Algerian nationalism Flashcards
Messali Hadj
Ahmed Ben Messali Hadj (Arabic: مصالي الحاج) (1898 in Tlemcen, French Algeria - June 3, 1974 in Paris, France) was an Algerian nationalist politician dedicated to the independence of his homeland from France. He co-founded the Étoile nord-africaine, the Parti du peuple algérien and the Mouvement pour le triomphe des libertés démocratiques before dissociating himself from the armed struggle for Independence in 1954. He also founded the Mouvement national algérien to counteract the ongoing efforts of the Front de libération nationale.
MNA
After the outbreak of the Algerian War of Independence in 1954 which was started against his wishes, Messali created the Mouvement National Algérien, or MNA (French Algerian National Movement). Messali’s followers clashed with the FLN; his was the only socialist faction not absorbed into the Front’s fight for independence. The FLN’s armed wing, the Armée de Libération Nationale (ALN) wiped out the MNA’s guerrilla apparatus in Algeria early on in the war; the infighting then continued in France, during the so-called “café wars” over control of the expatriate community. In 1958, Messali supported the proposals of President Charles de Gaulle, and France probably attempted to capitalize on the internal rivalries of the nationalist movement. During negotiation talks in 1961 the FLN did not accept the participation of the MNA, and this led to new outbursts of fighting.
ENA
The Étoile Nord-Africaine or ENA (French for North African Star) was an early Algerian nationalist organization founded in 1926. It was dissolved first in 1929, then reorganised in 1933 but was later finally dissolved in 1937. It can be considered a forerunner of the Front de Libération Nationale (FLN), who fought France during the Algerian War of Independence (1954–62).
It was formed in 1926 by Nationalist politician Messali Hadj and called for an uprising against French colonial rule and total independence. It had no armed wing and attempted to organize peacefully. The party maintained links with the Parti Communiste Français (PCF, the French Communist Party) until the early 1930s, but the connection was later broken when, at the behest of the Comintern, the PCF declared Algerian national independence premature. In 1927, Messali Hadj participated in the creation of the League Against Imperialism. The reorganisation of the ENA in 1933 elected Messali Hadj President, Imache Amar Secretary General and Belkacem Radjef Treasurer. It also voted for an ambitious plan to lead Algeria to independence by peaceful means. The Étoile was dissolved by the French authorities in 1937 and Messali was imprisoned. It is considered by some the first modern Algerian political party.
In 1937, two months after its dissolution, the leaders of ENA, including Messali, founded the Parti du Peuple Algérien (PPA). This was subsequently dissolved in 1946 and was immediately followed by the creation of the Mouvement pour le Triomphe des Libertés Démocratiques, which later became increasingly militant. Messali, a pacifist, distanced himself from the mainstream of this organisation when it became involved in the Algerian War of Independence started by the FLN in November 1954.
PPa
The Algerian People’s Party (in French, Parti du Peuple Algerien PPA), was a successor organization of the North African Star (Étoile Nord-Africaine), led by veteran Algerian nationalist Messali Hadj. It was formed on March 11, 1937. In 1936, the Etoile Nord Africaine (ENA), its predecessor, had joined the French Front Populaire, a coalition of French leftist political parties in power at the time. The relationship lasted a bit over six months. The Front Populaire dissolved the ENA in January 1937, hence the creation of the PPA two months later. Despite using peaceful methods of protest, the group’s members were constantly pursued by the police in France and banned by French colonial authorities in Algeria. From 1938 until 1946, it operated as a clandestine organization. However, it had only moderate activities during World War II. There was also great hope that Algeria would be rewarded for its help in liberating France from the Germans, but in May 1945, the events of the Sétif and Guelma massacre ended all hopes.
Early May 1945, Pierre Gazagne, secretary of the general government headed by Yves Chataigneau, took advantage of his absence to exile Messali Hadj and to arrest the leaders of the PPA.[1] The PPA was reconstituted October 1946 under the name Mouvement pour le Triomphe des Libertes Democratiques (MTLD)
A few ex-PPA members, having decided that freedom could only be acquired through military means, created the Organization Speciale (OS) while loosely maintaining membership in the MTLD. The OS sought the support of all the different Algerian political organizations to create the Front de Liberation Nationale (FLN) after launching the Algerian War of Independence in 1954. Messali Hadj had completely lost control of the movement in a process that began more than two years earlier when he refused to compromise with the mainstream in the MTLD. In 1955, he created his own so-called resistance group, by the name of the Algerian National Movement (Mouvement National Algérien)(MNA). Supported by the French, it was marginalized during the eight years of war, attacked and destroyed by the FLN both in Algeria and during the “café wars” in France.
