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Wednesday, Nov 25, 2009
It isn't often that someone who's a part of history gets to reenact that historical event in film. How is it for you to watch the movie now?
When I see the film, I fall in love with it again -- like a girl.
I put myself into the skin of an actor. It was a difference in acting in reality to acting in the film. But the director was there, and he made me act the way he wanted me to act. What I can assure you is that everything that took place in the film is something real that took place. And what I tried to insist on is that we use the same locales in the film. I'm in the film, but it was not my original intention to star in the film. But it was the director who asked me to be in the film. And one reason I agreed was because I wanted to make sure that no errors were committed.
I killed people. I did it for my country -- in real life. Now, I can't even kill a chicken. I'm another man.
At a blockade, you would come to a stop, and they would check you with metal detectors. So a bomb that was 10 or 15 kilograms, I was able to transform into a plastic bomb that was the size of a cigarette package, with a small battery. We would put it into a metal birdcage, and take the cages with us. When you passed through the checkpoints, they would see that the birdcage was made out of metal, and they let you by, with the bomb underneath in the cage. [Laughs.] I'm not going to tell you these things.
The success of the film is based on the fact that it shows the reality, and the reason why the Pentagon is interested in looking at this film is to see how did the French react, how did the French get out of Algeria. But the truth is that the French themselves never learned the lesson that can be drawn. For example, you have the French in Madagascar in '47, then in Vietnam, in Morocco, in Tunisia. They never learned these lessons. Each time, it was like something new.
What about in the Arab world -- now most of the colonial powers are gone, but there are still many dictatorships. Do you think things have really changed?
Not totally. There were countries that were almost 90 percent illiterate, meaning 10 or 15 percent were literate. It was this small percentage of the population, the literate population, who blew up the bombs. We were the people who were able to channel the rest of the population in that direction. In the case of all revolutions, there's an evolution and a change in the mentality of some of the population. That can also lead to a conflict within the country, within the peoples within the country.
We can use France as an example. There was this sublime revolution of 1789 -- liberty, fraternity and equality. The precursors of this revolution are the people who have prepared this revolution, for example Voltaire, Robespierre. In the end, these were all people who were decapitated by the revolution that they had created. I'm very happy to have my head on my shoulders -- with a wound, of course. [He points to his right side.]
You mentioned your participation in bombing civilians. Those kinds of tactics have really influenced the Middle East. Do you think this is leading the Arab world in a good direction?
In some cases, it is useful. For example, in Algiers alone, there were 400,000 French civilians -- and they had placed bombs long before the FNL detonated even one bomb. The colonists didn't want Algeria to be independent. They had their own infrastructure in the country, almost like apartheid. They provoked us, and these colonialists -- against the policy of the government in France -- insisted that Algerians who had been arrested be executed. These colonial vigilantes would describe themselves as paratroopers. In military uniform, they would enter into houses and slit the throats of children. These were our enemies, more than the actual military. We offered them the chance to be part of one country, and people like Albert Camus were brought in to promote this idea, which the French colonialists refused to consider.
What took place was horrible. These were atrocities, but it was war -- and attacks take place against civilians and against the military. What's sad is that there were babies, children, young people, without arms and legs -- they were cut off. This is the one thing that really saddens me. As for the rest, I consider myself a soldier without uniform.
I tried to make the film a very balanced film. It's not like when the French make a film about the Germans, because when the French make a film about the Germans, the Germans are always the bad ones. For example, when the woman goes to place the bomb, you see the French baby eating the ice cream cone. I did this deliberately. I could have cut it, but I didn't. I wanted to show violence on both sides, in different forms.
Now, for the Arab population, there's really no reason for them to use terrorism. The real terrorism would be to go into the schools and begin to educate people and begin to bring them to a level of more scientific knowledge. You fight for something like this. They want to really apply a religion that's different from the religion of Muhammad. For example, in Algeria in certain places, if you're sitting in a chair and you're eating with a fork, what you're doing is considered to be against Islam. You're the enemy of Islam. Because the Prophet Muhammad didn't eat with a fork -- you have to eat with your fingers! And now there's terrorism in Algeria -- a little -- it's been going on for about 10 years. And children of a few years old are being killed. Why? Why? For what reason? They are free, in a country that's free. We shouldn't have pity for these kinds of people, because these people are really destroyers. What they're doing is not to defend a cause or the truth. If it was for a just cause, then yes. But just to go out and kill, to bring down two towers in New York, what's the result?
In Iraq, are the bombings of the American soldiers just?
Yes. [Hesitates.] I would've given a lot of money and done a lot to get rid of Saddam. But where is the democracy? Arabs have never been democratic, only in a few countries.
[The allotted interview time ends, and Yacef and his entourage prepare to leave.]
But is that a problem of the Arabs or a problem of the West?
It's a problem of the whole world. You have to learn to be democratic, developed over time. Somebody can't just come over to you and say, "Now you have to be democratic." It must be learned.
