Kevin Anderson

Distinguished Professor of Sociology, with courtesy appointments in Feminist Studies and Political Science, at University of California, Santa Barbara.

I first encountered Professor Marnia Lazreg nearly fifty years ago as a graduate student at the New School for Social Research. Dr. Lazreg’s sociology seminars remain with me to this day, as she introduced us to both the structuralist Marxist Louis Althusser and to the future intellectual star of poststructuralism and postmodernism, Michel Foucault. Needless to say, studying Foucault so early was both a revelation and also something that put us ahead of our contemporaries, especially since Dr. Lazreg told us he was a coming thing. I also took her course on Sociology of the Third World, as these regions were called at the time, where I received an in-depth treatment of modern Africa for the first time. But what sticks out in my mind all these years later was her again very prescient remark that China was no longer an “underdeveloped” country, but one that had moved up to a higher position in the world economy. And this was as early as 1976!

As a teacher, Dr. Lazreg was quite open to discussion and questions from students. Yet at the same time, she held us to a very high standard, both in terms the quantity of work required and any shortcomings in our logic or evidence in papers or presentations. She and I both left the New School soon after, whose Sociology program was not a happy place at the time. Decades later, I ran into her at an American Sociological Association meeting, after which we stayed in touch more often.

Since I never really knew Dr. Lazreg at a personal level I would like to devote the rest of my comments to some of her intellectual legacy, which is wide-ranging and profound, and will undoubtedly stand the test of time. First, I would like to mention her 2008 book, Torture and the Twilight of Empire: From Algiers to Baghdad, published by Princeton University Press. This book offered a detailed analysis of the French regime of mass torture during France’s war against the Algerian national liberation movement, which was used for purposes beyond merely gathering information. Dr. Lazreg showed that the French state really believed that it could use a combination of torture and socialization to change the mentality of the Algerian people toward acceptance of assimilation within the French empire.  She then compared this to the U.S. regime of torture that was still happening during its occupation of Iraq, pointing to the gendered nature of both the French and U.S. practice of torture. The book also contained some astute critiques of two of the authors on which she also relied for theoretical inspiration, Frantz Fanon and Michel Foucault. Concerning Fanon’s famous theory of the liberating effects of anti-colonial violence, she made an important distinction between “the temporary release that may be achieved through violence, and its long term transformative impact,” and was far less sanguine than Fanon about the latter. Concerning Foucault, she criticized his suggestion that torture has been replaced by less physical forms of discipline and punishment, noting that this was “shortsighted” if one included the global South as part of modernity. (Here, one could also include Blacks in America and the police.)

Dr. Lazreg deepened this discussion in her book-length critique, Foucault’s Orient: The Conundrum of Cultural Difference, From Tunisia to Japan, published by Bergahn Books in 2017. She showed in this profound work that Foucault’s incessant focus on cultural difference, on basically othering non-European societies, often obscured more than it revealed. This was especially true of Foucault’s late writings on Japan, where he “could only stress Japan’s cultural difference” and thus minimized the commonalities that cut across modern capitalist societies at a global level.  During his year in Tunisia, he ignored his students’ commitment to Marxism even as he quietly defended them vs. regime repression. He essentialized Tunisian society, seeing it as still imbued at a deep level with ancient Greco-Roman same-sex practices among men, a stance that ignored layers of Arab, Ottoman, and French colonial domination. Foucault’s Iran writings compared modern Iranian revolutionary consciousness to European insanity as outlined in his History of Madness. I worry that these brief remarks on the book might make it seem like a polemic against Foucault. Nothing could be further from the case, as the book exhibits at all times a generous spirit toward the renowned French philosopher, who has inspired so much creative social analysis, including some of that of Dr. Lazreg herself. 

I hope I have indicated some of the scope and depth of Dr. Lazreg’s intellectual contribution, both as a teacher and as a scholar. Her work will certainly outlive her, and is sure to echo down the generations to all those treading—or attempting to tread—the pathways of incisive social analysis, of theoretical critique at the highest level, or of scholarship committed to a more humanist world.

Judith Friedlander

Professor Emerita of Anthropology at Hunter College, City University of New York and former dean of The New School.

I had the great privilege of meeting Marnia Lazreg in the fall of 1990, soon after I came to Hunter College to serve as Dean of the Division of Social Sciences. Before long, we became good friends. To this day I have fond memories of spending evenings with Marnia, Ramsi, Reda and my niece Lisa. The children were all about the same age and enjoyed playing chess together.

