Mediterranean and North Africa

Naor Ben-Yehoyada: We are here today to discuss region formation and region making in the Mediterranean with Michael Herzfeld and Hashim Sarkis. Michael Herzfeld is the Ernest E. Monrad Professor of the Social Sciences in the Department of Anthropology at Harvard University. Hashim Sarkis is the Aga Khan Professor of Landscape Architecture and Urbanism in Muslim Societies at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design. Thank you both for joining us today.
As the theoretical framework of this issue of New Geographies argues, in architecture and urbanistic literatures on the Mediterranean, cities are taken as emblems of ancient and medieval cross-sea connections, of early modern capitalism, and of modern cosmopolitanism. Cities like Naples, Thessaloniki, Izmir, Alexandria, and Tunis are often contrasted on the one hand to Atlantic cities, and on the other hand to the Mediterranean hinterlands. Recently this image of Mediterranean cities has been questioned. Some argue that the boundaries between cities and their hinterlands are exaggerated.  Others claim that Mediterranean hinterlands have actually been as connected to the worlds beyond their national boundaries as to their urban centers, if not more so.
These developments in urbanistic scholarship on the Mediterranean raise several questions that may shed light not only on these cities but also on their relationships to the wider Mediterranean as well as the rest of the world. The Mediterranean is sometimes examined as an emblem or model for global interactions and connections.  Yet most historians agree that the Mediterranean world, however defined, died with the advent of modernity. How do megacities like Istanbul serve in the articulation of these tensions? What is the role of tourists, heritage projects, migration, and cultural politics in the ways in which such tensions unfold?
This issue’s thematic exploration frames this inquiry more generally: “What are the elements in the formula that determine Mediterranean regional formations? And how are they spatially manifested?” If the Mediterranean is not made of “cities and the routes between them,” if cosmopolitan urban centers are not the main building blocks in this regional puzzle, what spatial-social constructions are?
Finally, the relationship of urban form and transnational constellations may help us distinguish also between region making and region formation—the former drawing our attention to projects and the latter to processes. Prima facie, anthropologists seem to reside safely on the “process” side of the fence, whereas urban planners seem to focus on the “project” side. But anthropologists and other social scientists have celebrated projects of “making,” and scholars of the built environment have paid attention to the processes through which projects interact. How do you combine these approaches in your studies, and how does your work on the Mediterranean shape your approaches?

Michael Herzfeld: I find the question very disturbing, because that question presupposes a reification of the Mediterranean. It presupposes everything that I’ve argued against in the last thirty years and more, inasmuch as it seems to suggest that there is something that is identifiable as the Mediterranean other than a geographical fact. I would wonder what the purpose of this perspective is. Certainly the idea that the Mediterranean has, as a general region, included a lot of areas where cities have interacted with hinterlands, have drawn very heavily on the populations of those hinterlands, but also have emphasized the distinction between city and country holds true. But it’s also true for many other parts of the world. As for the idea that it’s a place where people now are beginning to construct cities that are specifically Mediterranean—perhaps because those who claim this have in mind a particular kind of climate—there again, what I fear is the domination of a set of stereotypes over individual planning and over the understanding of cultural processes. And this is particularly worrying, because Southern European countries and Middle Eastern countries, in very different ways, are now homes to new forms of violence. It would be easy for someone to say, “Ah, yes, this is typically Mediterranean behavior.” Then we would be back to square one. All the stereotypes that were common in the 1960s and actually animated much of the anthropological and sociological thinking about the area, would move to a different plane, with the result that instead of focusing on the play of honor and shame in the villages we would be talking about the play of violence and refuge, or something of that sort, in the cities. So I worry about this kind of formulation. I think it would be much more useful to ask the question: Why is the idea of the Mediterranean so important to people who are looking at processes that have taken place in the area over a very long period of time?” If we approach the matter in that way, I think the answer will be clear and it will serve as an admonition to those who want to plan the future of the countries that sit around the rim of the Mediterranean Sea.

