Experience a neglected African city of Mosques and anti colonial martyrs…

UCC Historian Hiram Morgan takes us on a vivid journey through Algiers, a city where cinematic history and revolutionary fervour collide. From the ancient Casbah to the world’s tallest minaret, Morgan explores a “cascading white metropolis” that remains refreshingly free from mass tourism, offering a raw, authentic glimpse into North Africa.

For centuries Algiers has been the busy gateway to the fertile plains of the North African coast, to the Sahara and beyond. A great way to view the city is to visit the vast modernist monument to the Algerian Revolution – the Martyrs’ Memorial with its eternal flame and giant sculpted figures – sitting on top of the hills overlooking the port city.

Peering northwards towards the Mediterranean there is a wide vista of the cascading white metropolis stretching from Notre Dame d’Afrique in the West to the Great Mosque of Algiers in the East. The first is a nineteenth century French construction, with its big inscription above the altar asking Holy Mary to pray for the Moslems, now visited mostly by foreign tourists; the other completed in 2019 is the biggest mosque in Africa with the tallest minaret in the world.

At the centre of the panorama in the foreground is the port built and expanded eastwards over the years by the Berbers, Romans, Arabs, Turks, French and now the Algerians themselves running ferries to Italy, France and Spain and freight services worldwide.

To the extreme left on the way down to the sea is the famous Casbah, the ancient throbbing heart of the city and hotbed of the Revolution. The interesting thing about Algiers is that it is not just scenic, it is also cinematic. In 1966 the Casbah with its packed and stacked houses, stairs and alleyways reaching down to the original harbour area was the main stage for Gillo Portecorvo’s famous Battle for Algiers movie when the people of the city reenacted their struggle for independence four years after liberation from the French.

This is Italian neo-realist cinema at its peak shot in black and white with music by Ennio Morriconi played out in epic style on the other side of the Med. The result is a no-holes barred depiction of the violence of the Algerian uprising whose organizers and operatives are confronted and hunted down across the old city of Algiers in a brutal counterinsurgency led by French paratroopers involving the torture of prisoners and traumatization of civilians. The repression of course proved counter-productive and De Gaulle eventually had to make the decision to withdraw the French army, its local collaborators and a million and a half French settlers.

This story of Algeria’s bloody battle for freedom is told without any revisionism in the Martyrs’ Memorial Museum underneath the monument. Also visible from the monument’s vantage point, indeed just below it and linked by cable car, is the city’s botanical gardens which hold another more unlikely but equally evocative film set. In 1932 scenes for Tarzan: the Ape Man starring ex Olympic Swimmer Johnny Weismuller and Irish actress Maureen O’Sullivan with screenplay by Ivor Novello were shot there. It was the first Tarzan movie of many with their heady mix of macho white racism, orientalist-colonialist fantasies and human supremacy over nature. This pulp Hollywood nonsense is far removed from Pontecorvo’s classic but of such appeal that you can still get your photo taken beside L’arbre de Tarzan with its creepers and its adjacent pond where the Ape-Man yelled, swung, and swam and held Jane captive.

Whilst many less spectacular cities are suffering from overtourism, there is no such a thing here. The Algerian Dinar is not freely convertible – it is a closed currency. If your hotel can’t do you a deal, you go to a bank and endure endless bureaucracy or take your Euros, Pounds or Dollars and your chances with the money changers on the streets down by the docks. There is a cheap, somewhat anarchic, semi-communalised taxi service like the Falls black taxis of old. Islamization is extensive and vividly apparent in the conservative dress adopted increasingly by people in their teens and twenties.

Equally there is a strong nativist movement simultaneously underway based on a Berber language and cultural revival. Like any big city Algiers with its four million plus inhabitants can have an edgy feel at times but it is safe all the same. Visitors coming with a spirit of adventure will get the full benefit.

This is a guest slot to give a platform for new writers either as a one off, or a prelude to becoming part of the regular Slugger team.