(en) France, Alternative Libertaire AL #225 - The classic subversion: Henri Alleg: The question (fr)

"I knew him, during this time, so much pain and humiliation that I dare not speak yet more 
these days and nights of torture if I did not know that it can be useful to know the truth 
that it is also a way to help the cease-fire and peace. All night for a month, I heard 
screaming men being tortured, and their cries echoing in my memory forever." -- Henri 
Alleg, communist, former editor of Algiers Republican , was arrested June 12, 1957 by 
French paratroopers. Like him, thousands of civilians were arrested at home, in the street 
or at their place of work, then interned simple administrative decision, without any 
charges being brought against them. Incarcerated in El Biar, Alleg was questioned and 
tortured before being transferred to the civil prison of Algiers. There will write the 
Question, published by Editions de Minuit, in which he recounts the atrocious martyrdom 
suffered during his interrogation.

Censored and seized upon its release in 1958, the book was republished two weeks later by 
the Swiss publisher Nils Andersson. Story short, dry, dense, clinic, or settlement of 
account or proselytizing.

Alleg immerses us in the horror of torture practiced during this war that dare not speak 
its name. Pain, humiliation, dirt, darkness. Faced with strength, dignity, courage, 
resistance to abuse suffered. Abjection of certain characters. Barbarism, violence, 
sadism. The agony of Alleg leaves us breathless. A para relays another. It is sprinkled 
with water. He connect the electrodes on sex, on the ear, he plunges son naked in the 
throat. The current soda jaw. Gegene. After a first session 12 hours, throw it on a bench 
covered with barbed wire before pulling sleep to a new session.

Henri Alleg not talk. Excite the torturers: Bath, asphyxiation, burns, electricity, 
beatings, mock executions, it not denounce his comrades, despite pentothal administered by 
physicians. The metropolis is waved in front of the prisoner cumbersome.

We find some of these men, explicitly named by their initials, in the history of the Fifth 
Republic. Most extremist sectors of the army, the secret services and networks foccartiens 
introduced by De Gaulle have used and still use their successors Fran?afrique.

Question , a cry that sounds long in consciousness, at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib.

Gisele Felhendler (AL Paris North East)

the Henri Alleg, Jean-Pierre Rioux, The Question: Monitoring Torture at the heart of the 
Republic, Les Editions de Minuit, 2008.92 p., 6.60 euros