Hashim Sarkis: Let me start by situating the discourse on the Mediterranean within architecture and urbanism in relation to what I understand to be its reception, rejection, and criticism, in history and anthropology. I know I might be conflating two discourses that differ in their understanding and construction of the Mediterranean. However, I did see them conflated last year in the history/anthropology conference you organized.
At the conference, I felt that we were at one level way behind you in our understanding of the Mediterranean as a region, and at another level way ahead of you. Let me start with where I felt we were behind. As much as our discourse has come to dismiss the issue of contextualism or regional expression in the last twenty years, we haven’t yet critically assessed where we go from there. Because of the phenomena of globalization, the increasing mobility of architectural practices, and the waning interest in the expression of locality, we have lost interest in the past regionalist discourse, but we have not questioned it. We continue to operate with models that assume that architecture is indelibly bound to its region, even if we do not want to talk about it. We haven’t asked the question: If architecture is in crisis in relation to the context, and this context is not going to go away, how are we going to be dealing with it? We understand region to be given rather than something that we are actively involved in constructing, which I saw both anthropology and historiography elaborate as a deep problematic at the conference last year.
However, I feel we are ahead of you because we are beginning to look at the Mediterranean differently, not with new eyes but because of the radical transformations that are happening in that region and that we as architects and urbanists have to deal with as projects. Irrespective of whether we define it, draw a line around it, to be corresponding to one of the lines of the different existing definitions or not, we are seeing radical transformations in the region, and we try to map and define them in different terms. And yet we keep resorting to our stereotypes because we haven’t yet questioned them in the manner that you have. So we look at the littoral, at the coastal development of many of these cities, which have completely eradicated any sense of the Mediterranean port-city type, and yet we still seek to confirm this type in some implicit manner. So at the level of what constitutes the Mediterranean city, we are confronted with examples that are fantastically transforming it, if there ever was such an “it.”  We are still holding on to some grounding in a particular conception of the Mediterranean city, its history, and its evolution; evolution is very important for us in thinking about cities. We do not like cataclysmic shifts and breaks.

Bilge Strateji dergisi yılda iki kere Bilge Adamlar Stratejik Araştırmalar Merkezi (BİLGESAM) tarafından yayınlanan hakemli bir dergidir. EBSCOhost, CIAO ve ASOS tarafından taranmakta ve dizinlenmektedir. Dergide ifade edilen görüş ve fikirler yalnızca yazarlara aittir, BİLGESAM'ın düşünce ve politikasını yansıtan metinler olarak değerlendirilemez. Bilge Strateji Dergisi'nin tüm hakları saklıdır. İzinsiz yayımlanamaz. Kaynak gösterilerek alıntı yapılabilir. BILGESAM's Wise Strategy Journal is a peer-reviewed journal published on a biannual basis.

THEMES AND PERSPECTIVES

CLAUDIO STAITI, “The ocean is bridged”. The Italian Great War in the diary of Gino C. Speranza (1915-1919)

Chiara PULVIRENTI, The myth of planning. The Allied Control Commission and the UNRRA in the Italian laboratory

ELEONORA BELLONI, The “American Way of Mobility”. The influence of the American model on traffic and mobility planning in Italy (1920-1960)

CRISTOBAL PADILLA TEJEDA, North African migration in the Colombian Caribbean: political and commercial influence in the city of Barranquilla


COMMENTS AND DEBATES

ROSAMARIA VITETTA, Between local and general history. On the writings of Luigi Staibano (1822-1877)

ERMINIO FONZO, Historiography and Covid-19. Some considerations

Phytogeographical study of the forest massifs of Kefrida, a neglected sector of the Babors important PLANT area (Northeastern Algeria).― In order to provide a better knowledge of the flora of Little Kabylia (Bejaia, Algeria), with an objective of conservation of natural heritage, a phytogeographical study was conducted on forest vegetation in two understudied mountains in the area of Kefrida, adjoining the IPA (important plants area) of the Babors. The floristic surveys were conducted in a Zeen and an Afares oak (Quercus canariensis Willd. and Q. afares Pomel respectively) forests as well as mountain grasslands. The sampling allowed us to inventory 332 species of vascular plants. Besides the 205 (62 %) Mediterranean species it houses, the site is remarkable by the presence of 37 (11 %) Algerian endemics or sub-endemics and, above all, 79 (23 %) species from the non-Mediterranean Holarctic subset. Analysis of the global biological spectrum showed the significant dominance of hemicryp...

This paper aims to review the detailed elements of the context situation at the Maghreb borders with a focus on the Algerian ones, shared, moreover, with all the countries of the Maghreb region and even the Sahel. We intend to analyze the borders that are being tested by the dynamics at work at several levels: i) the maritime borders whose overlap of Algeria’s maritime zones with Spain and Italy is under negotiation, a process already underway between Morocco and Spain, ii) the management of air borders in the light of the global pandemic, iii) and finally, Algeria’s land borders, the scene of multiple human flows and various cross-border exchanges.

