Fighting for her land: My great-aunt Kamira, the Algerian revolutionary
Al Jazeera
Kamira, a key member of the resistance fighting to end French occupation, carried intelligence to mountainous hideouts.
In the spring of 1962, the air in Beni-Mazouz, a small village nestled in the mountainous wilaya (province) of Jijel, was charged with anticipation.
My father, then a young boy, remembers vividly the day the French colonial forces began their retreat from Algeria. As a convoy of more than 100 tanks and vans trundled towards the port of Skikda, he remembers a sense of freedom swelling in his heart.
“We were beyond happy,” he recalls. As far as he could see, the streets were awash in a sea of green, white and red – the colours of our flag – while voices reverberated in unison chanting “Tahia Djazair [Long live Algeria]!”
The moment symbolised the culmination of Algeria’s arduous journey, steeped in resistance, towards liberation from French colonial rule.
The brutal French invasion which began in 1830, marked the inception of a dark and oppressive chapter in Algerian history. In 1848, the government administration in Paris declared the Algerian territory across the Mediterranean an integral part of France, as though it was another domestic province.
