|
|
Bettina Rühl
All the seats in front of the mirrors are occupied in Kahina -the hairdresser salon - and several women are waiting for their hair to be curled or cut. The beauticians next door are also very busy: legs to shave, facials, manicure or pedicure belong to the services offered by the salon. The shop is doing well; on some days 40 to 50 customers pay a visit. The women come despite the fact that armed Islamic groups are threatening them with death and have already murdered several hair-dressers: beauticians and hair-dressers - in the eyes of Islamics - belong to a life style, which they consider to be Western and reprehensible. Despite the threats Salima Hamouda (1) has never thought about giving up her career as a beautician - that is her way of rejecting this terror. Her customers have reacted similarly according to Salima: "The women care a lot more about their beauty than before and we are having more customers." Working women, giving-up half-an-hour of their scarce free time to go to the hairdressers, are amongst the customers as well as students and housewives wanting to make themselves look nice for family-celebrations or for just everyday life.
Most of them are dressed in jeans or "a la parisienne", but there are some taking-off their veils at the door in order to put themselves at the disposal of their beauticians. "They come to talk to each other and to discuss. A lot of women have had enough of the exitsting situation and they come to let it all out, to make themselves look beautiful and to talk," explaines Salima. In former times women used to come to talk about their families, the latest fashion and cooking-recipes. "Now they talk a lot about the terrorism."
Fatma also came to talk. The 26-year-old secretary is using her day-off to visit her friend Salima. They haven't seen each other for two months because Fatma hardly ever has any time: she works, helps her mother at home and is attending an evening course on iformatics as further education. The young women leads an intense life. The tension in her small face expresses the strain she is under to defend this position: "Life stops every time I hear that there has been another assassination, that somewhere another bomb has exploded again." Fatma talks with a quiete voice as if the deaths that way would move her less than they really do. "I am perhaps too sensitive, but I just can't look away. When I think about the number of deaths - I really don't have any desire to carry on living. When I hear that a friend has been murdered, I can't live any more, I can only survive. Life, to me means: to feel free inside. Life means love, not this war."
Around 600 women have been murdered by Islamic Fundamentalists in the past four years according to statements made by Algerian women-journalists. They are supposed to have acted against the Islam according to radical views: they don't wear veils, continue with school or go to work. The armed underground groups didn't only start the terror when the elections were condemned: since the summer of 1989 they have been pursuing women with murder attempts. In July 1989 they set a house of a women on fire because she had been divorced. Her three-year-old son died in the flames. One month later an Islamic burnt his own sister alive because she had refused to give up her job. These assassinations were only the beginning, since then the terror has become increasingly arbitrary: armed groups have murdered veiled school-pupils and religious girls, housewives and holy women. Car bombs kill by-passers and civilians. According to Algerian women-journalists thousands of mothers and girls are being kidnapped, raped and mutilated. In their underground hide-outs, armed groups hold women of every age group captive; often they are raped repeatedly everyday for months on end. If they ffight back or defend themselves they are tortured or murdered.
Over the years nightmares have replaced Fatma's dreams - nightmares repeating themselves over and over again that she has become tired of talking about them. Despite of all this she carries on: goes to work, goes shopping and follows her childhood dream of becoming a specialist in computer technology.
Children are playing in the shopping centre at the monument of the martyr Riad el Feth, their mothers are sitting near by. The howling and giggling rings through the several storied building and mixes with the traditional music coming from the televisions and with the western pop-music being played in the cafes on the upper floors. Apart from the mothers young women also come to Riad el Feth to meet their friends - male and female - in the cafes and discos. The women come without fear because it is said to be a quiet place. A part of everyday life in Algeria: the street which leads to Riad el Feth is observed by the parliamentary police with all bags being controlled when entering this street. The cafes, discos and restaurants are within this safety-zone.
The women have time to spend their afternoons here. Working women such as Fatma and Salima are the exception: on the whole only 360, 000 women work in Algeria. That is not even 8% of the active population. Their presence is only evident in some few professions: every second doctor and every fourth judge are women. But almost 60% of Algerian women can neither write nor read. And: according to the Algerian family law of 1984, it is a woman's duty to be obedient to her husband. She is only allowed to marry when a marriage guardian agrees, polygamy is allowed and women can hardly carry through divorces. Algerian women have demonstrated and protested against this law, since the first rumours of reform became public in 1980. The president Liamine Zeroual gave in to the pressure: in May he announced that some articles of this law would be reformed or abolished.
The protest against this family law is the root of the women's movement. Following the collapse of the one-party-system in 1988, women were allowed to form associations legally. Since then thousands of groups and initiatives have been created. The fight against the family law has been one of their main concerns up until today. To them it is morethan just a woman's question: "What is the family law? It is the ground on which the alliance between the FLN and the Islamists has been realised," declares feminist Khalida Messaodi. The Democratic Opposition was opposed jointly by the alliance of that time. Messaoudi and other activists have emphasised repeatedly that the present crisis and the physical violence against women has been caused and prepared by the unholy alliance.
Today the women in Algeria are fighting on both fronts: against violence inherent in the laws and against the terror of the Islamic bodies. Regardless of how their form of resistence may be: organising themselves in associations, demonstrating in thousands against the violence, going to work daily, or despite the threats of armed groups, taking their children to school - the most important weapon in this unequal fight is the daily resistance against their fear. By doing so the women do not only maintain their own lives but also the life of their country.
In the town area called Belcourt, the street belongs almost exclusively to men. Belcourt is one of the so called "Quartier chauds", the hot area of town. This highly populated and poor quarter is the stronghold of Islamic radicals. Despite this the lively street life goes on: old traders lay out saucepans, bowls or snuff-tabaco, young people sell Jeans or sports shoes, T-shirts and Walkmans - most of them only having a single item to offer. They can't find any other work. 65% of the young people are unemployed and there are a lot of young people in Algeria: two thirds of the population is younger than thirty. The FIS got most of their recruits form these youngsters before the elections in 1991. But since the blank terror took the place of the holy promise, lots of the Islamic bodies have turned away. Almost every family in Algeria has got a death to bewail. The story repeats itself over and over again.
Despite fear and sadness the people go on with their everyday lives. For the 39-year-old, Selia, the visit to her beautician belongs to this everyday routine. "At the beginning, as the assassinations began we were scared, that is natural and legitimate," says the mother of three children, practically without guilt. "We hoped that it would stop soon, but it hasn't stopped. Should we stop to live now? One cannot do that and this is why we carry on. We live as before." At the beginning she avoided the Souks and her favourite markets for fear of assassination. "When I had to buy something I simply hurried to the nearest shop in order to get home again as soon as possible. Today I don't care, I go where I want to." The fear doesn't determine her life anymore nor her choice in clothing. "We refuse to adopt a lifestyle which isn't our own. It is true that at the beginning we all considered leaving the country but so many things connect us with Algeria, we have passed such happy moments in this country that we want to stay and withstand the terror."
(1) Name changed
Bettina Rühl is a freelance journalist, living in Cologne, Germany.
Translation from German into English by Liza Foreman