Few colleagues at Hunter had more in common with me than Marnia, both intellectually and politically. Identified with the left, we were both feminist scholars, who worked in the Third World, I in Mexico and she in Algeria. What also drew us together was our approach to intellectual engagement, which, like the French, tended to be head on. Not known for mincing words, we raised inconvenient questions that others chose to ignore about alarming political turns taking place on our side of the political divide.

Exchanging ideas with Marnia was always energizing, thought-provoking and refreshing. Refusing to toe any party line, Marnia frequently found herself defending positions with which her colleagues at Hunter disagreed. Not everyone of course. Marnia had her champions also, among them Melvin Richter, one of CUNY’s most distinguished political theorists, best known for his work on Tocqueville. During the early 1990s, when Marnia was going through a grueling tenure process, some of her detractors launched a vigorous campaign against granting her a life-time appointment. Outraged by their efforts, Professor Richter spoke to me with great admiration about Marnia’s scholarship, describing in passionate detail how much he had learned from her about Tocqueville’s problematic writings on Algeria. After a few terrible weeks, the forces of reason prevailed and Marnia went on to have a long and productive academic career at Hunter and the Graduate Center, earning many accolades over the years, about which we have all read in the deeply moving obituaries published in recent months, in The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Guardian and elsewhere.

By the early 2000s, Marnia was also leading the way for improving the level of financial support for faculty research at Hunter. In 2004, after receiving a fellowship from the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, she became the first faculty member in the history of the college to be granted a supplement from Hunter’s administration so that she would not have to take a cut in salary to accept this highly prestigious, but poorly paid, opportunity. Given Marnia’s stature, Hunter’s newly appointed president recognized the importance of rewarding the accomplishments of distinguished members of the faculty in material ways. From that point on, colleagues who received major fellowships could count on Hunter topping off their salaries, when necessary, so that they could afford to take time off for their research and bring honor to the college.

Others are better placed than I to talk about Marnia’s international reputation, but it was substantial, as my friend Lilia Labidi confirmed with just one example. Professor Labidi, who had served as interim Minister for Women’s Affairs in Tunisia after the Arab Spring, met Marnia at Yale in 2009, when Marnia gave a talk there about Franz Fanon’s influence on FLN activists and intellectuals during the Algerian war. Then in 2017, the Tunis International Book Fair invited Marnia to give a special lecture on feminism, Islam, and the writing of history, which attracted a lot of attention.

Although Marnia paid heavily for speaking her mind, she never shied away from hot-button issues like the hijab or what she called the widespread practice of “(re)veiling,” in Muslim countries, Europe and the U.S. Vigorously opposed to those who embraced the hijab as a symbol of liberation, Marnia was equally opposed to Western governments banning the veil.

In closing, I give Marnia the last word on this controversial subject. In 2009, she explained why she felt she had to write Questioning the Veil: Open Letters to Muslim Women:

I can no longer stay quiet on an issue, veiling, that in recent years has become so political that it threatens to shape and distort the identity of young women and girls throughout the Muslim world as well as Europe and North America  . . . .

When women choose “freely” to don the hijab in one country, Marnia argues, they undermine campaigns against wearing the veil in others, organized by women living in countries whose laws force them to cover themselves in public.

“There is a tendency to romanticize veiling,” Marnia continues “and see in it what is not there, especially if the writer does not belong to a culture in which veiling is common . . . . A veil is hardly liberating as some women have claimed—unless you equate liberation with placating a father, a husband, brother, or the community at large. It is the compulsion that a woman may feel to wear a hijab, no matter for what purpose, that needs to be thoroughly examined.”

Dear Marnia, I thank you from the bottom of my heart for having had the courage to keep asking the tough questions. Although you are no longer with us, rest assured that those of us who have loved and admired you will never forget how fiercely you fought for women’s rights and the rights of the historic victims of European colonialism, all too many of whom live again in repressive regimes. Few people spoke truth to power more clearly and consistently than you, even as the faces of those in power changed. May your integrity and voice of wisdom prevail.

Nouria Benghabrit-Remaoun

Director & Professor of Sociology at the
Center for Research in Social and Cultural Anthropology in Oran, Algeria (Retired). She served as Minister of National Education for the People’s Democratic Republic of Algeria from 2015 to 2019.

