Leila said it only yesterday: I was a voiceless prisoner. A little
like certain women of Algiers today, you see them going around
outside without the ancestral veil, out of fear of the new and
unexpected situations, they become entangled in other veils,
invisible but very noticeable ones… Me too: for years after
Barberousse I was still carrying my own prison inside of me. (48)
Early-on in the novel it is acknowledged that the construction of a neo-harem is progressing at the cost of Algerian women’s freedoms and their role in history. Sarah continues to make reference to the rise of Islamism when she refers to the haram
“Oh my God!” she added and she thought of Leila. Leila who
was laying bare her shards. What a new, offensive harem! (she
cried out), precisely without haram, without taboo. In the name
of whom? In the name of what? (50)
She cries-out, “precisely without [emphasis mine] haram…” Haram suggests that the new harem is not an illegal social construction. It is interesting here that Djebar uses the word “taboo” to refer to haramas opposed to the stronger, “forbidden.” One can assume that she is referring to the taboo of the harem as a kind of setting of political, social, and gendered incorrectness as opposed to the construction of an Islamic fortification to contain and control women. In addition, her questioning: “in the name of whom? In the name of what?” suggests some opposition to the socialist control of the Algerian government, replacing the Islamic underpinnings of Algerian culture. The harem is being reconstructed as lacking in the haram, or the Islamic and in the name of nothing: Allah has been discarded at the conclusion of independence.
In the chapter “The Dead Speak,” Djebar tells the story of Aïcha, another victim of the war, who is attending her grandmother’s funeral. Aïcha is observed
the first name of an open flower, has been broken and wilted
since time immemorial. During the war, no one counted the days
or the months. And the time before the war seems a time
swallowed up, of which even the memory has been erased. (75)
Aïcha in this passage has two interesting identities: one of the historical A’isha of Islamic history and that of the historical Aïcha of Algerian history. The name A’isha means “living and prosperous (51)” but the Algerian Aïcha is neither of these things. The war gave minor significance to her lifespan because it was the way in which time was conceived: not in days or months, but in the calendar of war. That is through suffering, battles, and political changes as opposed to the mundane activities of life. The pre-war period was the period of colonialism: the postwar period signals a change in the face of the national character and as such the memories of the postwar period are “erased.” One can also draw from this short portrait of the Algerian Aïcha, glimpses into the historical A’isha that is one of Islamic history: the changes in how A’isha the Mother of the Believers has had her character altered by various competing sects and nationalisms.
During the Muslim conquest, days were counted in battles, conversions, and anniversaries as opposed to a traditional calendar of the lifecycle. A’isha is also remembered in some sects of Islam (such as in the Shi’a tradition) as being a dubious character in respect to her sexuality and her role in the decisive Battle of Badr. Her prior achievements in narrating hadith and her role in the spread of Islam are disregarded as her gender and accomplishments are compartmentalized according to the agenda they are required to fill. As such, both Aïcha and A’isha’s characters are altered by the course of history: their periods of innocence and ignorance are erased and the periods in which they are controlled by men are commemorated, not celebrated. The dead, in this case, are barely audible.
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