Bashir Haj Ali
 | This article may be expanded with text translated from the corresponding article in العربية. (February 2022) Click [show] for important translation instructions.
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| Bashir Haj Ali | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1920 Kasbah of Algiers |
| 💀Died | May 8, 1991 (70 years old) AlgeriaMay 8, 1991 (70 years old) |
| 🏳️ Citizenship | Algerian |
| 💼 Occupation | Poet, Political Activist, and Writer |
| Twitter= | |
Bachir Hadj Ali Arabic:(بشير حاج علي) (1991-1920) was an Algerian poet, musicologist, and politician.
Born in the Kasbah of Algiers in what was then French Algeria, Haj Ali has been considered a unique voice in the course of Algerian literature, and devoted his writings and life to a commitment to the cause of justice and defending his homeland. He joined the ranks of the Algerian Communist Party in 1945 and was promoted to the Party Secretariat in 1951, before becoming its Secretary-General in 1956.
After the independence of Algeria in 1962, he kept his distances with the authority, then with his leftist comrades. He took a position opposing the 1965 military coup led by Houari Boumediene against President Ahmed Ben Bella. It is at that time that he founded, with the historian Mohamed Harbi and the human rights defender Hussein Zahwan, the "Popular Resistance Organization" (Organisation de la Résistance Populaire (ORP)). Security forces arrested him on September 20, 1965, and he remained imprisoned until 1968. He remained under house arrest between 1968 and 1974. Bachir Haj Ali reported the details of his imprisonment and torture in his book “Al-Tas’is” (L’Arbitraire), which he wrote on sanitary paper inside his cell,[1][2] and secretly taken out with the help of his French wife Lucette Larribère. Published in France in 1966, it was the first book to expose torture practices in independent Algeria.
Biography[edit]
Early life[edit]
Bachir came from a poor peasant family in Azeffoun, in Kabylia. His grandfather was a member of a group of resistance fighters against the French colonial authorities at the beginning of the twentieth century.[1] Haj Ali studied at the colonial school and learned Arabic at the Quranic school in his area.
He joined the ranks of the Algerian Islamic scouts in his youth, and when his father lost his job in 1937, he left his studies and began working as a technician in the central post office.
Political engagement[edit]
Haj Ali joined the ranks of the Algerian Communist Party in 1945, and in the following year became editor-in-chief of the Party's newspaper Liberté, where he became acquainted with Mohamed Khadda, one of the pillars of modern Algerian art. In 1951, he is promoted to membership in the Party secretariat.
The French authorities arrest Bachir Hadj Ali in 1952 in front of Serkadji prison while participating in a demonstration in support of nationalist prisoners. He is sentenced in 1953 by colonial courts to two years in prison for undermining State security.
From then on Bachir Haj Ali leads a clandestine life for most of the duration of the war for independence. In 1956, he negotiates with Sadek Hadjerès the integration of members of the "Liberation Fighters" (Combattants de la Libération), the armed branch of the Algerian Communist Party, into the National Liberation Army. He then becomes head of the ACP.
Post independence[edit]
After the independence and Ben Bella's banning of the Communist party he founds, along with Mouloud Mammeri, Jean Sénac, and Mourad Bourboune, the Union of Algerian writers which he leaves in 1963.
Bachir is arrested after the 1965 coup for opposing it and for founding the Socialist Vanguard Party (Parti de l'avant-garde socialiste, PAGS) in 1966 with Mohamed Harbi. In L'Arbitraire, published in 1966, he recounts his arrest and torture in prison. He also wrote several poems collected in “Songs for the September nights” (in French: Chants pour les nuits de septembre), expressing his steadfastness and adherence to his faith and principles.
He is released in 1968 but remains under house arrest in Saida and then Ain Sefra. Forbidden from entering major urban centers, he is only allowed back in Algiers in 1974. He then resumes his cultural activities as a poet and specialist in chaabi music.
He dies in Algiers on May 9th, 1991, five days after his friend Mohammed Keddah whose painting Le Supplicié is used as front cover for the 1968 re-edition of L'Arbitraire.
References[edit]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 "مثالك/ Ton exemple". المجلة الثقافية الجزائرية (in العربية). Retrieved 2021-12-13.
- ↑ "المناضل الراحل بشير حاج علي ….. شاهد على التعسف". Mascara-Débat-Actualité. Retrieved 2021-12-13.
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