To Marnia Lazreg (1941-2024), our eminent colleague and friend

Ladies and gentlemen participants in this tribute,

To the children and family of Marnia, here present,

To all those who knew and appreciated this great lady who unfortunately left us on January 13, with the greatest discretion.

As for all those present here and many who were unable to join us, it is with the greatest emotion that I want to offer my condolences to the sons and to all the family, and friends of Marnia, to whom in my own name, of all my family and of colleagues in Algeria and elsewhere who had great esteem and the greatest respect for her.

If her name was not previously unknown to us through some of her scientific writings, two spaces of knowledge constituted privileged places of effective encounters with Marnia.

• First of all, the Council for the development of social science research in Africa (CODESRIA). As far as I remember, close colleagues were able to meet her in December 1998 during the IXth General Assembly of CODESRIA, the theme of which was “Globalization and social sciences in Africa”. Our late colleague could only feel at ease in this non-governmental organization (NGO) whose headquarters are precisely in Dakar, and which, as Hassan Remaoun recalled in a brief information on the event published in issue 6 ( Sept-Dec 1998) Insaniyat (Algerian Journal of Anthropology and Social Sciences), was born “from the desire of African intellectuals to construct their interpretation of the history of their societies, their present and their future in the world” , and with the aim of “facilitating research, promoting publishing and encouraging scientific exchange” to thus compensate for “the fragmentation of research” by “going beyond linguistic and research compartmentalization.
  
  I myself made his acquaintance during the 10th General Assembly held in December 2002 in Kampala (Uganda), and focused on an overall theme relating to “Africa in the new millennium and which addressed questions as crucial as those of higher education and academic freedoms, reform of the public system, public health policies, change in economic policy, colonialism, customary law, the post-colonial state and society, the issue of globalization (challenges of globalization), continuity and change in international relations in Africa, conflicts and reconstruction, identity and political violence, pluralism and diversity management, migratory dynamics and changes in relationships between cities and countryside, the African diaspora etc… So many centers of interest for Marnia and some 300 participants in this meeting. This is especially true since a research program on gender was going to be launched by the organization and which will allow the publication of a certain number of publications. And it was in Kampala in 1990 that the declaration on intellectual freedom and social responsibility was adopted.
  
  I also remember that with the deceased and our Egyptian colleague, we took the opportunity to make a sort of pilgrimage to Lake Victoria and the sources of the Nile.
  
  Many academics who led these Codesria assemblies are unfortunately, like Professor Lazreg, no longer in this world and we will only mention the names of Shahida EL Baz, Hilmy Shahraoui and Samir Amin for Egypt, Ali El Kenz and Tayeb Chentouf for Algeria, Abdelkader Zghal, Abdelwahab Bouhdiba (1932-2020), Lilia Bensalem (2015) for Tunisia, Archie Mafejie (South Africa), Aminata Diaw Cissé (Senegal), Sam Moyo (Zimbabwe) by Thandika Mkandawire ( Malawi) from sub-Saharan Africa.
  
  Such is life, but their works will continue to inform our present and future research.

• The second place which allowed our rapprochement with Marnia, was the Research Center in Social and Cultural Anthropology in Oran (CRASC-Oran) where we were happy to meet her during her visits to Algeria and where she was not missed to enrich ourselves with his conferences and the discussions we had together.
  
  She notably participated with around twenty researchers and other academics in the workshops and symposium organized at the CRASC in Oran on January 4 and 5, 2012 and continued from December 2 to 4 of the same year on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of independence. of Algeria, and centered on the theme of “social change”. The question had in fact always been at the heart of the concerns of our research institution, but was still at the center of burning news, since it coincided with the events that we will soon classify under the heading of “Arab Spring” which at the time had ignited more.

• One of Marnia’s last visits to CRASC dates back to January 2020 when she presented her conference on “Foucault and the Orient” (January 7, 2020) in the middle of the great and long Hirak demonstration, as if she had come to Algeria at this time, especially to observe him. It was, I think, his last trip to the country which will be marked by the publication of his only novel and the only book published in Algeria, of a more or less autobiographical nature.
  
  After that, travel became almost impossible with the Covid-19 pandemic gripping the world. Marnia, however, kept in touch with some colleagues in Algeria through electronic channels. However, his path had become increasingly rare for about a year, perhaps because of conflicts which were going to stun the world (Europe and Palestine), but even more so the illness which weakened him, leading to his disappearance, unfortunately too early for a being so attentive to scrutinizing our world and our country by relying on the use of social sciences. We often discussed it in Algeria as elsewhere in Africa or even New York when I was there like in 2013.
  
