Oran Chrestomathy I

I'll have a few posts about Oran pretty soon, but to tide you all over, a little info about the City of Two Lions (Wahraan, the Berber name):



Oranis are nostalgic about the good ol' colonial days, or at least they were until the block of "Euros" (people from mostly Spanish and French families, but born in Oran) finally left at the beginning of the "Black Years" of the 1990s. To service this nostalgia, the Oranis left most of the old colonial architecture and especially the colonial monuments, but changed them just a bit to reflect the new reality of a politically independent Algeria. To this effect the statue of Justice that the French put up is still there, but changed like this: The statue was of Lady Justice standing between two children, one of them "European" and the other "Arab." One of her hands rested on the head of the Euro child, while the other hand hovered over the head of the Arab child, indicating that Justice favored the Euros.



After independence the Oranis wanted to change this, so they attempted to raise the hand over the head of the Euro child to create an equal situation. Of course, the hand broke off. They saved the statue, though, so what you have now is Lady Justice with one broken arm and one hand not touching the head of the Arab child, seemingly indicating that there is still no justice for the Arabs and really no hope of justice for any remaining Europeans. Which seems about right.