France and North Africa
HAHN, LORNA
France and North Africa Algeria: The Realities. By Germaine Tillion. Knopf. 115 pp. $3.00. Reviewed by Lorna Hahn Specialist on North Africa, political science department, Pennsylvania...
...However, unable to neglect the three-and-a-half year-old rebellion, she mentions it—along with other political questions—as an unfortunate disturbance which must be settled so that France may proceed with trying to save the Algerians...
...yet two-thirds of Algeria's Moslems still live in an "archaic" society and face only increasing disaster...
...Her point about the 400,000 jobs for Algerians in France is also somewhat exaggerated...
...For the number of Tunisian workers in France, thanks to the development program within Tunisia (limited as it may be), has been reduced by nearly 4,000 during the past year alone...
...Within a 15-year period, she has seen villagers who were once self-sufficient degenerate into a state of pauperization...
...France and North Africa Algeria: The Realities...
...Had the author restricted herself to an anthropological study, her beautifully written book would be nearly flawless...
...She has watched families rapidly increase while their food supplies even more rapidly diminished...
...Obvious flaws include some false statistics: the population of Tunisia is 3.8 million, not less than three...
...To ameliorate this situation, claims Mile...
...The unemployment situation has been relieved, on a full or part-time basis, by the nearly 100,000 men and women working as, or with, the fellaghas (work which also has the incidental effect of checking procreation...
...Algeria's Moslem population has been decimated...
...that of Morocco is nine million, not seven...
...In a "technical civilization," the standard of living is apt to increase continually...
...Tillion, France would have to spend approximately a billion dollars a year (slightly less than the cost of the Algerian war) to provide elementary education over an eight-to-ten year period, and to create 300,000 jobs in Algeria...
...Reviewed by Lorna Hahn Specialist on North Africa, political science department, Pennsylvania U. A NOTED anthropologist highly skilled in her trade, Germaine Tillion lived for years among the Algerians whose anguish she describes...
...In addition, she feels, Algeria's right to 400,000 jobs in France would have to be maintained, which implies that Algeria remain attached to France...
...Unfortunately, the war has been cruelly "solving" some of the problems she describes...
...And, the chaos wrought by the war will no doubt provide many jobs in order to merely rebuild Algeria to its 1954 level of development...
...and the total number of Tunisian and Moroccan workers employed in France is not 30,000—there are 15,000 Tunisians and 40,000 Moroccans...
...The author presents this as a strong argument against a North African Confederation, since such a federation, she says, would mean that the Algerians would have to share these jobs with other North Africans, Actually, they are sharing them now, and present trends suggest that there would be less need to share these jobs in the future...
...She has seen hope, as once reflected in the desire and ability to save part of the harvest for leaner years, turn to the despair of unending years of strictly hand-to-mouth existence...
...With some additional foreign investment in North Africa, the number of North African workers in France—Tunisians and Moroccans, as well as Algerians — could steadily decrease, especially with the vast new opportunities for developing the newly discovered Saharan oil reserves...
...While the book succeeds in destroying the illusions of those who hold that either complete integration with France or immediate total independence will somehow solve Algeria's problems, it does not give a complete picture of the "realities...
Vol. 41 • September 1958 • No. 33
