Par Joseph Botti Arrivé à Agadir en août 1952, je n`aurais jamais

Par Joseph Botti
Arrivé à Agadir en août 1952, je n’aurais jamais imaginé vivre, un an plus tard, ces quelques
instants intenses qui furent un tournant décisif de mon existence.
Je m’étais lié d’amitié, dans mon travail, avec un collègue d’origine algérienne, Brahim, dont
le père était un proche collaborateur de S. E. Si Thami El Glaoui, pacha de Marrakech. Le soir,
nous aimions arpenter les rues de cette ville lumineuse, alors capitale de la pêche à la sardine.
Très souvent, nous ignorions la ville nouvelle, bâtie au pied de la colline, où étaient perchés le
quartier de Talbordj et cet accueillant hôtel de la Baie dont le restaurant était le rendez-vous
de quelques fonctionnaires célibataires… comme moi.
Au cours de ces magnifiques soirées du Sud marocain, nous « faisions terrasse », Brahim et
moi, devant une boisson fraîche et quelques brochettes. Tout était d’un calme reposant,
l’entente entre les trois communautés de Gadiris – marocaine, française et juifs marocains était parfaite… Nous étions heureux. Brusquement, un bruit assourdissant rompit notre
quiétude… les blindés légers de la Légion paradaient en ville, nous n’étions guère habitués à
ce genre de démonstrations. C’est la T. S. F. du café qui nous annonça la nouvelle : les
troupes du général G… venaient d’investir le palais impérial à Rabat et de déposer le sultan
Mohamed V, dont j’ai toujours en mémoire le visage débonnaire, et homme de consensus.
Quelle était la raison de cet acte irréfléchi ? Nous ne le sûmes jamais très clairement !
Le calme revenu, Brahim et moi, silencieux, n’osions exprimer nos pensées. Je revis comme
dans un film ces cités marocaines où mon père était, lui aussi, fonctionnaire chérifien:
Martimprey du Kiss, Casablanca, Souk El Arba du Gharb, Mogador, Marrakech pour mes
quatre années de lycée, et maintenant Agadir. Je n’imaginais pas que, deux ans plus tard, je
reviendrais à Mogador et Marrakech au titre du « maintien de l’ordre ».
Brahim rompit le silence: « Que penses-tu de tout cela ? », et je lui répondis doucement : « La
France vient de commettre une erreur impardonnable, nous venons de déposer le Sultan, Émir
des Croyants et Compagnon de la Libération, nous venons de vivre le commencement de la
fin de notre présence au Maroc. » Mohamed V est revenu d’exil en 1955, ma section lui
présenta les armes comme elle les avait présentées à ce malheureux sultan de substitution
Moulay Arafat… Tout s’écroulait autour de nous.
Nous avons quitté le Maroc, ma famille et moi, en octobre 1957, je n’y suis jamais retourné.
Il y a quelques mois, une jeune Marocaine, rencontrée chez un bouquiniste, m’a demandé s’il
m’arrivait de penser de temps en temps au Maroc… C’est très simplement que je lui ai
répondu : « Non Madame, ce n’est pas de temps en temps que je pense au Maroc et à mes
amis marocains, c’est tous les jours.
This is a translation of the French story
Un village englouti
by Pierre Castaings, 83 years
I would like to tell our youngsters (and also the less young) that this topic of sustainable
development, which is so trendy today, really must be taken seriously. In my family, my
father, my uncles, myself and my children, all of us in short, love the Pyrenees on both sides.
As you can imagine, I am less active at hiking than before (but I still take short hikes from
time to time, because my grand-children wouldn’t leave me alone if I didn’t).
I saw how those big dams were built to the north of Aragon, sometimes flooding villages,
entire valleys. Last spring, for my birthday, we took a “family descent” to Jaca and we used
the opportunity to go to see one of those big constructs. The retained water was three-quarter
empty, and I’m being generous – you can even see the church that had disappeared, and I
don’t mean only the bell-tower, but the entire church, its entrance, the ground in front,
everything is dry and one could nearly go inside. We have too much of a tendency to think
that drought, water problems, those are Africa’s concerns, that this is none of our business. Go
have a look there!
