Eveline Safir Lavalette
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Eveline Safir Lavalette | |
|---|---|
| Member of the National People's Assembly (Algeria) | |
| Assumed office 1964 | |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 1927 Rouïba, Algeria |
| Died | 2014 (aged 86–87) Médéa, Algeria |
| Party | National Liberation Front (Algeria) |
| Spouse | Abdelkader Safir (m. 1967) |
| Occupation | Revolutionary; activist; politician |
| Known for | Participation in the Algerian War of Independence; memoir Juste Algérienne: Comme une tissure |
Eveline Safir Lavalette was an Algerian Pied-Noir revolutionary and activist during the Algerian War of Independence. She was born in 1927 in Rouïba. In 1951, she became active in the Algerian Youth Association for Social Action, and became an anti-poverty crusader. This began her interest in political affairs. She joined the National Liberation Front (Algeria) as an officer, distributing pamphlets and assisting with the publication of the Front's underground newspaper, El Moudjahid. She is famous for her arrest by French colonial forces in 1956, as documented in her autobiographical text Juste Algérienne: Comme une tissure.[1] She was imprisoned and tortured until 1959, when she was released.
She was elected to the National Assembly in 1964, and played a major role in the formation of Algeria's education system. In 1967, she married journalist Abdelkader Safir, and in 1968 she joined the Ministry of Labor. In 2013, her autobiography was published; she died in 2014 in Médéa.[2][3]
Her identity as a Pied-Noir created a unique situation for Lavalette. As descendants of French colonial settlers, many Pied-Noirs perpetrated the colonial oppression of indigenous Algerians—while some felt scape-goated.[4][5] Lavalette was among the few who fought alongside Algerians in their struggle for independence. Hundreds of thousands of Pied-Noirs were displaced during the process of repatriation following Algerian Independence. Their autobiographies share a nostalgia for pre-war Algeria, as well as a common pain, grief, and melancholia.[4][5][6] This is also true in Lavalette's memoir.
After 1848, Algeria was one of France's oldest and most politically important colonies.[7] The Algerian War of Independence between France and the FLN between 1954 and 1962 was catalyzed when minority European settlers gained French citizenship over Muslim and Arab majorities.[8][9] Algerians sought equality, agricultural reform, and eventual independence.[8] In 1954, when Lavalette was 27 years old, Algerian militants formed the FLN and launched increasingly large-scale attacks. In response, the French displaced and destroyed whole villages while violently executing Algerian sympathizers.[8]
The Battle of Algiers, a year-long street fight between rebel terrorist bombers and French security forces from 1956 to 1957, was a crucial point of conflict.[8] During this time, Lavalette helped distribute pamphlets for and publish the FLN's underground newspaper, El Moudjahid. After she was caught in 1956, she was arrested, imprisoned, and tortured. She was then hospitalized for psychosis and subjected to electroshock and drug treatments, although it is unlikely that she actually suffered any mental illness.[10] She was released in 1959 and returned to Algeria in the summer of 1962 as a member of the Algerian Constituent Assembly, later the Algerian National Assembly.[10] Eventually, the fall of the Fourth Republic prompted France to withdraw from the war and grant Algerian Independence.[9]
Women were central to Algerian resistance efforts. The FLN's strategic use of women in their bombings and attacks was a result of French stereotypes about Muslim women as innocent, submissive, and oppressed.[11] When Algerian militants formed the FLN in 1954, thousands of women, including Lavalette, joined in their anticolonial struggle.[9][8][10] Like other women at the time, but unlike other Pied-Noirs, Lavalette distributed resources (like pamphlets), transported messages, and provided food and housing to freedom fighters as they infiltrated rural mountain villages to kill French sympathizers and workers.[8][10][12]
The Feminist movement of the 1940s combined with the Revolution gave Algerian women like Lavalette the confidence to challenge societal values, break social taboos, assert their independence, and showcase their political importance.[7] Manipulating gendered expectations empowered them to control their identities and assert their independence. In Lavalette's case, she held power as an officer and fighter of the FLN and resisted French colonial abuse.[13] She fought her oppression as a Pied-Noir by realizing her stories were valuable and interesting, which motivated her to break her silence.
