ALGERIA ON FIRE
Shepherd, George W. Jr.
Algeria on Fire by GEORGE W. SHEPHERD, JR. THE RECENT debate in the United Nations has underscored the harsh fact that the conflict between the French and the North Africans in Algeria is now one...
...Not even the most nationalistic Muslim can deny that the French brought many benefits to Algeria...
...Its titular leader, the mystical and gimlet-bearded Masali Hadj, is much revered for his long opposition to the French: but for several years he has been imprisoned and has lost control of his party to younger leaders...
...In and out of this port flows the largest percentage of French trade with North Africa...
...In 1848 this country, which is three times the size of France, was incorporated into the mother country...
...Algeria sends raw materials and food-stuffs to France and receives in return machinery, capital, and consumers' goods...
...A leading Moroccan said to me, "Our liberty is not secure until the Algerians are free...
...They dress better and have more automobiles and servants than their countrymen back home...
...I was informed by several competent observers that the French authorities had indulged in electoral frauds in order to assure themselves a majority of pro-French Muslims in the Assembly...
...Americans have also earned intense Arab ill-will by supplying the French with helicopters that are especially effective in guerrilla warfare...
...Many of them are third and fourth generation settlers and they regard themselves as more Algerian than French...
...A remarkably high standard of living has been achieved by the French...
...There are a number of w^ell-qualified lawyers and professional leaders in the FLN who could fill the ministries of a government...
...Many of these French farms, which often include several square miles of rolling green expanses of wheat, oats, and grapes, are as highly mechanized as the great wheat farms of our Middle West Part of this land was wasteland before the French restored the irrigation system of the earlier North African civilizations...
...It is not limited to terror and counter-terror in the streets of cities and villages but involves military action on a scale that is seldom accurately reported in the government dispatches...
...but today they are almost meaningless without the acceptance of the principle of independence...
...Several of the leading candidates of the nationalist parties, the Movement du Triumphe du Liberties Democratique (MTLD) and the Union Democratique Manifesto Algerienne (UMDA) were arrested for advocating independence and an elected MTLD representative was arrested upon entering the Assembly...
...However, the Algerians sadly lack the technical and administrative personnel needed in any modern government to staff the lower echelons...
...The support Algerians receive from the Egyptian government is highly exaggerated by the French...
...Men like Ferhat Abbas for a time believed that there could be no future for Algeria as an independent country and that there was no Algerian nation...
...I discovered, to my own personal relief in Algiers, that the terrorists seldom kill people indiscriminately but have a definitely planned strategy...
...When the French forces move on, the countrv reverts to control by the National Liberation Army, which has established extensive administration in several parts of Algeria, along the borders of Tunisia and Morocco...
...A group of young militants, led by Ahmed Ben Bella, a former noncommissioned officer in the French Army, finally formed the Front Liberation Nationale (FLN) in 1954 and launched the National Liberation Army on the conviction that the Algerian cause of independence could only be gained by arms...
...One has only to fly over the extensive coastal plains and view the great expanses of cultivation and irrigation to realize the tremendous French investment in this land...
...Under the Algerian Statute of 1947, all Muslim Algerians were made full French citizens and entitled to vote for representatives to the Algerian Assembly and the French Assembly in Paris without losing their Islamic status...
...As Edward Callendar pointed out recently in the New York Times, the Algerian problem is like "a great cancer" that is spreading through the body of France, destroying her good intentions and corrupting her finest minds...
...These wealthy French land-owners called "Colons" are the objects of the most intense hatred of the Muslim community...
...However, this gentle poetic individual has now-joined the National Liberation Front, which is the political committee directing the Army of Liberation in Algeria...
...The most significant is a proposed change in the numerical representation of the Muslims in the Algerian Assembly...
...They were joined by both major nationalist parties...
...Now all this, too, may be destroyed if a similar settlement cannot be achieved in Algeria because the other North Africans consider the Algerian fight for freedom an extension of their own struggle...
...It is the distribution of these benefits on a discriminatory basis which has aroused the Arab revolt...
...Such a step would give the Muslims a four-to-one majority...
...In the light of the recent conflict in the Middle East, the Algerian War is now seen illuminated in all its awful proportions...
...Most of the leaders came out of the MTLD, which is the oldest and most militant of the nationalist parties...
...French colonialism forced us to choose between servitude and death...
...Under the leadership of the ex-Communist Masali-Hadj, who returned to Islam, nationalism came slowly to the Muslims of Algeria, but when it finally caught hold, it became all-consuming, like a great forest fire, sweeping through the smallest and most remote hamlets...
...On my way to North Africa last summer I talked with officials at the Quai D'Orsay in Paris who made it quite clear then that they must dethrone Nasser if they are to hold on to Algeria...
...Moreover, the elections in 1952 and 1953 were not free...
...The Arabs of Algeria were not a weak and uncivilized people...
...However, the Muslims, who outnumber the French nine to one, were given only the same number of representatives as the French—sixty for each in the Algerian Assembly and fifteen for each in the French Assembly in Paris...
...We have chosen to fight...
