Algeria

By: Marian Aguiar

Source:

 Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience, Second Edition

Algeria

To many outside observers, Algeria has been a preeminent symbol of postcolonial independence, a nation that waged a highly visible war against a European colonial power, France, in the mid-twentieth century, and won an independent secular state. The electoral success during the early 1990s of the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS), considered by many to be an Islamic fundamentalist group, was all the more startling. This apparent inconsistency revealed a complexity that stems from the fact that Algeria spans the traditions of the Berber, Arab, and European worlds. For the people of Algeria, Islam has been central to the culture since the seventh century. Within its history are many other strands as well, including the uneasy integration of Berber-dominated territories, the experience of women at the forefront of the independence struggle, the socialist strategies of the newly independent state, and the capitalist vision of economic development that supplanted it.

Early History

The Berber people, who call themselves Imazighen, or “free men,” historically have made up the majority of the population in the area that later became Algeria. From 208 to 148 B.C.E. the North African coastal kingdom Numidia encompassed portions of this region. After the destruction of Carthage (146 B.C.E.), Rome colonized the territory, transforming the vassal-state into a major provider of grain for the empire and bringing Christianity to parts of the region. Later conquerors included the Vandals in the fifth century and a coastal presence of the Byzantine Empire in the sixth century. Certain areas, however, historically remained under independent Berber confederacies, particularly the Aurès and Kabylia, maintaining a distinct cultural status within the region that would become Algeria.

Islam spread through North Africa in the seventh century, brought at first by raids and later by the immigration of Arabs to the area of northwest Africa known as the Maghreb, or “the land of the setting sun.” The Berber population gradually converted to Islam, despite militant resistance in strongholds of Berber political rule. The extent to which the Berber culture and language was Arabized during this time in Algeria is a question still debated by historians. A series of Islamic dynasties spread over the Maghreb for the next few centuries, encompassing the area of present-day Algeria. The rule of the Berber Dynasty Almohads brought the region into a prosperous alliance with the rest of the Maghreb and Muslim Spain. These dynasties marked the region culturally as well as politically, linking it to a heterogeneous Islamic world and facilitating the influx of peoples displaced by the Christian reconquest, including the Andalusian Muslims and Jews. Cities such as Constantine, Tlemcen, Annaba (Bône), Bejaïa (Bouie), and Algiers flourished as centers of learning and commerce.

Algeria

view larger image

The sixteenth century brought Spain to North Africa in a military campaign that was both a crusade against Muslim power in North Africa and an attempt to dominate the Mediterranean region. The Algerian coastal cities, including Algiers and Oran, were taken as strategic locations for the lucrative occupations of sea trade and piracy. After the death of the Spanish king, Ferdinand of Castile, in 1516, the Turkish “Barbarossa” brothers Aruj and Khayr ad-Din intervened. They ostensibly put the region under the protection of an Islamic power—the Ottoman sultan—but also served their own ambitions for trade and piracy in the Mediterranean region. Some scholars mark this intervention as the origin of Algeria as a political entity.

After the Spanish withdrew in 1541, Algeria entered the period known as the Regency. Historians have described the political state as an “Algerian Ottoman Republic,” operating autonomously despite official allegiance to the Ottoman Empire. With a fertile countryside, thriving artisan trade communities, and an economy enriched by piracy, the area around Algiers developed over the next few centuries into a viable cosmopolitan center that was highly attractive to the French.

French Colonization

By the nineteenth century, France was trading extensively with merchants in the Algiers region, but the Bourbon government's refusal to honor a debt owed to an Algerian exporting firm signaled a shift toward more confrontational relations. In 1827 French king Charles X ordered a blockade, ostensibly because an Algerian official slapped the French consul with a flywhisk, but also to display his military clout in a time of waning French support for his regime. On June 14 1830, General Louis de Bourmont landed at Sidi Fredj, west of Algiers. Within a month, the French had captured Algiers, defeating Turkish and allied Berber forces. Charles's successor, Louis-Philippe, saw in colonization an opportunity to capture new markets and strategic military sites as well as to expand the reach of French civilization. He helped secure the French position by invading Constantine in 1837.

