Montagnac - A man of contradictions?

"In one word, annihilate all that will not crawl beneath our feet like dogs." - Montagnac, in reference to Algerians, 1843.


Lucien de Montagnac (1803 - 1845)

Lieutenant-Colonel Montagnac was a French soldier who was sent to Africa in 1836. He was responsible for several massacres of civilians during the French conquest of Algeria and was killed at the Battle of Sidi-Brahim.

I find his character fascinating.

He had previously refused the Légion d'honneur offered to him by Louis-Philippe of France, explaining that he was "resolved to await this reward on an occasion I will better deserve it". It was only in 1840, that he finally accepted the honour.

If he seemed severe towards himself, he was even more so with the Algerian local population for which it can only be assumed that he expressed a curious mixture of contempt and pathos.

One of the most famous quotes Montagnac made was in reference to the treatment of Arab populations in Algeria.

On 15 March 1843, Montagnac wrote in French: "Toutes les populations qui n'acceptent pas nos conditions doivent être rasées. Tout doit être pris, saccagé, sans distinction d'âge ni de sexe : l'herbe ne doit plus pousser où l'armée française a mis le pied. Qui veut la fin veut les moyens, quoiqu'en disent nos philanthropes. Tous les bons militaires que j'ai l'honneur de commander sont prévenus par moi-même que s'il leur arrive de m'amener un Arabe vivant, ils recevront une volée de coups de plat de sabre. […] Voilà, mon brave ami, comment il faut faire la guerre aux Arabes : tuer tous les hommes jusqu'à l'âge de quinze ans, prendre toutes les femmes et les enfants, en charger les bâtiments, les envoyer aux îles Marquises ou ailleurs. En un mot, anéantir tout ce qui ne rampera pas à nos pieds comme des chiens."¹

English : "All populations which do not accept our conditions must be despoiled. Everything must be seized, devastated, without age or sex distinction: grass must not grow any more where the French army has put the foot. Who wants the end wants the means, whatever may say our philanthropists. I personally warn all good militaries which I have the honour to lead that if they happen to bring me a living Arab, they will receive a beating with the flat of the saber... This is how, my dear friend, we must do war against Arabs: kill all men over the age of fifteen, take all their women and children, load them onto naval vessels, send them to the Marquesas Islands or elsewhere. In one word, annihilate all that will not crawl beneath our feet like dogs."¹

But what I find perplexing is that Montagnac also says, in a letter to his own sister written later, on 19 December 1844:

"Et ces malheureuses populations aujourd'hui si vivaces, si belles, que deviendront-elles? Elles iront toutes mourir de misère sur le bord d'une fontaine tarie; celles qui échapperont au désastre viendront s'étioler sous les miasmes de notre civilistaion infecte, et s'éteindre bientôt. Tel est pourtant le sort réservé à tous ces êtres que les évènements ont placés sous notre domination. Là où nous passons, tout tombe. »

English: "And those populations, today so vivacious, so beautiful, what will become of them? They will all end up dying of misery on the edge of a dried up fountain; those that do escape the disaster will wilt beneath the miasma of our foul civilisation, and soon perish. Yet this is the fate that awaits all those beings that events have placed under our domination. Wherever we pass, everything falls."

Is it possible that even in overtly racist beings who, it can be argued, merely reflect the notions of their current social and cultural condition, and who in certain highly charged situations (war, conflict) can be pushed to exhibit the cruellest behaviour, there can also exist a profound visionary understanding of reality that is at once objective and tinged with regret.

Or, was Montagnac, in his letter to his sister, indulging in a form of romanticism whereby he figuratively lamented the tragic consequences of French domination, lingering on the plight of the conquered but only as a pseudo-narcissistic method for self-aggrandisement? After all, he would have been one of the key players in this 'domination'. As such, was there not a degree of pride, albeit, shielded by affected regret, to extract from his sense of power however disastrous this power's effects?

It is hard to say.

I would love to do more research on this man. And on a Kabyle woman, a leader, sage and warrior who fought against the French and who Montagnac never got to meet when he died in 1845.

Her name is Lalla Fatma.




¹Lieutenant-colonel de Montagnac, Lettres d'un soldat, Plon, Paris, 1885, republished by Christian Destremeau, 1998, p. 153; Book accessible on Gallica's website.

Truth

I, truth,
Often rejected, shunned from the Mind.
Wherever I advance, timid, wary of being understood,
My path is barred by a wall of Prejudice.
This first monster,
Thick and Dense,
It thinks of itself as all knowing and well-informed.
Over the years, he has assembled,
Preconceptions, Assumptions,
Together they destroy me for the sake of their own existence.

If at times Prejudice lets me live,
Its demon sister does not.
She is Suspicion,
Thinks ill of me,
Believes that my Messenger is motivated by ill-will,
That my purpose is to unsettle and dethrone.
Mistrustful,
She sees me lurk secretively
Whereas, I, approach in all openess,
Empty-handed.
And rare are the times when she lets me in.

