Upload
theodora-short
View
34
Download
0
Tags:
Embed Size (px)
Citation preview
“Ce n’était pas une guerre, c’était une folie.”
French veteran from the Algerian War of Independence 1954 - 1962
“It was not a war, it was madness.”
“It is as if two insane people, crazed with wrath, had decided to turn into a fatal embrace the forced marriage from which they cannot free themselves. Forced to live together and incapable of uniting,
they decide at least to die together.”
Albert Camus
Letter to an Algerian Militant (1958)
Algérie: La Déchirure
Algeriain a Mediterranean context
Ottoman Caliphate and Empire“A Mediterranean pearl”
Charles X - 1830
France arriving in Algeria 1830-1856
Myths of Liberation
Abd-El-Kader,leader of theresistance againstthe French1832-1857
Three administrative regions: Algiers (Alger), Oran and Constantine
Berbers
Kabyles
AlgeriaEthnic structure.
Ahmed Ben Bella, Kabyle,Future President of Algeria
Arabs
Europeans
AlgeriaEthnic structure. Metaphors and insults
beures
figuiers
Pieds-noirs
ratonnade
Sephardic Jews
Decrees from Crémieux (1870) - automatic French citizenship
The Great Synagogue,Oran 1956
Algeria: Status of a country, No status for a nation
Algeria: Part of France. Not a colony
Algerians: complicated status
All Jews in Algeria are French citizens
All Algerians are French subjects who can/may
become French citizens if they give up their
status
Rules of power : Le Code Indigénat 1887-1947:
Inferior status for the natives of French colonies
All French in Algeria are French citizens and nationals
- Status and statehood- Oppression
- French education and revolutions- War veteran treatment (1914-18);
(1940-45)- Torture
- Economy (Farming; Oil)
War in Algeria 1954 – 1962
Issues
“In this admirable country in which spring without equal covers it with flowers and unique light, men are suffering hunger and demanding justice”
Albert Camus, 1958
Oppression
French presenceIn Algeria – photo from1870
“At their best, the French schools in Algeria provided admirable breeding ground for revolutionary minds”.
A Savage War of Peace: Algeria 1954-62
Alistair Horne
“It’s not with you , but against you that we are learning your language.”
young Muslim évolué
French education in the colonies:blessing or curse?
Humiliated war heroesLost in translation….
FLN (National Liberation Front)
againstFrench Army
Now a popular board game (2009)
8 May 1945 – The Massacre of Sétif: the first spark
La Toussaint Rouge (The Red All Saints Day)
1st of November 1954, Algiers
20 August 1955 - The Philippeville Massacre
The Battle of Algiers – La Bataille d’Alger: September 1956 – October 1957
1958 – Return of General de Gaulle
1958 – Fall of the IV Republic
1961 – Referendums for Independence
17 October 1961 – The Paris Massacre
7 March – 18 April 1962 – The Evian Treaties
5 July 1962 – Algerian Independence Day
War in Algeria 1954-1962
Events
Algerians against EuropeansEuropeans against AlgeriansAlgerians against AlgeriansEuropeans against Europeans
In AlgeriaIn mainland France
The Massacre
Education
Medical help
Patrols for “self-defence” Harkis
Protection or concentration camps?
Project abandoned after Philippeville ( August 1955)
Efforts to “win the hearts and minds of the natives” – Jacques Soustelle; les SAS
Le toubib1957
2 million Algerians encamped for “protection” – 1955-1959
Torture
How institutionalised was it?
“Une Sale Guerre” – A Dirty Waratrocities from both sides
Peace in AlgeriaJanuary – July 1962
Exodus and more massacre • Flight of the pieds noirs - 1959-1962• Massacre of pieds noirs and harkis (April-July 1962)
17 October1995RERSt MichelParis
MNL – Messali Hadj FLN – The 6
War in Algeria1954-1962
Protagonists
Contrairement à ce qui s’est passé en Tunisie et au Maroc, la bourgeoisie française nous a privés de notre personnalité et de notre âme et ainsi nous neutralisa .
Contrary to what happened in Tunisia and in Morocco, the French bourgeoisie deprived us of our character and of our soul and thus neutralised us.
Ferhad Abbasor the man who won the Algerian soul back
Tomorrow The Day Will Dawn 1985
Ahmed Ben Bella – the first president of Independent Algeria
+ Algerians in France
17 October 1957 – Nobel Prize for Literature l’Etranger (The Outsider); La Peste (The Plague), Analytical Essays (The Myth of Sisyphus)
Jean-Paul Sartre urges him to refuse the prize
Excerpt from Camus’ acceptance speech in Stockholm:
“But the silence of an unknown prisoner, abandoned to humiliations at the other end of the world, is enough to draw the writer out of his exile, at least whenever, in the midst of the privileges of freedom, he manages… to transmit it (freedom)… by means of his art.”
L’écrivain engagé
The end of a” beautiful friendship” with Sartre
Albert Camus1913, Oran – 1960, near Paris
General Charles de Gaulle – L’Eternel Sauveur
Oversees the death of the IVth French Republic
(1958) as Interior Minister
Author of• Vth Republic • 3 referenda on Algeria,• Evian agreements • Independent Algeria
1958 - 1962
“Pourquoi voulez-vous qu'à 67 ans, je commence une carrière de dictateur ?”
Re-elected President 1966
Forced to leave office 1969
Chief Superintendant of Paris Police in 1961; former Nazi official in Vichy
Two GovernorsJacques Soustelle
Maurice Papon
A
The Paris Massacre 17 October 1961
A peaceful demonstration of Algerians brutally crushed by the police (CRS)
“Here we drown Algerians”
A massacre: more that 200 deadThe police uses violence against a peaceful de
monstration in silence of Algerian Muslims protesting against the curfew imposed 10 days earlier by the Police Chief Superintendant Maurice Papon
http://www.ina.fr/video/CAB91053423/17-octobre-1961-video.html
What happened on 17 October 1961?
18 October 1961 – à la une“Violent demonstrationsof Algerian Muslimslast night in Paris”
2 dead, 44 injured seriously
François Mitterrand, French President 1981-1997(Interior Minister during the Battle of Algiers)
Meeting the Algerian PresidentLiamine Zeroual, 1995
OAS – Organisation de l’Armée SecrèteGeneral Salan General Massu
Against the pacifist position of de GaulleAttempt at de Gaulle’s lifeRacist and illegal
French against the French
Jean-Paul SartreDemo against the bombings of OAS
October 1961
Philosophy and politics – two minds, two attitudes towards being engaged
First nationalist and racist activities in 1950-1960
Spent time in prison in 1960 for violent attacks on “Maghrebins”
Jean-Marie Le Pen and AlgeriaFN
Algeria in French politics todayHow far can (family) heritage go?
Marine Le Pen
The power of modern (albeit illiterate) media…
Facebook circular
Unveiling the truth about the war in Algeria
“La misère serait moins pénible au soleil”