For 130 years of its enforced presence in Algiers, French capitalism has destroyed social, economic, class and cultural structures of the Algerian society. It destroyed the old and created a new feudal class; it both suppressed the influence of religious agents, and subdued or repurposed them (marabouts)
to serve its own interests. It destroyed Algerian bazaars (çarşı), crippling their potential development, i.e., their transformation into the rich class of propertied or bureaucratic/governing bourgeoisie. The French colonial bourgeoisie, capitalist in nature in the metropolitan area and of feudal nature in its Algerian provinces, did not succeed in marginalizing Algerian people. Similarly, the attempt to naturalize, assimilate, and alienate (estrange?) Algerian people from its national being did not succeed. The attempt to integrate Algerians into France failed as the colonialists were unable to transform them into Frenchmen. Political and class forces of colonized Algerians increasingly emerged as leaders/carriers of their own state-making and institutional ideas. These ideas, with their anachronous beliefs and practice, poorly suited French big capital.
During this whole period, under the wing of the occupational colonial power, various national social forms/identities were established. Emerging groups included groups of landless and petty peasants, the working class, as well as intelligentsia. Those groups encompassed social forces which carried out revolutions, nationalist awakenings, and liberations in Europe itself during the XX century. Petty bourgeoisie, such as the village trader, the artisan, the city grocer, the transportation vehicle owner as well as others, were pushed away into Algerian mountains and into Algerian cities themselves, and these groups started to identify with other exploited people, with the working class and with powerless peasantry. Thus, they formed the basis for the emergence of the people’s liberation movement. Those class groups are faced with continuous and ever-present process of increased impoverishment during their encounter with colonialism, with its market economy, with the expropriation of their basic means of production—the land—and with ethnically foreign groups which now dominated the industry, politics, and social superstructure in general.
However, mass participation of the indigenous Algerian population in the World War One, as well as increased immigration to France, contributed to Algerians’ introduction to the French lifestyle, French court system, to its republican institutions, working class and Communist party which, although only temporarily, treated them on an equal footing. It is not by accident that the first nationalist Algerian movement was born in France itself, and that the creation of major political parties occurred after the World War One during which Algerians sacrificed for France just as much as the French did.
Elements which inevitably and specifically contributed to the awakening and rising of the Algerian people’s awareness included the following; changed global relationships after the victory of the October Revolution, the success of Kemal Ataturk’s reforms in Turkey, President Wilson’s Fourteen Points, the creation of Yugoslavia and other Balkan states, Poland, and Czechoslovakia, the beginning of the work of the League of Nations, as well as the victorious actions of Abd el-Krim in Rif.
The modern nationalist movement became reality immediately after World War One in 1921 when Emir Khaled, grandson of Abdel Kader, an ex-captain of the French Army, delivered its demands to the French. These were part of the Program which demanded the following: proportional participation of native Algerians in the Parliament; ending extraordinary laws and measures, courts and administrative penalties; the introduction of the general law (droit commune), same responsibilities and rights concerning military service for French and Algerian indigenous populations; possibilities for meritocratic advancement in both military and civil service based solely on the accomplishments and capabilities of individuals. This program of political and social revandication for the Algerian people after World War One caused general discontent of Europeans in Algiers forcing the Emir to emigration in 1923. [1]
In 1926, Abdel Kader Hadzali founded The All-African Star (ENA; L’Etoile nord-africaine) in Paris. Its members were recruited from Algerian workers in Paris and its surroundings. In addition to social demands, the ENA program included the demand for the independence of Algiers. A year after its founding, Ahmed Ben Messali, later known as Messali Hadj, was elected as the president of this organization. Soon afterwards, the organization played a large mobilizing role in the political struggle of Algerians in France. The Communist International called upon the French communists to seriously/responsibly collaborate with ENA, the traditional organization of Algiers established upon a populist foundation[2].