I regret never having kept an account of it in a notebook during my lifetime, but I’m as sure as
I see you before me that when I was a kid, and that’s not exactly yesterday, everything was
more rustic, and when I began my adult life,well I’m telling you that water was not an issue,
in any case less than now, as I’ve stopped counting the summers when tap pressure plummets .
At the same time, I have witnessed the multiplication of swimming pools around us,
everybody digs their own, while thirty years ago, everybody went to the municipal swimming
pool and that was that. I would like you to talk about that on your website, and I will send you
a picture of that dam when we return there. It tells the story better than I can.
by Barbara Halbig
My pilgrimage on the Camino began in May 2003, took time for seven weeks and resulted
in 1081 kilometres. I started in Aragon on the Sompor-Pass which traverses the
Pyrenees in the high of 1640 m.
I felt pleasure to go on a long way for a long time, because I wished to be free and
independent,
free
from
family,
duties
and
everyday
life.
I was used to walking for jogging in the wood near Erlenstegen three times the week.
So I was in a good condition and was sure to arrive some time at Santiago de Compostela.
My backpack weighted about 13 kilos. However, after one week I sent back all
unnecessary things in a small but expensive parcel. My shoulders should be thankful to
me.
During the whole time of my pilgrimage I met many German pilgrims and I was happy
about a small-talk for a while. And after the greeting “buen camino – hasta luego”
everyone
went
his
own
step
again.
In the evening we met each other very exhausted in the “albergue de peregrinos”. Then
we took dinner after having washed our clothes in cold soaping water, after having had a
warm or often cold shower and after being went by sightseeing on light sandals in the
little town or having visited an pilgrim-mass in a Romanesque Church. Several times it
was later than eleven in the night, before we found silent to sleep.
The next day often I was on the way before sunrise, wishing to walk the most of the
daily distance. Only at high-noon the heat caused me to have a break and take a “café
grande con leche” in a bar.
My dream was, to reach Santiago de Compostela. This was my pray in the churches at
the way and I thanked God and all his Holies every day for a good luck and healthy
pilgrimage. I sent good wishes by this way home, for my heart was full of love. I felt
the presence of countless pilgrims of earlier centuries on this old way of Saint-James –
a way about thousand years. Never the stream was broken off during wars and other
dangers and risks. The pilgrims’ spirit and their hard life took captivate my thoughts.
I was alone on the walk, and if I saw nobody in front of me, I could think every thought
to its end, I could look at every tree, every flower, every stone, every butterfly and
every bird so long as I would. This freedom made me open for all impressions and gave
me the power to be tolerant with others.
The silent inside me let grow up the confident to reach the Cathedral of Santiago de
Compostela after long weeks and - at the end of my pilgrimage – the last point of the
known world at that time - Kap Finisterre, where I found “Conchas de Santiago”.
This is a translation of the story INMIGRACION EN CATALUÑA EN LOS AÑOS 50-60
written by Teresa
Immigration in Catalonia in the 50s- 60s…
Hi: Mi name is Teresa. I just wanted to share a remembrance from when I was a child now
that there are so many problems with the people that arrive illegally from other countries with
no documents.
During the 50s- 60s in Catalonia, there were plenty of job opportunities as Barcelona was an
industrial city in opposite to many regions in Spain where there were no jobs at all. When the
couples had kids, they had to leave their hometowns to work elsewhere so as to feed their
families and have better options in life.
More…In order to stay in Barcelona, they needed to have a house to live or a job; otherwise
they could neither stay nor bring over their families.
At the train station the Guardia Civil (police) asked all the passengers arriving in Barcelona
for documents saying they had a house or a job and if they did not have them, they took them
to a pavilion in Montjuich for a week and if none from their family came to get them with the
requested documents, they would have to go back where they came from.
It is a sad remembrance, next time I will tell you a happier one.
Dans les bois…
by Jean-Pierre, born in 1941
I was born in 1941, in a small village called Ax-les-Thermes near Toulouse. Our family, of
Jewish origin, was hidden there.
In order to be able to feed me, my mother, a trained seamstress, made dresses and skirts for
the village inhabitants, and we were paid in food, to feed the baby and my parents.
But sometimes, after alarms, we had to hide in the woods where there were wolves.
We are lucky to have escaped despite bad weather conditions.
