The War in Algeria: French Barbers and Algerian Orphans
Sarrazin, François
Algeria is the key to the North African question. It is through her that the French will either perish or come back to life. Heaven knows, it is not a matter of abandoning the security,...
...Some among them, in desperation, see no other course but violence...
...But this time he was again ,imprisoned for having brought an 'un . justified complaint," since, you see, he had lost his papers...
...In Tunisia, the situation is similar...
...Our own time is less blatant...
...When a person has had the honor of knowing North African jails under the proconsulship of General Nogues, he understands to what extent the prison community draws together the innocents held in custody...
...As for gentlemen of lesser importance, the piety of one doesn't prevent him from arbitrarily holding back twenty francs daily from each of his 3,000 agricultural workers, while another, thanks to insistent reminders, cannot cloak in oblivion his former connections with the fascists Doriot and Fabiani...
...But in the midst of all this what becomes of the millions of Moslems whose country it is, after all, which is being despoiled...
...In Morocco, the average quantity of the total cereal production available per inhabitant fell from 904 lbs...
...In Paris," writes an Algerian student, "you can pass unseen by your own people and by the rest of the world...
...Upon his return home he found that his plot of land had been broken up...
...Nations are forged in secrecy...
...The prisoners, the executed, the dishonored of today will be held up as martyrs and heroes tomorrow...
...He wrote this in 1892, and yet, in 1916, the Resident-Generals of the two protectorates were still pointing out that both Moroccans and Tunisians considered the Algerian regime as shocking and regarded it with a feeling of horror...
...in 1900 to 440 lbs...
...Now the worst is here to plague us...
...the majority have deep and abiding ties with North Africa...
...Here is the street of the Vandals, of shadows and militants, of circumcised kids and and newlyweds...
...Stewart Alsop, Herald Tribune, August 26, 1955...
...But when a teacher of Arab was "evacuated" to a "center" where his neighbors, for the most part, were Berbers he had to occupy his enforced leisure with the study of a language and customs which he'll not soon forget...
...Algeria is the key to the North African question...
...Poverty is not the only cause of this migration...
...But vengeance breeds vengeance and we enter a vicious circle...
...A street of Algiers or of Constan tine, of Setif or Guelma, of Tunis or Casablanca...
...Thrown into prison for having a "bad attitude," he tried all possible appeals...
...this is our street...
...Hard upon each wave of repres Sion, the entire population takes its place as one man in the camp of revolt...
...Whether or not it was intentional, he is or believes himself to be the victim...
...It is no less true now than ever before that injustice is at the root of so-called racial superiority, be it conscious or latent...
...Some day, the secret history of Algeria must be written...
...It generously subsidizes the publication of a scholarly work on the Vandals, but pays no attention when a young and significant Moslem writer brings into focus for us the tragic arena of armed revolt: Here is the street of the Vandals...
...If only they had been spoken to more often in this way...
...part of its flesh and blood, for better or worse...
...He lodged a complaint before the court of his Berber tribe...
...secondly, the war veterans, who joined their blood with ours on every battlefield in our country's last three wars...
...almost every feature of our administration more or less yields to the view that holds the natives to be an inferior race") were to have been met, we would have had to act differently...
...In keeping with our juridical, centralizing and unifying concepts we French sought to establish an Algerian regime identical with our own, refusing to recognize that French laws cannot be transplanted mechanically, that they by no means have the !magic virtue of Gallicizing all lands they touch, that other societies resist and defend themselves and that the present must take close account of the past...
...Secondly, the equally numerous Corsicans of North Africa frequently combine a violent nature with a traditionally doubtful patriotism...
...We have no right to dismiss with a shrug of the shoulders the awkward despair of one Santiago, a farm official: "Where do you want me to go, after all...
...Having learned that his Agha was on the way to Algiers to complain about him, Doineau got himself up as a bandit, leaped on his horse and, dragging along with him a few cavalrymen, attacked the stagecoach, killing the Agha and all the passengers...
...Thus, the rebels win recruits without difficulty...
...It is certain that we do not know in the name of what we could demand of someone that he impassively take part in torture, or in a summary execution...
...He noted that the Prefecture of Algiers had gotten along without an interpreter for two or three years and deplored the loss of human contact...
...It is through her that the French will either perish or come back to life...
...And under all circumstances, including action on the firing line, it is necessary that something, some element of conscience, face squarely up against instinct and offer itself as a counterweight...
...Each operation, each cleanup inevitably carries with it the exodus, to the maquis of the effective male population in the zone dealt with...
...There is nothing calmer and more dignified than an inauguration at Constantine...
...In current North African life Martinez mistreats Mohammed and the Parisian Dupont despises Martinez...
...checked...
...In Algeria, only 12 per cent of these were born in France...
...Is it generally known that one out of every seven adult Algerian Moslems lives in France...
...Far from being effective, it turns against its originators...
...In vain...
...We can cite eight incontestable results of this policy, results which, in all probability were not wanted either by its inspirers or executors...
...In despair he tried to get a hearing at the Imperial Palace...
...in 1950...
...Shipped back to Morocco, poor Moha presented his case once more...
...Such people as these, whether we like it or not, are part of the Algerian community...
...Our dignity founders in repressions which, in turn, call forth revolt...
...1 "Is this the case of a young man," 226 wrote General Daumas in 1868, "who came too quickly to power and now feverishly applies himself to his work...
...we are not patient...
...Such are the singular effects of repression...
...In the end, in the words of Francois Mauriac, it is France who, by dishonoring herself, disarms herself...
...Given such "duly elected officials," we can understand the reaction of the "Tiger" Clemenceau when the mayors of Algeria protested against Moslems voting in municipal elections...
