Effective Ambiguity: Algerian negotiator Hamdan Khodja building anticolonial critique on identity expression and admiration for the colonizer

Abstract

This article identifies and analyzes a rhetorical pattern in the Algerian negotiator Hamdan Khodja’s responses to the French occupation of Algeria in 1830. In his book The Mirror, published by a Parisian editor in 1833, Khodja sophistically and obliquely builds anticolonial critique on expressions of sympathy and identification with France, a manoeuver that makes him appear relevant. Speaking from an ethical vantage point that is shared by the French reader, Khodja’s criticism becomes credible and influential. In other words, Khodja’s appreciative judgments permit him to attack the opponent from within enemy lines: his argument is grounded in his opponent’s ethical pretentions. By the same token, Khodja displays that the inhabitants of Algiers that he represents are morally and culturally mature; they are not the uncivilized masses that colonial discourse will often have them look like. By carefully decontextualizing Khodja’s anticolonial tract, and reading it not just as a historical document but also as an articulation of personal themes and desires, as well as sympathy for the colonizer, the study contributes to our understanding of early anticolonial expression as more intricate and heterogeneous than it would appear when studied from a purely politico-historical or rhetorical perspective.