Reseña de los libros publicados por Diego Melo Carrasco: Las alianzas y negociaciones del sultán: Un recorrido por la historia de las "relaciones internacionales" del sultanato nazarí de Granada (siglos XIII-XV), Murcia, Editum, 2015; Compendio de cartas, tratados y noticias de paces y treguas entre Granada, Castilla y Aragón, Murcia, Editum, 2016

Six ans après la première édition, l'histoire de la communauté grecque de Tunisie est désormais en français.L'étude, qui présente pour la première fois l'histoire de la communauté grecque de Tunisie, est basée exclusivement sur des documents d'archives, résultat de la recherche en Grèce et Tunisie. C’est la première fois que les archives communautaires et consulaires ont été consultées.

Much has been written about gentrification in the contemporary world, but far less work has interrogated whether a similar type of renewal can be observed in different places or periods. This article explores the archaeological application of this concept to the cities of Roman North Africa. Three baseline characteristics are identified for the gentrification process: the displacement of less affluent communities, transformations to the overall character of the built environment, and subsequent waves of gentrifying elites. Making use of the wealth of data for elite domestic construction in North Africa, I first demonstrate the archaeological traces of physical alterations that can be associated with these three factors—that is, evidence for the architectural dynamics of Roman gentrification. I then rely on queries provided by modern gentrification studies to explore the social dynamics of who is involved and why only some neighborhoods are gentrifiable. The resulting discussion highlights the contradictory trends and competing processes that are central to urban regeneration in the Roman world and best situated within the ongoing dialogue of Roman globalization. The introduction of gentrification into the globalization debate is thus a novel way to understand how connectivity shaped the dynamic city spaces of North Africa in antiquity.

Following a brief state of the art of Islamic Spanish numismatics, there ensues a discussion of the hypothesis that broader limits should be considered in the study of coinage and circulation of coins in Islamic Spain. We claim that North Africa and Iberia almost always formed a numismatic entity in many important respects. We discuss mutual influences and common features of coins issued and used both in al-Magreb and al-Andalus in every period of Medieval Islamic history. And finally we present the complete catalogue of Islamic medieval coins at the Archeological Museum of Granada (Spain).

The reconquest of Oran by Spanish Army, ordered by Philip V in 1732, was essential in the articulation of its image of power. The aim of this research is to reconstruct, with a diachronic approach, the (anti)Islamic imagery of the Spanish campaigns in Algeria during the Early Modern period, and the making of the new The conquest of Oran’s image.

"France’s aggression against Algiers in 1830 is often projected as the inaugurating point of the relationship between France and North Africa. But the roots of that dispute, and the complex entanglement itself, stretch back much further. The Revolutionary period is key in comprehending this historical process because it represents a crucial moment of change and renegotiation of the economic, military and ideological relationships between France and North African states. It was also a moment in which the internal dynamics of North Africa were in transformation, particularly  after Spain's abandonment of Oran, altering the balance of power between the Ottoman provinces.

This essay reconsiders the relationship of "Barbary" and "Revolution" by examining evidence for North African presence and participation in revolutionary France, Revolutionary connections to North Africa, and the changes afoot across the North African crescent."

Un esemplare umano è nato, e come la scienza distingue l'homo faber e l'homo sapiens bisognerà forse offrire ai ricercatori e agli amatori di cartellini questo uomo fascista, nato in Italia, senza dubbio, ma che può reclamare, lui pure, la designazione universale nella classificazione latina. 1

This article discusses the transformation of the Moroccan state under contemporary neoliberal globalization, and considers what this transition means for the ways in which scholars view state-society interplay in Morocco and the Arab world more generally. Specifically, it examines the protest of unemployed graduates in Morocco, suggesting that public demonstrations are not only a means to communicate and mobilize demands, but also a technology to reclaim and reproduce a particular “truth” in public. This truth does not necessarily equate with the reality of the neoliberal state as a dispersed material force. As such, by looking at the case of Morocco, we hope to instigate further debate on the nature of the state and its specific relation to phenomena as globalization, society and social protest.