...Like the others they are treated as politically suspect and frequently fall victim to jittery police agents...
...The Algerian "outlaws" number many a bitter and disillusioned regular army man...
...He is fond of uniforms, has the best of friendly relations with the police, tenders banquets to the Italian Expeditionary Corps veterans and presents the flag to the Volunteers of the Resistance (although, it seems, he never belonged to them...
...Then, he took his property deeds, the court finding, his military papers, his decorations and his prison papers, wrapped them all up in a red flag belonging to the priest of Ait-Abbas and set out...
...IN THE BROADEST sense, what could be more stupid and more dangerous than a program of pure and simple "repression" of disorder...
...A French official, even though deploring this truth, has affirmed it: It is hardly possible to hear an "anti-French" Algerian tell about his past without discovering at the root of his hatred some slight or offense by us...
...The story of Moha ou-Hassein, Berber of A2ilal, who had never been in politics and knew nothing of communism, might serve as a subject for reflection by those intoxicated with the sound of words...
...The wine king is less discreet...
...It results from the implantation of chronic hunger, successor to past famines...
...III Esparto grass and vineyards continue to be the alpha and omega of Algerian politics...
...The "moderate" politicians are confronted with the alternative: treason or death...
...Let us say with the Arabs: barbers learn shaving by practicing on the heads of orphans...
...According to Mohammed Dib, the "fatmas (servants) are the only link between different elements of the Algerian population, between misery and luxury...
...II Two groups of North African Moslems deserve special consideration...
...How many administrators in Morocco have never known any Moslems other than their sweepers and attendants) It must be said that a rather strong odor of racism is to be found at the bottom of all this...
...Clemenceau told them: "Gentlemen, for my part, you can all go to hell...
...He denounced the policy of "kicking the natives around" and found he could count no more than 6 Moslems out of a total of 334 officials listed in the government's telephone directory...
...It is impossible to ac count for the anti-Moslem racism of many North African colonists unless we recall, first of all, that in many instances the people involved have only been recently naturalized and are instinctively compensating for their foreign origin by a xenophobic, hyperFrench reaction...
...At best, the present administration pursues a course outside of space and time...
...his case was dismissed...
...Its maneuvers are often executed with a muffled tread...
...The king of the esparto grass economy plays the role of an enlightened despot...
...handed over to be plucked by middlemen...
...It is impossible even for a stranger to walk through the streets of Oued-Zem without sensing an instinctive for vengeance...
...to escape racism, you lose yourself in the crowd...
...Yacine Kateb in Le Cadavre En cercle) Ignorance, alas, fosters evil...
...Lastly, those Frenchmen who are charged with maintaining order, end up by asking themselves questions, by wondering whether their cause is just, whether they have not been saddled with a doubtful mission...
...In certain cases obedience becomes immoral...
...Having no confidence in anyone, neither the French nor his own brothers, he wanted to join the country they said gave help to the oppressed and to throw himself at Stalin's feet...
...In 1854, an important administrative official cried out for "a more human administration...
...The bourgeois of Firs were not suspected of "Berberism...
...The upsurge in population is less the cause of hunger than its effect...
...The young cannot bear inaction, life without the supreme risk...
...Others try a different course...
...First, the immigrant workers in France, because they are our guests and because they once believed in us...
...As for the war veterans, they were abandoned...
...The Moroccan father who brought his children to the visitors' room of one of these establishments to see their little friends could say, with justice, "They might as well get used to these things...
...It would contain, for example, the Doineau afaire...
...On August 30, 1950 a certain Moha ouHassein Ntifi, a Spahi wounded in 1940, completed his tour of duty...
...In Algeria, the annual per capita production of wheat has dropped from 880 lbs...
...in the 1934-40 period to 743 during the 194853 period...
...Each new effort cost him another prison term...
...Last September 530,000 people were...
...Head of the Arab Bureau at Tlemcen, Doineau was an officer with a healthy appetite and quick reflexes...
...Go read the plaques set up in the main streets of the "decolonized" capitals...
...Heaven knows, it is not a matter of abandoning the security, honestly acquired property and legitimate liberties of those who have been established for generations, in some cases, on the other shore of the Mediterranean...
...No success...
...Alas, there's no escaping police roundups, house searchings and other police operations...
...whose inexperienced actions are a continual source of complaint to his subjects...
...The innocent are most often the principal victims...
...He who is humiliated today, his feet in irons (contrary to regulations), will one day give his name to the streets of his native city...
...The protectorate formula has fewer inconveniences...
...To further the policy of penal coercion we know that in October 1954, a child of eight purged his guilt in the prison of Ali Ou-Moumen, and that an "arsonist" of six was held in custody at Montfleury (near Fes...
...I have no other country to goto...
...The French army has helped us a lot," said a leader of one of the bands...
...Their only consolations consists in parades in which they march in rags...
...He made an appeal...
...But if Lyautey's criticisms made in 1920 ("we have direct administration on the brain...
...After one year, begging, wandering about, hiring himself out as a field hand, going from settlement to settlement across North Africa and the Near East, through Marrakesh, Tlemcen, Tripoli, Cairo, Jerusalem, Damascus, Aleppo, Baghdad and Kirkouk, this "wandering Moslem" finally reached Persian Kurdis tan, where he fell on the earth, worn out and reduced to eating his own lice mixed with some leftover flour...
...There the tender become hardened...
...They are estimated at 300,000—somewhat fewer than the Spaniards or Poles among us and half the number of Italians...
...Jules Ferry added: Algeria is beginning to discover that she is paying dearly for the benefit of our civil regulations .. . Legislative assimilation is wearing down and cracking at every point...
...Where was he going to...
...Relations between humans too often are limited to those of master and servant...
Vol. 3 • July 1956 • No. 3
