema play in social life?

AT: The word that pleases me the most is vigilance. I think of films like Family Life by Ken Loach, which at a certain moment suddenly changed the view that we held toward psychiatry, anti-psychiatry, family relations. I think when cinema attains this degree of intelligence, of relevance, there is a social function. The Battle of Algiers played a social role. The incredible thing is that South American dictatorships used that film to train their forces in a guerrilla war.

I hope modestly to contribute to that. It is very important for me to do that. The film comes out at a good moment in a sense, when one can discuss, debate the events.

WSWS: What do you think of contemporary French cinema?

AT: I think it is in search of itself. I think it has become terribly “embourgeoisé,” it does not respond to necessity. We are in the period of a French cinema which is bourgeois, made by people from a privileged background, who have come from the film academies.

There is currently the emergence of a generation of filmmakers of North African origins, Algerian and Moroccan, which is very interesting. The future of the French cinema clearly passes through these minorities.

Saadi Yacef (born January 20, 1928) was one of the leaders of Algeria‘s National Liberation Front during his country’s war of independence. He is currently a Senator in Algeria‘s People’s National Assembly.

Yacef was born in Algiers. He started his working life as an apprentice baker. In 1945 he joined the Parti du Peuple Algerien, a nationalist party which the French authorities soon outlawed, after which it was reconstituted as the Mouvement pour le Triomphe des Libertes Democratiques (MTLD). From 1947 to 1949 Yacef served in the MTLD’s paramilitary wing, the Organisation Secrete. After the OS was broken up Yacef moved to France and lived there until 1952, when he returned to Algeria to again work as a baker.

Yacef joined the FLN at the start of the Algerian War in 1954. By May 1956 he was the FLN’s military chief of the Zone Autonome d’Alger (Autonomous Zone of Algiers), making him one of the leaders on the Algerian side in the Battle of Algiers. He was captured by French troops on September 24, 1957 and eventually sentenced to death. General Paul Aussaresses claims that while in custody, he provided the French army with the location of Ali la Pointe, another leading FLN commander ^[1]. He was ultimately pardoned by the French government after Charles de Gaulle‘s 1958 return to power.

While in prison, Yacef wrote his memoir of the battle, which was published in 1962 as Souvenirs de la Bataille d’Alger. After the Algerian War, Yacef helped produce Gillo Pontecorvo‘s film The Battle of Algiers (1966), based on Souvenirs de la Bataille d’Alger. Yacef himself played a character modeled on his own experiences in the battle.

A (very) general conference paper by Robert Aldrich of the University of Sydney on French colonial violence has appeared: http://conferences.arts.usyd.edu.au/viewpaper.php?id=745&cf=18

It is perhaps more useful for undergraduates and those who just want a brief introduction to the material so they can discuss it down the pub.  I read Aldrich’s book on the French Empire a number of years ago- Greater France (http://www.amazon.com/Greater-France-Overseas-Expansion-European/dp/0312160003/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1202044168&sr=1-3) – and must say I found it tough going.

 Aldrich now seems to be concentrating on bringing together his seemingly two disparate fields of research – Colonialism and the history of Homosexuality and his book perhaps unsurprisingly entitled “Colonialism and Homosexuality” was published by Routledge in 2003. Here is a review of it from a reader on www.amazon.com:

It’s about time someone wrote this book. In this historical text, an Australian scholar details how colonial travels affected what we would now call gay men and how gay men affected colonialism. In the first half of the book, Robert Aldrich how this phenomenon occurred for painters, poets, businessmen, and political activists, and men in other professions. In the latter half of the book, he discusses this phenomenon region by region (Papua New Guinea, North Africa, South Asia, etc). Included in this book is a whole chapter dedicated to the ultimate gay European colonizer, E. M. Forster.

This book is a stellar example of gay studies and historical research coming together. It is immediately obvious to the reader how much work the author had to put into writing this. As a large history text, this book takes FOREVER to read! Undergraduate students assigned this book could get away with just reading the first two chapters and the conclusions, as the author’s point becomes obvious and may feel repetitive to some readers after awhile. Still, given that this book is much-needed and superb, all will benefit from reading it cover to cover.

For gay activists who mention famous historical figures who were gay as a way of combating homophobia, this book will be a useful tool. Just as Marjorie Garber in “Vice Versa” demonstrated how many of these figures who are labeled gay could more accurately be labeled bisexual, Aldrich shows that many famous gay Westerners either came out, had their first homosexual experience in, or were influenced by the developing world. This book will be a certain wake-up call for those who falsely assume that Stonewall is the be-all to end-all of gay history.

