Such was our fate… Such was our fate in those days

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Let me put it this way :
As pupils, we were supposed to get education at school, open our minds, and step by step, fertilizing it with valuable information; discover science, logic, literature, sociology, the world history (including our ancestors’), and so forth…

Well, the truth is :
The emphasis was much more put on imprisoning our minds and setting blinders.
Our parents were mostly illiterate. However, respect and human values, we learned them from our families and our natural environment.

The 1st thing we learned at school was to be afraid of our teachers!
We should learn by heart all they wanted us to, and if we failed, we were beaten.
Arguing, and criticizing, was out of question.

{“What!!! You teacher punished you?? Well done!”} would our parents retort. Because, you see, for most of our parents, a teacher is supposed to be a respectable person who conveys knowledge into our small brains, and hence, would never be in error.

Trapped! We were bound to swallow everything… But I guess, unconsciously, we did not digest it all…
Those foreigners taught us the Arabic grammar, conjugation, its literature, but above all, how powerful, righteous and proud they are, since “Allah” is on their side.
Any human being not believing in Allah (and not following Allah’s orders), is bound to go to hell. Eternally.v
“You cannot argue with God, he who knows everything! And here what God says: “…bla…bla…bla….” “.

“And this has to be taken as is, without questioning. Could you dare doubt God’s words?” “If you do so, then you got already the 1st class-ticket to hell”.

Can you imagine the fear we felt??? We, who just started into life???

Luckily, there were not only teachers from the Middle East. Because, hey! You know what? We were taught another language (of course, not ours) as well! That was…French, taught by either French or Kabylians!
Yeah, during the French occupation, a small percentage of the Kabylians got the chance to learn French…They were also taught the French history (which begins with: {“our ancestors, the Gaul…”}). Again! Not the Kabyle-history.
But, that is another story…

So, the French/Kabylian teachers were teaching us French and calculus.
No God stories. We even could have a joke and laugh from time to time!!! Wow! That unique human quality was almost forgotten! Life could be beautiful!

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