At the end of the war (1945), we went to live in Paris, where we lived for many years. I spent
part of my school years in France.
Then we came to live in Belgium, close to my maternal grandmother. I am married, I have
two children and nine grandchildren.
Fernand nous raconte les traditions de mariage à MERACQ (France)
Quand un mariage se décidait, les familles organisaient la cérémonie et ses festivités.
Un mois avant la date, c’étaient les « embitadous » : deux jeunes (apparentés ou voisins)
allaient inviter la parenté, les voisins et les amis aux festivités. Ils commençaient par la
maison du futur marié, puis celle de la jeune fille. On leur confiait un bâton souvent en
bambou qui leur servait de canne. A chaque maison invitée on attachait un ruban de couleur
différente parfois une vielle cravate. Dans chaque maison, ils étaient invités à manger et à
boire. Quand le parcours des commissionnaires était terminé, les bâtons étaient remplis de
rubans qui volaient à tout vent.
Le jour du mariage ces bâtons étaient attachés à un grand drap blanc qui était tendu au mur
derrière la table des mariés, parmi des feuilles de laurier découpées dont les lettres formaient :
« honneur aux mariés », leurs initiales et un cœur le tout flanqué des cannes à rubans et de
quelques fleurs piquées en bordure du drap.
Quelques jours avant le mariage, les voisins de la maison où devait avoir lieu le grand repas,
préparaient les abords et la grange qui servait de salle à manger. Les banquets de mariage
réunissaient parfois plus de deux cents convives. Il fallait donc enlever les toiles d’araignées,
parfois blanchir les murs, niveler le sol sur lequel on dressait les tables. Ce travail était fait
dans la bonne humeur, l’amitié, la convivialité. On tuait un veau, produit de l’exploitation. Un
plat de veau figurait au menu du grand repas.
Dans la semaine précédant le grand jour, avait lieu le : « porte lit ». La famille de la mariée
amenait au futur domicile des mariées : les meubles, lit, armoire ainsi que le trousseau de la
jeune fille, bien disposé et bien rangé dans l’armoire qui devait rester ouverte lors de la visite
de la chambre par les invités qui se rendaient compte, de visu que, que le trousseau était
complet …
Lors de cette visite on comptait aussi les cadeaux offerts au couple.
Cadeaux qui venaient en surplus du présent consistant à porter des victuailles. Ainsi les
aïeules des maisons invitées apportaient soit des volailles, des œufs, des légumes, soit des
bouteilles de vin censées participer au frais du repas.
La veille de la cérémonie était dressé sur le portail d’entrée de la cour de la maison un arc de
triomphe : des piliers étaient décorés, habillés de verdure et de fleurs, au dessus du passage
des bambous, piqués au sol dont le feuillage se rejoignait en hauteur. Une couronne de fleur y
était suspendue. L’église était décorée et fleurie.
Avant la messe à l’église avait lieu à la mairie le mariage civil. Après les lectures officielles
du maire, quand les mariés répondaient « oui » à leur engagement, des coups de fusils tirés
dehors retentissaient (tradition méracquoise : pour laisser le doute du « oui » ou du « non »)
Sur le chemin entre la mairie et l’église, des enfants disposaient des couronnes fleurs et de
verdure (on appelait cela faire la « ségué ») dans lesquelles les personnes du cortège lançaient
des pièces de monnaie réjouissant ainsi les enfants.
Tout le monde se rendait en cortège à l’église et y prenait place. Le marié s’avançait jusqu’au
chœur aux bras de sa mère, et en dernier, rentrait la jeune fille dans sa robe blanche, entourée
de voiles et dont la traîne était tenue par des jeunes enfants. Elle était accompagnée de son
père qui lui donnait le bras.
La cérémonie avait lieu tout en émotion et en jolis chants.
Les mariés étaient les derniers à sortir de l’église, un haie humaine les attendait, leur jetant,
des confettis, grain de blé en les applaudissant. Tout le monde les félicitait, leur présentant
leurs meilleurs vœux. Puis on se dirigeait vers les gradins pour une photo de groupe.
L’apéritif était servi au café. Les jeunes s’avançaient en tenant au bras leur cavalière qui avait
été « attribuée » avant la messe au cours d’un appel fait par un proche des mariés. Le choix
n’avait rien d’anodin, car des rencontres avec avenir dépendaient souvent de ce jour là.