To be honest, I think many straight readers will be frustrated at how speculative some of Aldrich’s allegations about famous Westerners are. However, the author is fair-minded in stating his claims. For readers of all sexual orientations, the discussions about taboo topics like rape, pedophilia, incest, etc. mentioned in this book may be unsettling. Still, even for gay readers, the discussions of famous gays who hated themselves, chose celibacy, or married women to whom they were not attracted will feel sad as well.

Most importantly, this book was very disturbing, at times, for me to read as a gay man of color. It comes as no surprise that for centuries, some white men have had sexual fetishes for men of color. No one really has to read an academic work to find out that myths about black men’s sexual organs, Asian men’s submissiveness, or Arab men’s exotic sexual activities are nothing new. In the interracial sexual affairs detailed here, the perspectives of men of color consistently are marginalized to that of white men’s feelings. Further, the author admits that many of these Westerners who had sex with men of color abused them, degraded them, or acted in other racist fashions. Still, the author could only work with the historical evidence available to him, most often the writings of the white men. Additionally, this book does mention that it took traveling outside of the West that allowed many Westerners who only got involved with other Westerners to explore their gay desires. The author mentioned that he wrote a book on how Northern European gay men have treated Southern Europeans, paralleling the First World-Third World dynamic. In fairness, the author also spells out how tolerance to homosexuality outside of the West encouraged some white men to fight imperialism. Some anti-imperialists were subjected to homophobia solely because others wanted to silence their anti-colonial protests.

Aldrich does a fantastic job of discussing how Australian white men played a part in this history. Not only were Australians colonized by Britain, but also they had a colonial relationship with New Guinea. Being that most gay books focus on Europe and Anglo-America, this was quite novel. Still, I find it odd that while Aldrich conducted extensive research on Africa, Asia, and Oceania, he hardly mentions Latin America. Garcia Lorca’s autobiographer stated that the poet become more openly gay after visiting Latin America, so there is much reason to include this region in the analysis. It’s obvious that the author speaks many languages, so I am sure that not knowing Spanish or lacking a Spanish translator could not have been a barrier for him. I think this must illustrate how Americans think of Latin America as strongly black and Native and part of their Third World whereas Europeans and Australians think of it as an extension of Spain and therefore highly Westernized. (For that matter, the author never discussed how gay white Americans were influenced by Native American tribes that tolerated same-sex activities or gender-fluid individuals.)

Along these lines, the author labels the last part of the book, “The End of Empire,” yet the chapter here is nothing more than another discussion of French gay men in North Africa just like the chapter before it. Aldrich mentions that some post-colonial governments had a backlash against what they viewed as Western perverted corruption. (I’m thinking of Cuba as an example and this is another reason why a discussion on Latin America would have been helpful to the book.) I wish he had expanded upon that idea. The fact is, several men in the developing world have cited homophobic persecution as a reason for seeking political asylum in the developed world, including Australia. Thus, nowadays, the phenomenon that Aldrich details is occurring in reverse, though he makes little note of it. Perhaps by giving more attention to men of color he could have achieved that.

Despite my critiques, I enjoyed this book thoroughly. Robert Aldrich should receive as much praise as George Chauncey has for his book “Gay New York.” This text was a vital addition to gay history and gay studies.

Yesterday visited the Goutte d’Or in order to get a feel for this part of Paris on which I have seemingly carried out so much research. It is a quartier which is very much in flux with large apartment blocks having been torn down to make space for new parks and open spaces. Rue de la Goutte d’Or remains forbidding though not because of crime but due to its architecture which is ominous and shrouds the street in darkness. The edges of the Goutte D’Or and Barbes are beginng to become quite BoBo- checl out La Chope du Chateau Rouge cafe on rue Clignancourt to get an idea. This cafe in North African hands since the Algerian War and possibly long before now attrats the young, artists and the trendy despite or because of its decrepit decor and plastic chairs. Coffee is little more than a euro and on Friday and Saturday evenings free couscous is served!

I have decided to start a blog on my PhD thesis and my interests relating to the Algerian War (1954-1962). Hopefully the page will prove useful to others and not just me as I hope to assemble here many of the interesting links and development relating to that conflict. I am in the final stages of my thesis and will soon be writing up so I hope to share this experience as well!