NO, THEY FANCY THEMSELVES A TRIBE:

Distraught and despairing, Camus said and wrote nothing on Algeria between early 1956 and mid-1958, when he collected his articles and speeches into a book. Behind the scenes, he interceded with French ministers to show leniency to Algerian fighters sentenced to the guillotine. By 1958, however, no one in a with-us-or-against-us climate of mutual detestation wanted to hear from the sad guy in the middle of the road. The publication flopped; and it took until 2013 for these Algerian Chronicles to appear in Arthur Goldhammer's first-rate English translation. It remains an exemplary, even inspiring, act of conscience and of witness.

Camus's Algerian dilemmas had nothing to do with "centrism", with compromise or with even-handed detachment. He knew, he loved, and he suffered with, both irreconcilable sides. Riven to the core of his being by divided allegiances, Camus the Algerian appears, in hindsight, to be as much of a tragic figure as any of the existential heroes he created in works such as The Fall or The Just. Posterity, and reputation, has sometimes blunted the force of the wrenching ambivalence that he felt about his homeland and its fate. Read his own words and this conflicted integrity comes into dazzling focus.

In 1957 -- as Algerian Chronicles though not Speaking Out explains - Camus ran into trouble after he had travelled to Stockholm to accept the Nobel Prize. At a press conference the next day, an FLN journalist attacked his stance. Camus responded by reaffirming his belief in "a just Algeria in which both populations must live in peace and equality". But he also condemned "blind terrorism" in Algiers. "People are now planting bombs in the tramways of Algiers," he said. "My mother might be on one of those tramways. If that is justice, then I prefer my mother".

Le Monde, however, reported a twisted paraphrase of what he had said: "I believe in justice, but I will defend my mother before justice." Worse, a grossly distorted version of his meaning passed into political folklore when later writers pretended Camus had stated: "Between justice and my mother, I choose my mother." Yet the thrust of his remark was to show that indiscriminate violence against civilians never counts as "justice". Divided souls, even one as eloquent as Camus, may struggle to get their message of balance, nuance and plurality across. Now, in another age of fervent faith and monocular vision, we need to hear it again.

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