Wail of the Arab Beggars of the Casbah

Ismaël Aït Djafer's Wail of the Arab Beggars of the Casbah is an underground classic on French oppression in Algeria. On October 20, 1949, in the city of Algiers, Khouni Ahmed, a tubercular beggar is walking along Rue Franklin Roosevelt. He hasn't eaten. He's holding his little daughter, Yasmina, 9, by the hand. A truck approaches. Suddenly, he pushes the child at the wheels. As she doesn't die, he pushes her a second time. Prosecuted two years later in criminal court, Ahmed is declared insane and committed to an asylum. This horrific event inspired the 22 year-old student Ismaël Aït Djafer to write this impassioned elegy for the girl as an outcry against the extreme conditions of poverty that could cause such a tragedy.