  Around 2013, we even tried to respond to a call for tenders which was unfortunately unsuccessful for research on women entrepreneurs in Algeria even though we had been selected. The condition of women in Algeria in particular and in the Islamic world in general, as well as the analysis of the colonial system and its distant repercussions, including through nationalism and the question of structuring into social classes, have certainly occupied most of the work that she bequeathed to us and of which we will have to make good use.
  
  I could not dwell on it in my remarks today, because as it is tradition in such meetings to pay tribute, I especially wanted to favor the testimony relating to the great lady of whom I keep the best of memories.

• That said, I will question with you the fact that none of the six main scientific works of the missing and to limit myself to them, have to my knowledge been published in Algeria or elsewhere in the Maghreb, so that it is in this region of the world that not only his source of inspiration is found, but also his main field of investigation. Paying homage to him therefore also implies for all of us that we consider making his work available to the societies that are the subject of his investigations, even if his scientific concerns also challenge Western societies to whom it was widely addressed and who , have legitimate access to his work.
  
  To sum up and to better embrace his legacy, we will therefore need to think together about the possibilities of translating his work and publishing it where his work is still relatively unknown.
  
  This would be the greatest tribute we could pay to our eminent colleague and friends.

• Just to finish, I will remind you that Marnia is a first name coming from an Arabic root which expresses wealth and the fact of being fulfilled, as indicated in the founding myth of this flourishing medium-sized city in Western Algeria which bears the same name, Lalla (or lady) Marnia, named after a mythical woman who bequeathed her name to him.

Thank you for fulfilling us too, our Lalla Marnia Lazreg, that we will never forget you, and above all rest in peace.

À Marnia Lazreg (1941-2024) notre éminente collègue et amie

Mesdames et Messieurs les participants à cet hommage,

Aux enfants et à la famille de Marnia, ici présents,

A tous ceux qui ont connu et apprécié cette grande dame qui nous a malheureusement quittés le 13 janvier dernier, dans la plus grande discrétion.

Comme pour tous les présents, ici et beaucoup qui n’ont pu se joindre à nous, c’est avec la plus grande émotion que je veux ici présenter mes condoléances aux fils et à toute la famille, et les amis de Marnia, à laquelle en mon nom propre, de toute ma famille et de collègues en Algérie et ailleurs qui lui vouaient beaucoup d’estime et le plus grand des respects.

Si son nom ne nous était pas inconnu auparavant à travers certains de ses écrits scientifiques, deux espaces de savoir ont constitué des lieux privilégiés de rencontres effectives avec Marnia.

• Tout d’abord le Conseil pour le développement de la recherche en sciences sociales en Afrique (Council for the development of social science research in Africa, CODESRIA). Autant que je m’en souvienne de proches collègues avaient pu la rencontrer en décembre 1998 lors de la IXème Assemblée générale du CODESRIA dont la thématique en discussion portait sur « Globalisation et sciences sociales en Afrique ». Notre défunte collègue ne pouvait que se retrouver à l’aise dans cette Organisation non gouvernementale (ONG) dont le siège est justement à Dakar, et qui comme le rappelait Hassan Remaoun dans une brève information de l’évènement publiée dans le n° 6 (sept-Dec 1998) Insaniyat (Revue algérienne d’anthropologie et de sciences sociales), était née « de la volonté des intellectuels africaines de construire leur interprétation de l’histoire de leurs sociétés, de leur présent et de leur devenir dans le monde », et avec pour but « de faciliter la recherche, de promouvoir l’édition et de favoriser l’échange scientifique » pour pallier ainsi « la fragmentation de la recherche » en « dépassant les cloisonnements linguistiques et la recherche.
  
  Je fis moi-même sa connaissance lors de la Xème Assemblée générale tenue en décembre 2002 à Kampala (Ouganda), et axée sur une thématique d’ensemble portant sur « L’Afrique dans le nouveau millénaire et qui abordait des questions aussi cruciale que celles de l’enseignement supérieur et des libertés académiques, la réforme du système public, les politiques de santé publique, le changement de politique économique, le colonialisme, la loi coutumière, l’Etat post-colonial et la société, l’enjeu de la globalisation (challenges of globalisation), continuité et changement dans les relations internationales en Afrique, les conflits et la reconstruction, l’identité et les violences politiques, le pluralisme et le management de la diversité, les dynamiques migratoires et les changements dans les rapports entre villes et campagne, la diaspora africaine etc… Autant de centres d’intérêts pour Marnia et quelques 300 participants à cette rencontre. Ceci d’autant plus qu’un programme de recherche sur le genre (gender) allait être lancé par l’organisation et qui permettra la parution d’un certain nombre de publications. Et c’est à Kampala, qu’en 1990, fut adopté la déclaration sur la liberté intellectuelle et la responsabilité sociale.
  
