Réda Bensmaïa

Introduction to Tetraglossia

In a speech given at the First Algerian National Colloquium on Culture, M. Lacheraf, a Maghrebi historian and former minister of national education, addressed the question of minimal requirements for the development of a Maghrebi culture, asking the following question: “At what level already or yet to be reached, does a national culture cease to be mere entertainment, and become as basic as the bread one eats and the air one breathes?” In the context of postcolonial Maghreb, it is clear that this kind of “culture,” as M. Lacheraf realized, was first of all a goal “to be attained.” That is why in his speech he subordinated this question and the answer it might receive to a much more radical one. He wrote: “To search for an answer to this … is once more to ask ourselves if a given terrain can usefully accommodate a culture that is also given; and whether such an operation does not necessitate that this terrain, that is to say, the mass of people, should first of all be in a position to respond, both to the cultural needs which fuel them and to the demands made on them by a small group of their fellows who are better equipped to satisfy these needs?”