EL RETO DE LA COLOMBIA DE HOY*
2. EL CICLO DE VIDA DEL CIENTÍFICO
Algeria was far different from other countries under European colonial rule at that time. Even distant India was ruled by the British through local leadership. In that case, all of the major administrative positions were held by ethnic Indians, who dealt directly with their own people in their official functions, including the provision of public services. The British, in this instance, demonstrated significantly more respect, and less belligerence, toward the Indian people than did the French toward the Algerians. The British, in fact, did not even occupy much of India. In the case of Algeria, repeated efforts at French settlement, as if Algeria were part of France, appeared to be designed to ensure that Algeria would forever serve as an extension of France across the Mediterranean, even more than a settlers’ colony. Large numbers of Europeans were encouraged to move to Algeria, and to become farmers, shopkeepers, and administrators there. By the twentieth century, a fully articulated European society had taken root, one with an identity of its own.69 The Pieds noirs’ influence in Paris was such that Algeria was considered to be an integral part of metropolitan France, thereby
67
Nikshoy C. Chatterji (1973); See also: Saadallah, B. (1996), p. 8.
68 For a perspective on French colonialism in Algeria from the Algerian Nationalist point of view, see Saad- Allah, B al-Haraka al-Wataniya (al-Munadhamah al-Arabiya li al-Tarbiya wa al-Thaqafa wa al-Uloum, League of Arab States, Cairo, 1977), Vol.1-2; alternatively, for the French perspective, see Edward Behr, The Algerian
Problem (Australia: Penguin Books Ltd, Harmondsworth, 1961).
69
See William B. Quandt, Between Ballots and Bullets, Algeria’s Transition from Authoritarianism (Washington DC, Brookings Institution Press, 1988), p. 15.
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assuring that settlement in Algeria would remain a good opportunity and an assured route to successful business investments.70
On 16 May 1830, the French military therefore mobilized their forces, brought together a full range of military expertise and materiel, and prepared to invade Algiers.71 A few weeks later Algiers fell, and France’s supreme military commander, Marshal Louis de Bourmont, took over, landing in Algeria on 14 June 1830,72 a few hundred meters from the Peninsula of Sidi Ferruch.73 The Dey’s treasury was in French hands, and the fort protecting Algiers finally fell, but not before the Dey had mined it. Three weeks after the capture of Algiers, the French sent a reconnaissance column to nearby cities. Blida (thirty miles south of Algiers) was attacked and almost wiped out. On 5 July 1830, the Algiers Governor, Dey Husayn, capitulated and presented to de Bourmont an act of surrender, officially marking the beginning of French colonial rule in Algeria.74 Just 350 km East of Algiers, the Dey of Constantine, Ahmad Hajj, sought to solidify the Ottoman presence. From 1836 to 1837, he stoutly defended his city against the French.75 The French invasion of Algeria had been planned well in advance, preying upon the manifest weakness of the Ottoman Empire. The French, for their part, harboured expansionist hopes of opening the long bridge to Africa and the Middle East in this extensive new era of “colonialism with a clear conscience”.76
The French army nevertheless faced strong resistance. Religious sects and social communities soon called for a holy war.77 Although the revolution of July 1830 overthrew Charles X, the French maintained their expeditionary forces, adding another column to Médéa (Southwest of Algiers) in 1831. Subsequent resistance soon forced them to retreat back to Algiers. Indigenous leaders, such as Dey Ahmed in the East, and the old Marabout of the Qadriya of the Mahi Eddin sect in the West, mounted strong opposition. In the western Algeria, not far from Oran, Mahi Eddin’s son (Abd al-Qadir) was selected leader (Emir) of
70 William, B. Quandt, Between Ballots and Bullets, Algeria’s Transiition from Authoritarianism (Washington DC, Brookings Institution Press, 1988); See Benjamin Stora, Algeria 1830-2000, A Short History (New York: Cornell University Press, 2001).
71 According to Stora, the fleet of French forces consisting of 35,000 men and 600 ships. See: Stora, B. (2001). 72 Abdelkader Aoujit, The Algerian Novel and Colonial Discourse: Witnessing Différent “Francophone cultures abd Literatures,” v. 58 (Peter Lang Publishing, Inc., New York, 2010), pp. 163-164.
73 Ibid. Stora, B. (2001; See: “French invasion of 1830 shaped modern Algerian history”: http://www.al- djazair.com/articles/The_Washington_Times_The_French_invasion_of_1830.pdf .
74 For more information about this part of the history, see Stora B. (2001). 75
Phillip C. Naylor, France and Algeria A History of Decolonization and Transformation (University Press of Florida, 2000), p. 6.
76 Many historical scholars have mentioned the expression “colonialism with a clear conscience.”
77 The Algerians preached Jihad (holy war) against what they called “the infidel invaders”. See Ibrahimi. Al- Bashir, Min athaar albashir al-Ibrahimi (Dar al-ghareb al-Islami, Beirut, 1997; gathered and presented by his son Ahmed Taleb al-Ibrahimi). Many websites mention Bashir’s speeches, e.g.:
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the western resistance, which had begun in Mascara. The young leader, Emir Abd al-Qadir, quickly became a hero of Algerians, presenting himself as ‘the commander of the faith’, and using the principles of Islam while preaching Jihad. Abd al-Qadir became an inspiration for independent Algeria by creating, through military skills and astute diplomacy, a veritable state in western Algeria in the 1830s, seriously rivaling French territorial ambitions. In the Treaty of Tafna (1837), the French ultimately had to acknowledge his political authority.78 Conflicting ambitions between the Algerian emirate and France eventually provoked yet another war that ended with Abd al-Qadir’s surrender in 1847.
