What better way to celebrate all the amazing moms out there on Mother's Day than posting one of my final papers from Freshman year at NYU all about the great ladies?! Enjoy!
The Maternal
Instinct
The
essence of the mother/daughter relationship in regions such as Tunisia and
Algeria are magnificently portrayed in two fictional films. The Silences of the Palace, directed by
Mofida Tlatli, and Viva Laldjerie,
directed by Nadir Mokneche, artfully examine the way in which women interact
with each other, especially within the family. When an alternative family
structure composed only of women is generated because of an absent father
figure, a more potent strain is placed upon the remaining mother and daughter.
Generational incongruities arise throughout each film, highlighting the
shifting political and domestic policies. Sexual questioning and exploration
are introduced to most women at very young and vulnerable ages, perhaps
resulting from the struggle to keep a woman’s sexuality at bay. In a mostly
male-governed society that places a high significance on youth and beauty, a
peculiar competition-like complex initiates when a daughter begins to blossom
into a woman. After a daughter witnesses the years of sexual,
political and societal struggles that her mother deals with, she may find
herself bound to the same life. This toxicity of daughters repeating history for
generations is caused by the burdens and defeats of their mothers. Significantly
resembling the repetitive cycle of sexual and mental abuse of mother and
daughter is the continuous colonization and interventionism that has been
taking place in Algeria and Tunisia during the 20th century. The
ravaged woman is an allegory for the continually abused and inhabited Algeria,
Tunisia and Morocco.
A single
mother, whether she is widowed, divorced or illegitimately impregnated,
produces the condition of an alternate family structure. In Viva Laldjerie, Papicha is the mother of
Goucem, a vivacious, beautiful and noncommittal young woman. Papicha, who
somewhat recently lost her husband, previously worked as a dancer and singer at
the well-known Copacabana while raising young Goucem. In one early scene in the
film, Goucem and Papicha go to visit their lost loved one in the cemetery. Due
to current political unrest, Papicha is extremely anxious over being recognized
as the famed Copacabana singer, and the mood of the scene is not so much
sorrow, but obligation and anxiety. They struggle walking down the hill of the
cemetery, holding on to each other. It seems the loss of her husband has
strongly affected Papicha as she stays in, eats pizza and watches television, a
strong distinction from the life the audience is lead to believe she used to
live. The lifestyle Goucem partakes in, which includes clubbing, having sex
with multiple partners, and hoping her married boyfriend will leave his wife
for her, could be brought on by her witnessing the collapse of her mother after
her father’s death. While Goucem and Papicha note this familial loss, their
routine and natural interactions with each other depict them more as close
friends than mother and daughter. It is as if having a male figure in the
picture would intrude on their relationship. This natural and easy connection
between them could be an indication that even while Goucem’s father was alive,
he did not have much of a role in their lives, but his disappearance acted as a
catalyst for Papicha and Goucem to seek protection and fulfillment elsewhere. The
disappearance of outside influences triggers instability in Algeria, causing
internal struggles and perhaps in turn, inviting new radical groups to come in
and govern them.
The absence or
loss of a father figure in a family such as Goucem and Papicha’s can affect all
other areas of life. Fatima Mernissi, a Moroccan feminist writer and
sociologist, studies the dynamics between male and female in Muslim society. In
the 1957 Moroccan Code, a list of respective rights and duties for husband and
wife are as follows: “The Rights of the Husband Vis-à-vis his wife include 1)
Fidelity 2) Obedience according to the accepted standards 3) The management of
the household. The Rights of the Wife vis-à-vis her husband include 1)
Financial support 2) In case of polygamy, the right to be treated equally with
other wives” (Mernissi 109). It is important to note that the husband owes no
moral duties to his wife, and the wife cannot expect fidelity. She is expected
to be completely obedient according to the “accepted standards”, a statute that
is not explicit in any sense, most likely to give the husband more control. A
woman’s worth is plainly laid out in a marriage contract. Without a husband to
obey, what set of standards can a woman uphold, and what does that mean for her
offspring? “Attempts at reforming family laws anywhere in Islamic societies can
never be a truly feminist endeavor, seeing how any legal changes would occur
within a politico-socio-religious system in which men wield ultimate control”
(Archer 51). If
a feminist in Maghrebi society, in Archer’s research specifically pertaining to
the evolution of family laws in the former French colonies of Tunisia, Morocco
and Algeria, attempted to change these outdated familial stipulations today,
they automatically would be struggling against the current. The differences
between family code, Islamic law and the legacy of previous colonial laws is
that Islamic family code is the longest-standing and most closely followed
ruling; highlighting it’s importance is the fact that even through changing
colonial and domestic powers, those family edicts held.