The population actively and persistently resisted French colonial occupation. Islam provided one nexus for an anti-colonial alliance. One of the most prominent early anti-colonial leaders was Abd al-Qadir, who organized an Islamic state in the west that at one point controlled two-thirds of Algeria's inhabited land. Considered a strategic genius, Abd al-Qadir consolidated his position as leader of Berber confederacies and attempted to gain diplomatic recognition from England and Spain. France did grant the influential leader territorial autonomy by signing the Treaty of Tafna in 1837. But when land ambitions conflicted, the French army, under a new leader, General Bugeaud, used massacres and “scorched earth” tactics—burning surrendering enemies alive and systematically destroying Algerian villages, crops, livestock, and forests—to defeat Abd al-Qadir ten years later. Some historians have argued that Abd al-Qadir planted the first seeds of nationalism by uniting the Berbers and Arabs against “infidel” invaders.

The conquest was completed when the French defeated the independent Berber confederacies in the Kabylia in 1857. The French military paved the way for an influx of European settlers, a population originally only half French and mostly poor. The interests of the settlers and the military-dominated administration were not always harmonious. The European settlers’ political power grew as their population swelled, from 10,000 settlers in 1834 to more than one million shortly before independence in 1962. They benefited from the confiscation of Algerian land, especially after the unsuccessful Kabylia Revolt in 1871. From 1830 to 1940 , more than eight million acres were taken over. During this period settlers campaigned for civilian rule and then colonial autonomy and even waged an insurrection in 1898. Two years later, the settlers secured nominal administrative and financial autonomy from France, but maintained a governor general office.

As settlers took over the countryside, the region's peasant-based agrarian economy shifted to settler-owned, large-scale agricultural and industrial enterprises. Large expanses of the cereal producing lands were transformed into vineyards for wine export. The effects were devastating for the indigenous population: warfare, famine, and a series of plagues reduced a population of three million to one million within forty years of the conquest. The traditional economy was no longer viable. With war and poverty undermining original tribal relationships, Algerians turned to a vision of national resistance to colonization.

Struggle for National Independence

During the early twentieth century, Algerian intellectuals spoke out against the inequity of the colonial relationship and proposed reforms to equalize French and Muslim status. Those who protested French policies included the Young Algerians, or évolués, educated at European universities, and Algerians holding official positions, such as Emir Khalid, a captain in the Algerian army and grandson of Abd al-Kadir. Algerian sacrifices during World War I had won them a degree of respect in France, and following the war Premier Georges Clemenceau introduced measures to ensure full citizenship for Muslims. Settler groups violently opposed these measures, creating a rift in the alliance between the settler population and its military and civil foundation, the colonial government. Settler opposition to reform created a fissure between France and European-Algerians that would tear open during the struggle for Algerian independence.

As settlers resisted early reform efforts and France capitulated, more of the indigenous population turned toward a goal of national liberation. During the 1930s a nationalist alliance emerged, bringing together anti-colonialist leaders, such as Ferhat Abbas and Messali Hadj, and Islamic leaders, notably Shaykh abd al-Hamid ibn Badis (Ben Badis). In the 1943 Manifesto of the Algerian People, Ferhat Abbas called for an independent Algeria, and a year later organized the Association des Amis de la Manifest (AML). The first congress of the AML elected Messali as its leader and made clear that French leader Charles de Gaulle's appeasing gesture, the Ordinance of March 1944, did not meet their demands for autonomy. When Messali was then quickly deported, the Algerian people demonstrated their outrage with riots in Sétif and Guelma.

Nationalists formed the outlawed Organisation Speciale (OS), which was succeeded by the Comté Révolutionnaire pour l’Unité et l’Action (CRUA) and later the Front de Libération Nationale (FLN). The FLN became the force of the revolution, aiming, as its 1954 statement said, for “national independence through the restoration of the Algerian state, sovereign, democratic and social, within the framework of the principles of Islam.” Its leaders, such as Ahmed Ben Bella, Mohamed Boudiaf, Rabah Bitat, and Hocine Ait Ahmed, would become synonymous with the struggle for independence. Political theorist Frantz Fanon‘s writings about the struggle captured the world's attention as well as the support of prominent European intellectuals such as Jean-Paul Sartre. The nationalist army, Armée de Libération (ALN), waged a fierce guerrilla campaign for decolonization, while the French army responded with equally ruthless counterinsurgency tactics, including torture. Settlers organized the vigilante army Organisation de l’Armée Secrète (OAS).

The Soummam Conference of FLN members still within Algeria marked a decisive point in the coalition of nationalist forces, as the FLN developed a framework for a future state and accelerated the urban guerrilla campaign. The campaign catapulted Algerian women into key roles in the struggle as weapons couriers and spies in French quarters. In 1958 the FLN formed the Provisional Government of the Algerian Republic (GPRA). As France under Charles de Gaulle began preparing for decolonization, a faction of the army joined the settler OAS to resist, targeting the French as well as the Algerians with bombs.

