In spite of attempts – largely by Libya – to establish a zone of co-operation and friendship amongst the countries of the Maghreb, relations are not altogether happy between Morocco and Algeria, so the border at Oujda is closed.
You wonder what to expect as you fly into Algiers. You’ve heard of the atrocities, and you don’t know who to believe… whether it was the Islamic groups, or the army, obeying orders from the government. And what are they going to be like, a people who suffered a million dead in the fifties, in their war of independence against France, and then the butchery that claimed hundreds of thousands of innocents in the nineties? Will they be cowed and bitter, silenced by grief and terror? There’s an uneasy feeling to travelling in a country so fresh from the horror of history.
They said that we would have to have an armed guard with us at all times - which hardly instilled a feeling of confidence. I felt just the teeniest bit edgy, but I’ve wanted to get to Algeria for years, so I wasn’t going to let it get me down.
I’ve never been much of a photographer, but having invested in one of those cardboard disposable cameras, I headed for the railway station, where my instincts told me the best pictures would be gleaned. And I was right; the waiting room was built in a glorious Franco-Moresque style, all domes and filigree woodwork, and wooden armchairs all around the edges. On the walls were ceramic murals showing the first railway, built by the French in the nineteenth century… such a picturesque railway, with ancient steam engine and wooden carriages peopled by top-hatted figures, the odd djellaba-clad native scuttling about in the background. This was nineteenth century French colonialism, remember.
I raised my device, aimed… flash! They were down on me like a ton of bricks… the formidable station master, the station master’s assistant. Of course, railway stations… it is absolutely forbidden to take photos in railway stations. It clearly jeopardises national security. I was reluctant to lose my camera; it had set me back four dinars, so in a craven way I cringed and apologised for being so foolish, then scuttled out of there, my prize-winning photo intact.