In The Silences of the Palaces, the death
of Alia’s father figure, Ali, causes her to have flashbacks of her time spent
in the Palace with her mother. Alia says, “My former pains resurface as well as
the past I thought I’d buried with my mother” (The Silences of the Palaces). With his death, Alia realizes the
pain and confusion of her past that was so closely associated with her mother,
and her untimely, tragic death during childbirth. Throughout Alia’s life, Ali
could never admit she was his child, as he illegitimately took Alia’s mother,
Khedija, as a mistress while married to Jneina. As Alia grew older, the men in
the Palace began to see her as the next object of their desire. Since Alia had
no true father, her only protection from these sexual predators was her
mother’s ability to distract and endure the abuse herself. One especially manic
sexual predator within the palace is Bechir, Ali’s brother. Alia is left in a
state of confusion and loneliness, as her mother blocks each attack before she
can be directly affected. Instead, she views her mother as the offender causing
all of her pain and suffering. “As demonstrated by Bechir’s cruel
manipulations, Khedija can expect few advantages from her status as Ali’s
non-legitimate mistress. Such an ambivalent and unspoken situation makes it
even more difficult for Alia to deal with her parents’ relationship and for
Khedija to protect herself and her daughter from incestuous sexual predation” (Donadey
40). Just as Alia and Khedija are repressed and abused by the princes in the
palace because of their lack of legitimacy without a father, the country in
which they currently live, Tunisia, is constantly racked by outside powers. The
lack of organized power and structure within Tunisia makes them a weak target
to imperialist nations.
Without a
father figure, or a family unit comprised solely of women, competition may
arise between mother and daughter. The traditional female role in Maghrebi
society is one of obedience; once a youthful girl begins to develop, and a
mother begins to age, their roles are reversed and a competition-like condition
ensues. During a scene in Viva Laldjerie,
Goucem is getting ready to go out, while her mother sits idly by asking
questions. There is sadness in her voice as she yearns to live the life her
daughter does, one that she used to live. It is apparent when Papicha begins
wearing her old Copacabana ensemble, that Goucem is annoyed and pities her
mother. While Papicha is jealous of Goucem’s present unrestricted state in
life, Goucem is seemingly jealous of her mother’s past where she was both
married and had a glamorous life as a dancer. It is noteworthy, because as an
audience we can see the correlation between Papicha and Goucem, but they each
see themselves in different lights. By the end of the film Goucem is flirting
with someone who she previously believed wasn’t up to her standards, and
Papicha has resumed her old job as a dancer. It is as if they are both moving forward,
but ending up where they were before the film even began. Like mother, like
daughter. In Papicha and Goucem’s relationship, however, jealousy is not
exclusively between them. Papicha takes on a motherly role towards a young girl
who lives next door named Tiziri. In one scene, Goucem walks in on her mother
teaching Tiziri how to dance provocatively, wearing one of Goucem’s bras. She
storms across the room, and disgustedly pulls off the bra. While outwardly it
may seem that she just pities her mother for trying to rewind time, under the
surface it looks like she may be envious that her mother never expressed
interest in Goucem’s future down the same path as her own. Perhaps even when
daughters see their mothers fail, they still desire to be like them. In
Algeria, although citizens are clear they no longer want to be colonized, they
struggle to find solutions for their discord on their own, and even
occasionally yearn for the structure and stability of past imperialists.
