To achieve this ambitious program that foresees also visits to historic sites of the resistance of 1857 and the shooting of thematic documentary films , the president of the organizing committee, Ouali Aït Ahmed, asks for donations from citizens, public and private business corporations to complete an estimated budget of 800 000 dinars.

The collective memory must keep that the popular resistance of 1857 represents one of the strongest moments that marked independent Algeria. A national symposium will be organized, at the beginning of the next July, to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the popular resistance led by Lala Fadhma N’soumer in 1857 against the French armies. This is what declared a member of the organizing committee of this demonstration in a press conference held in the annex of the national museum of El-Moudjahid of Tizi Ouzou. This celebration will be organized on the spur of the historic and cultural association Tagrawla 1954-1962, presided by the former ALN officer, Ouali Aït Ahmed, in collaboration with the scientific committee of the national museum of El-Moudjahid (annex of Tizi Ouzou), as well as a number of personalities working in the fields of history and culture.

To achieve this ambitious program that foresees also visits to historic sites of the resistance of 1857 and the shooting of thematic documentary films , the president of the organizing committee, Ouali Aït Ahmed, asks for donations from citizens, public and private business corporations to complete an estimated budget of 800 000 dinars. Taking part in this celebration, the journalist and writer Younès Adli told us, “1857 remains a date marking the resistance to the invader that, since the Phoenician, has never been able to conquer the High Kabylia”. This popular uprising was supported and carried out by “a traditional organization and a religious brotherhood, the Rahmania, headed by Si El Hadj Amer, who had to lead himself the battles, as well as Si Tahar, Fadhma n Soumer’s own brother”, Younès Adli said. According to this writer and historian, the national symposium “will deal with several themes to refresh all the segments of this resistance where the traditional organization of the society gave a place to the woman, including in matters of war, and this woman opposed herself to French generals”. The former ALN officer, Dahlal Mouloud, nicknamed Si Hacène, specifies, for his part, that “the resistance of 1857 represents the most important event (…) and it relied on a traditional social, cultural and spiritual structure”.

About the symbolization of this celebration, Younès Adli emphasizes that to move to the commemoration of the centennial of an event is the sign of the good intellectual health of a people and denotes an effective memorial transmission. Concerning the popular resistance of 1857, this researcher declares that it represents one of the strongest moments that has formed today’s Algeria. “If we consider the various battle fields where the events took place, the resistance of Fadhma n Soumer assumes a national dimension”, he finally concluded.

By : Abdenour Bouhired
Source: Liberté - May 20th, 2007
Translation: D. Messaoudi