Shakespeare however was the first to raise a black man to the rank of a literary personage. In Othello, a black man in the singular was born. Although homer's Odyssey does refer to blacks and their sacred feast without prejudice; this praise is somewhat adulterated by the fact of their being lumped together. With Othello, the black man became flesh and blood, an event in fiction. Othello was staged for the first time in 1605. It is a play about war- a war between Venice and the Turks not only over conquest of the Mediterranean basin or between religions East and West, but also on the other as foreigner who must be annihilated. Othello is our everyday fear of the foreign.Othello is a brave Moorish soldier in the service of the very powerful, very Catholic city of Venice. Returned victorious from the war he seduces Desdemona, daughter of the rich and noble Senator Brabantio. In order to press his fate and become a citizen of Venice, he marries her. Only an intervention from the state saves him from punishment, and he and his wife are sent to Cyprus, an outpost on the frontier of the Christian world which he is charged with defending against the Turks.

But the Turks never appear, and Othello, trapped on an island with no exit, the warrior with no war, allows himself to be devoured by doubt. Doubt regarding the legitimacy of his office, doubt regarding the love of his wife. It was upon this ground that Iago, humiliated atier losing an expected promotion to Cassio, built his revenge: a machination that would eventually engulf Othello and overwhelm his ability to see things clearly.

Shakespeare's play was composed during a historical and philosophical period characterized by the decline of the Renaissance. The 1600s mark an intellectual turning point in the way we perceive the universe. New threats were appearing on the horizon, like the one which opens the first act of the play itself: "For if such actions may have passage free/ Bond-slaves and pagans shall our statesmen be". Iago also in turn refers to a union "against all rules of nature", as if it entailed a match between different species, and then questions its legality, the principle of exclusion as such.

Moor, Negro, Othello does not belong to the elect. He cannot acquire Venetian citizenship through marriage. The first altercations with Desdemona are reinforced by Iago's assertions to the effect that his wife was already bothered by his "dark hue", at which point the Black Man begins to doubt himself by declaring:"Happily, for I am black; And have not those soti parts of conversation that chamberers have".

Desdemona had already spoken of her husband's foreignness. By marrying Othello, she was going against her "nature", "years", "country", "credit", "everything".

But is this Venice not also the land of the victorious General? In the early 17th century not only blackness was viewed as troublesome, Elizabeth had ordered the expulsion of all black Moors. These were the stones that paved the way for Othello's destruction. Iago persuaded Rodrigo to pursue Desdemona's favors. He confided in Braban??o that "even now, an old black ram is topping your white yew". He becomes the portent of things to come when he notes that "the Moor already changes with my poison".  The whole of the play devolves upon Iago's machinations.

Who can behold the hap of a black man without bitierness? This is what Iago's words convey when he says: "what a full fortune does the thicklips owe if he cans carry't thus?" Though he may fight for Venice, Othello's faith is still Islam. It was not by chance that Orson Wells chose Essaouira to represent this character. As the island that is uniquely positioned to gather together all the civilizations of the Mediterranean basin, Essaouria seems made in the image of Othello the Moor. It is hard to say which coup de theater transforms Othello into the scapegoat he becomes: from the Liberator of the Doge of Venice, he comes to be seen as its enemy. Othello, the black man, the Moor, can he sustain a belief in anything or anyone?

No. for him a new wedding band is forged out of vengeance and injustice. By accusing Desdemona, he stigmatizes the social body of Venice as a whole. She was the field of the possible; she becomes the symbol of a legality that has failed to respect its own decrees. Desdemona was made the instrument of perversion. The pure woman gathered a bouquet of the flowers of evil. Othello was the savior of the State, he to whom Venice owed its victories. The raison d'Etat is clearly one of the engines behind Shakespeare's tragedies, and Othello's status is strengthened by his not belonging to it. Venice is depicted as the City that both welcomes foreigners and muzzles them if need be. The ambiguity of Othello's position garners its strength from the play's political dimension. Incidentally Eugene Delacroix painted a picture entitled "Desdemona Cursed by her Father".


CONCLUSION

The debate had to do with establishing whether Othello was Arab or African, black or brown in hue. These were not Shakespeare's concerns. Shakespeare intended him to be double, a hybrid of the two. Othello recalls at two different points that he had been a slave. This sheds more than enough light on his genealogy. Othello's foreignness adheres rather in his physical appearance. The foreignness of all Shakespeare's characters are gathered together in him. For example he conveys distinct echoes of Shylock. We hear this foreignness in his very first lines, which Desdemona found so seductive: “The Anthropophagi and men whose heads do grow beneath their shoulders.” Othello's appearance concentrates far off histories, mythical countries, and a way of seeing things. It is Shakespeare who tells us in his unique way that this black who is not white is not only a man, but the absolute hero. Othello did not check his skin at the cloakroom like an oversized envelope.

Difference is the sign of Being. But the slightest of differences, far from being insignificant, are the most irritating. It is not only as Nietzsche put it that the "shortest interval is the hardest to encompass", but that Difference is the sign of Being. It is well known that the color black fascinates as much as it disturbs, and when this curiosity becomes imbibed with desire both seduction and repulsion, enchantment and hatred, are produced.

Othello represents the limits inflicted on the Moor, on the Black Man. We now each of us are invited to write our own Othello, this time to unlock his chains so as to make of him a hero triumphant.


An article published in the first issue of PANAF Algiers2009 magazine