  Je me souviens aussi qu’avec la disparue et notre collègue égyptienne, nous avions profité de l’occasion pour faire une sorte de pèlerinage au Lac Victoria et aux sources du Nil.
  
  Beaucoup d’universitaires qui animaient ces assemblées du Codesria, ne sont malheureusement comme le professeur Lazreg, plus de ce monde et nous ne citerons que les noms de Shahida EL Baz, Hilmy Shahraoui et Samir Amin pour l’Égypte, Ali El Kenz et Tayeb Chentouf pour l’Algérie, Abdelkader Zghal, Abdelwahab Bouhdiba (1932-2020), Lilia Bensalem (2015)  pour la Tunisie, Archie Mafejie (Afrique du Sud), Aminata Diaw Cissé (Sénégal), Sam Moyo (Zimbabwe) de Thandika Mkandawire (Malawi) d’Afrique sub-saharienne.
  
  Ainsi va la vie, mais leurs œuvres continueront à éclairer nos recherches présentes et futures.

• Le second lieu qui aura permis notre rapprochement avec Marnia, était le Centre de recherche en anthropologie sociale et culturelle à Oran (CRASC-Oran) où nous nous faisions un plaisir de la rencontrer lors de ses passages en Algérie et où elle ne manquait pas de nous enrichir de ses conférences et des discussions que nous menions ensemble.
  
  Elle avait notamment participé avec une vingtaine de chercheurs et autres universitaires aux workshop et symposium organisés au CRASC à Oran, les 4 et 5 janvier 2012 et poursuivis du 2 au 4 décembre de la même année à l’occasion du 50^ème anniversaire de l’indépendance de l’Algérie, et centrée sur la thématique du « changement social ». La question avait en réalité de tout temps, été au cœur des préoccupations de notre institution de recherche, mais était encore au centre d’une actualité brulante, puisqu’elle coïncidait avec les événements qu’on ne tardera pas de classer sous la rubrique de « printemps arabes » qui avait à l’époque enflammé plus d’un, tandis que d’autres restaient circonspects. La Revue Insaniyat éditée par le CRASC avait dans son numéro double 57-58 (juillet-décembre 2012), repris quelques-unes des interventions à ces rencontres, qui mériteraient d’être actualisées avec le recul des événements, avec tout ce qu’on a vu s’écouler depuis. A noter aussi la contribution de Marnia au fonctionnement de ce périodique en tant que membre du conseil de la revue.

• Un des derniers passages au CRASC de Marnia, remonte d’ailleurs à janvier 2020 lorsqu’elle présenta sa conférence sur « Foucault et l’Orient » (7 janvier 2020) en pleine période de la grande et longue manifestation du Hirak, comme si elle était venue en Algérie à cette période, spécialement pour l’observer. C’était d’ailleurs, je le pense, son dernier voyage dans le pays qui sera marqué d’ailleurs par la publication de son unique roman et seul livre publié en Algérie, à caractère plus ou moins autobiographique.
  
  Après cela, les déplacements sont devenus quasi-impossibles avec la pandémie de la Covid-19 qui se saisissait du monde. Marnia gardait cependant une correspondance avec quelques collègues en Algérie par le circuit des voies électroniques. Sa voie se faisait cependant de plus en plus rare depuis une année environ peut-être à cause de conflits qui allaient sidérer le monde (Europe et Palestine), mais encore plus la maladie qui l’affaiblissaient en menant à sa disparition hélas trop précoce pour un être aussi attentif à scruter notre monde et notre pays en s’appuyant sur l’usage des sciences sociales. Nous en discutions souvent en Algérie comme ailleurs en Afrique ou même New-York lorsque j’y étais de passage comme en 2013.
  