Whereas Goucem
and Papicha are grown women, presenting the effects of competition within the
mother/daughter relationship in its more advanced stages, Khedija and Alia’s
story of competition forms as we watch Alia grow up. A scene that best depicts
the moment when Khedija realizes the Princes may start taking more interest in
her daughter rather than her, is when Bechir tells Khedija that he wants Alia
to start bringing his tea. This is a sexual insinuation that all of the women
in the household deal with on a daily basis. Another alternate family
introduced in this film are the indentured servants in the palace, made up
exclusively of women. They care for each other, as most evident by the scene
where Bechir is about to have sex with Khedija again, and another woman
silently takes her place. Khedija tells Alia when she gets her period that if
she ‘lets a man near her now, no one will be able to save her’. It’s a very
intense and frightening sentiment to tell a young girl whose entire life is in
shift. There is some anger and jealousy behind her words and actions. When the
princes invite Alia to sing at one of their events, Alia needs to borrow a
dress from Khedija. She is literally taking on her mother’s appearance, wearing
her skin, and performing for a group of men who once wished to see Khedija
perform.
It is important
to question if this competition between mother and daughter is more of a
personal or societal pressure. “No one disturbed my life alone with my
imagination and my dolls except for my mother, with her many orders that never
ended, the house and the kitchen chores…the ugly, limited world of women”
(Fernea 114). Elizabeth Fernea was an influential writer and filmmaker who
focused on the struggle and turmoil in Middle Eastern cultures. In this short
vignette, a woman describes her hostile relationship with her mother. While a
mother may seem cruel or uncaring towards their daughter during their
upbringing, it could be a way to prepare them for the society that they will
eventually fall victim to. It feels to this young woman that her mother’s
severe and stark attitude was the foundation and introduction to this
restrictive world, and she will never forget that.
Competition and
hostility within the family may arise from generational incongruities between
mother and daughter. While each girl may ultimately be bound to the same
prospects as her maternal lineage, the changing political and social
atmospheres add an altering element to each lifetime. “Being the main aspect of
Shari’a that has successfully resisted displacement by European codes during
the colonial period, and survived various degrees or forms of secularization of
the state and its institutions in many Islamic countries, family law has become
for most Muslims the symbol of their Islamic identity, the hard irreducible core
of what it means to be a Muslim today” (Archer 53). Throughout multiple
intrusive colonial powers, domestic internal struggles and overall war and
oppression, the laws of the nuclear family are held. Regardless of what
generation a woman is born into, she will automatically be subject to one
order, obedience. In other words, if men are not winning their battles on the
battlefield, they better be winning them on the home front.
Director of Silences, Tlatli, says, “I think that
there is a deep link, a secret and mysterious thread among generations. Our
desires and fears secretly come from our parents and grandparents who have
transmitted to us their traditions and suffering, which we carry like a wound
or a source of strength for the rest of our lives” (Donadey 37). The first
attribute Alia inherits from her mother is the silence and secret of her
father. The film begins with Alia as a young woman, living with a man whom
she’s not married to, making a living as an entertainer, and pregnant on the
cusp of having another abortion because Lofti won’t legally recognize the
child, just as she was not legally recognized by Ali. She is almost identical
to her mother’s past. However, Khedija’s time at the palace was during a very
unstable political period, one that made it impossible for her to even leave
the grounds of the palace. She was metaphorically and physically barred from
leaving, and in turn, brought her daughter into the same prison. Although Alia
eventually left the palace, her mother’s burdens followed her. Lofti, Alia’s
boyfriend whom she met at the palace while he was hiding from the police over
political disputes, also acts as a tether to her past life.