Only to see...
A different monster,
Vanity.
This one, Hideous, Proud, Unforgiving,
Vanity will take offence at me for what it perceives as slight.
Its indignance is a mighty fortress,
The more I advance, the more vengeful he becomes.
And often, I awake his little brother,
Shame.
Shame does not like to awake.
He resents me.
Once he stirs, I tread with care.
For he knows only anger and rage, as protection.
These two, Vanity and Shame, are armed with defences I can rarely penetrate.

And if, perchance, I do,
Then an archer is not too far behind.
This archer does not know me.
If it knew me, it would understand.
It would understand,
That I am a free-spirit,
I belong to know one.
But the archer never really sees me,
Or looks at me.
The archer only has eyes for my Messenger.
The archer recognises my Messenger, knows where he is from and the journeys he has made,
Knows that the emblem on my Messenger's banner
Differs from that on the archer's breast.

And that if they are different,
Then they must be at war.
And so the archer aims,
He does not aim at me.
For he has never seen me.
He aims for my source.
The arrow flies
While I remain,
Free spirit,
I fall.

The Pitfalls of Schooling

Grade 1, Where it all Began

Believe or not, I have an OP of 1.

My cohort represented the first Queensland students who, in 1992, ditched the old "TE score" only to be stratified into a pear-shape according to our core subject results. Based on this new system of ranking high school graduates, I was one of the first Queenslanders to sit in the top 2% of this fine pear.

Having had no social life during the last years of High School, I found myself evidently obtaining Very High Achievements in English, Economics, Maths I, Maths II, Chemistry and Physics.

I knew two conflicting things back then:
> I was going to be a Nasa engineer (hell yeah!)
> I was a dreamer and I had no idea what to do with myself

But considering approval and praise were showered from left, right and center, I did not question this second notion, preferring to forge ahead with my obscure Nasa fantasies and indulging in my mathematical geekiness.

At this point, my well-intentioned father interceded, suggesting I become a doctor. After all, isn't that what people did, back then, with an Op of 1? Enter Medicine or Law? But, proud of my technical bend and secretly horrified of disease, I decided to pursue Engineering.

I had in fact found an Engineering course where the university entry restrictions were comparatively high, requiring an Op of 3, and promptly applied to it, convinced that my admission would serve as yet another confirmation that I was brilliant.

In truth, I had not delved very deeply into what would actually give me a fulfilling career. I chose pride over happiness.

My Op 1 soon spread in the community much to the delight of my school. I was suddenly visited by a local newspaper. I remember posing for a photo. In my two hands, I held an absurd plastic plane that I had assembled with my brother so that the journo could take snaps at this eccentric prodigy who promised to one day, design a fancy new satellite launcher. I'm sure the journalist thought that I was a nut case. I shudder with shame.

Avionics Engineering came with its perks. My swipe card gave me access to a private lab on the top floor of the Electrical and Electronics Engineering building. I could while the hours on a flight simulator. With a co-pilot, I got to fly a Cessna twice and later, a helicopter. As a group, we flew to Melbourne and attended the Aviation show in Avalon. I was also the only girl in my class of 25, something which assured me the respect of most lecturers.

But if truth be known, the degree was in its inception and all attempts were made at making it so difficult so as to render life hell for all concerned. In the first semester, I had 12 subjects. And on average, I had 8 subjects per semester. (This has today been reduced to 4). I was practically a zombie, again with little social life compared to many.

When I look back on this, I understand that my choices in those days were a dangerous combination of pride, perfectionism, a high need for achievement, a tendency towards compliance which I had inherited from a strict Catholic upbringing, and a strong desire for approval. Finally, I had as a young adult, little understanding about what I wanted from life.

During this engineering degree that through sheer grit, I did complete, I found that I could solve complex engineering problems, program microchips, I could research and design a strategic defence system a la Star Wars, I could calculate the fuel requirements of any rocket for escape velocity and map the trajectory of a ballistic missile with Matlab software...yet, while the pride I derived (and still do) in solving problems kept me satisfied, still, I had no incentive, no desire, no procedure for delving deeply into myself to truly understand what sort of work would actually make me happy.

Glad that's all over with.

But I think that's the problem with education and with any upbringing that teaches intelligence over path-to-happiness.

So in the end, I am of the opinion that aside from the social contact it affords, the literacy and the basic mathematical skills that it encourages, school matters very little. Schooling and learning (or choosing to learn) are two very different things.

The New Girl at School

"Look what she's eating!"
They spoke in English but she could understand a little.

The two girls eyed her from afar, inspecting the contents of her half-opened lunch box. Her lunch, it seemed, had aroused their curiosity. But she knew this packed lunch was only an extension of who she was. They'd examined her lunch because it was the only way they could safely observe or judge her - the stranger. Or at least that's what it felt like.

Her ears burnt from shame. She glanced down at the box on her lap with dismay. Was it really so odd? So different?

A packet of Pac Man chips
A mini Snickers
Two ham and beetroot sandwhiches
A muesli bar
An orange juice poppa.

It seemed like a normal lunch. She began to chew self-consciously, tucking her folded legs under her blue school uniform and looking away to avoid the uninvited stares. It was odd how something as universal as eating fell under scrutiny when one was a stranger. A stranger.

