The Map and the territory​

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In her book Mirages of the Map: The Invention of Colonial Algeria, French researcher Hélène Blais says that the topographers who accompanied the French expedition after 1830 to Algeria were affected by the changes in their field of work brought on by the French Revolution: naming the terrain of the region with its valleys, water springs, mountains, etc., to make up for the names of nobles, dukes and princes that have been popular for centuries. They did that with a region they could not recognize by form or by name, and spent decades penetrating it, drawing it and giving it foreign names or names related to nearby valleys and mountains after they destroyed the system of tribes and thrones to dispossess them of their lands.

 

Colonialism dominated the region that it shaped by sword and pen for 132 years, making it a laboratory in which to experiment with all the ideas of urbanism, agriculture and economy, and the mixing of white races amongst the population and suppressing them with sophisticated police squads - everything was fit for testing in the region that the French named and shaped as they wanted.

Owning the territory again, for the Algerians in the wake of their independence in 1962, was a difficult experience and is still ongoing today. Militarily, economically and administratively, they almost had to re-destroy and rebuild the meaning without breaking any of the stone. Among the methods used, which was a targeted and popular means at the same time, during the 1960s and early 1970s, were what I call ‘Weather Forecast Songs.’