  Nous avions même tenté vers 2013, de répondre à un appel d’offre qui fût malheureusement infructueux pour une recherche portant sur les femmes entrepreneures en Algérie alors-même que nous avions été sélectionné. La condition des femmes en Algérie en particulier et dans l’univers islamique en général, ainsi que l’analyse du système colonial et de ses retombées lointaines, y compris à travers le nationalisme et la question de la structuration en classes sociales, ont certainement occupé l’essentiel des travaux qu’elle nous a légué et dont il s’agira de faire bon usage.
  
  Je ne pouvais m’y attardé dans mes propos d’aujourd’hui, car comme il est de tradition dans de pareilles rencontres l’hommage, j’ai tenu surtout à privilégier le témoignage portant sur la grande dame dont je garde le meilleur des souvenirs.

• Ceci dit, je m’interrogerai avec vous sur le fait qu’aucun des six principaux ouvrage scientifiques de la disparue et pour me limiter à eux, n’ont été à m’a connaissance, publié en Algérie ou ailleurs au Maghreb, alors que c’est dans cette région du monde que se trouve non seulement sa source d’inspiration, mais encore son principal terrain d’investigation. Lui rendre hommage suppose donc aussi pour nous tous, que nous réfléchissions à mettre son œuvre à la disposition des sociétés faisant l’objet de ses investigations, même si ses préoccupations scientifiques interpellent aussi les sociétés occidentales à qui elle s’adressait largement et qui elles, ont légitimement accès à son œuvre.
  
  Pour nous résumer et pour mieux assumer son héritage, il s’agira donc de réfléchir ensemble aux possibilités de traduction de ses travaux et d’édition là où son œuvre est encore relativement méconnue.
  
  Ce serait le plus grand hommage que nous pourrons rendre à notre éminente collègue et amis.

• Juste pour finir, je rappellerai que Marnia est un prénom provenant d’une racine arabe qui exprime la richesse et le fait d’être comblé, comme l’indique le mythe fondateur de cette moyenne cité florissante de l’Ouest algérien qui porte le même nom, soit Lalla (ou dame) Marnia, du nom d’une femme mythique qui lui aurait légué son nom.

Merci de nous avoir comblé aussi, notre Lalla Marnia Lazreg, que nous t’oublierons jamais, et surtout repose en paix.

Sihem Lazreg

Niece. She is an ophthalmologist who currently owns and manages a private practice focused on treating ocular surface disease in adults and children in Algeria. She was Associate Professor at the University Hospital Mustapha Bacha of Algiers from 1990 to 2008.

My Aunt was an exceptional and genuine lady. She was an inspired and gifted writer and historian and a landmark scholar of sociology.

Her biography can tell you more than that. She left her country very early, just after Algeria was liberated and was taking its first steps towards modernization as a free republic. Under these circumstances, one would have expected this young lady to melt completely into her new life in America, as the majority of immigrants pursuing promising careers in a new land do.

Yet, Marnia chose the difficult path—that of continuing to believe in her country, in her roots, and in the power of women in the country where she was born and raised. She chose to defend her culture, her country, and the values of her people, and to defend women through her writing.

Marnia’s novel, The Awakening of the Mother, was not fiction but rather a new constitution for the Eastern woman meant to free her soul and to empower her. The book will allow generations to come to witness the transition of the Eastern woman to modernity.

One might say that Marnia’s genius lay in engaging so completely with the local and the regional as to become international.

I was very young when Marnia left the country. I remember as a child the passion and enthusiasm with which she was received by my father and my family when she visited her homeland. I remember her strong words of encouragement to me as a child and adolescent—words that evoked the passion for work and faith in our culture, country and people that run in our family.

I am sure that she is listening now to us from far above and smiling that her mission and vision has left some thoughts and values to be remembered.

To conclude let me share with you an old quote from the father of democracy in Athens:

What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others.

                                                                        —Pericles 

Aïcha Maherzi

Poet, Professor in the Department of Education and Training, University of Toulouse-Jean Jaurès, and former Vice President of the University of Algiers.

Aïcha Maherzi read the following poem that she had composed for the occasion. It has since been published, along with an English translation (also reproduced below), as Maherzi, Aïcha. “Une Femme de Lumière.” World Voices Nexus: The WCCES Chronicle 8, no. 2 (June 2024).

