The Dragon's Gate

Malik Saïb Mezghiche

Keywords: Violence, Resistance, Anime

Internship: Dojo
dojorecords.contact@gmail.com, darkmanix.com

What is the efficacy of non-violence? How to make resistance irresistible?

These questions are embodied by Safi in The Dragon’s Gate. The Dragon’s Gate is an animation series following Safi. She is a brown uni dropout from Vaulx-en-Velin in the suburbs of Lyon, France and must face the obstacles that go with it. She wants more than her short life has offered her. She’s decided to face upfront anything that will block her way.

Tahar Djaout, an algerian journalist once said: “If you talk you die. If you keep quiet you die. So say and die.“

Safi’s journey is one that goes from cynical passiveness to taking hopeful actions, and she started to say.

S'HAB EL BAROUD WEL CARABINA ( THE GUNPOWDER PEOPLE )

Thesis

IN 1931, DURING THE FRENCH COLONIAL ADMINISTRATION OCCUPATION OF ALGERIA, THE BARD HANANI CAME UP WITH THE QACIDA CALLED “S’HAB EL BAROUD” (PEOPLE OF THE POWDER) CREATED IN THE CONTEXT, AND ON THE SIDELINES OF THE CELEBRATION OF THE CENTENARY OF FRENCH COLONIZATION, THE POEM IS NOT A SIMPLE DENUNCIATION OF THE ESTABLISHED ORDER OR A SIMPLE STATEMENT OF POSITION. ITS AUTHOR CALLS OUT TO POPULAR CONSCIOUSNESS, CLEARLY CALLING FOR THE TAKING UP OF ARMS: “THE COMPANIONS OF THE POWDER / THE PEOPLE OF THE POWDER AND RIFLE / THEY CARRY THE POWDER / AND HAVE LIT THE FUSE”