The North-African Star was developing large anticolonial activity by increasing the number of its cells engaged in direct political work and publication activity. These cells were developed not only among Algerians in France, but also in Algiers where it proved to be much more difficult.[3]
The North-African Star (ENA) was also active on the international level, committed and well-organized. One of the ENA delegations participated at The League against Imperialism congress in Brussels in 1927. In 1930, on the centennial anniversary of Algerian occupation, ENA submitted a memorandum to the League of Nations. When Fascist Italy attacked Ethiopia, ENA was became widely politically active supporting the victim of the aggression—Ethiopia.
Eventually, under the influences of Emir Shakib Arslan’s Pan-Arabism and Pan-Maghrebism, Messali gradually distanced himself from Marxist and communist groups. Having abandoned Marxist worldview, Messali Hadj turned towards mystical nationalism thus alienating himself from basic interests of the Algerian people.
In 1936, during large mass meetings throughout Algiers, conflicts between ENA and other movements erupted. ENA (The North African Star) argued for an independent North Africa, while other movements were more focused on the Algerian national question. Thus, by the end of 1936, the relationship between the Communist Party and this organization was tense, and the ENA activities were viewed very negatively. For that very reason, Amar Ouzegane (the secretary of the Communist Party of Algeria at the time) became the organizer of the Algerian Muslim Congress as well. This Congress was supposed to represent a sort of the Algerian People’s Front, thus distancing itself from the French People’s Front which, according to his words, included Freemasons, Social Democrats, radicals, and other antidemocratic and colonial elements.[4]
This very narrow basis of the French National Front in Algiers necessitated the creation of a genuine Algerian People’s Party. But that Congress was also short-lived.[5] However, when Blum’s government banned The North African Star and its activities, progressive circles of France distanced themselves from the government’s action believing it was disadvantageous for the future political development of Algeria.
While the government of the People’s Front supported the reform movement (which was becoming increasingly popular), it also allowed the leadership of the ex-ENA (L’Etoile nord-africaine; The All-African Star,)to form a new political party in March 1937. The name of the new party was Parti du Peuple Algerien (The Algerian People’s Party; PPA) with the city of Algiers as its base. The PPA continued ENA’s struggle for the liberation of the country and against the colonial system of Algeria whose denationalization reformist movement posed a great threat to The Algerian People’s Party (Parti du Peuple Algerien; PPA). The PPA program demanded self-governance, parliament, and the use of Arabic language as the official language. Its official organ was Ash Shab,a weekly publication in Arabic, which was quickly prevented from continuing its activities by the arrest of the whole editorial board immediately after the publication of the second issue.[6]
At the dawn of Hitler’s conquests,on the very day of the French national holiday, July 14, 1937, The Algerian People’s Party organized large demonstrations in Algeria where the green-white national banners of Algeria were unfurled for the first time after many years. The demonstrations were organized under the slogans “Land to the Peasants,” “We Demand Algerian Parliament,” “Respect Islam,” and “Make Arabic the Official Language.” The French government’s response in Algeria was to arrest the PPA leadership and ban the party on September 29, 1939, immediately after the start of the World War Two.[7] The French military court sentenced some of the PPA’s leaders to imprisonment. The PPA (Parti du Peuple Algerien, Algerian People’s Party) and its publication The Algerian Parliament offered the first valid ideological platform of anticolonial organizing to the Algerian youth, which would then take over the leadership and continue anticolonial struggle.[8] However, Dr. Abdelaziz Khaldi, an ex-member of UDMA (Union Démocratique du Manifeste Algérien; The Democratic Union of the Algerian Manifesto), suggests that a great number of police informers infiltrated the party under the auspices of ultranationalist sloganeering, and that played into the hands of the occupying forces by impeding genuine organized action of the party and the masses. (In the book, this is indicated as footnote 8a: Personal survey, a conversation with dr. Abdelaziz Khaldi in Algiers, August 1964.) However, the PPA reemerged in the masses by organizing a large procession on May 1, 1945 in the city of Algiers. It is believed that its members were also in the procession on May 8, 1945 in Sétif.