Independent Algeria

In March 1962 a cease-fire was finally arranged between government and FLN representatives at Evian, France. In the long-awaited referendum, held the following July, Algeria voted overwhelmingly for independence. The settlers began a mass evacuation; before the end of the year most of them had left the country.

A number of different groups had come forward to take leadership positions during the war for independence, often filling the void as other organizations were forced to disband or leaders were sent into exile. As Algeria began the task of building a new nation, the euphoria of independence gave way to a bitter struggle for leadership between the FLN and GPRA, and within GPRA itself. In September 1962, after fratricidal battles, an elected Algerian Assembly appointed Ferhat Abbas as president and Ahmed Ben Bella as prime minister. Once in office, Ben Bella outlawed opposition parties, making the FLN the only legal party. Bella's power-mongering tactics furthered the divisiveness between former leaders of the nationalist struggle.

Independence Day.  Algerians march through the streets of Oran on July 3, 1962, celebrating their independence after 132 years of French rule.

(AP Images)

view larger image

Bella's regime chose a socialist path to rebuild a society ravaged by years of violent war and the massive repatriation of Europeans with wealth and professional skills. Algeria maintained tenuous links with France, bargaining military sites for technical and educational services.

After a bloodless coup d’état in 1965, Houari Boumedienne assumed the leadership of Algeria, filling a new governing body, the Council of the Revolution, with civilian technocrats and military supporters. Under Boumedienne, Algeria gained a reputation as a socialist nation determined to sidestep the pitfalls of foreign dependence. Concentrating his power through the suppression of political rivals, Boumedienne attempted to build an economically independent Algerian state through “super industrialization,” inaugurating a four-year plan to subsidize Algerian development through hydrocarbons export. After Boumedienne's death in 1978, Chadli Benjedid assumed power, reversing the socialist strategies of his predecessors by privatizing state-held agricultural land and opening the country to foreign investment.

Despite these moves, during the 1980s Algeria faced a rising Islamic populism, Berber unrest, and a severe shortage of consumer goods. In addition, intellectuals, proponents of women's rights, and advocates of free speech attacked the government for its repressive political and social constraints. These conditions prompted massive riots in October 1988. In an attempt to save the FLN from its deteriorating reputation as a front for corrupt politicians, Chadli implemented a series of reforms. In July 1989 the FLN legalized opposition parties, including the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS), lifted press restrictions, and scheduled Algeria's first free multiparty elections for the following year.

In June 1990 the FIS party won the majority of first-round local elections. Some observers have read this victory as an Algerian mandate for Islamic fundamentalism, others as a sign of disillusionment with Chadli's government. Declaring Algeria to be under a state of siege, President Chadli halted the elections and in January 1992 dissolved the National People's Assembly. The new High Council of State forced Chadli's removal, and Mohamed Boudiaf, along with a group of military leaders, assumed control of the country.

Boudiaf was assassinated in June 1992, and Algeria declared a state of emergency. With massacres and random killings leaving tens of thousands dead, Algeria once again became a battlefield. The Islamic movement splintered, producing various factions of Islamic nationalists. Many attribute the terrorist at tacks to the Groupes Islamiques Armés (GIA) because the banned FIS distanced itself from the violence—in September 1997 the FIS called for its followers to lay down their arms. During this time, the military-backed government under President Liamine Zeroual created internment camps and made massive arrests, reportedly using torture to flush out suspected FIS members and sympathizers. Some communities, wary of the violence that followed in the wake of military patrols, formed independent groups to keep twenty-four-hour watch over towns.

The progovernment National Democratic Rally party won national elections in 1997, but opposition groups alleged widespread electoral fraud. Two years later, similar charges led six opposition candidates to boycott the national presidential election at the last minute. Abdelaziz Bouteflika, who ran unopposed, won with over 70 percent of the vote. Bouteflika made some progress in reducing the level of violence. In January 2000 the armed wing of the FIS (known as the Islamic Salvation Army) and members of other militant groups laid down their weapons as part of a government amnesty program.

Violence persisted, however, with small, armed bands targeting government forces and carrying out isolated terror attacks. The killing of a civilian protestor by Algerian police led to riots in Kabylia in April 2001 and sparked a movement in the region to mobilize political activity among local youth. This movement, known as the “Coordinations,” has made various demands on the government, including withdrawal of government troops from Kabylia and recognition of Berber as an official language. In 2002, however, a general amnesty was offered to the various rebel factions throughout the country, a gesture most of them decided to accept.

See also Islam in Africa.

processed xml | source xml