...They cannot control the countryside because the opposition always fades away, refusing a major battle, and then reappears to do its deadly work at night...
...It is a French internal affair and it is quite impossible for us to accept a United Nations resolution.'- A year ago, the French walked out of the U.N...
...Within the last two years, the French government in Algiers, under Governor General Robert Lacoste, has introduced a number of reforms...
...Presumably the French could fill this role just as they do in Morocco and Tunisia...
...Rebel supplies come mostly from Tunisia and Morocco...
...when it was decided to take up Algeria...
...but the process of "pacification" took 17 years...
...but the outstanding inequality is that of political rights...
...Part of the reason for the slow start was the earlier acceptance of the French idea of assimilation by a large section of intellectual moderate Muslim opinion...
...This program, too, is moving slowly, although certainly in the right direction...
...Only with the help of the remaining million Europeans and their one-half million troops are they able to cling to their control of the country...
...A land reform program is underway in which 741,000 acres of land will be expropriated from the Colons and public lands and given to Arab farmers...
...Many people wonder why France could not have granted Algeria what she gave Morocco and Tunisia...
...consideration of this issue when he said, "We have a thick file of Egyptian and some Tunisian intervention...
...The FLN has no "grand chef" at present, although many people expect that Ferhat Abbas, because of his moderation and the wide respect he enjoys among Frenchmen, will emerge as the head of any Algerian government that is formed...
...gerian economy is more developed' and integrated with France...
...The merest suggestion that they accept rule by the Muslims creates violent reaction...
...Soon die entire Arab population of Algeria was won over by the revolutionary movement...
...The West itself will ultimately go down to defeat if it cannot adjust itself to the needs of the depressed and exploited races and peoples...
...Yet no reason can condone this type of warfare and nothing is more terrible than the fear and hate that are generated by what a young French soldier described to me as "this dirty war...
...For over a century Algeria has been considered not a colony but a part of France itself...
...she imported a total value of $623 million, 72.8 per cent of which came from France...
...Under the leadership of Mendes-France, she worked out a settlement with the Moroccans and Tunisians on the basis of economic interdependence and political independence...
...Compared to Morocco and Tunisia, there are twice as many Frenchmen living there, and the AlGEORGE W. SHEPHERD, JR., formerly director of the American Committee on Africa, is a member of the editorial board of Africa Today...
...Upon his capture the Emir made a prophetic statement to the French general which every Algerian child knows, "I swear to you in the name of God that you will not hold power and that you will never be at peace in Algeria...
...He is now one of the members of the Revolutionary Council of 17...
...Little accurate information is available on the actual military strength of the rebels...
...They called a widely successful strike of all Algerian Muslims to coincide with U.N...
...In 1954 Algeria exported to the world a total of $400 million in goods, 79 per cent of which went to France...
...The farthest the French government is prepared to go at present is to consider some form of federal autonomy for Algeria in which ultimate sovereignty would still reside in France...
...The French are desperately trying to maintain the present American support for their program of repression of the revolt in Algeria...
...Gandhi's passive resistance was no exception to this rule...
...France, in late 1955, appeared to have rallied to the changing conditions of our world...
...Several of the best -equipped French divisions have been trans ferred from NATO to fight in North Af rica...
...Led by the diminutive military genius, Emir Abd el Kader, often referred to as the "Desert Hawk," the Algerians fought the French until they were finally overpowered by superior French arms...
...Considerable military help has been given the French for the Algerian war through NATO...
...Ferhat Abbas, the founder and head of the UDMA, which was more moderate than the MTLD, described to me recently the change in the thinking of his people that literally "pushed" him "into the arms of the FLN...
...A year ago, the statement of Edmund Stevens in his North African Powder Keg that "if the French in North Africa dig themselves a grave, it may prove wide enough and deep enough for us all," seemed absurd...
...Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, who should be providing strong leadership, has been sitting on the fence, as usual, posing as a friend to everyone while waiting to jump on the side of the winner...
...It appears that there are about 30,000 disciplined and uniformed guerrilla fighters under a single command—supported by several hundred thousand part-time fighters who appear mostly at night...
...The Algerians consider it a great moral victory to have had the subject debated...
...but realizing the seriousness of growing world opinion against them, they stayed at least for the start of the debate this time...
...It seems clear that the French in their attack, with the British, on Egypt were so determined to "get Nasser," who has been regarded by the French press for some time as the evil genius of the Arab revolution against the French Empire in North Africa, that they were willing to gamble with a military adventure that might explode in world war...
...The fact is that these external forces are only peripheral influences in the main stream of nationalism that is flowing so strongly against the French...
...The Western world, as shown by the debate in the General Assembly, has a hopelessly confused idea of what is actually happening in Algeria and an even more confused notion of what ought to be done...
...Upon joining the NLF, he issued this statement: "The myth of superior races must be forever banished...
...They have a hard, unyielding feudal mentality that refuses all concessions, and even French government officials expressed to me great exasperation with the "Colons" who threw rotten eggs at Premier Mollet on his first visit to Algeria after assuming office...
