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The first to have interviewed Saad Dahlab and author of five interviews with Mohamed Boudiaf, Mohamed Abbas, long-term journalist, joins the ranks of a handful of professionals who have invested heavily in the field of history. In addition to a press book teeming with interviews and reports on the national movement and the war of liberation, he is the author of a multitude of books on the subject. Among other titles, “The leaders of nationalism”, “Great revolutionaries”, “Interviews with Boudiaf”, “De Gaulle and Algeria”, “The Algerian revolution from the genesis of the idea to independence”, “Assassinations by occultation and amnesia”, “The knights of freedom”, etc. In this interview, he takes stock of memory and the writing of history.
The Young Independent : The writing of history was not a priority in the first post-independence years. To name just one, the historian Mahfoud Kaddache (1921-2006) emphasizes this with great insistence in his writings and public positions. In his long introduction to “Algeria at War” (OPU, Algiers 1981), the historian and ALN officer is of the same opinion.
Mohamed Abbas : The leaders who installed themselves at the head of the country upon independence did not make history and the writing of the national story a priority. Contrary to what has been written and said in Algeria and elsewhere since independence, these leaders have in no way sought to establish their power by drawing their legitimacy from the war of liberation. Whether it is Ben Bella (former head of the Special Organization, member of the “nine” and the external delegation of the FLN) or Boumediène (successor to Boussouf at the head of Wilaya V, head of the Western Operational Command then head of the General Staff), the first two heads of state do not make the writing of history a field worthy of interest. In debates and in the work of the press, history is not welcome. In 1974, Abdelhamid Mehri (then secretary general of the Ministry of Education) was interviewed by Mouloud Kacem Naït Belkacem, Minister of Original Education and Religious Affairs, for the magazine Al Assala. The interview aroused the ire of Boumediène.
At the beginning of the eighties, you were among the journalists who assigned themselves the task of working regularly on the history of the national movement and the war of liberation.
I wrote articles on the subject well before then. From 1984, year of commemoration of the 30e anniversary of the Revolution, I embarked on a series of interviews with figures of the independence movement. At the time, it was not yet easy to elicit testimonies from actors still alive or to return to those who were no longer in this world. I had to verify this about Benyoucef Benkhedda, president of the GPRA (1920-2003), and the last head of wilaya IV, Youcef Khatib (1932-2023). Among other remarks, we were accused of digging up the dead. I started my series of interviews with Saad Dahlab (1918-2000).
It was September 1984. I was the first journalist to interview him six years before the publication of his testimonial book “Mission accomplished” (Dahlab edition, 1990). With him, the “question-answer” game took us on a journey through the history of entire sections of the national movement (North African Star, PPA, AML, MTLD, Centralist at the time of crisis) of the war of liberation (instances of the Revolution) and of the Evian negotiations (Minister of Foreign Affairs in the third and last GPRA). Despite the constraints and – it must be said – the blockages at that time, we dared. There were a handful of us, my colleagues and I, who went to meet nationalist figures. We felt at the time that it was – professionally speaking – in our interest to collect the testimonies.
Any delay in collecting the confessions of the actors would be detrimental to the transmission of memory and, above all, to the writing of history. The French did not wait to do it. Well before the end of the war, journalists started doing it. This is the case of Claude Paillat with “Algeria’s secret file” (Presses de la Cité, 1961) and Yves Courrière and “The Sons of All Saints” (Fayard), the first of four volumes that he published between 1968 and 1971.
The interviews with the actors of the national movement are only part of your work on the history of the national movement. You later started writing books.
Before interviews and books, I published reports and investigations related to the national liberation war on the occasion of the commemorations of 1er November 1954 and July 5, 1962. My first report dates back to 1973. I started with the shahid Badji Mokhtar (1919-1954), member of the “Group of twenty-two” who met in June 1954 at Clos-Salembier (El Madania). Accompanied by a reporter-photographer, I went to the site of his martyrdom in the region of Medjaz Sfa near Guelma. In this report, we also talked about the shahida Chaïb Dzaïr. Badji Mokhtar is the first “historic” person to fall on the field of honor and Chaïb Dzaïr the first Algerian woman to pay the price of sacrifice for independence. They died on the night of November 18 to 19, two weeks after the outbreak of the armed struggle. Between relatives and comrades in arms, I collected the testimonies of those who knew them.
In 1975, I moved to the west to do an investigative report on Colonel Lotfi (real name Benali Boudghène, 1934-1960), commander of wilaya V. A year later, I carried out similar work in El Oued on the martyr Hamma Lakhdar (presumed 1930-1955, member of the central committee of the Algerian Communist Party). I continued with other investigations, reports and portraits.
In 1984, relieved of my duties as editor-in-chief of the daily Ech-Chaab, I devoted myself entirely to history. I interviewed a lot of actors. The only ones I didn’t get to talk were the ones who refused. Among them, Lamine Debaghine (1917-2003). Visibly disappointed and irritated for many reasons, he was reluctant to testify. Colonel Hadj Lakhdar – real name Mohamed Tahar Abidi (1916-1998) – refused an interview request. Ditto for Chebbah Mekki (1894-1991) and Ahmed Khelil (1930-2011). From their point of view, the context did not lend itself to confessions.
Your press-book is also worth a number of interviews with Mohamed Boudiaf. You were the second to interview him after Djelloul Haya and his series of documentary films for ENTV “Aux sources de Novembre”. And this was well before his return to Algeria as president of the High State Committee (HCE, January 1992).
The idea of the interviewer dates back to 1984 following the publication by the weekly “Algérie Actualités” of an interview with General Marcel Bigeard. At the time, I was secretary general of the Union of Algerian Journalists. During a general assembly at the headquarters of the Writers’ Union, I declared that it was more appropriate to interview Boudiaf, Aït Ahmed and others before Bigeard. I started to take steps in this direction. This came to fruition after October 1988 and the media opening. I took the opportunity of coverage – an event related to North African news – to go meet him in Kenitra. I prepared things in advance with his brother Aissa. There was first a written exchange with Boudiaf. At first, there was talk of writing a book about his journey.
The interview was published in the daily Ech-Châab in the first week of November 1988. Since then, we have maintained contact and exchanges. I interviewed him five times: four times when he was in Kenitra and once after his appointment as head of the HCE. In addition to the November 1988 interview for Ech Chaab, I interviewed him for the weekly Al Hiwar by Georges Er Rassi. In 1990, I interviewed him for Fouad Matar’s At-Tadamoun magazine. Two interviews were published including Al Salam (1991 and in 1992 a few weeks after his return).