Plus tard, après le tirage des photos, les garçons étaient tenus d’offrir et d’apporter ce souvenir
au domicile de leur compagne du jour.
Ensuite avait lieu le repas joyeux, copieux et bien arrosé, car un voisin était commis à cette
tâche : la boisson. Il ne devait pas laisser les tables sans vin, dés qu’une bouteille était vide les
jeunes chantaient : « où est, où est la bouteille ? » L’échanson se précipitait, par conscience, à
en porter une autre pleine.
Vers la fin du repas, l’ambiance allait grandissant : on chantait, quelques joyeux drilles
racontaient des histoire. L’ami Raymond, lui, poussait sa chanson préférée : « c’est dans mon
vieux faubourg »… Tout le monde reprenait en chœur. Puis trois ou quatre musiciens se
mettaient à jouer. Les jeunes mariés ouvraient le bal, bientôt suivis par tous les danseurs.
Dans les environs de 21H-22H, le bal s’arrêtait pour le souper, moins copieux par rapport au
banquet du midi, car le bal reprenait jusqu’à l’épuisement des invités.
On surveillait attentivement le départ des mariés : il fallait absolument leur faire le « roste » :
cela consistait à perturber leur nuit de noces…
Le lieu de la nuit de noces était soigneusement caché, pour être enfin seuls.
Mais leurs amis ne l’entendaient pas ainsi. Quelques espions, les surveillaient dévoilant ainsi
leur secret. La meute s’y rendait, occupait la chambre sous prétexte de leur apporter quelques
boissons, du café et du lait qu’on servait dans un pot de chambre et ainsi trivialement
perturber leur intimité.
On raconte qu’une fois à l’étage, les trublions étaient si nombreux que la poutre s’est fendue à
leur intrusion…
Après leur départ les jeunes mariés profitaient enfin de leur nuit de noces !!!
This is a translation of the French story
Renaissance d’un village
By Gaston Fayard, 87 years
I would like to talk to you a little about my village. One can hear many people complain in
little towns because of train stations being shut down, and I fully understand that. But in my
own village we’ve been feeling abandoned by the rest of the world for a long time now. The
last shop closed at the end of the 1990s. Mind you, I’m as responsible for that as anyone else:
I left to make a living in Lyon and came back here for my retirement. Once back in the family
home, I realized that more than half of the dwellings were closed now and that no one ever
really complained about it, neither the successive mayors nor the inhabitants. They never even
reacted when a secondary road was built a few kilometres away from here and that totally
ignores our county. One can hardly say that everything is being done to get people back to the
village. What entertains me is the English, because imagine that they’ve bought up several
houses here and that some of them, retired persons, but also couples not yet retired, spend four
or five months a year here, and what’s more, they are really charming people, very measured.
Two of them have completely rebuilt a barn, and I’ve started to learn English.
This is a translation of the Spanish story RECUERDOS Y FUTURO DE UNA
PENSIONISTA written by Ana Romero
Hi everyone,
My name is Ana and I am 68 years old already. My health is not as it was. I just wanted to
write a bit of my story: I was born in a little farm, 12 Km away from Granada in the middle of
the Spanish post war period: 1941. I remember that we had neither electricity nor water… we
had to go to the river several times every day (we were lucky, it was very close) to cook and
wash. Life was hard but we could consider ourselves lucky people: we were not hungry.
More…We had lots of animals (chicken, cows, gouts, porks…etc) and they kept us well fed
for the whole year. This together with the small vegetable garden we had by our home and the
stores of grain… well, we were lucky to live in the country those years…
I saw families starving. Asking for food and paying back with a day of work. We tried to help
them as much as we could. Those were hard times. The current “crisis” is making me think a
lot. Do we really notice how much things have changed in such a “short” period of time?, Is
the current governing generation able to notice how scared part of the senior population is?….
I have no idea of what my future will be but I am sure of how important is to enjoy life as it
comes: make as much good as you can and enjoy your people and the opportunities offered…
tomorrow might be too late!
Thanks everyone for reading me.