Unlike Alia and
Khedija, who were similar in that they both were locked away from the real
world, Goucem and Papicha can clearly name their generational differences. In
one scene, Papicha lies on the bed she shares with her daughter, watching a
program on television called “Miami Butts”, and nonchalantly tells Goucem that
she’d love to get her breasts done in France. Although Goucem has been raised
in the newer generation, Papicha could easily be considered more “modern”.
While Papicha wants to move onto the new, Goucem is set on trying to convince
her married boyfriend to leave his wife and validate Goucem. It is also
important to note that the only dependable place to drastically change her body
is a country that used to occupy Algeria, and that caused a lot of anxiety for
Papicha during her career at the Copacabana.
One part of
life that never seems to change generationally is sex. Sex within marriage, out
of marriage, prostitution, fertility and abortion are all subjects that a young
woman must eventually face, and typically, a mother is the first person to
introduce the notion to her daughter. In Viva
Laldjerie, during sex scenes there is no music, only silence. Compared to
the scenes with Papicha and Goucem where there is normally a piano melody in
the background, and music seems to be a large theme symbolizing important
moments in the film, could that imply that the relationship between mother and
daughter is stronger than any sexual relationship? Goucem and Papicha
practically live in a brothel where sexual interactions flow in and out.
Goucem’s best friend, Fifi, dies in the crossfire of a misunderstanding with a
corrupt political figure, whom she met while prostituting. Goucem goes to Fifi
with all of her worries, telling her in one scene that no man will ever want a
woman who is not a virgin and has had two abortions. Khedija knows about
Goucem’s sex life, and silently awaits her in bed after Goucem has been out at
a club. When she returns, Goucem explains that she’s just cleaning herself
before she joins her in bed, and Papicha welcomes her no differently. In both
films, mother and daughter share a bed, normally a symbol of sex. The
relationship between mother and daughter, and the female characters in general,
has to be accepting regarding sex, because they all see themselves as one,
trying to survive in a world where sex is constantly sought out, but always
seen as despicable if not under the right circumstances. Similarly, Algeria as
a metaphor for a woman is constantly under fire for being seemingly unable to
properly govern itself, and repeatedly more powerful countries ravage them.
Alia’s first
introduction to sex is when she witnesses her mother bringing snacks upstairs
to the princes. Her mother’s silence over her role in the palace only serves to
confuse Alia more about sex. Similarly, Alia also spies on her mother
performing the belly dance, viewing her mother in a sexual light and not
understanding. Papicha and Khedija have the sexual element of dance in common,
connecting Alia and Goucem. While the princes watch Khedija dance, Ali’s wife,
Jneina has to sit by silently. “Jneina, Ali’s wife, has the power to lash out
at and look down upon Khedija and Alia but not to chase them from the palace,
perhaps because her sterility- which is a legitimate cause for repudiation-
puts her in a more precarious position that another woman of her standing” (Donadey
38). Fertility is one power women have over one another. Regardless of class,
the ability to produce a child for the family is vital. Similarly, to get
pregnant when it is not acceptable, forces women to choose either abortion or
bring their child into a world of regret and disgrace. In one scene, Alia
witnesses a loving, private moment between Khedija and Ali. She runs outside,
spinning around and then falls, making it clear that she feels the world she
doesn’t understand is spinning around her. “Bechir finds her unconscious,
touches her thigh, brings her back to her room and lays her down on the bed she
usually shares with her mother” (Donadey 42). It looks as though Bechir is
going to take the final leap and rape Alia, but at that moment Khedija comes in
and he rapes her instead. Alia lies on the bed, silently. Perhaps she cannot
differentiate the love scene she saw take place before with her mother and Ali
to the rape with Bechir. Or, imaginably Alia is mad at her mother for being so
restrictive, and in her eyes, hypocritical. Or, lastly, she may think if she
draws attention to herself, she may also be raped. This scene most likely makes
Alia wonder if she was a product of rape, or if someday she will be raped.
