Page 23 - Studia Universitatis Hereditati, vol 11(2) (2023)

sons who became non-persons in their societies Who Still Dreams?
of departure and come into being through un- I grew up in a dissonant world with no corre-
explained disappearances; the diminished in- spondence between words and images, where
dividual, physically present in the societies yet everything I saw hid invisible worlds, past times
whose rights and prerogatives are reduced; or sticking to the present, exotic and out of place,
the deceased, ‘a person who ceases to be some- both literally and figuratively: a past that tells
one, without, for that matter, becoming any or- of the ‘disappeared’ people, places and objects
dinary thing’ (Heller-Roazen 2021, 6). among which I grew up. But where had they dis-
A displaced person covers some of all these appeared to, since I could point to these plac-
categories, transforming the dead left behind, es on a map, to see on current photos that they
those who flee and do not return, those who stay still existed, to touch the copper tray in the liv-
and keep the furniture and frames, those who ing room and talk about it with the people who
become exiles who are not expected, not wanted, had brought it back from Algeria? Something 23
about them could no longer be seen even when
into absentees, and ghosts, as pointed out by Pas-
ti cal Bouaziz (2021) in his song ‘Algeria’: they were there. They were out of sight. But for
those who remembered them, it was at the same
When we went to Oran in 2004 with my lit-
time as if, paradoxically, in a strange blindness,
ta tle family of fake Jews who had disappeared they were still there and continued to exist. I dis-
inside themselves on pilgrimage, there was
covered and experienced them like a short-sight-
no doubt Algeria. You gave us that, Alge-
ed person, covered by a veil where I could only
ria. You gave us that, Algeria, along with the
make out the outlines without ever being able to
di fear, the unease and the anguish of walking avoid their presence. ‘between myself and myself lies my true country’ ...
through your ghostly streets. But we were
This dissonance shaped my research and my
the ghosts walking through a ghost coun-
quest to see. I may have thought that I had discov-
try. We were the only tourists. The town
was full of people who seemed to be alive, ered by chance the Mas de Mingue neighbour-
hood in Nîmes and its pilgrimage to the Virgin
here Oran, which hadn’t moved for decades. We gy. While some people decried the event and the
who looked at us like ghosts but didn’t say a
of Santa Cruz, transposed from Oran (Algeria),
word to us. [...] We were like the ghost town,
to which I dedicated my Ph.D. in anthropolo-
walked as Jewish ghosts, Jewish ghosts in
memories exchanged between Europeans from
a ghost town. And we walked into the old
Algeria as a nostalgia - for some dubious - for the
Jewish quarter that had disappeared, we
colonial world, I learned something else: a place
Jews who had disappeared from themselves.
of reunion and mourning, a space of devotion or
studiauniversitatis We walked into the Jewish quarter that had
disappeared. We walked like living ghosts
times, places and identifications. The sedimenta-
from another country. We hardly dared a third space linking divided and hierarchical
tion, superimposition, discordance of the traces
to be there. We whispered like ghosts. We of memory, and the evocations and groups that
hardly dared to make a sound. And we ar- carried them created a breach, opening in the
rived at Grandpa’s bakery. And we went into now and the here in different places and times,
Grandpa’s bakery. And I saw that the boss beyond even Algeria and France. They reflected
knew who we were. And I saw that the boss multiple interpretations of spatialities and histo-
did not want to know who we were. And I ricities, dense and loose points of identification
saw that Algeria was still afraid of us coming (Rossetto 2018) and relationships, even conflict-
back. But there is no need to be afraid, Alge- ual ones, to different territories beyond Algeria
ria. There is no need to be afraid. Who still and France. The horizon of existences did not
dreams? Who still dreams of returning?’ align with state borders: their relevant territories