The Question - Henri Alleg

[Al-khiyal]

Review by Kevin Kyle:

Henri Alleg’s book The Question is a searing, firsthand account of the torture that the author experienced during the Battle of Algiers. Although it was first published in 1958, it is a book that should still be read today: first, because it is a classic of anti-colonialist literature; and second, because — as the horrors of Abu Ghraib and the current debates in the U.S. about the use of torture make clear — “the question” of torture is, unfortunately, still with us.

Alleg, a French Communist, was the editor of the pro-Algerian-independence newspaper Alger Républicain. In 1955, the French colonial government banned the newspaper. In 1957, Alleg was arrested. He was initially imprisoned for one month in El Biar, Algeria, where he was subjected to the extreme torture described in the book.

Alleg was then transferred to a detention camp in Lodi, Algeria, where he began writing his book. It was subsequently smuggled out of prison to France, where it was published in 1958. Within two weeks, The Question sold over 60,000 copies — and then the French government banned it. It was the first book to be banned in France since the 18th century.

Jean-Paul Sartre, one of France’s outstanding public intellectuals, responded by writing a passionate essay on Alleg’s book for his journal Les Temps Modernes. Sartre’s essay and Alleg’s book were then published together and translated into over nine languages. In the U.S., George Braziller published the book in 1958, but it has long been out of print.

While his book was igniting the conscience of France and the world, Alleg remained in prison. Finally, after three years in prison, because of his health he was transferred to a hospital in Rennes, France, from which he made a dramatic escape in 1961 with the aid of the local Communist Party club. He voluntarily returned to the prison a year later, and all charges against him were dropped.

After the liberation of Algeria in 1962, Alleg returned there to resume the editorship of the Alger Républicain. Today, at age 85, he lives in France. Over the past four decades he has written many more books and articles.

The Question has now been reissued in a new edition by the University of Nebraska Press. The new edition includes a forward by Ellen Ray, co-author with Michael Ratner of the book Guantanamo: What the World Should Know; an introduction by James D. Le Sueur, an associate professor of history at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln; and a new afterward by Henri Alleg himself.

Ray notes the connections between Alleg’s book and today’s news. She writes: “Condemned by international law and the democratic, ‘civilized’ West, torture is increasingly part of the arsenal of our [sic] military services. In fact, official Pentagon reports … suggest that kidnappings, unlawful interrogations, and sometimes summary executions of prisoners are becoming routine practices by our security service … in George W. Bush’s endless ‘war against terrorism.’”

Le Sueur’s introduction provides historical background to the text and biographical information about Alleg and also highlights the contemporary relevance of the book. Unfortunately, he does not provide much information about the pre-liberation role of the Alger Républicain. He devotes more space to the post-liberation conflicts between Alleg and the newspaper and the government of Houari Boumedienne after the coup that overthrew the first revolutionary government of Ben Bella.

The immediate relevance of Alleg’s book was dramatically highlighted after the publication of this new edition. Last November, the Center for Constitutional Rights filed a request for the German federal prosecutor to open an investigation that will look into the responsibility of high-ranking U.S. officials for authorizing war crimes. Alleg’s harrowing description of waterboarding, the practice of repeatedly bringing a prisoner to the point of drowning, was included in the brief that was filed against Donald Rumsfeld and others.

In his afterward, Alleg writes that we have “every reason to believe that [torture] will continue well into the future.” The elites, he says, “respond to the grave problems that assail our world — social injustice, frustration, misery, sickness and hunger — by a refusal to listen, to understand. Instead, they give us war, violence and torture.”

Alleg’s book is a call to all of us to prevent that prophecy from becoming true. It is a call to all of us to do everything we can to prevent the horrors of torture from continuing “well into the future.”

The Question - Henri Alleg

[Al-khiyal]

French journalist Henri Alleg describes his torture
being waterboarded by French forces during Algerian war

[Bent_Bladi]

i had to write an essay about torture once... the hardest essay i ever wrote...

but seriously - hada MAJNUN ili bi faker that torture will solve anything....... the only thing torture will give u is a fake confession just so u could stop the pain

[Al-khiyal]

Le film la Question de Laurent Heynemann :
Mémoire d'homme, mais histoire de tout un peuple

Jeudi 11 Décembre 2008 -- En ce 11 Décembre, date historique pour le peuple algérien, l'association À nous les écrans assure aujourd'hui à la salle Athakafa (Ex-ABC) à partir de 18 heures la projection du film la Question de Laurent Heynemann. Ce long métrage sorti sur les écrans en 1977 est une adaptation du livre la Question d'Henri Alleg publié en 1958. Dans ce film les spectateurs algériens auront la chance de découvrir Jacques Denis dans le rôle d'Alleg, Nicole Garcia dans celui de sa femme, et Jean Benguigui. Le film ne reprend pas à l'écran toutes les descriptions terribles d'Alleg mais était sorti avec une interdiction aux moins de 18 ans. Laurent Heynemann remporta en 1977 le Prix spécial du jury au Festival international du film de Saint-Sébastien.

Henri Alleg est séquestré un mois à El-Biar où il est torturé et a subi de multiples interrogatoires, dont un mené après une injection de penthotal. Il est ensuite transféré au camp de Lodi où il reste un mois puis à Barberousse, la prison civile d'Alger. C'est là qu'il écrivit la Question, dissimulant les pages écrites et les transmettant à ses avocats. Dans la Question, il raconte sa période de détention et les sévices qu'il y a subis, en pleine guerre d'Algérie. Tout d'abord publié en France aux éditions de Minuit, l'ouvrage est immédiatement censuré. Nils Andersson le réédite en Suisse, quatorze jours après l'interdiction le frappant en France en mars 1958. Malgré son interdiction en France, ce livre a considérablement contribué à révéler le phénomène de la torture chez nous par les colonialistes.

Ce film est une bonne initiative d'autant plus que de lourds dossiers de la torture en Algérie son enfin examinés au grand jour. Devant l'impossibilité légale de citer le nom des tortionnaires parachutistes, Heynemann et son scénariste Claude Veillot avaient changé les noms des victimes. Devenu Charleg, comme Maurice Audin (mort étranglé par ses persécuteurs durant sa captivité à la tristement célèbre Villa Sésini) devenait Oudinot, Alleg est présenté comme un homme de convictions et non comme un héros monolithique. Ce refus de la mythification est la première qualité du film d'Heynemann. L'absence de trop de sentimentalisme, au profit d'une somme de faits et de gestes, de la description minutieuse d'une organisation oppressive et des maigres voies de recours pour la combattre (voir le rôle de Teitgen, secrétaire général de la police d'Alger, ancien déporté lucide sur les méthodes de l'armée) en est la seconde.

Premier film de son auteur, la Question souffre d'un évident déficit de stylisation (les tortionnaires sont particulièrement mal figurés, de façon trop folklorique) et d'une certaine maladresse de découpage qui le rapproche trop souvent du téléfilm à sujet. Au compte rendu précis du livre d'Alleg répond un juste équilibre entre ce qui est montré et seulement suggéré, sans que la vigueur de la dénonciation en soit amoindrie. Parfois laborieux, souvent incapable d'être à la hauteur de l'importance de son sujet, la Question n'en reste pas moins un film foncièrement honnête, un film digne à propos de l'une des plus grandes atrocités humaines dans le monde.