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Une femme de lumière

A ma sœur Marnia LAZREG
​
Marnia j’espérais te revoir mais tu t’es envolée tel un oiseau léger
Vers le règne de la lumière après avoir fait ce que tu avais à faire
Tu as donné ta part avec force et foi en luttant contre toute aliénation
Tu voulais aider le monde à s’indigner à se redresser à se relever
A choisir le savoir et la paix en le secouant sans concession ni complaisance
Tu voulais l’élever pour refuser l’injustice et l’indignité faite à l’être humain
Tu voulais réveiller sa conscience pour raisonner et s’humaniser
Tu l’as sillonné un peu partout de ton Algérie natale aux Amériques
Tu l’as parcouru pays par pays de la vieille Europe jusqu’à l’Afrique
Tu lui disais ses vérités et tu as laissé dans ses sillons des grains de ta lumière
Tu défendais les droits des femmes rejetées de la sphère de l’humanité entière
Tu les défendais avec des mots sincères et ciselés avec la force de ta pensée
Ta réflexion profonde ne suivait pas le monde dans son conformisme et son fatalisme
Dans sa bêtise sa lâcheté sa violence sa servilité ses courbettes et ses indignités
Tu étais engagée pour la vérité et tu as accompli ton devoir avec responsabilité
Tu défendais la mémoire vraie et la justice entretenant en lui la nécessaire espérance
Toi la noble hirondelle annonciatrice du printemps tu déployais tes belles ailes
Pour embrasser la lumière du ciel et l’offrir ainsi à tous les damnés de la terre
Refusant pour eux la guerre la faim et la misère tu voulais les libérer de l’obscurité
Avec les rayons de ton regard avec tes convictions et tes mots francs et utiles
Tu refusais l’hypocrisie la traitrise le qu’en dirait-on le faux la bêtise si futile
Tu savais très bien exprimer le réel et dire non à la soumission et à la torture
Pratiquée partout aujourd’hui comme hier dans ton pays alors sous la domination
Par des criminels de guerre qui cultivaient le racisme le rejet de l’autre et le malheur
Déniant la qualité de simples humains à des femmes et à des hommes
Qui refusaient qu’on les considère comme de simples bêtes de somme
Tu t’étais toujours soulevée contre l’abjecte dictature des plus forts
Contre leur manipulation leur falsification de l’histoire et leurs tords
Contre leur agression et leurs multiples spoliations des biens des autres
Tu défendais le droit à la dignité pour tous les peuples du monde entier
Quelles que soient leur foi leur origine la couleur de leur peau
Tu refusais l’esclavage et l’exploitation ignoble de la moëlle de leurs os
Pour eux tu revendiquais le droit au savoir et celui de choisir leur chemin
Le droit de s’émanciper du joug de la domination dans l’exigence totale
Dans la critique le bon sens la résistance la franchise et le courage qui ébranlaient
Les esprits étriqués remuant leurs coeurs abimés et obstinés
Ta clairvoyance effrayait les puissants et leurs serviles sujets
Je mesure ma sœur combien ta tâche a été difficile à accomplir ici-bas
Tu t’étais opposée d’emblée à la tyrannie et aux règles des grands
Qui voulaient et veulent encore commander à la lettre les peuples et leur destinTa pensée dérangeait et ta force de frappe contre leur domination était sans relâche
Les mains nues et avec de simples mots tu arrachais le masque en fer des lâches
Dans les Amphithéâtres remplis d’étudiants à ta voix et à ton argumentation si attentifs
Devant ta sincérité ton érudition tes analyses si étonnantes ils étaient si admiratifs
Devant tes réflexions si intéressantes tes nombreuses productions si pertinentes
Ta parole de savante ton enseignement et ta pédagogie attiraient divers auditeurs
Tu as fait du son de ta voix un baume pour les cœurs car tu su donner de toi-même
Le meilleur pour tes enseignés pour les proches pour les lointains et pour nous-mêmes
Toi la femme sans âge tu as su donner aussi le meilleur lors de tes voyages
Marnia la sage tu n’es point partie en vérité car tu vis et vivras pour l’éternité
Que te dire encore sinon que ta présence en moi est plus forte que de ton vivant
Je veillerai sois en sûre sur ton beau message et sur tes grains semés et ta belle mémoire
Je dirai aux autres la valeur de tes pensées de ta droiture et de ton intégrité
Je leur décrirai ta détermination ta spontanéité et ta capacité de transmettrice
La douce et bienfaitrice lumière je leur dirai ce que tu as fait ce que tu as réalisé
Ce que tu as légué et ton œuvre sera préservée lue commentée admirée et pratiquée
Je saurai leur dire et je saurai leur lire haut et fort ton message clair comme le jour
Et au fond d’eux-mêmes ils garderont pour toujours une lueur de la clarté de ta lumière
Reçois mon Salam ma sœur de toi je serai toujours fière auprès des Justes repose-toi
Et que la Miséricorde d’Allah enveloppe pour l’éternité ton âme inchallah

