Due to a long history of strife in Algeria , the most common image of the country portrayed in the world’s media and etched in the minds of most outsiders has been one of a vast desert country ravaged by violence, suffering and despair. The brutal 130 years of French colonial occupation, the bloody struggle for independence that ended in 1962, and the 10-year civil war that began in earnest in 1993 when the government cancelled elections after facing the possibility of a sweeping FIS victory, have all resulted in stark visual images from Algeria .

I first visited Algeria in the 1980s on assignment for Time Magazine. But by 1994 the daily death toll among Francophile intellectuals, policemen, military, judges, mayors, foreigners and ordinary Algerian civilians made most of the county a no-go zone. Foreigners were required to be escorted by masked armed troops who became known as “ninjas.” Massacres and counter revenge killings were common with the identity of the perpetrators often unclear. Foreign embassies retreated, living and working in the confines of their heavily guarded sovereign premises.

The ongoing violence of the 1990s drastically changed the cultural and social fabric of the country. Most Algerians were at home by sunset and did not go out again. Because the cities were relatively safer, a steady migration occurred from the countryside to the cities causing higher unemployment and an acute housing shortage. The police and military, targeted in daily attacks, often had little inclination to sort out the nuances and reacted with heavy force to any perceived threat. Journalists were threatened, killed, and forced to write under a pseudonym and live in guarded compounds with armed conveys escorting them to work. Tourism was unthinkable. People lived in fear – of the Islamists, the police, the ninjas, their neighbors, the isolation and the unknown.

I did not return until 2003 when I was asked to judge a national photography competition in Algiers . I was surprised by the energy and enthusiasm I found among the photojournalists and artistic photographers I encountered during my brief stay. Having their country cut off from the rest of the world for a decade, the photographers longed to hear a foreign professional’s opinion of their work. The large number of independent publications impressed me. Despite working with minimal equipment, training, funding and staff, the newspapers were better than many in the region. It made me decide to go back. With the help of a Fulbright grant I was able to spend a year living and teaching in Algiers and photographing the country emerging from a dark period in its history.

It is not immediately obvious to a newcomer in Algeria that the country has just survived a bloody civil war that left more than 100,000 dead and many more injured and missing. The war became an escalating cycle of violence and random, indiscriminate murders. It was not a civil war like Lebanon experienced, where competing militias waged war with heavy weapons, destroying buildings and infrastructure and leaving a scarred urban landscape along with the dead and injured. The national trauma of Algeria ’s conflict left psychological and invisible scars. Many Algerians who could, fled the country to start a new life in exile in Europe . Most of the public scenes I exhibit here did not exist during what the Algerians call their “Black Years.”

I witnessed a dramatic change in public life during my year in Algiers . More cultural events were held; on Thursdays colorful public wedding processions noisily filled the streets, and new restaurants, discos and art galleries opened. During Ramadan families ventured out at night. In the summer people flocked to beaches that had only recently been deemed safe. Algerians seemed ready to move on.

It is my hope that these photographs of Algerian people, locations, ceremonies and daily life help to document the beginning of a new era of Algerian history and express the beauty, diversity, hospitality and humanity I encountered in my stay.

Thomas Hartwell
May 2006
Cairo , Egypt

The title for this exhibition was inspired by Qassaman (the Pledge), Algeria ’s national anthem, which was adopted in 1963, shortly after independence from France . The lyrics are by Mufdi Zakariah (written in 1956 while imprisoned by French colonial forces), and the music is by Egyptian composer Mohamed Fawzi.

The Pledge

By the streams of generous blood being shed,
By the bright flags that wave,

Flying proudly on the high mountains,

That we have risen up, and whether we live or die,
We are resolved that Algeria shall live -
So be our witness - be our witness - be our witness!

We are soldiers in revolt for truth
And we have fought for our independence.
When we spoke, none listened to us,
So we have taken the noise of gunpowder as our rhythm

And the sound of machine guns as our melody,
We are resolved that Algeria shall live -
So be our witness - be our witness - be our witness!

From our heroes we shall make an army come to being,
From our dead we shall build up a glory,
Our spirits shall ascend to immortality
And on our shoulders we shall raise the standard.
To the nation's Liberation Front we have sworn an oath,

We are resolved that Algeria shall live -

So be our witness - be our witness - be our witness!
The cry of the Fatherland sounds from the battlefields.

Listen to it and answer the call!

Let it be written with the blood of martyrs
And be read to future generations.

Oh, Glory, we have held out our hand to you,

We are resolved that Algeria shall live -

So be our witness - be our witness - be our witness!

The following verse used to be part of the anthem, but is no
longer in use:

O France, the time of reproof is over
And we have ended it as a book is ended;
O France, this is the day of reckoning

So prepare to receive from us our answer!

In our revolution is the end of empty talk;
We are resolved that Algeria shall live -
So be our witness - be our witness - be our witness!