A history of the Sacred Squadron, Greece's elite commando unit in WW2 that was modeled on the legendary SAS. The Sacred Squadron consisted mainly of officers of the Hellenic Armed Forces and Gendarmerie who found their way to Egypt after the conquest of Greece by the Axis (May 1941) but could not serve with their proper rank due to the lack of adequate military units. Therefore they enlisted as privates in the Sacred Squadron, which was formed late in 1942 and served in North Africa and, subsequently, in the Aegean. The Sacred Squadron was the only Greek force to fight until the last day of the war in Europe and its commander, colonel Christodoulos Tsigantes, participated in the surrender of the German forces in the Dodecanese, on 8 May 1945.

An internationally recognized scholar highlights the important role the North African church played in the development of Christian thought. This accessible introduction brings Africa back to the center of the study of Christian history by focusing on key figures and events that influenced the history and trajectory of Christianity as a whole. Written and designed for the classroom, the book zeroes in on five turning points to show how North African believers significantly shaped Christian theology, identity, and practice in ways that directly impact the church today.

Cahiers de la Méditerranée, n° 103, decembre 2021.

Starting from Braudel’s description of the Mediterranean as a “movement-space” whose unity stems from mobility, this article proposes to study the posterity of this ap- proach in scientific literature on migrations in the contemporary era, through the con- cepts of migratory space and system. We examine how studies on the Mediterranean, taken here as a whole, have intersected with scholarly outputs on migrations, and vice versa. There appears to be a problem of scale: some of the migrations or migrants referred to as “Mediterranean” do not always deserve this appellation, which appears as too global.

This course presents a broad survey of historical forces at work over the past 6,000 years, examining the manners in which human societies have organized themselves along categories of race, ethnicity, class, and gender to meet the challenges of the increasing human population and its demands on natural resources: thus, it examines continuity and change in societies over time, in different places, and among various peoples.

Operation Crusader took place in the wide context of an integrated, multi-service theatre-level offensive operation in the Western Desert and the Mediterranean from October 1941 through to January 1942. Seen through this lens, Operation Crusader was simply the Army and the Royal Air Force component of a multi-service theatre-level offensive conducted by Allied forces. The operation ended with an almost complete defeat of the Axis troops, the lifting of the seven-month siege of Tobruk and the retreat of the surviving Axis forces to a position on the border of the colonial provinces of Tripolitania and Cyrenaica, in central Libya.

Abstract
This article examines the longstanding rivalry of Rome and Parthia, which began as an unintended consequence of Crassus’ decisive defeat at Carrhae in 53 BCE. It synthesizes the accounts and opinions of numerous Graeco-Roman writers from the Augustan Age to late antiquity in order to help illustrate the new and interconnected post-Carrhae world and its legacy. The rivalry of the Romans and Parthians became a primary focus of their foreign policies and drastically expanded their perceptions of the world in which they interacted. Even after the fall of the Parthians to the rebellious Sassanid Persians in the 220s CE, the Romans continued to find their three-century-long rivalry with the Parthians of interest and relevant to the changing world of late antiquity.

This thesis was prepared in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.

Britons began regularly voyaging to Morocco, or West Barbary as it was commonly known, from the early 1550s, and within a few decades England had not only developed an extensive trade with the country, but also close political relations; as a result, the histories of Morocco and England became closely tied until the late seventeenth century. While diplomatic and commercial relations between the two countries have been relatively well, but not extensively, studied, understanding of the situation of Morocco within British history has been overshadowed by the predominance of scholarship which has focussed on relations from the more limited perspectives of the threat posed to English shipping and coastal communities around the British Isles from ‘Barbary’ corsairs, Christian captivity, and the hostile encounters which marked the English occupation of Tangier. However, it is contended that when this relationship is re-examined from a more holistic perspective by combining elements usually treated in isolation, together with close attention to the impact of experiential engagement — an aspect which has received little detailed attention outside of captivity narratives — new perspectives on Anglo-Moroccan relations are revealed. Only then is it possible to properly evaluate the meaning of Morocco to early modern Britons and British history.

