Mythologizing the Mediterranean: : The Case of Albert Camus

This article examines the formation and evolution of a particular set of beliefs about the Mediterranean and its peoples, articulated by the French Algerian writer Albert Camus. It begins by analysing in some detail Camus’s early writings in the thirties on Mediterranean culture in order to elucidate his notion of a possible Mediterranean cultural Renascence, linking together both Western and Oriental sensibilities and traditions and simultaneously providing Europe with an alternative pathway beyond Fascism and Russian Collectivism. A central claim is advanced in the article that these ideas operate as a kind of mythology, affording Camus an unreal political space in response both to the colonial situation in Algeria and to the dilemmas of French Algerian writers, whose cult of ‘algérianité’ (the building of French cultural identity in North Africa) has failed. This mythology also allows Camus to form a sanguine view of future events in Europe. The article further claims that this body of myth passes, in a somewhat modified form, into Camus’s post-war philosophical and political writings, forming the basis of his humanism of revolt, his ‘pensée de midi’ and his politics of The Third Way during the Cold War.