The Second Reading: Allegory and the Zina of Algeria
The secondary approach to the reading of Women of Algiers in their Apartment is to read the text as an allegory that tells the story of Algeria in conquest and in the post-war years. In particular, one can read the text as a process of Islamization of Algeria. The women of the novel are at various times cast as Algeria or speak of Algeria as having a feminine voice: a characteristic of nationalist discourse that lends itself nicely to allegory. During the course of the novel, although various voices speak and incidents are recorded, there is a central theme and that is the violation of Algeria (as woman) and her subsequent return to Islam. Additionally, the discussion extends itself beyond that conclusion of the novel and into the current Islamized state of society that embraces modern Algeria, as Algeria herself is punished for her zina.
Nation-states in their propaganda and personification are traditionally portrayed as being women. As such, the use and construction of the “national woman” is embraced in a variety of different allegories, whether in the form of song, literature, or political cartoon, the nation is a woman. Women are the producers and sustainers of the nation’s citizens and its (indigenous) culture. Indigenous culture in North Africa is heavily based in Islam and as such, like in other cultures where religion heavily dominates society, women are burdened with both the responsibilities of cultural and religious maintenance. Their role is to propagate the indigenous and to remain closed to the influence and penetration (both literally and figuratively) of sources outside of the borders of their cultural realm that may upset the authenticity of the national character. There is a certain fragility to the woman who stands in as the representative of the nation, and this fragility is magnified during times of war and struggle during which women are easy prey to outside elements who wish to defile or deconstruct the culture that they oppose or wish to manipulate to their own ends. This defilement traditionally comes in the form of rape during wartime which violates not only women themselves as citizens of the oppositional territory, but also men. As such, rape can be metaphorically applied to cover the entire expanse of the conquest of a nation: Algeria, therefore, was raped by the French not only as a result of the French invasion of her ports, but also the tangible violation of Algerian women in French prisons and in women’s efforts to participate in the struggle for independence. Women opposed the French with their grenades, blowing-apart their wombs, thus allowing the French to continue their violent suppression of the indigenous identity. As a result of the French violation of Algeria, one of the arguments of this allegorical analysis becomes that the nation of Algeria, cast as a woman, committed zina.
Algeria committed zina in two manners: the first is her “rape” by colonial, Christian forces. Although this qualifies as a sexual crime that women should not be punished for according to the Shari’a, in the context of the more radical Islamist regimes, this constitutes a zina crime and thus Algeria is punished. In this case, it is the women of Algeria who are punished through arbitrary murders and assaults who are perceived to be adopting their behaviors, dress, and intellectual pursuits according to a neo-colonial social agenda as a result of Algeria’s sustained diplomatic and cultural relations with France. The second element of the zina crime for Algeria is that the nation opened herself up to French occupation. Resistance to the French occupation did not last for 135 years and in the midst of Algerian society, there were elites who allowed the French to enter Algeria and who profited from their acquiescence to colonial whims. As such, there are grounds for the committing of zina by Algeria. The Islamists serve as national jurists through which Algeria in the manifestation of its national identity as a woman is being systematically punished as is perpetually on-trial.
The allegory commences at the painter’s house, the same house where the war heroine Leila is introduced to the reader. Yet instead of Leila speaking for the nation at first, it is the painter who bemoans the fate of Algeria and her descendants
“Hatred!” the painter hissed as he brought both tea and
whisky. “We suckled it with the milk of our exploited
mothers! They’ve understood nothing: it’s not only
colonialism that’s at the root of our psychological problems,
but it’s the belly of our frustrated women! When we’re just
fetuses, we’re already damned! (21)”
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