Dreaming above the Mediterranean Sea
July 12th, 1987
-Hello, what do you want to drink? said the stewardess.
I was aboard the flight from London to Algiers when I was asked this question by the blue-clad stewardess.
After reading the plate and viewing water, tea, chocolate, soda, coffee and lemonade, I opted for the latter.
-Some lemonade would be nice. Thanks you.
Flying in the plane and while sipping my drink and eating my loukoums, I thought about what I saw when my plane stoppped in Ajaccio, Corsica.
On arrival to the airport, the first thing I saw was the high number of gendarmes watching over the airport.
Then I saw the same concentration outside the airport, along with uniformed soldiers, and this heavy security presence reminded me Corsica was still, even in the present time - indeed, especially during these uncertain times -, an hotly contested area.
I procedded to look around the main landmarks, the local cathedral, a now-even more busy radio station guarded by yet other military-dressed men and asked people around how are things there.
Unfortunately, they were somewhat reluctant to even respond me - martial law seems to get such results, especially when it is there since decades.
But I was able to speak to a café-owner.
My visit in these memories was interrupted by journalists speaking about the new situation in Europe.
The first was a man which could politely be described as "big boned", whose hair was blond, wearing a brown short and a white shirt and whose age could be estimated around the thirties.
The second was another man, skinnier, taller and younger, with long brown hairs, wearing long trousers and a white shirt.
Finally, the third was a woman whose blond hair were gathered in a ponytail, whose age was nearly identical to the one of the second person and who wore blue jeans and a red t-shirt.
- Is it true the Vienna rulers have now accepted multipartism? asked the first. I mean, the real deal, and not their "Patriotic Front" phony thing.
- Yes, this bunch was pretty much moderate to begin with: they had allowed foreign private banks since several years there, for fuck's sake! Moreover, in this situation, it was either this or mass riots, responded the second.
- And what about Bucarest? said the third.
- I don't know, but I bet the gal there could respond, said the second while pointing at me.
The second newsman proceed to speak to me:
- Hello, my name is Enrique Rodriguez and I'm coming from Los Angeles to do a reportage about the Western Mediterranean Region and how they are reacting to these events; could you join our little discussion about the recent upheavals in Europe?
- Yes, my name is Hannah Young, and I'm working on a serie of articles and photographies in Algeria. Mostly photographies.
- OK; since you're from just outside the Communist bloc, what are the feelings in your country about the recent contestations in Red Europe?
What could I said? That we were just relinking with nations we were cut off since the World War Two? That we hope to be able to shed the last remnants of our siege mentality and really enjoy peace dividends this time? Or that we were fearful of which kind of instability the world could know?
Instead of this, I just said:
- Only good ones. We fervently hope real peace will be preserved.
Apart if we screw it like in 1919 and 1947, I added to myself.
The first newsman, named Robert Johnson, lived in Chicago and wanted to write on the Middle East and the Eastern Mediterreanean.
The third, named Erika Kauffman, lived in Stockholm and spoke about how the countries of the Scandinavian Defense Pact, or Treaty of Oslo, plan to evolve about the probable fall of Communism, and added some mentions on her project of series of articles about the Horn of Africa or the Indian Ocean islands, I don't remember exactly.
During these discussions, I returned to my Corsican
café owner.
My café owner agreed to speak about how was the life in Corsica, and how he sees the future - but no before he went to check if any consumer was there.
- With the end of the strife on the mainland, we will finally see true peace and freedom, not like the last time, when we believed the World War Two was finished and, as a teenager, I thought I would never again see war.
- And how was the life in Ajaccio?
- Horrid: with the special measures and the state of hostility, trade all but slowed down, and security forces and the army could do whatever they wanted. Of course, he added, things got better the latter years, with the links being rekindled, and all these soldiers were good clients. Ours, Americans...
Exile was very widespread on Corsica but the liberalisation wave in the 1970s, along with the lower tension in the region, made exchanges easier.
- But even this wasn't what I expected back in 1945; I didn't expect my island to be emptied from its youth.
Some of the Corsicans who went abroad, fleeing the tensions and wanting better opportunities, only came back older, along with their families, if they didn't settle down in their place of emigration.
- The youth will have it easier there, but it is too late for me and my children will not even be able to benefit from this: my daughter is in Argentina, one of my sons is in New Caledonia, and the other died during the Second Indochina War. I hope this will not be another false hope.
He then finished and told, in a sad tone, my tea cup was ready.
My thoughts were interrupted by the stewardess coming back to get the used bottles and packagings and while I gave her my Hamoud Boualem bottle, the discussion in the plane resumed, on less political fields. Emphasis on "less."
- How did you find Ajaccio?
- It lookes like the kind of city situated on a frontline.
- You exagerate a little!
- Yes, but, like in these towns, there are traffickers, smugglers and other
unseedly people.
- What, for exemple?
I interviened to speak about what I saw in the bar of the airport:
- While approaching a bar in the airport, I overheard two "suspect" people speaking about how the recent openings will make them relinks with the other shore and restart their "businesses", stopping when they saw me approach.
- Speaking of which, what are thinking Paris about the whole change thing?
- The P.C.F.'s
Orthodoxe wing is pretty dismayed with the reforms taking place in the People's French Republic. The
Réformateurs' introduction of more market principles than already existing only aigmented their hatred toward these "revisionnists who would return France under the Two Hundred Families' yoke"
- And what about Brussels?
- Same thing, except it is about "returning Belgium to the Léo-Rexist gangsters." How are reacting the folks from the other side?
- The
Cercle Jean Le Pen will react as usual: they still wiew them as a "bunch of Communist insurgents" and the "Thorez gang" who should be crushed instead of being traded to, like the mainstream thought there until the Sixties.
Suddently, I heard the commander speaking:
- You are arrived to the Maison Blanche airoprt, in Algiers, French Republic. We thank you for choosing to fly in the planes of our company, Air France.
This is the first episode of the serie.
Feel free to ask me questions and to indicare points to correct there.
