Freedom is a Name

Philipa Levine, in her paper Gendering Decolonization, defines history as being colored by many themes, including gender. Through it one learns about the roles women were given during various periods of revolution. This links well with Frantz Fanon and his ideas regarding what the liberation movement has meant for the Algerian woman. 

For the Algerian woman, freedom has often been a name she has been prescribed. In an acclaimed movie about the liberation movement in Algeria of the late 1950’s, women are seen to be carriers of freedom. Quite literally, as outlined in Levine’s paper, three women carried bombs in their “baskets” to fulfill the orders of a “male commando”. For Levine, these women have been depicted as “silent players” particularly due to the lack of dialogues given to them. Here, the woman not act in ways revealing of her agency. It is important to interject here and say, despite being silent there has to be a motivation in these women that transcends instructions and methods. Much is laced with the frenzy of revolution, but in this we cannot lose sight of the complexity of meaning behind her choices. Fanon, in one instance described the unveiled woman as depicting “easy freedom” with her relaxed shoulders and European attire. Here, freedom is the woman’s body itself. The movement of it, the way in which it occupies space represents an idea. Again, rendering the woman voiceless, giving little importance to what she calls freedom, but more than this, what she chooses to call herself.

Freedom is also a name given to insecurity. In his chapter, Fanon writes that colonialism constantly attempts “to justify the maintenance of its domination”. This consistent need to control the colonized is what promises the French man his freedom. The veil initially sets into motion a series of fears, of a “mysterious” woman hiding and plotting something. This woman who “sees” without being “seen” gives reason to reassert colonial power. As long as the woman is veiled, she is free in some way. There is no visible indication of her subservience to the white man’s rule. This name the Algerian woman holds is unbearable, and dislodged to blanket over the ever-present insecure nature of the colonizer. This is also because “colonialism wants everything to come from it”, including freedom, even if it is only proclaimed to hide oppression. The unveiling of women has been built on the justification of eliminating a “sadistic and vampirish” culture, all the while only creating what it shows itself to eradicate.

Finally, freedom, particularly for the woman, is choosing her own name. Coming back to Levine, she writes “men speak and direct; women model.” Here Fanon can respond and say that the woman although representative of the work being done by the liberation movement, had to constantly “achieve victory over herself.” That is, despite being given direction there was always a battle she had to fight inside, apart from the one on the streets of the European quarter. In other words, at each point she is giving herself a new name. The name of the freedom-fighter, the name of the mother, the name of the wife but most crucially, the name of an Algerian. She was also an agent in the revolution; “colonialism...settled itself” in her too. Just the exposure to a possibility of another life, opens up a “whole universe of resistances”. It is true that the woman has been an instrument, a tool to reach a goal, both for the colonizer and the colonized man. However, that is not all we must reduce her to. She is not just her subjugation. She feels, thinks and considers also. This is her freedom: the simple fact of being human even if she is not treated like one.

To conclude, both Fanon and Levine narrow in on gender, offering great understanding of colonization as more than a problem between two kinds of men. This is revealing of how freedom does not have a fixed abode, but that it is in a state of continuous flux open to all kinds of molding. When asking “What freedom?” it is important to consider where our search begins.