Ruthless repression followed the events in Sétif after May 8, 1945 leading to the imprisonment of 4,500 Algerians aligned with the opposition, especially members of the PPA (Parti du Peuple Algerien, The Algerian People’s Party). After about a year, in addition to the existing Ulema, two new opposition parties were formed: MTLD (Le Mouvement por le triomphe des libertés démocratiques; The Movement for the Triumph of Democratic Liberties) and UDMA (The Union Démocratique du Manifeste Algérien; Democratic Union of the Algerian Manifesto). The MTLD party was PPA’s heir. It consisted of the most dedicated nationalists who no longer trusted parliamentary methods. On the other hand, moderate reformist elements were gathered into UDMA, the party of Ferhat Abbas representing interests of middle and petty bourgeoisie.
MTDL (Le Mouvement por le triomphe des libertés démocratiques; The Movement for the Triumph of Democratic Liberties) consisted of petty traders, artisans, students and intellectuals, workers and clerks, peasant representatives, the unemployed, the landless, and others. This large party had a whole set of associated organizations which pursued various legal activities. Police reports indicate that MTLD had its own courts, ministers and professional politicians, who, like any other employees, drew salaries and could be transferred from one part of Algiers to another.[9] Its members submitted themselves to strict discipline; the membership count did not go over 15-20,000, but it had a large number of supporters. The party was in contact with other Arabic countries, with the UN, and they had a school for highly placed cadres in Paris. Besides its legal branch, MTLD also had an illegal section consisting of the ex-PPA sections and Special organizations (OS).[10]
In 1946, the Communist Party of Algiers proposed an initiative for the creation of the National-democratic Front. Following these efforts, in 1951, Front Algérien pour la défense et le respect des libértes (the Algerian Front for the Defense and Respect of Liberties) was formed. The Front attracted the representatives of CPA, UDMA, MTLD, Ulema and some democratically inclined Europeans. They demanded the annulling of the elections of June 17, 1951, respecting electoral freedoms, freedom of the press and freedom of movement, gathering and organizing and the release of imprisoned political leaders.[11] The Algerian colons [op. trans., colons were the settler population, also known aspieds noir], their press, and their “lobby” in Paris responded to all these demands by completely ignoring them. However, KP of Algeria was unable to create a joint program via the Algerian Front, and therefore it folded.[12]
Unlike UDMA (The Union Démocratique du Manifeste Algérien; Democratic Union of the Algerian Manifesto), MTLD (Le Mouvement por le triomphe des libertés démocratiques; The Movement for the Triumph of Democratic Liberties) continuously refused to collaborate on the creation and implementation of the Algerian Constitution. Its platform was based on the following: independence, declaration of the existence of the Algerian nation and the demand for the creation of a republican state with all of its attributes (including constitution-making assembly elected on the basis of general right to vote). At the April 1953 MTLD Congress,[13] some political workers criticized Messali’s verbally abusive manner, his agitation for the sole purpose of agitation (propagandizing for the sake of propagandizing), his sectarianism, adventurousness, in other words, his inability to act efficiently. In September 1953, Messali responded by with accusing his opponents (the centralists) of reformism, denouncing them for their willingness to collaborate with the then current mayor of Algiers, Chevallier who attempted to impose neocolonial measures while governing the city. [14]
Supported by his comrades and friends Mehrban and Mezrene, Messali succeeded in organizing an extraordinary MTLD Congress in Horn (near Brussels). At the Congress, he accused other members of the Central Committee for deviationism.[15] A month later, in August 13-16, 1954, the Central Committee also held an extraordinary Congress in the city of Algiers, where it rejected all those accusations. The Committee demoted Messali and his closest collaborators from all party functions. The Committee also denounced the Horn Congress as “fractional.”[16] The demagoguery of “Messalists” and the reformism of the “centralists” were equally incapable of leading the national movement out of the crisis.[17]
The 1954 uprising and its widespread breadth (over the whole territory of Algeria) surprised the followers of Messali Haj and MTLD as well as other political parties. After the official ban of the party in 1955, Messali’s followers and their MNA (Mouvement national Algérien) attempted first to renounce and then undermine it, in order to grab its commanding military-political positions for themselves. They infiltrated their cadre in some of the rebel regions and commands. Fighting against such treasonous actions, FLN (Front de libération nationale; The National Liberation Front) which organized the rebellion, instigated a sharp political campaign among the people and anti-Messalist activists, denouncing them as saboteurs of the liberation struggle, as spies and collaborators with the French administration. During the entire 1955, FLN led a struggle—not only militarily, but also by liquidating treasonous elements; FLN political activists were also actively reaching out to people explaining the goals of the rebels to them. However, with the help of the French administration, Messalists had a wide range of opportunities to print flyers and publications which opposed FLN actions on the field.[18] They remained ready to serve the interests of the French neocolonialism in Algiers until the end of the war in 1962. FLN (Front de libération nationale; The National Liberation Front) sentenced to death Messali Haj, who managed to save his life only thanks to extraordinary security measures implemented by the French army and gendarmerie in France.