This thesis examines the impact that direct contact with Morocco and Moroccans had on the attitudes and actions of early modern Britons concerning them. It seeks to identify the psychological responses which experiential engagement elicited, and the circumstantial and personal factors which contributed to the different reactions of individuals. Furthermore, rather than simply regarding English policies concerning Morocco as contingent factors, this study attempts to understand the extent to which personal responses elicited by, and the knowledge Britons acquired through, direct experience actually helped shape diplomatic and commercial relations. By doing so, it shows that the encounter of Britons with Morocco between 1625 and 1684 was both a humbling and enlightening experience for them. There was no general turn to increasing prejudice and antipathy against the people associated with a desire to dominate them and expand England’s nascent empire, as has been argued by other scholars. Instead, the thesis demonstrates that early modern Britons not only possessed a well-developed capacity to consciously accommodate cultural difference in furthering their interests, but some were also susceptible to subconscious processes of positive acculturation in their encounters with other peoples. Moreover, the behaviour of Britons in Morocco was more likely to be based on pragmatism and cultural self-consciousness, than driven by incipient imperial and colonial aspiration.

The document is embargoed until April 2020. However, the contents listing and introduction are included in the attached file, and consideration will be given to providing copies on request for genuine research purposes.

A methodical search for the likely prototype of an extremely barbarous ancient coin is described. The coin's obverse shows parallel line segments projecting from an approximately rectangular solid shape. Several different obverse orientations are considered. The reverse appears to show a stick figure facing frontally, standing on a ground line or low platform, and holding a staff upright at the left side. Likely prototypes are sought by considering coins of relevant metal, fabric, diameter, shape, weight, and thickness, and with an emphasis on their designs. These factors combined with overall frequencies of occurrence seem to point primarily to Eastern coins as likely prototypes. However, indirect consideration of provenance based on source and context information alters the result. A Western prototype of the area from Sicily to North Africa, more specifically a so-called Lopadusan coin type, is deemed more likely though still uncertain.

Barbaros Hayreddin, Mağrip kıyılarındaki korsanlık günlerinden itibaren Akdeniz’de gösterdiği başarılarla dikkatleri üzerine çekti. Farklı milletlerden birçok denizci Cezayir’e gelerek ona katıldı ve böylece Barbaros’un emri altında neredeyse küçük bir donanma meydana geldi. Barbaros Hayreddin Paşa’nın belki de en büyük özelliği ağabeyi Oruç Reis’le birlikte Kuzey Afrika’ya yönelik siyasi bir vizyona sahip olmalarıydı. Barbaros kardeşler daha Mağrip kıyılarına geldikleri ilk dönemlerden itibaren sadece korsan akınları ve yağma ile meşgul olmayıp, aynı zamanda kendi çaba ve zekalarıyla Cezayir’de bir devlet meydana getirerek İspanyollara karşı gaza ve cihatla uğraştılar. Osmanlı İmparatorluğu’nun Batı Akdeniz ve Kuzey Afrika siyasetini de çok büyük ölçüde Barbaros Hayreddin Paşa’nın bu siyasi vizyonu şekillendirmiştir.

PANTELLERIA. THE SESE DI FRESCO EXCAVATION AND FINDS
FROM DESTROYED SESES AT MURSIA. - The sese Di Fresco I  excavations, an emispheric tomb with four chamber which one, found still closed, is a tholos dome, suggest for the first time the pantellerian megalithism ritual. Each chamber contained one or two burials amongst the so-called Sicilian “banchetto funebre” typical equipment: seashells, Ovis vel capra bones, beads, flint and obsidian implements, ware. The pottery from this sese and from other seses, now destroyed, dated in Early and Middle Bronze age, suggest links with RTV, Capo Graziano, Thapsos - Milazzese, Tarxien cemetery and Borg in-Nadur pottery styles. The Mursia surviving seses also prove the existence of an unknown megalithic cemetery. The monuments seem to line up with an ancient route, now ruined but once going to a spring and then to the village.

The full article can be found by following this link:
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13629387.2016.1150183
Below are some excerpts:

The start of the 1980s marks Djebar’s return—after a decade-long absence—both to writing in general and to the French language in particular. If the 1970s stand out in her bibliography as a conspicuous gap in productivity, the circumstances of this gap are well-documented. Djebar has written about this period in her work indicating that she thought that she could write in Arabic. Yet, Arabic written by her would never appear in print. In 1980, she published Femmes d’Alger dans leur appartement, soon followed by a series of novels, all in French. At first look, it seems as though Assia Djebar eventually forsakes her unfruitful Arabic experiment for a definitive return to publishing in French. However, her Arabic experiment did bear fruit, and her output in that language did see the light of day, only it was on screen, rather than on the page. Those familiar with the Algerian author’s oeuvre know that the 1970s’ gap in her bibliography corresponds to her foray into filmmaking, which yielded two films. These films will also remain her only works that are not in French.
If Djebar did not write in Arabic but made a film instead, then how is filmmaking, in her case, a more suitable medium for Arabic expression than writing?
In order to begin answering this question, I focus on the first of her two films, The Nouba of the Women of Mount Chenoua (1978), and articulate my analysis of both the film and its circumstances around the interrelated notions of aphasia, diglossia, and what I call arabophonie in Algeria. The last of these notions merits qualification straight away. The term arabophone is generally used in the objective sense of speaking Arabic. However, I intend it to convey the same connotation that francophone carries. Just as postcolonial implications of margin and centre result in francophone signifying not quite French, the Maghreb can be arabophone also in the sense of not quite Arabic. As to diglossia, while commonly addressed in the discipline of linguistics, and central to studies of Arabic within that field, it is, in this case, also relevant from a literary perspective. Nevertheless, it is necessary to start by considering the role of Nouba in Djebar’s work, and the role of speaking for the main character, or, as it happens, not speaking, which I designate as aphasia. This choice of word is not innovative by any means. Djebar herself used it as part of a chapter title in L’Amour, la fantasia (1985). By asking how is film a better suited medium than writing for Arabic expression in Djebar’s case, what I submit is that aphasia became essential to Djebar’s work specifically in its ties to Arabic, and the language’s position in Algeria at the intersections of French, Tamazight, and a broader Arabic-speaking region.
APHASIA
Nouba is a traditional form of urban music in the Maghreb, with its roots in Arab Spain, which is why it is sometimes also called Andalusian. The word nouba has entered French in its musical sense to mean a loud, carnivalesque revelry. However, it carries another meaning, still prevalent in the original Arabic, signifying ‘turn’ or ‘opportunity’ (as in take a turn, or get an ‘opportunity’ or a ‘chance’). This double meaning is intentional, and the women’s nouba in the title carries both senses of ‘women’s song’ (implying their song in their own voice), and ‘women’s turn’ (implying their turn to speak). The connection between the sense of ‘turn’ and the musical form is based on the trilateral root ن.و.ب, meaning representing (or acting as representative), it is also etymologically related to substitution and deputation or proxy. 
The titular nouba suggests that it is literally their turn to speak after they were overlooked by history, and their voices silenced, which is consistent with Djebar’s role as a historian. However, it is not enough to get a turn to speak, one needs a voice to speak with. In the other sense, of nouba, Lila substitutes the women of the Cherchell area’s voice for her own. With their turn to speak, they give Lila a voice as much as they are given one, and they represent her as much as the film represents them. Nouba is the facto the porte-parole of these women.
DIGLOSSIA
It is important to stress the difference between the two varieties of language that constitute Diglossia. Because these varieties are situational and socially-governed, they can easily be mistaken for tone or register, and diglossia can be misunderstood when the focus is only on the social factors that regulate the situations in which H or L is used. However, the differences between the two can be very pronounced, resulting in what may seem like two different languages, each with its own grammar, lexicon, and phonology. The implications of likening varieties of a language to separate languages can be highly inflammatory and politically laden. My purpose, however, is merely to indicate the apparent difference between H and L Arabic. Most importantly, however, it is essential to keep in mind that speakers of a diglossic language are not necessarily proficient in both varieties. While the L variety is acquired the way any language is acquired, namely through speaking to children, H is achieved through formal education.
This difference in acquisition is crucial. Using H or L is not necessarily a social choice, but a privilege of the literate. The first implications of this privilege for Nouba should be immediately apparent when taking into account the literacy rates of Algeria in the 1970s. According to UNESCO, and based on a 1971 census, the illiteracy rate in Algeria was 73.6% for segments of the population aged fifteen and over, and illiteracy among rural women specifically for that age group was 94.0% (1978, 42). While the literacy of the women in the film is unverifiable, the illiteracy rates among women in rural Algeria at the time were high by any standard. These women, speaking L Arabic only as a result of illiteracy, literally and very tangibly do not have a say in situations where the use of H is required. Consider, for instance, that parliament and political speeches are examples of some of these situations where H is used.
ARABOPHONIE
When taking into account the perceived superiority of certain varieties of Arabic, arabophonie, in this context, is analogous to what the term francophonie connotes, which is precisely not quite French. Arabophone, then, suggests a perceived inferiority in comparison to other varieties of Arabic. To clarify this analogy, I propose to focus on one crucial feature of francophonie, which is that it always entails the significant existence of at least one other language alongside French. Whether it is Wolof or the many other languages of West Africa, a Créole in the Caribbean, English in North America, Dutch or German in Europe. Naturally, the situation in each of these regions is considerably more complex than I am sketching here. However, the consistent feature that differentiates France from francophone countries or regions, is that in France only French is imagined to exist, regardless of the factual existence of other languages. In contrast, when French-speaking societies are francophone rather than French, the existence—officially acknowledged or not—of some other idiom is essential.
Similarly, arabophonie is demarcated by the apparent presence of one or more other languages in the region or society. It is the appearance of a presence of another language that is the significant feature here, rather than its actual presence. Defining Arabophonie as the fact of speaking Arabic in a bi- or multilingual context acknowledges the alleged inferiority of certain varieties of Arabic based on the belief that the presence of other languages in the region is corruptive, whether this belief and the hierarchy that it implies are adhered to or not. As such, it is different from a rivalry between regions (each claiming their variety of Spoken Arabic being closer to Fussha for example), but acknowledges without necessarily condoning the dynamic between an Arabic centre and a periphery, and the ensuing discrimination against, and/or paternalist attitudes towards, literary and cultural production in certain varieties of Arabic over others. In this sense, when one does not adhere to the language attitude that arabophonie describes, it remains possible to condemn and reject its hierarchical implications, or denounce the marginalization, silencing, or snubbing of the other languages that make it arabophone rather than Arabic.
Algeria is arabophone in that at least one other language is perceived to exist alongside Arabic. This is a fundamental difference between the Maghreb and other Arabic-speaking regions. In the Maghreb, the presence of French is obvious. In fact, often what defines the Maghreb as a region, is precisely that it is the three former French colonies of Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia. This makes it francophone, but, consequently, arabophone also. However, if The Maghreb is obviously arabophone given the existence of French as a result of colonialism, Tamazight (the Amazigh language also known as Berber) compounds the complexity of the diglossic situation in Algeria, and plays an even more important role in making the region arabophone rather than strictly Arabic. Although the women of the Cherchell area speak in Dardja with Lila, they are also Amazigh, making Dardja presumably their second language, and Tamazight their first.