FLN
The National Liberation Front (Arabic: جبهة التحرير الوطني Jabhet Al-Taḥrīr Al-Waṭanī; French: Front de Libération Nationale, hence FLN) is a socialist political party in Algeria. It was set up on 1 November 1954 as a merger of other smaller groups, to obtain independence for Algeria from France. It was the principal nationalist movement during the Algerian War of Independence and the sole legal and the ruling political party of the Algerian state until other parties were allowed in 1989.[2]
MNA
The Algerian National Movement (French: Mouvement national algérien, or MNA, Tamazight: Amussu Aɣelnaw Adzayri, Arabic: الحركة الوطنية الجزائرية ) was an organization founded to counteract the efforts of the Front de Libération Nationale (FLN). It was supported and, some[who?] say, partly financed by the French who used it to validate the claim that the FLN was not the sole representative of Algerian desires.
File:Massacre of Melouza june 1957.ogg
FLN’s attack on suspected MNA supporters, june 1957
It was founded by veteran nationalist Messali Hadj as a rival to the Front de Libération Nationale (FLN) during the Algerian War of Independence. He was a co-founder and President of the three earlier organizations leading the movement for independence beginning in 1926. However the War of Independence was started November 1954 without him being consulted. The creation of the MNA was his revenge. He found support among Algerian expatriates in France who had idolized him in the past and also among the French authorities. In spite of that, the FLN’s armed wing, the Armée de Libération Nationale (ALN), succeeded in destroying the MNA’s small armed groups in Algeria early on in the war.[1] The MNA and FLN also fought each other on French soil in the so-called café wars, resulting in hundreds of casualties, but FLN gradually gained the upper hand.
Control over post-independence Algeria would rest firmly in the hands of the FLN and its military, while the MNA vanished as a political organization.
fln anti colonial struggle
The FLN is a continuation of the main revolutionary body that directed the war for independence against France. It was created by the Revolutionary Committee of Unity and Action (CRUA) and emergent paramilitary networks continuing the nationalist tradition of the Algerian People’s Party (APsP). The RCUA urged all the warring factions of the nationalist movement to unite and fight against France. By 1956—two years into the war—nearly all the nationalist organizations in Algeria had joined the FLN, which had established itself as the main nationalist group through both co-opting and coercing smaller organizations. The most important group that remained outside the FLN was Messali Hadj’s Mouvement national algérien (MNA). At this time the FLN reorganized into something like a provisional government. It consisted of a five-man executive and legislative body, and was organized territorially into six wilayas, following the Ottoman-era administrative boundaries.[3]
The FLN’s armed wing during the war was called the Armée de Libération nationale (ALN). It was divided into guerrilla units fighting France and the MNA in Algeria (and wrestling with Messali’s followers over control of the expatriate community, in the so-called “café wars” in France), and another, stronger component more resembling a traditional army. These units were based in neighbouring Berber countries (notably in Oujda in Morocco, and Tunisia), and although they infiltrated forces and ran weapons and supplies across the border, they generally saw less action than the rural guerrilla forces. These units were later to emerge under the leadership of army commander Colonel Houari Boumédiène as a powerful opposition to the political cadres of the FLN’s exile government, the GPRA, and they eventually came to dominate Algerian politics.
guy mollets war
Algeria[edit]
Further information: Algerian War
Like the rest of the French left, Mollet opposed French colonialism, and had supported Mendès-France’s efforts in office to withdraw from Tunisia and Morocco (who were granted independence in 1956 by the loi-cadre Deferre). Mollet’s government was left with the issue of the three departments of Algeria, where the presence of a million French settlers made a simple withdrawal politically impossible.
At first, Mollet’s policy was to negotiate with the National Liberation Front (FLN). Once in office, however, he changed his mind and argued that the FLN insurgents must be defeated before negotiations could begin. Mollet’s visit to Algiers was a stormy one, with almost everyone against him. He was pelted with rotten tomatoes at a demonstration in Algiers on 6 February 1956, a few weeks after becoming prime minister. The French refer to this memorable event as “la journée des tomates”.
