Colonial Histories, Postcolonial Memories: The Legend of the Kahina, a North African Heroine

By Abdelmajid Hannoum

No other North African legend had been adopted, transformed, and used by as many social groups as that of the Kahina myth. In this book, Abdelmajid Hannoum examines the role the myth played in what may be called an ideological conquest. Since its inception in the 9th century, the Kahina legend has provided the ideological armature for use in anticolonial struggles, North African nationalism, Berber nationalism, and Arab feminism. But the Kahina story has also provided the ideological justification for incursions into North Africa by various groups who used the legend to articulate the region as Arab, sometimes French, sometimes Berber, and sometimes Jewish. His book further explores the processes and context in which memories of the past are transformed and shaped, not only by those recounting the legend orally, but by historians writing about North Africa, Islam, and French colonial rule in the region.

In the tradition of Edward Said's Orientalism, Abdelmajid Hannoum's study of the Kahina myth is a vibrant account of the spread of Islam, Arab, and French colonialism in the North African region. Colonial Histories, Postcolonial Memories, through its innovative methodology and extensive use or oral accounts, is also an illuminating exploration of the complexities involved in the production of historical knowledge.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0325002533
• ISBN13: 9780325002538
• Release Date: September 2001
• Publisher: Greenwood
• Length: 240 Pages
• Weight: 1.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 6.4" x 9.5"

Customer Reviews

A rose by any other name.

I came to this book through a T.V. program on the Sahara. The legend of the Kahina intrigued me; I had to know more than just a soundbite. Abdelmajid Hannoum has written this fairly comprehensive study on the legend. Kahina is compared to Boudicca, which lures many people to read this. However, I think of it as more of a Robin Hood who adapts to each new need. The book itself fringes on being a textbook. Each chapter is peppered with footnotes that want to lead you off in different directions. The Bibliography could be a book in itself. I still see Kahina as the heroine who, for a while, saved the Berbers from the Arab Islamic onslaught in Northwest Africa. But you need to read this book to get a better balance.