North Africa was the site of contestation by historians and writers from colonial France and native intellectuals. each presented their narratives of this disputed territory, often resorting to shred past and mythology of the Mediterranean sea. Albert Camus, Louis Bertrand, Mahmud al-Masa'di, Gabriel Audisio and others sought to redefine ideas such as orientalism, humanism and national identity.  The essay covers mainly Algeria and Tunisia but is relevant to settler colonialism more generally.

This is a narrative military history of the emperors Lucius Domitius Aurelianus ('Aurelian', reigned 270-275) and Marcus Aurelius Probus (276-282) which also includes the other reigns between the years 268 and 285. It shows how these two remarkable emperors were chiefly responsible for the Empire surviving and emerging largely intact from a period of intense crisis. It was Aurelian who first united the breakaway regions, including Zenobia's Palmyra, and it was Probus who then secured his achievements. The reigns of Aurelian and Probus have been subjected to many studies, but none of these have approached the extant material purely from the point of view of military analysis. Most importantly, the previous historians have not exploited the analytical opportunities provided by the military treatises that describe the strategy and tactics of the period Roman army. It is thanks to this new methodology that Ilkka Syvänne has been able to reconstruct the military campaigns of these two soldier emperors and their other contemporaries in far greater detail than has been possible before.

The traditional interpretation of Constantine’s dealings with Donatists considers that the emperor persecuted them between 317 and 321. This view rests upon the Passio Donati (BHL 2303b), which depicts soldiers violently seizing a basilica from Donatists and even causing the death of Donatus. The latter text, the only one attesting this putative persecution, was in fact written later to commemorate the martyr’s anniversary, and describes mainly the resistance of Donatists against state intervention. The article argues that this view sits uneasily with what we otherwise know of Constantine’s religious policy of tolerance, starting with the so-called Edict of Milan. Rather, Constantine’s aim was to restore control of ecclesiastical properties confiscated during the persecution of Diocletian to the “Catholic” faith, which Donatists challenged. Once the councils of Rome and Arles, and an audience with the emperor in person, validated the claims of the Caecilianist faction to represent the Catholic faith in Africa, Constantine imposed the transfer of properties by ordering his men to seize the basilica, exiling Donatists who resisted. But this does not justify the view that Constantine persecuted Donatists.