He poured French troops into Algeria, where they conducted a campaign of counter-terrorism including torture, in particular during the Battle of Algiers which took place from January to October 1957. This was too much for most French people, and Mollet’s government collapsed in June 1957 on the issue of taxation to pay for the Algerian War. The Secretary of State to Foreign Affairs Alain Savary, also a SFIO member, resigned because of his opposition to Mollet’s hardline stance in Algeri
Ben Badis
Abdelhamid Ben Badis (Arabic: عبد الحميد بن باديس, Ben Badis; December 4, 1889 – April 16, 1940) was an emblematic figure of the Islamic Reform movement in Algeria. In 1931, Ben Badis founded the Association of Algerian Muslim Ulema, which was a national grouping of many Islamic scholars in Algeria from many different and sometimes opposing perspectives and viewpoints. The Association would have later a great influence on Algerian Muslim politics up to the Algerian War of Independence. In the same period, it set up many institutions where thousands of Algerian children of Muslim parents were educated. The Association also published a monthly journal, the Al-Chihab and Ben Badis contributed regularly to it between 1925 and his death in 1940. The journal informed its readers about the Association’s ideas and thoughts on religious reform and spoke on other religious and political issues.
Ferhat Abbas
Ferhat Abbas (Arabic: فرحات عباس; ALA-LC: Farḥāt ʿAbbās; Kabyle: Ferḥat Σabbas ⴼⴻⵔⵃⴰⵜ ⵄⴰⴱⴱⴰⵙ; 24 October 1899 – 24 December 1985)[1][2][nb 1] was an Algerian politician who acted in a provisional capacity as the yet-to-become independent country’s President from 1958 to 1961. His political views were noted as evolving from a collaborationist all the way to a revolutionary over an approximate twenty-year period.
FLN Abbas
As he was opposed to violence, Ferhat kept himself distant from the Algerian War, and continued to try to act as an intermediary to the opposing sides. However, after the French intensified the war, in 1956, 18 months after the Algerian War of Independence against French rule began, Ferhat joined the Front de Libération Nationale (FLN).[5][6] His diplomatic skills were utilized by the FLN, as he was sent on missions sponsored by their ally, President Habib Bourguiba of Tunisia. His visits through Latin America, Europe, and the Middle East were intended to drum up support for their cause. In 1957, he was appointed as the FLN delegate to the United Nations.[6] 1958 saw him attending the North African Conference in Tunis, and in March he communicated an appeal to The Vatican for their assistance in creating peace.[6] After the collapse of the Fourth Republic and the coming to power of Charles de Gaulle, the hopes for an independent Algeria increased. This however did not end the fighting and on September 18[nb 4] of that year, the Provisional Government of the Algerian Republic (GPRA) was created. His political standing in Algeria and reputation as a moderate nationalist, acceptable to the West, helped him become president of this provisional Algerian nationalist government-in-exile on September 18, 1958 when it was created.[5] The position of President was largely as a figurehead and a diplomat, as most of the power was wielded by the cabinet; however in time a number of Asian and African nations recognized the government. In October 1958 an attempt was made by both Abbas and de Gaulle at ending the war with a meeting and intended cease fire were dashed on the inability of the parties to agree on a neutral location. By September 16, 1959, de Gaulle was softening as he offered self-determination to be decided by a referendum four years after a cease fire. This plan was generally accepted; unfortunately, there were a few substantial sticking points.[6] By 1960, Abbas was becoming frustrated with the West as he lashed out at the United Kingdom and the United States for supplying weaponry to France. With talks breaking down in June 1960, Abbas turned to the east and by September was visiting with Communist China, and the Soviet Union, where he was welcomed warmly.[8] Abbas reassured the West by stating that his new alliances were opportunism, when he stated that
“We prefer to defend ourselves with Chinese Arms than to allow ourselves to be killed by the arms of the West.”[8]
On August 27, 1961, he resigned and Benyoucef Ben Khedda took his place,[4] then subsequently joined Ahmed Ben Bella’s and Houari Boumédiène’s Tlemcen Group in opposition to the GPRA, which was subsequently dismantled.
Due to Pakistan’s support to the cause of Algerian struggle for independence and self-determination, Ferhat Abbas was given a Pakistani diplomatic passport for his foreign travels.[9][10][11][citation needed]
violette plan
The mounting social, political, and economic crises in Algeria for the first time induced older and newly emerged classes of indigenous society to engage from 1933 to 1936 in numerous acts of political protest. The government responded with more restrictive laws governing public order and security. In 1936, French socialist Léon Blum became premier in a Popular Front government and appointed Maurice Viollette his minister of state. The Ulemas and in June 1936 the Star of Messali, sensing a new attitude in Paris that would favor their agenda, cautiously joined forces with the FEI.
Representatives of these groups and members of the Algerian Communist Party (Parti Communiste Algérien, PCA) met in Algiers in 1936 at the first Algerian Muslim Congress. The congress drew up an extensive Charter of Demands, which called for the abolition of laws permitting imposition of the régime d’exception, political integration of Algeria and France, maintenance of personal legal status by Muslims acquiring French citizenship, fusion of European and Muslim education systems in Algeria, freedom to use Arabic in education and the press, equal wages for equal work, land reform, establishment of a single electoral college, and universal suffrage.