In Algiers, the French high command had taken over the administration of the capital, and had decided to clear the country of Ottoman leaders and foreign sympathizers, forcing most of them to return to, or seek refuge in, Turkey. A docile group of ‘collaborating’ Jewish and Moorish merchants was nominated to relatively non-influential positions in the local Algiers municipal office, and soon indulged in gross corruption. A Moorish merchant was installed under French protection as “Dey Titteri”; the Arabs and Berbers in the city quickly revolted against him, and forced him to flee.79
The relative status of the Algerians and the French settlers was complicated from the beginning. Under the Constitution of 1848, Algeria was officially declared to be a French territory. Algeria was divided into two sections, one civilian, and the other military. The civilian section was largely European, and centered on Algiers and the ports. The military section was situated in the countryside and was almost wholly native-born, Arabs and Berbers. Algeria was divided into three provinces, the Algerian natives were ruled through local chiefs recognized by the military governors, and these chiefs apparently ruled rather more liberally than the settlers would have preferred.80 The rationalist ambitions of Emperor Louis Bonaparte, Napoleon III, for Algeria were evident in the Imperial Decree of 1857, which established a network of railways, and support for the Saint-Simonian socialist Prosper Enfantin’s plans to industrialise the region.81
78 Danzinger: Abdelkader, a Qadiriyya leader, considered the struggle against the French to be a jihad. After his capitulation and incarceration, the French permitted the emir to live in exile, first in Bursa (Turkey) and then Damascus, where in 1860 he saved many Christians during sectarian violence. Subsequently, Napoleon III honored him in Paris.
79 The Duc de Rovigo, Napoleon’s former Chief of Police, violated basic Muslim precepts of hospitality by executing two Muslim notables for whose safety he had made himself personally responsible: see Behr, E. (1961), pp. 14-17.
80 James Heartfield, The Death of the Subject Explained, Chapter six, entitled “Algeria and the Defeat of French Humanism”, available from the website: <http://www.marxists.org>. See Benjamin Stora, Algeria 1830-2000, a
Short History, Translated by Jane Marie Todd (Cornell University press Ithaca and London, 2001), p 5.
81
Heartfield, J. The Death of the Subject Explained, Chapter six, entitled “Algeria and the Defeat of French Humanism”, available from the website: http://www.marxists.org.
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On the other hand, the relationship between the Algerian locals (al-Ahali) and the French military regime in Algeria was very weak and quickly resulted in violence against the Algerian Muslims. The unexpected collapse of the Second Empire in the war with Prussia in 1870-1871 was welcomed by the French in Algeria, who had been confirmed republicans, and had been relegated by Napoleon III to settlers in an “Arab Kingdom”. This collapse, moreover, gave the Algerian public the opportunity to assume control over the central administration and local government in Algeria. However, the dreams of many Algerian Muslims of participation in a political system with equal rights and power sharing, as Napoleon had originally promised, were dashed. The power rested in the hands of a military regime, and was only occasionally transferred, if at all, to French immigrants. Local Muslims were excluded from political life, and according their history could not accept this clear discrimination. In an early revolt, the French military ruthlessly killed many of the Muslim civilians in Algiers and Kabilya, the latter governed by a Muslim leader, Ahmed el-Muqrani.
The French government refused to give el-Muqrani control over Bordj Bou Arréridj, as had been promised, and they rejected his offer to install another leader from the pieds
noirs. El-Muqrani then revolted against the French with his army, holding out against the
French until Bordj-Bou-Arréridj, with the assistance of his brother, Boumezreg, his cousin, El Hadj Bouzid, and Sheik El Haddad.82 Using his position and influence over the Rahmania brotherhood, El-Muqrani was able to overcome the dissension in his camp and retake Bordj- Bou-Arreridj. He was ultimately successful in his revolt, and the French army was forced to retreat to Algiers in defeat. Local Muslims strongly supported the revolt, and their numbers quickly grew, especially after the proclamation of jihad against the French by Sheikh Haddad and leaders of the Muslim community on April 8, 1871.83
However, El-Muqrani was killed on 5 May 1871 at Taouraga. Under the command of his brother, Boumezreg, the uprising continued until 20 January 1872, when he was arrested by the French. The local Muslims in the region subsequently faced severe repression, discrimination, excessively high taxes, and a radically deteriorated quality of life.84
82 Jamil Abunnasr, A History of the Maghrib in the Islamic Period (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1987).
83 J F Ade Ajayi, Tarikh Afriqiya al'am: Al-Qarn at-tassi' acahr fi Afriqiya hatta thamaninatihi (UNESCO, 1987), p. 579.
84
Naylor, Phillip C. (2000), p. 7-8; See also: Ageron, “De l’insurrection de 1871 au déclenchement de la guerre de Libération” (1954), Vol. 2 of Histoire de l’Algérie contemporaine (Paris: PUF, 1979), pp. 429, 477–78.
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