Mohamed Bencheneb

While I was zapping between the many Turkish TV channels I receive (I am not addicted to Turkish soaps, not to all :-)) I heard the word “doshman” (dusman in Turkish) which we happen to use in Kabyle. I thought how interesting; not only the word is Turkish but it kept almost the same meaning after being “Kabyle-ised”. This reminded me of Benecheb’s book on Turkish words in Algerian dardja.

Mohammed ben Larbi ben Boucheneb, a.k.a. Mohamed Bencheneb was born in October 26th, 1869 in Ain Dehab, Medea, Algeria. His paternal  family came from Bursa, Turkey. And his maternal grand-father, Bash Tazi Ahmed Tbidji, was the Qaid of Righa (between Medea and Miliana) and worked for the Ottomans before joining Emir abdelkader for whom he worked until his death.

Mouloud Kacem Nath Belkacem

I remember Mouloud Kacem Nath Belkacem (born January 6, 1927, Ighil-Ali region, Akbou, Bejaia – died 1992, Algiers) had a funny look. You look at him and you think this man is special, he probably has many things in his head. He had the looks of a philosopher, or someone between Einstein and Dr. Emmett Brown. I remember him on the Algerian television, he was seldom calm. These were my impressions whenever I saw him.
And indeed Mouloud Kacem was a philospher, a politician, a scholar and a historian. He spoke at least 7 languages (some say 9) and he wrote some books in German.

Abdelaziz Khaldi

“Les conditions de la renaissance” was the very first book written by Malek Bennabi which I’ve read. The man who wrote its preface was Dr. Abdelaziz Khaldi and that’s how I first heard of him. Then this name appeared more and more often through Bennabi’s books which increased my curiosity about him. Unfortunately the internet doesn’t have much to give and so is the case for the books available in Algeria, which is even more unfortunate as it proves once again that Algeria doesn’t value its intellectuals.