Review: Algiers: Third World Capital
I have always had an interest in the Algerian independence cause ever since I was in college where I minored in post-colonialism studies. I took many classes on African literature and film, where I learned about Frantz Fanon. His books, The Wretched of the Earth, A Dying Colonialism, and Toward The African Revolution are among my favorite books. Gillo Pontecorvo’s The Battle of Algiers is one of the great films ever made!
So when I hear about the author, Elaine Mokhtefi, who has both known Fanon and had a small role in the classic film, I had to pick up her new book immediately. Algier, Third Word Capital: Freedom Fighters, Revolutionaries, Black Panthers, is more than just a memoir and to say the Mokhterfi was a witness to history is an understatement. As a young, Jewish woman from post-WW2 America, she moved to Paris in the 1950s to work as an NGO translator. It was here she became more involved in the Algerian cause, which as the time, had just started its fight against France for its independence. She moves to Algiers where she meets a host of famous writers, intellectuals, and freedom fighters like Frantz Fanon, Stokely Carmichael, Timothy Leary, Ahmed Ben Bella, Jomo Kenyatta, and Eldridge Cleaver.
Mokhterfi spends most of the book discussing her relationship with the International Section of the Black Panther Party in Algiers. I thought the book read more like a political thriller because of all the questionable activity Eldridge Cleaver was up to, including a murder he committed out of jealousy. She also talks about some of the drama she experienced as a Jewish-American woman in a Muslim-majority country.
I read this book in two days during a trip to the Cape. It was really that good! If you are interested in African history, post-colonial studies, black revolutionary politics with some drama thrown in, this book is for you.