Blum and Viollette gave a warm reception to a congress delegation in Paris and indicated that many of their demands could be met. Meanwhile, Violettee drew up for the Blum government a proposal to extend French citizenship with full political equality to certain classes of the Muslim “elite”, including university graduates, elected officials, army officers, and professionals. Messali Hadj saw in the Viollette Plan a new “instrument of colonialism … to split the Algerian people by separating the elite from the masses”. The components of the congress—the ulema, the FEI, and communists—were heartened by the proposal and gave it varying measures of support. Mohamed Bendjelloul and Abbas, as spokesmen for the évolués, who would have the most to gain from the measure, considered this plan a major step toward achieving their aims and redoubled their efforts through the liberal FEI to gain broad support for the policy of Algerian integration with France. Not unexpectedly, however, the colons had taken uncompromising exception to the Viollette Plan. Although the project would have granted immediate French citizenship and voting rights to only about 21,000 Muslims, with provision for adding a few thousand more each year, spokesmen for the colons raised the specter of the European electorate’s being submerged by a Muslim majority. Colon administrators and their supporters threw procedural obstacles in the path of the legislation, and the government gave it only lukewarm support, resulting in its ultimate failure.
While the Viollette Plan was still a live issue, however, Messali Hadj made a dramatic comeback to Algeria and had significant local success in attracting people to the Star. A mark of his success was the fact that in 1937 the government dissolved the Star. The same year Messali Hadj formed the PPA, which had a more moderate program, but he and other PPA leaders were arrested following a large demonstration in Algiers. Although Messali Hadj spent many years in jail, his party had the most widespread support of all opposition groups until it was banned in 1939.
Disillusioned by the failure of the Viollette Plan to win acceptance in Paris, Abbas shifted from a position of favoring assimilation of the évolués and full integration with France to calling for the development of a Muslim Algeria in close association with France but retaining “her own physiognomy, her language, her customs, her traditions”. His more immediate goal was greater political, social, and economic equality for Muslims with the colons. By 1938 the cooperation among the parties that made up the congress began to break up.
Symbolism
Creation of slogan, songs, flag - these symbols represent the struggle
Messali and recruitment
Messali went round the poorer areas in an attempt to get them onside. Was careful with words - many could not read or write.
Blum-violette
Influenced by ex-Governor General and then Minister of State Maurice Viollette, Pierre Viénot, and historian Charles-André Julien, France’s Premier Léon Blum submitted a bill to Parliament in 1936 that aimed at giving approximately 30,000 Muslims in Algeria full rights without the loss of their Muslim status. The Senate defeated it in 1938 and the legislation was never brought to the floor of the Chamber of Deputies. This was a terrible blow to the évolués (assimilated Algerians) and convinced many of them (including Ferhat Abbas) to pursue other directions of reform. It has been called a “lost opportunity” that might have prevented the savage Algerian War of Independence (1954–1962).
popular front
The Popular Front (French: Front populaire) was an alliance of left-wing movements, including the French Communist Party (PCF), the French Section of the Workers’ International (SFIO) and the Radical and Socialist Party, during the interwar period. Three months after the victory of the Frente Popular in Spain, the Popular Front won the May 1936 legislative elections, leading to the formation of a government first headed by SFIO leader Léon Blum and exclusively composed of Radical-Socialist and SFIO ministers.
HISTORIOGRPHY - ena martin evans
The North African Star was part of a remarkable period in Algerian history: the making of Algerian nationalism during the 1920s and 1930s that was linked to a wider surge of pan- Arab and pan-Islamic sentiment throughout North Africa and the Middle East. This flowering was evident in an explosion of Algerian press, written by and for Algerians rather than the European settlers; the establishment of sporting and cultural associations; the invention, to use the phrase of Hobsbawm and Ranger, of national symbols, slogans and traditions; and the creation of political parties. The threads behind this upsurge were many. It was a reaction to the colonial triumphalism of the 1930 celebrations marking one hundred years since the French invasion. It was a result of the 1929 global economic crisis which hit Algeria as a whole very badly, but in particular the Muslim population. It was a consequence of the demographic time bomb. Between 1926 and 1936 the Muslim population increased from 6 million to 7.2 million, as opposed to the European population that remained at 1 million; a population explosion that created enormous social pressures.
