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In Algeria, subjects need incredible strength and energy in order to keep dreams and desires within the realm of possibility. This can lead to new subjective discoveries that are all the more pleasurable for being hard to achieve. But the effort to get there can be overwhelming. Oftentimes the subject prefers to give up rather than let go of the social and imaginary taboos to which it clings. If all desiring subjects (no matter where they are) confront the same problem, in Algeria the internal work performed by the very nature of the human psyche is crushed by the demands made by the larger public. In this case, the outside is no more than an eternally retreating space incapable of accommodating a troubled inside. Freud helps explain what a desiring subject endures when struggling with morality. In Algeria, morality has the final word and the public has become the one who delivers it. “Anyone thus forced to react continually to precepts that are not the expressions of his impulses,” writes Freud, “lives, psychologically speaking, above his means, and may be objectively described as a hypocrite, whether he is clearly conscious of this or not.”¹⁸

Desire must be discreet and cunning in order to counter the subject’s morality, which is reinforced and amplified by the larger public, morality’s faithful guardian.

Confusion becomes the subject’s best tactic for creating a secret, off-stage site within its subjectivity and for deceiving fear (from within and without). These ploys occur on a daily basis, and one of the most noteworthy among them concerns conjugal schemes, especially for gay men and women.

Gay women cunningly make use of the social division of gender in public space to make everyone believe they’re merely living with a female friend rather than living as a couple. As opposed to gay men, very little acting is involved. Indeed, until recently, unmarried women rarely left the parental abode to live alone or with another individual (male or female), as this choice was viewed as a sign of sexual promiscuity. These women speak openly about their housemates rather than their partners. This clever strategy is a perfect illustration of how performance is used as a form of détournement. These women use the division between sexes and the traditional practice of placing them within one homogeneous group to their own advantage. Indeed, forced to be together, it requires almost no extra effort to live out their sexual and romantic lives. And so, unseen by the censors, they satisfy their desires under a regime where homosexuality is banned while following the law established by men to keep the sexes apart. Paradoxically, they benefit from respecting this division of the sexes, which also makes it easy for them to engage in sex outside of marriage. Staying quiet and out of the spotlight, they avoid making themselves targets for exclusion and repression. It requires minimal effort on their part. And, for this same reason, this practice of détournement does nothing to change the taboos in place. The public display of obedience persists and, as a result, difference is never witnessed since everything happens behind the scenes.

The practice of détournement opens up a whole field of desires and fantasies, but it does nothing to challenge censorship and other taboos, which remain in full force. This subversive, and at times transgressive, tactic is subtle, as it outwardly conforms with censorship. Why flout the censors when you can profit from them at little cost to satisfy your desires? This logic can be found operating on many levels. At its best, it can subvert private life by bringing to light valuable discoveries on the social stage. But, more often than not, as the endless performances of détournement remain invisible, they are robbed of their subversive potential. The reign of secrecy is upheld by all as the (silent) path of salvation against a deafening censorship. A potentially subversive act that can lead to change and transformation is thus disabled. Right where an irreversible break should have occurred we have instead invisible performances played out in the dark. Détournement teams up with subversion only to cancel each other out.

Whereas détournement upholds the established order, allowing for only a small number of desires to be satisfied, subversion overthrows it. In other words, subversion creates staggeringly new signifiers that bring the endless performances to a stop. Détournement, for its part, does just the opposite, churning out performance after performance with no end in sight. This clearly prevents a new subject position from emerging, which could lead to an irreversible emancipation from censorship. Instead, there is an endless game of hide-and-seek going on in private and social life. Difficult to identify and delimit, censorship creates a need for transgression. This is felt by the subject every day, but it also signals a more serious transgression: material and moral corruption, including the deliberate distortion [détournement] of existing laws (see chapter 7). Détournement works with and against disruption. The fact that citizens perceive the law as inoperative is a case in point. Each individual is left to fend for him- or herself. The subject is at the mercy of inexplicable taboos designed to serve the interests of some individuals as well as amoral and arbitrary laws imposed by the religious sphere.

Through the practice of détournement, minor transgressions that allow some small space for desire in the private sphere (no simple feat in itself) are not considered compromising. These transgressions follow a well-beaten path. However, recognizing these and expressing them in the social arena comes with great risk, a risk felt both in the imaginary and in the realm of the real. In light of this, as a process of exposing and recognizing deeply buried desires, fantasies, and dreams, psychoanalytic treatment represents a real danger and poses a unique threat. Fear spreads uncontrollably, reinforcing taboos and creating a permanent duplicity, as noted by Mohammed Dib: “Duplicity is rooted to our most private selves. Ridding ourselves of it would require completely disassembling, and then reassembling, the self.”¹⁹ In other words, the subject prefers the comfortable satisfaction afforded by voicing grievances over the violence of assuming responsibility for one’s decisions. And for good reason. In the social arena, it would be assuming that responsibility all alone.

If religion is an astonishing vehicle for morality, the specificity of the LRP bloc lies in its unique melding of the two. The two terms are almost interchangeable. The strong collusion between morality and religion serves multiple, and paradoxical, interests. Each individual works on behalf of the censors he or she is besieged by like an agent of a larger system. For this to work, the subject must benefit in some ways from the same situation that is responsible for its downfall. Putting this experience into words is a telling acknowledgment that exposes the subject and forces it to abandon irrevocably its secrecy. Insofar as it can break the social pact, whose terms the subject has implicitly agreed to, exposure of this sort raises serious threats and risks.