Like Martin Luther King, I had a dream. Mine, I don’t see it coming true.
Under the tricolor flags, in a silence full of grievances and hope, Michel Mekhalfi, president of the Mémoire Harkis association of the Bias camp, was the first to speak. The microphone circulated between the hands of Larbi Bouzaboun, representative of the Harkis association and their friends; Mohamed Badi, spokesperson for the Harkis National Liaison Committee; and the sub-prefect of Villeneuve-sur-Lot, Arnaud Bourda.
Mohamed Badi’s disappointment was palpable. “Like Martin Luther King, I had a dream. Mine, I don’t see it coming to fruition,” he sighed, in reference to the project of a memorial building not coming to fruition as well as to “discriminatory laws”. Arnaud Bourda, for his part, underlined “the capacity of the nation to ask for forgiveness”.
A restorative memory
For Tittou Saddiki, a descendant of harkis, this day is crucial. “Without the 25th, we would have been forgotten a long time ago. » Salah came from Lyon in memory of his parents. When he arrived at the Bias camp in 1974, he was 7 years old. “You could say it’s an old story, but no, it’s still there. » However, the protest side no longer interests him. “Why add misery to misery? »