Following soon after, her mother gives her the oude and she holds it against
her stomach, almost as if she is pregnant with it. The contrast of her holding
the instrument to her belly with Khedija beating her own to try to abort the
baby that Bechir created when he raped her, most likely makes Alia consider the
idea that her mother tried the same thing when she was pregnant with her.
Feeling unwanted, unworthy and out of control is a metaphor for the way that
Tunisia feels used, tossed around from one colonizer to the next, and repeatedly
abandoned.
Sex is
distinctly defined as an act that may only take place within a marriage. “Girls as young as 15
could be coerced into unattractive marriage arrangements by a matrimonial
guardian. Once married, women found themselves bound by an institutionalized
mandate to defer to and obey their husbands. 70% of the male respondents viewed
physical abuse as a legitimate means of resolving domestic conflicts” (Fernea 54).
Just like the fictional films mentioned prior, abusing women, especially
sexually, is considered standard in regions of the Maghreb such as
Morocco. “Sexual desire was created
solely as a means to entice men to deliver the seed and to put the woman in a
situation where she can cultivate it, bringing the two together softly in order
to obtain progeny, as the hunter obtains his game, and this through copulation”
(Mernissi 28). Imam Ghazali, a Muslim theologian, philosopher and mystic, said
this quote in his book, The
Revivification of Religious Sciences. The man is described as the hunter,
where the woman is described as the “game”. The woman as a commodity is an allegory of how
Algeria and Tunisia are the “game” being hunted by outside forces attempting to
exorcise their power. “The Muslim feminist Qasim Amin came to the conclusion
that women are better able to control their sexual impulses than men and that
consequently sexual segregation is a device to protect men, not women” (Fernea
31). Referring here to veiling a woman, or trying to completely cut her off
from men, is possibly a stipulation put into place because men are the ones who
cannot control their sexuality, and instead punish their women.
There appears
to be a constant reach for meaning and stability within the mother/daughter
relationship. A central idea throughout Viva Laldjerie is
that although Papicha and daughter, Goucem, follow different career and
personal paths, they both are left with the identical emptiness, and the matching
desire for substance to fill an unidentifiable hole. It is as if
they start “in the middle of things” for Goucem and almost “in the end of
things” for Papicha, and slowly that overturns, giving them both fresh starts,
but they both seem to be deceiving themselves. It is questionable whether the
ending is hopeful or sad, or perhaps it is melancholy like the music that
interweaves each significant scene. In The
Silences of the Palace, adult Alia whispers at the end, “I hope it will be
a girl. I’ll call her Khedija”. This ending sentiment could signify that her
future child will break out of the generational repetition because she desires
the child, regardless of their legitimacy, and plans on starting their lives
over again together. On the other hand, it could imply that by naming the
unborn child Khedija, the cycle is continuing. Just like the fictional and real
women that inhabit Algeria and Tunisia, so too do these countries struggle with
questions of worth, status and what is in store for the future.
Works Cited
Archer, Brad. "Family Law
Reform and the Feminist Debate: Actually-Existing Islamic Feminism
in the Maghreb and Malaysia." Journal of International Women's Studies
8.4 (2007): 49-59. Print.
Donadey, Anne. "Representing
Gender and Sexual Trauma: Moufida Tlatli’s Silences of the Palace." South Central Review: The
Journal of the South Central Modern Language
Association (2011): 36-51. Print.
Fernea, Elizabeth Warnock. Women
and the Family in the Middle East: New Voices of Change. Austin: University of Texas, 1985. Print.
Mernissi, Fatema. Beyond the
Veil: Male-female Dynamics in a Muslim Society. London: Saqi, 2011. Print.
The Silences of the Palaces. Dir. Mofida
Tlatli. Perf. Amel Hedhili, Hend Sabri. Canal Horizons,
1994. Videocassette.
Viva Laldjerie. Dir. Nadir
Mokneche. Perf. Lubna Azabal, Biyouna. BL Productions, 2004. DVD.
