Letter to a Friend
The very first Marseilles-Algiers cable was a telegraph line laid in 1871, and at the war declaration in 1939, there were 10 MarseillesMaghreb cables in service. The cable ship Arago spent the war in Oran and Algiers protecting the systems. These cables have played an important role; the names of “Mers el Kebir” in Algeria, “Tobruk” in Libya, and “Al Alamein "in Egypt are all well known. The battle of Al Alamein, in the desert, was a turning point in the war. Churchill would say later on, “We had no victory before Al Alamein, no defeat after it”
Jean Devos In cha’Allah, During a good part of my professional life, from 1960-1980, I spent a lot of time working with the South Med countries, the Maghreb (West) and the Mashreq (East). I cannot count the number of trips that I took to Morocco, Algiers, Tunis, Tripoli, Cairo, Beyrouth and Damascus! A lot of old friends’ names and faces are springing back into my mind when looking at the TV as of late. And I keep saying to myself, “at last!”
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I enjoy thinking that such events are made possible by the internet and social networks, that is to say, thanks to our cables! There is clearly a relation between these “revolutions” and the emergence of the internet access in
these nations. The technology is shaping a new world, and I predict that all the cables we are presently laying around Africa will also bring significant changes in the future. If ASN is today a significant submarine system provider, it is, in good part, thanks to the Med countries and their people. When I joined this industry as a young engineer in 1961, my first job in Calais was to work on the production of the Perpignan-Oran cable. Marseille-Algiers had recently been installed in 1957, just after a short experimental cable in Tunisia (KelibiaBou Ficha). These were our first “repeatered” cables, providing 60 circuits! These systems were considered “domestic” since Algeria got its independence in 1962.
During my time in Calais we produced FranceMorocco (1967), Marseille-Tel Aviv (1968), Marseille-Bizerte (1969), Marseille-Beyrouth (1970), Beyrouth-Alexandria(1972), MarseilleAlgiers2 (1972) Penmarch-Casablanca (1973), and Perpignan-Bizerte(1975). One of my first jobs when I took the responsibility of Submarcom in 1977 was to negotiate Marseille- Tripoli (Libya), and SyriaGreece. Quite an experience for a young 40 year old! One of my numerous surprises during this time was to realize how often these very capable and highly educated guys were saying, “In cha Allah” (God willing) during our discussions. I learned that it was part of their culture to never say ”I’ll definitively do that tomorrow” without adding, “if God is OK”. Actually, it's not that different from our “thank God” or the French “Grace à Dieu.” More surprising was the discovery that the parabolic language that Jesus-Christ used in the gospels is actually the way that most the Middle-Eastern people tend to speak. This was explained to me by my local Damascus agent, who was a non-Muslim Arabic. He was born in Anatolia, like St Paul (continued on next page)