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4 - Abdelkébir Khatibi: The Deciphering of Memory and the Potential of Postcolonial Identity

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Summary

Si nous acceptons l'idée d'une identité qui n'est plus fixité au passé, nous pourrions aboutir à une conception plus juste, celle d'une identité qui est en devenir, c'est-à-dire qu'elle est un héritage de traces, de mots, de traditions, se transformant avec le temps qui nous est donné à vivre, avec les uns et les autres. Car, un homme qui ne survit que grâce à son passé lumineux est comme un mort pétrifié, un mort qui n'aurait jamais en quelque sorte, vécu.

Ainsi l'identité ne se définit pas par une structure éternelle, mais, d'après notre propos, elle est régie par des relations dissymétriques entre le temps, l'espace et la culture structurant la vie d'un groupe, d'une ethnie, d'une société, traduction du mouvement de l'être et de sa flexibilité, de son adaptation aux événements, à sa propre énergie de renouvellement.

Abdelkébir Khatibi, ‘Le Métissage culturel’, Manifeste

(If we accept the idea of an identity which is no longer rigidly anchored in the past, we might arrive at a more just concept: that of an identity which is in the process of becoming. In other words, it is a legacy of signs, words and traditions, which is being transformed through our own allotted lifespan, through different people. Because a man who only survives thanks to his glorious past is like a petrified dead body, a dead person who had in a way never actually lived.

Thus, according to this notion, identity is not defined by some eternal structure, but is ruled by asymmetrical relationships between the time, the space and the culture which build up the life of a group of people, an ethnic group, or a society, translating the entity's movement, its flexibility, its adaptability to events, into its own energy for renewal.)

Celui qui écrit a à découvrir, à explorer différents lieux de langage et qui lui sont trop voilés par le secret de son métier. L'écriture: initiation à un secret illisible.

Abdelkébir Khatibi, ‘Une psychanalyse personnelle’, Par-dessus l'épaule
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Autobiography and Independence
Self and Identity in North African Writing in French
, pp. 205 - 247
Publisher: Liverpool University Press
Print publication year: 2003

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