...The French have completely lost the confidence of these nine million Arabs...
...Other administrative and educational reforms are also in process...
...Nations, like men, lose their souls when they cling too desperately to decadent forms...
...When a colonial people has proved itself capable of organizing a force superior to the force the colonizers are able or willing to send into the field against them, they gain dieir independence...
...The leaders of the FLN have stated on several occasions, in pleas to the United Nations, that they have no intention of exchanging French imperialism for a new brand...
...This is an unusually high percentage of trade between a mother country and a colony...
...While the Political Committee has its headquarters in Cairo, the headquarters of the fighting units is in Algeria...
...One thing is clear— they have nearly unanimous support from the Muslim population, and this makes it possible for them to move freely, living off the land and gaining recruits as they travel...
...This is not just a problem for France...
...There were many reasons men like Ferhat Abbas turned against the French policy of "assimilation": the great inequalities of wealth, the differences in educational opportunity between French and Muslim children, and the discrimination in employment practices by both business and government...
...Not even the representatives of the FLN abroad seem to know...
...Ten years earlier, such reforms might have made a difference...
...French propaganda has attempted to trace the source of the Algerian revolt to both the Communists and to Nasser...
...In turn, this group is the heart of the uncompromising French settler opposition to independence...
...When the French Foreign Minister, Christian Pineau, arrived in New-York for the United Nations' debate on Algeria, he gave, without realizing it, the clearest basis for U.N...
...Fighting today in Algeria is ferocious and on the lowest level...
...Nine out of ten people in Algeria are Muslim, and they all support the revolt against France...
...At present, there is no Assembly and the reform is still on paper...
...The French settlers have launched a counter-terrorist organization called the "Red Hand" that assassinates Arabs suspected of nationalist sympathies, and the Arbs in turn shoot down men and women in the streets whom they regard as opponents of independence...
...Both the Tunisian and Moroccan governments are helping the Algerian rebels in every way they can, despite the presence of French troops on their borders...
...discussions...
...This was the same situation the French faced in Indo-China...
...One FLN leader, in discussing the guerrilla warfare with me, said "the mountains are to the guerrilla fighter what the water is to the fish of the sea...
...The city itself is built precariously on the side of a mountain overlooking the bay, which is ringed about with elaborate tiers of colonnaded piers in which ocean-going vessels can dock...
...French officials make a great deal of the fact that all the Muslims in Algeria enjoy French citizenship, but I learned from the Muslims themselves that they regard their status as definitely "second class.'' Because they despair of ever gaining an equal status with French citizens through peaceful means, even the most moderate among the Muslims have now turned to supporting the revolution...
...This is an example of the muddle-headed fence-sitting which has characterized our North African-Middle Eastern policy...
...He is the author of "They Wait in Darkness," a study of current problems in Africa...
...A currency and customs union exists between France and Algeria, and the two economies appear to be complementary in many respects...
...Many stories have been circulated about the conflicts among the various factions within the FLN...
...Contrary to popular belief, French withdrawal from Asia and Africa has not been a rational process based on the preparation of the subject peoples for self-government, but rather has resulted from the defeat of the mother country in a power struggle...
...Once these crutches are withdrawn, the French "grand illusion" of holding onto an Empire in Africa will crash to earth...
...however, they appear to have little effect on the attitude of the Arab population they are calculated to change...
...Foreign Minister Christian Pineau has denied that this was the fundamental aim of French policy in the attack on Egypt, but most of the competent observers with whom I spoke in Paris pointed out that the Algerian question now pervades everything political in France...
...The hope persists among men ol good-will that France will see in time the value of building a flexible French Commonwealth rather than seek to hold onto everything and lose all as she has in Syria and Indo-China...
...As the General Assembly could do no more than pass a resolution, the most important consideration is the attitude of the United States and other powers on whom France depends for support...
...One gets the impression that many of these reforms are aimed at American opinion rather than Algerian...
...The old pirate stronghold of Algiers has today one of the most magnificent harbors in all North Africa...
...As a result, French settler interests are much more powerful and capable of opposing the inevitable for a longer period...
...THE RECENT debate in the United Nations has underscored the harsh fact that the conflict between the French and the North Africans in Algeria is now one of the world's most difficult and danger-laden problems...
...Eighteen years earlier, the actual invasion of Algeria took place...
...However, the settlers are bitterly opposed to this reform, and the Muslims consider it meaningless until they have assurance of ultimate indepen dence...
...They naturally regard themselves as part of the Arab world, but this is no closer bond than the British Commonwealth of Nations...
...They are not prepared to turn over to the Arabs without a fight the farms their grandfathers carved out of the wasteland...
...The fact that the land was owned by various Arab tribal groups did not stop the French government from appropriating it and handing it over to French settlers, and this is recalled today with great bitterness by the Muslims...
...The basic reason is that the French are much more deeply involved in Algeria...
...Various leaders among the Revolutionary Council of 17 who head the FLN have told me that they have shelved their differences for the duration of the struggle against the French...
Vol. 21 • March 1957 • No. 3