This is a translation of the French story
Les débuts de la télévision belge /1
By two elders who were part of the first technical crew of the Radio Télévision Belge:
Maurice Broekaert & Jules Collier
The beginnings of television by the Institut National de Radiodiffusion (INR - NIR), in
Belgium at least, can’t be considered a first in Europe, because television already officially
existed in 819 lines in France, in 625 lines in the Netherlands, in 405 lines in the UK since
1936, and in Germany already in March 1935. With their modest daily 2-hour broadcasts, TV
stations looked more like a little amateur club than the telecommunications network that it
later became.
The first television crew in Belgium held the sacred fire, that is undeniable.
What could be more exiting, in fact, than being confronted with reality and knowing that, at
the same instant as we put this reality into images in the studio, people – privileged ones, of
course – would instantly see these images in their home.
The first production team was composed of volunteers from the world of broadcasting and
theatre. A short training course and a theoretical exam justified one’s selection. But these first
chosen ones were all animated by an enthusiasm typical of pioneers, they were convinced of
having been invited to experience a unique event, an unprecedented opportunity to participate
in a great adventure. The job was to be learned on the job, there obviously wasn’t a TV school
in Belgium yet. Everything remained to be discovered yet, in the field of shooting, lighting,
image mixing, not to forget the techniques of video frequency and high frequency specific to
television. The difficulties encountered were very diverse, often unexpected, and the activities
necessarily versatile.
Memorable, of all things, was the teamwork of all agents employed in all these disciplines
particular to the new medium. There was excellent harmony: the production of a show was
actually the result of a collective effort, a synthesis of the experience, initiative and attention
to perfection of every single one. Television is not actually the work of one person but of an
entire little world that is often anonymous. Simply read the credits of a production … that
only shows a tiny fraction of the participants, in fact. A misinformed journalist had even had
the presumptuousness to write: “when are they finally going to put down the name of the
cleaning lady in the credits?” Solidarity and team spirit were very important in order to be
able to perform work that required the commitment of all. In order to achieve an acceptable
result, we often had to find compromises between the artistic perspective and the technical.
The way to improving a production undoubtedly leads via learning from your mistakes!
Nothing new under the sun, of course!
It certainly is thrilling to have a new job, but you must love it completely and in its entirety.
To love what you do multiplies the opportunities and the means, it makes you inventive and
stimulates creativity. What is characteristic of pioneers is giving without counting. This type
of performance generates pride, and a certain joy of a job well done. To love what we do also
stimulates the desire to learn and to persevere.
In 1953, television yet had to convince the authorities. Broadcasts continued to modestly be
considered as experimental. Those participating were convinced that they were participating
in a unique event, which stimulated the participants to provide an extraordinary performance.
Overtime compensations were out of question at the time. Friday was a day to relax, like at
the theatre, and the month of August was devoted to a period of maintenance for the
electronic equipment. No broadcasts for the TV audience that month, the same as suspending
theatre activities at the time.
What was specific to television was that everything was “live”: images were transmitted
continuously from a studio equipped with 3 cameras running simultaneously, only one of
them selected to go on the air. The “cross-fade” style was the ultimate electronic trick
available. Programming therefore had to be prepared carefully, as any interruption on the air
was prohibited. Video recording equipment was still woefully lacking. These first broadcasts
were produced at studio 5, a former music studio on Place Flagey. One can hardly imagine
that the first images of experimental Belgian television of the Institut National de
Radiodiffusion (INR) were born in 1953! To be precise: the first closed-loop testing began in
1951, with technical means in full expansion, with cameras equipped with super-iconoscope
image tubes that required lighting levels a hundred times higher than today. Hence the
equipment was subsequently furnished with a little marvel of modern technology of the time,
which the inventive genius of Vladimir Kosma Zworikin was to thank for: The Orthicon
image tube from the RCA Corporation. It was a true electronic factory, occupying the space
of a bottle of mineral water, which all TV cameras where equipped with until the announcer
heralded “colour” at Boulevard Reyers (the Belgian television headquarters) on 31th
December, 1971.
This is a translation of the French story
Syndicalisme : ce qui m’a poussé à m’engager comme syndicaliste
by Jean-Paul
When I was employed at Philips, I didn’t work in human resources management. I worked in
human park management. As a social worker, I soon began to ask myself some questions.
