Houria Bouteldja Explained

Houria Bouteldja (in French pronounced as /uʁja butɛldʒa/, Arabic: حورية بوتلجة|link=no; born January 5, 1973) is a French-Algerian political activist. She served as spokesperson for the until 2020.

Life

Born in Constantine, Algeria on 5 January 1973, Houria Bouteldja emigrated with her parents to France as a child. She studied applied foreign languages in English and Arabic in Lyon. From 2001, she worked for the Institut du Monde Arabe.^[1]

She first took part in the Collectif Une école pour tou-te-s (CEPT).^[2] In 2004, in reaction to the speech of Le mouvement ni putes ni soumises, she founded "les Blédardes",^[3] a movement positioning itself against the ban on the veil in schools, and defining a "paradoxical feminism of solidarity with the men" of her community.

The Indigènes de la République organized as a movement to denounce France's colonial past, to fight against the discrimination suffered by the "descendants of colonized populations" and, more broadly, against the racist and colonialist ideology which they argue underpins the current social policies of the French state.^[4]

On 24 October 2012, she was sprayed with paint by a man in front of the Institut du Monde Arabe, an action claimed the next day by the Jewish Defense League (LDJ), already implicated in two similar attacks.^[5] She lodged a complaint and her attacker, the webmaster of the LDJ, was sentenced in May 2016 to a 6-month suspended prison sentence and a fine of €8,500.^[6]

In 2014, she won the "combat against Islamophobia" prize from the Islamic Human Rights Commission.^[7] Fiammetta Venner, and Caroline Fourest in 2003 described this association as "Islamist".^{[8] [9]}

Whites, Jews, and Us

Bouteldja is the author of Les Blancs, les Juifs et nous: Vers une politique de l'amour révolutionnaire (2016), translated into English in 2017 as . The book considers questions of solidarity, Jean-Paul Sartre's views on Israel and Palestinian self-determination, Islamophobia and anti-Semitism in Europe, the foreclosure of the possibility of solidarity between Jews and Arabs, and the status of women and people of colour in Europe.^[10]

Works

• with Sadri Khiari, Félix Boggio Éwanjé-Épée et Stella Magliani-Belkacem, Nous sommes les indigènes de la République, Paris, Amsterdam, 2012, 435 p. + VIII
• Les Blancs, les Juifs et nous : vers une politique de l'amour révolutionnaire, Paris, La Fabrique, 2016, 143 p.
• Beaufs et barbares : Le pari du nous, Paris, La Fabrique, 2023, 270 p.

References

1. [Anne-Sophie Mercier]
2. Garcia . Marie-Carmen . 2012-05-01 . Des féminismes aux prises avec l'"intersectionnalité": le mouvement Ni Putes Ni Soumises et le Collectif féministe du Mouvement des indigènes de la République . Feminism Caught Up in "Intersectionality": The Ni Putes Ni Soumises Movement and the Feminist Group Mouvement des indigènes de la République . Cahiers du Genre . 52 . 1 . 145–165 . 10.3917/cdge.052.0145 . free . 1298-6046.
3. Hamel . Christelle . Delphy . Christine . 2006 . On vous a tant aimé·e·s !: Entretien avec Houria Boutelja, initiatrice du Mouvement des Indigènes de la République et de l'association féministe Les Blédardes . Nouvelles Questions Féministes . fr . 25 . 1 . 122 . 10.3917/nqf.251.0122 . 0248-4951.
4. Bertrand . Romain . 2006 . La mise en cause(s) du " fait colonial " . Politique Africaine . fr . 102 . 2 . 28–49 . 10.3917/polaf.102.0028 . 0244-7827.
5. Web site: La porte-parole des indigènes de la république agressée à Paris . 2022-07-06 . Libération . fr.
6. Web site: Procès LDJ: des peines allant de 6 mois avec sursis à 12 mois ferme . lecourrierdelatlas.com. 30 May 2016 .
7. Web site: Merali . Arzu . Rewarding the real heroes - IHRC . 2022-07-06 . en-GB.
8. Web site: ISLAMOPHOBIE ?! - Prochoix, la revue pour le droit de choisir . 2022-07-06 . www.prochoix.org.
9. Book: Casali, Dimitri . Le Grand procès de l'histoire de France . 2019-09-19 . Groupe Robert Laffont . 978-2-221-22188-4 . fr.
10. 10.5325/critphilrace.6.2.0280. Anya. Topolski. Review of Antisemitism and Islamophobia in Europe: A Shared Story? by James Renton and Ben Gidley and Whites, Jews, and Us: Toward a Politics of Revolutionary Love by Houria Bouteldja. Critical Philosophy of Race. 6. 2. 2018. 284–286. 10.5325/critphilrace.6.2.0280.