Later, after much contemplation, she started to believe that maybe there had been a little too much food in there. After all, those other girls she'd met in class always used to complain about their fat thighs, their fat calves. They'd eat half as much as her and were much thinner. By the end of the year, she would have drastically reduced the food she ate for lunch. By then, she would only pack two crackers with cheese and a muesli bar. But for now, she went home and just told her mum, in French,
"Mum, can you please only make me one sandwhich tomorrow. Also I don't want a muesli bar."
Her mum was confused.

It was 1986. She'd just immigrated to Australia about a month ago and Grade 6 was a confusing world where one could see but not understand. English words became obsessions and every day was a new word.
They changed her name too. Because on the first day, the teacher had quickly told her that her real name was a boy's name.

"I had been expecting a boy," he reproached. "We'd best change your name so that the other school kids do not get confused."
Her auntie translated it all. At first it sounded like fun.
"What would you like to be called?"
"How about Laure? It's close enough to Laurence."
"It's too difficult to pronounce in English," protested the carrot-haired school teacher.
"What about Laura?" suggested her aunt.

Laura it was. In a matter of minutes, an identity can be changed. It's so easy. You just have to adapt.

They called her Laura. She'd just turned 11. She was anxious and ashamed in those first 6 months. And she had a secret back then.

Because she long ached to try those cream buns with their pink coconut icing, the ones they sold every day at the tuckshop. But she'd held back, terrified about what would happen. She'd remembered how those girls had stared at her in the playground when she ate, and the way it had made her feel.

And then one day, it started. When no one was looking, she would hide. She would buy a coconut iced bun at recess and creep inside the toilets. There, she'd find an empty cubicle, lock the door and enjoy the bun, away from sight. It would happen many times. It was odd how something as universal as eating could become a source of shame when one was a stranger. A stranger.

Pu'er Tea

Tiger Leaping Gorge
In my novel, The Ming Storytellers, one of the sub characters, a fierce Tibetan tea-horse trader, makes the long arduous journey from Pu'er county in Southwest China, leading his caravan of mules loaded with tightly packed tea bricks. He trades Pu'er tea, long known for its medicinal and well-being properties and avidly sought by the Tibetans for flavouring their yak butter soup, in exchange for horses. Three times a year, alongside other traders and pilgrim monks, Sonam crosses the chamadao, across deep ravines, rope bridges, past ice-capped mountains, in freezing and often capricious mountain weather.

Cha Ma Dao
The cha ma dao, or tea (cha) horse (ma) way (dao/tao) traverses spectacular mountainous terrains in China's Yunnan province, overlooking deep gorges, roaring with torrential waters. One of its legs begins in the Pu'er county and passes through Dali, the mountainous canal city of Lijiang, across the vertiginous Tiger Leaping Gorge and into Tibet, all the way to Lhasa.

Lijiang - resting and trading place for the tea-horse traders
It is the 15th century. The trade is highly regulated. Only licensed traders can take part in it and the government, managed by the emperor's provincial eunuchs has a strict monopoly on the horses gained. License checks are performed at several checkpoints along the road, including Deqin. Horses are primarily destined for the Ming army, to aid the emperor's relentless quest in warding off the Mongol invaders of the North East. Still yet, horses are loaded in the hulls of gigantic lateen sail ships to be traded in the Arabian and South Indian lands, alongside Ming silks and porcelains.

Pu'er tea was, and still is, highly regarded. It is often expensive. Much like wine, the quality of well-prepared Pu'er tea improves with age. This tea also has many health benefits, perhaps better documented by ancient physicians whose records may have been lost after thousands of years. Today Western science is still discovering the health properties of Pu'er tea. But so far they include:

• Reduction of blood cholesterol.
  
• Anti-carcinogenic properties - Pu'er tea has antimutagenic and antimicrobial properties possibly slowing or preventing the growth of cancer cells
  
• Counteraction of the effects of alcohol
  
• Invigoration of the spleen to inhibit "dampness". According to the Chinese medicine model, this means Pu'er tea can be used to treat diaorrhea and edema.
  

Zhuan (Brick) Cha (Tea)
Not your ideal looking present but packed with goodness
Much like green tea, Pu'er tea is believed to help with weight loss either by an increase in metabolism or via the reduction of fat absorption in the small intestine.

While writing my novel, I had never really seen Pu'er tea. But on a recent trip to Singapore, I discovered Paragon's Canelet cafe on Orchard Road. While my first reaction was to ogle the Mont-Blanc and the other delightful cakes behind their generous glass display, I was soon drawn by Canelet's fancy tea menu.

Found in Paragon, Singapore
Canelet is one of the cafes offering Pu'er tea experience. This particular menu offered 5 year old Pu'er tea. Note that Pu'er tea can continue to ferment for many years and there exists Pu'er tea leaves that are over 1000 years old.

I wonder about these brave mountain men who long ago, journeyed through such a dangerous road, carrying their precious tea bricks to Lhasa. I do like horses, but in this case, I have to say the Tibetans had the better deal.