Read on Twitter
Trapped in this quarantine of a world, we all need a bit of an escape.
Come and take a little Twitter walk with me!
We're going to explore Oran, the spiciest Mediterranean ctiy you've never visited, a city with so many different lives you wonder, what holds it together?
Come and take a little Twitter walk with me!
We're going to explore Oran, the spiciest Mediterranean ctiy you've never visited, a city with so many different lives you wonder, what holds it together?
Disclaimer: you might know Oran as the location of Albert Camus' novel, LA PESTE.
You're expecting me to make a sexy comment about disease - no thx!
Camus was born in Eastern Algeria, so he hated Oran - we will not engage.
Instead, put Cheb Khaled on
You're expecting me to make a sexy comment about disease - no thx!
Camus was born in Eastern Algeria, so he hated Oran - we will not engage.
Instead, put Cheb Khaled on
Camus was right about one thing though:
Oran "tourne le dos à la mer", it is a seaside city where you cannot see the sea, built on a high plateau above the Mediterranean.
So we won't arrive by sea but by land from Algiers, and we'll start at the train station, built in 1913
Oran "tourne le dos à la mer", it is a seaside city where you cannot see the sea, built on a high plateau above the Mediterranean.
So we won't arrive by sea but by land from Algiers, and we'll start at the train station, built in 1913
As you can see from the fake-minaret looking clocktower and the magnificent decoration of the interior, the train station is a classic of the early 20th century "style Jonnart", a style of colonial architecture that pastiched North African styles for ~local flavour
There is perhaps no city more colonial than Oran - a city that until Algerian independence in 1962 had a European majority. If we walk out of the station, the traces of this past are all around us.
The cathedral, also built by Albert Ballu in 1913, is now a municipal library
The cathedral, also built by Albert Ballu in 1913, is now a municipal library
More dramatically than any other city in Algeria, Oran lost most of its inhabitants in a few months in 1962 as they fled to France. The buildings are witnesses to a city that no longer exists.
Not far from the cathedral-library is the monumental synagogue, which is now a mosque
Not far from the cathedral-library is the monumental synagogue, which is now a mosque
Synagogues are usually discrete, but the Jews of Oran, like those of Budapest or Berlin, built theirs in 1880 to make themselves visible.
The building remains, the community, once one of the largest in Africa, does not.
The building remains, the community, once one of the largest in Africa, does not.
It's been renamed the Abdallah Ben Salam mosque, after one of the first Jewish converts to Islam. Many buildings have been renamed in Algeria but I find this one offensive and sad. Once central to the city's culture and trade, Jews can only be celebrated for having disappeared.
does that mean that Oran is just a kind of museum to a disappeared city? No, though that is how many people in France remember it. A European city, with a handsome town square (now place Abdelkader), around which lay a proud town hall, and an opera
But from the place d'Armes we can see a different city rising up along the Murdjajo mountain, a city older than the arrival of the French in 1831.
We climb up up to Sidi el Houari, the older city of Oran named after a saint. The mosque that bears his name was built in 1799
We climb up up to Sidi el Houari, the older city of Oran named after a saint. The mosque that bears his name was built in 1799
But actually the mosque was built during a very brief period of Ottoman rule from 1791 to 1831.
As we climb further up the mountain, we reach deeper into the city's past, and nearly 400 years of Spanish rule.
As we climb further up the mountain, we reach deeper into the city's past, and nearly 400 years of Spanish rule.
Built on a strategic position overlooking the port of Oran and the major military habour of Mers el Kébir, the fort of Santa Cruz was built by Spaniards in the late 16th century. Until an earthquake in 1791, Oran was an important strategic outpost for Spain
This also explains why there is a town in Argentina called Nueva Orán, founded in 1794 by a man born in Oran who was mourning the loss of his city a few years earlier https://twitter.com/ArthurAsseraf/status/1138495347750309888?s=20
So Oran is a city that has been completely emptied and started from scratch at least three times:
from Spanish to Ottoman in 1791, from Ottoman to French in 1831, and from French to Algerian in 1962.
Is it even the same city? Can a city stay the same if the inhabitants change?
from Spanish to Ottoman in 1791, from Ottoman to French in 1831, and from French to Algerian in 1962.
Is it even the same city? Can a city stay the same if the inhabitants change?
If you ask other Algerians, they'll tell you that Oran is still a Spanish city.
Wahranis have a reputation for being crazy, going out at night and partying, the paella is delicious and the local dialect features expressions such as
ma 'andish swerti: I have no luck (suerte)
Wahranis have a reputation for being crazy, going out at night and partying, the paella is delicious and the local dialect features expressions such as
ma 'andish swerti: I have no luck (suerte)
imho, this is a bit exaggerated, as 'partying' in Algeria is not really the same as in Spain but hey, Oran's nights are pretty wild.
If we go back down the mountain, we might go out into one of the city's famous ~cabarets https://www.theconfusedarab.com/oranohnight
If we go back down the mountain, we might go out into one of the city's famous ~cabarets https://www.theconfusedarab.com/oranohnight
It is here, in seedy bars where people come to drink, dance, forget their troubles, and sell sex, that in the 1920s a new musical genre was born: raï (opinion).
The music of the young, of those that were up to no good, who didn't give a fuck and spoke freely
The music of the young, of those that were up to no good, who didn't give a fuck and spoke freely
In the 1940s, a young woman from nearby Relizane would light up the bars singing about longing, desire, and alcohol, speaking with words that women were only meant to say in private. She took the name of the French expression for asking for another round - "remettez!"
Oran's monumental buildings were built by men with money and power who came and went.
But within the cracks a culture of undesirables formed, lurking in the shadows. Their music, more than the buildings, is the monument to an enduring city
that's it!
But within the cracks a culture of undesirables formed, lurking in the shadows. Their music, more than the buildings, is the monument to an enduring city
that's it!
Some resources:
Saddek Benkada, great historian of Oran, probably won't see this thread, but you should read some of his work, for instance this article on colonial urbanism https://journals.openedition.org/insaniyat/11866
Saddek Benkada, great historian of Oran, probably won't see this thread, but you should read some of his work, for instance this article on colonial urbanism https://journals.openedition.org/insaniyat/11866
on the history of raï and Jews' contribution to music in Oran FOLLOW @chrisilver1 (who once shared a hotel room with me in Oran while I had food poisoning)
On traces of Spanish in the Oran dialect https://journals.openedition.org/insaniyat/5678
I talked more about the style Jonnart in the first walk in Algiers here https://twitter.com/ArthurAsseraf/status/1304028654226243585?s=20
Oh and credit to @achakrava for inspiring the opening hook 