Aïcha MAHERZI
​Toulouse le 13 Mars 2024

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A Woman of Light

To my sister, Marnia Lazreg

Marnia, I had hoped to see you again, but you flew away like a light bird,
Toward the kingdom of light after doing what you had to do.
You gave your part with strength and faith in fighting against all alienation.
You wanted to help the world to be outraged, to stand up again,
To choose knowledge and peace by seizing it without concession or complacency.
You wanted to make the world stand against the injustice and indignity done to human beings.
You wanted to awaken the world’s conscience to reason and to make the world humanize itself.
You set foot in every corner of the world, from your native Algeria to the Americas.
You traveled the world country by country from old Europe to Africa.
You told the world its truths and you sowed your footsteps with grains of your light.
You defended the rights of women rejected from the sphere of humanity entire.
You defended women with words sincere and chiseled with the force of your thought.
Your profound reflections did not follow the world in its conformism and fatalism,
In its stupidity, its cowardice, its violence, its servility, its genuflections and its indignities.
Your business was truth and you carried out your work faithfully.
You defended memory and justice, maintaining in them the necessary hope.
You, the noble swallow, herald of spring, you spread your beautiful wings
To embrace the light of heaven and thus offer it to all the damned of the earth.
Refusing war, hunger and poverty for them, you wanted to free them from darkness
With the rays of your gaze, with your convictions, and with your words frank and useful.
You refused hypocrisy, treachery, the what-can-one-say?, falsehood, and stupidity so futile.
You knew very well how to describe reality and to say “no” to the subjugation and torture
Practiced everywhere today, as yesterday in your country, then under the domination
Of war criminals who cultivated racism, the rejection of the other, and unhappiness,
Denying simple humanity to women and men
Who refused to be considered simple beasts of burden.
You always stood against the abject dictatorship of the strongest,
Against their manipulation, their falsification of history and their twisting of it,
Against their aggression and their destruction of the property of others.
You defended the right to dignity of all the world’s peoples,
Whatever their faith, their origin, or the color of their skin.
You refused their enslavement and the vile exploitation of the marrow of their bones.
For them you claimed the right to know and the right to choose their path,
The right to emancipate oneself from the yoke of domination in all areas,
In criticism, common sense, resistance, frankness, and courage, which shook
Narrow minds, stirring their damaged and stubborn hearts.
Your clear-sightedness frightened the powerful and their followers.
I realize, my sister, how difficult your task was to accomplish here on earth.
You opposed from the outset the tyranny and the rules of the great,
Who wanted and still want to order to the letter other peoples and their destiny.
Your thought disturbed them and the power with which you struck at their domination was unrelenting.
With bare hands and with simple words you tore off the iron mask of cowards
In lecture halls filled with students so attentive to your voice and your arguments.
Faced with your sincerity, your erudition, your astonishing analyses, they were so admiring.
Supported by your engaging reflections and your pointed works,
Your learned speech, your teaching and your pedagogy attracted a diverse audience.
You made of the sound of your voice a balm for hearts because you knew how to give of yourself
The best for those you taught, for those close, for those far, and for ourselves.
You, the ageless woman, also knew how to give the best during your voyages.
Marnia the wise, you are not gone, in truth, because you live and will live for eternity.
What else can I tell you other than that your presence in me is stronger than when you were alive?
I will watch over your beautiful message and your sown seeds and your beautiful memory.
I will tell others the value of your thoughts, your righteousness and your integrity.
I will describe to them your determination, your spontaneity and your ability to transmit
Gentle and beneficent light. I will tell them what you have done, what you have achieved,
What you have bequeathed, and your work will be preserved, read, discussed, admired and practiced.
I will know how to tell them and I will know how to read your message loud and clear as day,
And deep within themselves they will forever keep a glimmer of the clarity of your light.
Receive my Salam, my sister. I will always be proud of you. Among the righteous, rest.
And may the mercy of God envelop your soul for eternity. God willing.

Aïcha Maherzi
Toulouse, the 13th of March, 2024.
(Translated by Ramsi Woodcock.)