Saadi Yusef I.

This is coolbert:

Here are a series of web sites [click here, here, and here] that contain interviews with Saadi Yusef.

A man whose comments must be taken seriously.

Especially with regard to his opinions regarding Islamic fundamentalism and the Global War on Terror [GWOT].

Saadi Yusef. Without a doubt a most interesting person. WAS a senior commander of the FLN. The Algerian guerrilla/insurgent/terrorist organization that waged a campaign for Algerian independence from 1954-1962.

Saadi survived the war to become the co-producer of the famous film, "The Battle of Algiers". Saadi was not only the co-producer, he STARRED in the film, playing HIMSELF. A film shot on-location, as they say, with an exactness that is rarely found!!

Saadi is now, at age 75, a Senator in the Algerian government, and is still a man whose comments carry a lot of weight in some circles.

Yusef's comment on the movie and the current conflict in Iraq are most pertinent. A degree of attention MUST be payed to them.

It has been suggested that the movie, "The Battle of Algiers", is a must see for all U.S. planners and policy makers making decisions regarding the Iraqi war. This is true perhaps in the extent that the movie illustrates HOW wars of the guerrilla/counter-insurgency/anti-terrorist type are fought. Lessons to be learned are perhaps sparse however. See a good web site by Christopher Hitchens on this particular topic by clicking here.


Here are extracts from the various interviews:

First, on the movie, "The Battle of Algiers" itself:

["The Battle of Algiers" (1965) which recreates a key phase from 1954 to 1957 of the Algerians' fight against the French colonialists, is unique. Its meticulously realized authenticity results from having been shot in the Casbah, exactly where the events took place; and also from the collaboration of Italian resistance fighter/ new realist director Gillo Pontecorvo and coproducer Saadi Yaacef, a former Front de Libération National (FLN) chief on whose experiences the film is directly based."]

Q: "It isn't often that someone who's a part of history gets to reenact that historical event in film. How is it for you to watch the movie now?"

Saadi: "When I see the film, I fall in love with it again -- like a girl."

iW: "How did you meet Pontecorvo, the director of the film?"

Yacef: "When I got out of jail after independence my memoirs were published in France. But the French weren't interested in making a film."

iW: "Understandably."

Yacef: "At the time I was aware of Italian neorealist cinema. I already had the support of the new Algerian government. They said, "If you need anything we're there for you." I called my production Casbah Films because I was born in the Casbah. We've co-produced several films including an adaptation of "The Stranger" by Albert Camus and one about an executioner, the guy who cuts heads. When I finally met Pontecorvo in Rome he already wanted to make a film called "Para" from the point of view of a French paratrooper in Algiers with Paul Newman. I said, "Look, I lived there, I was a colonel, I know everything and I wrote this." Pontecorvo read it and said, "Let's call a screenwriter, Solinas." Making the film became an immediate priority for them."

iW: "Pontecorvo had fought in the Italian resistance and was a member of the Communist Party."

Yacef: "For a while."

iW: "Once on location, you knew the terrain. As a colonel in the FLN "knowing the terrain" meant that you could be efficient. But in terms of shooting the film, your knowledge enabled Pontecorvo to make the best directorial choices."

Yacef: "Yes, I was his facilitator."

iW: "Were you there elbow to elbow during the production?"

Yacef: "Yes absolutely. Pontecorvo wanted to make a "choral" film. I told him it's because of the people that we got independence. Pontecorvo wanted me to be in the film as an FLN leader. But I hesitated."

iW: "Why?"

Yacef: "Because I had played that part for real. For real I had killed. It was difficult to act the part. Then I accepted. I told myself [that by being in the film] I would then be able to guide Pontecorvo, warn him when something didn't ring true. All the events in the film, we shot them in the exact place where it had happened."

Saadi: "I put myself into the skin of an actor. It was a difference in acting in reality to acting in the film. But the director was there, and he made me act the way he wanted me to act. What I can assure you is that everything that took place in the film is something real that took place. And what I tried to insist on is that we use the same locales in the film. I'm in the film, but it was not my original intention to star in the film. But it was the director who asked me to be in the film. And one reason I agreed was because I wanted to make sure that no errors were committed."

iW: "For example?"

Yacef: "My arrest in the hide-out. All the details were recreated. The bombs (at the Milk Bar, the Cafeteria and the airport lounge) were exploded in the same locations. We chose women who looked a bit European so that they could get into those places. Where Ali La Pointe died behind the false tiled wall, we rebuilt exactly the same house."

"At a blockade, you would come to a stop, and they would check you with metal detectors. So a bomb that was 10 or 15 kilograms, I was able to transform into a plastic bomb that was the size of a cigarette package, with a small battery. We would put it into a metal birdcage, and take the cages with us. When you passed through the checkpoints, they would see that the birdcage was made out of metal, and they let you by, with the bomb underneath in the cage. [Laughs.] I'm not going to tell you these things."

"I tried to make the film as balanced as possible," said Yacef. "There was violence on both sides—torture on one side, and bombs on the other. In fact, it was a stalemate. History really won the war, in deciding for our independence."

iW: "Some of Ben Mhidi's key lines in the film -- [paraphrasing] "It's hard to start a revolution..."

Yacef: "...it's harder to win it... Yes, those were my lines. It doesn't matter. I give them to everybody!"

iW: "...but the hardest is after you've won."

iW: He really said that?

Yacef: "I swear, just like you speaking to me now."

Yacef: "Well, that's what's happening in Algeria right now . . . he would say he didn't want to be there after independence because there would be a power struggle. Algeria is unhappy because everyone wants to lead. He told me, "I hope I'm killed before independence."

[immediately, after Algeria gained independence, without any hesitation, the former "revolutionaries" began to plot against one another, vying for power. On oppressive power [the French colonial regime], was replaced by another oppressive power, the Algerian ruling oligarchy.]

[With regard to the comment of Saadi, "that's what's happening in Algeria right now":

"In any event, the Algerian authorities announced that on no account would they surrender the country to the "insurgency" that followed. They showed themselves willing to kill on an unprecedented scale, employing measures that the U.S. Marines would never be permitted." [this according to Christopher Hitchens]]

Further from Hitchens:

"During the 1990s a very bitter war was fought, in the casbah of Algiers and Oran as well as in the countryside, between the FLN (now an extremely shabby ruling party) and the forces of Islamic jihad. A very great number of people were slaughtered in this war, which featured torture and assassination and terror of every description. I have seen estimates of deaths that exceed 150,000 . . . It wasn't very pretty, and it involved the use of some repulsive measures" [see the whole article by Hitchens by clicking here.]

The current Algerian government put down a rebellion in the 1990's by Islamic fundamentalists using tactics that the U.S. Marines in current-day Iraq WOULD NOT BE PERMITTED TO USE!!]

Q: "When you helped make this film, did you think "The Battle of Algiers" would be still be considered relevant 40 years later?"

Saadi: "I never imagined the film would have this kind of resiliency and popularity 40 years later. When I made the film, I was sure that it would be a classic and last for a very, very long time. But now, 40 years later, for example with the Pentagon, the film has another aspect: It brings to light our war in Algeria with the war -- and I'm going to call it a war -- in Iraq. And it enables us to look at the two situations and see, are there things we can draw from the Algerian experience, mistakes or errors that were made."

iW: To go back to my first question. Is it harder to make a film or to win a revolution?

Yacef: "It's harder to make a good film... You can kill someone but to educate him that's something else. And during the war we destroyed. There was an enemy and we killed him. Creating something is very difficult."

coolbert.