I’ve also worked in the personnel department of a military factory that produces military fire
control radars for NATO aircraft, among other things.
I had to write down the names of workers travelling to Yugoslavia and I knew when I
received the holiday form that they’d get sacked in September. I put aside those people who
had travelled to Yugoslavia and a man working for the government (a person from secret
service, “defence-security”) came to inspect the cards.
Nobody at the factory knew about this; only eight people from personnel management among
15,000 workers knew that this guy was from the government’s secret service.
The fund for occupational diseases had to compensate people who were suffering from an
occupational disease, such as lead poisoning, for example. All those girls working at the
assembly line took blood tests every 6 weeks. In the report on positive blood tests, I had to
sort out and only take three or four cases out of twenty, notify them (because it was
impossible in a lead factory, otherwise), and the 17 others were given notice without any ado,
without informing them that they were ill.
All this made me think and move towards a unionism that was not about fighting capitalism
and killing it, but about sharing the wealth, the goods. We fought for greater social justice.
Obviously we had the consent of the staff when we took action. The means employed were
much stronger. They were illegal actions, but there was global consensus. Never would a boss
have filed a complaint, and never would the police have locked up a striker. That didn’t exist,
but there was also a style, a way of doing things. Warning the police, for example, getting
them into the loop. The bosses may have been less worried, and well aware that they were not
being fair. So much that Siemens Europe showed interest in the idea of a salary scale that we
introduced, for example.
So, for four years, we worked in Brussels every second Friday, to completely set up scales,
quotations, things related to merit, the personal share of the boss … for the entirety of
Siemens Europe. The owners were also keen on this. I was working for the union CNE then.
At Saint-Nicolas (a traditional event with presents for children), the employer handed out gifts,
and the workers were asked to go yell thank you Saint-Nicolas up the chimney. When we
went to talk to the employers, they would say: “yes, they’re not paid much, but when they are
sick, they get treatment, I pay for their hospitalization, when things get tough at the end of the
month, I pay their bills; if a family has trouble paying the children’s school fee, I pay … “.
Our role was to make the employer understand that that wasn’t all right, that workers were
entitled to respect, to therefore have their autonomy, also their financial autonomy. In order to
achieve that, we had to destroy not the employer, but the employer’s notion, to make it change.
Only if a negotiation with the employer did not work out did we have to “assist”.
Before initiating a strike, there was always a conciliation between the union and the employer,
with the assistance of social conciliators (independent workers from the Ministry of Labour).
Spontaneous strikes were a very rare event. First there were negotiations, which sometimes
lasted entire nights, and only if these failed, did we issue a strike warning.
This is a translation of the French story
Virginie avait 18 ans
by Marie-Thérèse Lassabatere.
In 1938, she was 18. Pierre was 18, too. That Friday, on market day, Pierre went to Oloron by
bike as his parents used to do, but the bicycle quickly caused him some problems that forced
him to go see a bicycle repairman. The latter examined the situation with great seriousness
and pronounced: “you’ll have it in three hours, not earlier than that”.
What to do? Pierre accepted his fate and was about to leave when she came in … with her
bike … a bike that had broken down, of course. The same investigation was conducted, the
same verdict pronounced: “not earlier than in three hours”.
As the greatest coincidence may have it, our two youngsters, deprived of their vehicles and
forced into complete idleness, decided to become acquainted over a cup of coffee. But the
story didn’t end there. Virginie was oh so pretty and so nice, and Pierre was oh so charming!
From then on, they met on the same marketplace each Friday afternoon.
One day, the fair came to a village neighbouring Virginie’s. Virginie took Pierre to see her
parents to ask them for permission to go to the fair together with Pierre.
Permission granted. Our two youngsters went to the fair together, but the rain kept falling and
falling … They both became soaked, but who cared? They were happy!
The following Friday, Pierre waited for Virginie as usual, but she didn’t come to their meeting
place. Her brother came in her stead to tell Pierre that Virginie was very ill. She was suffering
from a double congestion. Pierre never saw Virginie again, who passed away from her illness
a few days later. Pierre never forgot her and remained alone for the rest of his life.
This is the true and touching story that Pierre recently told me from his hospital bed, with
great lucidity and precision of memory, at soon 90 years of age.