MEN
Desperate for employment, thousands flocked to the coast and in the major towns and cities this produced a tinderbox atmosphere. Gathering on street corners, young Algerian men (and I do mean men, there is strong gendered aspect here) felt angry and humiliated. Forced to live on their wits, confronted with settler and police racism, lacking educational opportunities given to Europeans, many found it difficult to maintain their self-control. The slightest incident could provoke violence and in 1933 and 1934 Algeria witnessed a spate of urban rioting
PAN ARAB/ COMMUNISM
This volatile context made young Algerians receptive to new political ideas: communism, pan-Islamic ideas, Arab nationalism that must be linked to the impact of major global events, namely the 1916 Easter uprising in Ireland, the 1917 Russian Revolution, the Islamic Renaissance in Egypt and broader anti-imperialist movements in the Middle East and Asia. Consequently, some rioting took on an explicitly political dimension. On 12 February 1934 a 10-000 strong demonstration in Algiers organised by the Communist and Socialist Parties included a large number of Muslims. When the demonstration was blocked by the police, more young Muslim men descended from the Casbah, brandishing political placards and ransacking rich shops in the European quartier: an act of public aggression that produced widespread fear amongst the French authorities. This type of political activity was new and led to wholesale surveillance of all aspects of Algerian life. Through control, the authorities wanted to stop this process of politicisation.
Sport
These teams were particularly important to young men who found in them a collective identity denied by the 1930 centenary. These clubs, like similar ones for cycling basketball, swimming, tennis, shooting, boules and rugby, expressed nationalism through their names, their symbols and their shirt strips; a measure of how much more important sport was in solidifying a sense of ‘us’ and ‘them’. Through sport young Muslim men were able to conquer public space and impose themselves physically which is why Muslim football clubs were a breeding ground for so many Algerian nationalist leaders, including the first post-independence president, Ahmed Ben Bella.
01/11/1954
On 1 November 1954 the National Liberation Front (FLN), a new political entity, launched a series of attacks across Algeria. At the time very few people had any idea what the FLN was, but scattered on the roads of Kabylia the 1 November declaration set out their demands: the restoration of an independent Algerian state based upon Arab and Muslims values. Yet, unlike Messali Hadj there was no reference to an elected assembly as the route to independence. The 1 November declaration placed armed struggle at the centre of the liberation struggle. Violence was the essence of the FLN revolution and those who proposed a gradualist solution were denounced as ‘reformists’ and ‘traitors’. This violence was keyed into absolutes. People could only be for or against the FLN. The intention was to light a fuse of revolt. This did not happen.
french colonialism
Algeria 1830
Tunisia 1881
Morocco 1912
HOW DOES FRANCE INCORPORATE Algeria?
No French plan – improvisation.
1830 – 1871 Algerian population 1 million die in famine and fighting. Population in 1871 2 million
1881 three French departments: Algeria is France
Arrival of one million settlers
Nationalism does not come from traditional elites because they have been destroyed
Tunisia
Different status – protectorate
Treaty of Bardo - The Treaty of Bardo (or Treaty of Qsar es-S’id, Treaty of Ksar Said) was signed on May 12, 1881 between representatives of the French Republic and Tunisian bey Muhammed as-Sadiq. A raid of Algeria by the Tunisian Kroumer tribe served as a pretext for French armed forces to invade Tunisia. Jules Ferry, the French foreign minister, managed to send a French expeditionary force of approximately 36,000 troops to defeat the Kroumer tribe. The French met little resistance from both the Kroumer tribe and from as-Sadiq. Eventually, the French withdrew their forces after signing the treaty. However, the terms of the agreement gave France responsibility for the defence and foreign policy decisions of Tunisia. The military occupation was stated to be temporary; nevertheless Tunis became a French protectorate.[1]
The treaty was named after the residence of the Tunis court; Le Bardo where the Husainid Beys had established themselves in the early 18th century.
Morocco in comparison to algeria
Different status – a protectorate
Treaty of Fez 1912
Lyautey
Moroccan Sultan – in theory working with Moroccans but reality different.
But Sultan becomes focus of anti-colonial opposition
politics and north africa
Algeria demands small middle class for political inclusion – assimilation Morocco 1908 – press outlining a constitution Tunisia founding of the Young Tunisians Movement in 1908
World War One and north africa
Economies mobilised for war effort
Algerians, Moroccans, Tunisians on the move
Transformed horizons
Escape poverty Algerians, Moroccans and Tunisians staying in France to work
Takes us back to Dahmane El Harrachi – the experience of exile creates sense of seperate cultural, national identity
Global Perspectives
Impact of 1929
Impact of Egypt
Pan-Arab and Pan-Islamic ideas – Arslan - check book
But also reaction against centenary of French Algeria and Colonial Exhibition in France