The Association of Algerian Muslim Ulemas
The Ulemas Association’s activities had been noticeable since 1930, while the association itself was formally established a year later. Ulemas were established by clerics and theologians. The program of the Association consisted of two parts: one was the religious reform in Algeria accompanied by the elimination of all elements added by various Quran commentators; and the other part was the introduction of general teaching of Arab language in madrasas which are to be opened in the country. The Ulema was an ideological-political and religious movement which gathered Algerians. It had its roots in teachings of the Arab renaissance which originated in Egypt. The founder of the Association [Sheikh Abdelhamid] Ben Badis, as well as his friends Tebesi [?], [Sheikh Mubarek] El Mili, [Sheikh Tayeb] El Okbi, [?] [Mohamed] Kheirredine, [Sheikh Mohamed] Al-Bashir Al-Ibrahimi [or Bachir Ibrahimi], and Ahmed Tewfik El Madani, were all educated either at the Cairo Islamic University Al- Azhar or at the Tunisian University of Islam Ez-Zitouna. Their approach, based on Islam as a whole, denounced marabouts and other so-called Islamic prophets, and especially the Islamic brotherhood of zaouia [zawiya]. They regarded marabouts and other prophets as obscurantists whose teaching and customs were actually serving the purposes of the occupiers and their interests.
When analyzing the activities of the Ulemas Association, that were particularly significant for aligning together various forces against colonialism, it is necessary to note that the Association succeeded in establishing an alliance of all Algerian political movements, from the reformist nationalists around Ferhat Abbas, to PPA, MTLD and Algerian communists. For the Association, the main goal of all nationalists was the unified struggle against French colonialism. The Ulemas Association gave Algerians self-confidence. They gave them back their dignity, demanding that Algerians refuse to accept French citizenship when offered. They regarded French citizenship of Algerians as incompatible with being a Muslim, because the French required Muslims to denounce their religion in order to become good French citizens. As Sustel points out, supporters of the Ulemas argued “If one is to be a good Muslim, one should not become a Frenchman.”[19] The Ulemas also supported the famous Algerian nationalist slogan, “Islam is my religion, and my language is Arabic. Algeria is my homeland.”[20]
The Association of Ulemas did not establish only religious schools; they also found civil schools which taught basic subjects and Quran. History, literature and philosophy were also taught in large centers. These schools spread to many regions of Algeria, and they played a great role in the awakening of the nationalist consciousness.[21] They also wanted to open their university where Arabic would be taught in the city of Algiers. Such a university, Ez-Zaitouna, already existed in Tunisia, and there were similar ones in Morocco. They all played a large role in the awakening of the national consciousness of the people of North Africa, because many Algerians and Moroccans were educated in these schools.
For Ben Badis, who provided the programmatic understanding of the organization, a nation is represented by its religion, language and the historical past.[22] “As long as the people does not lose these characteristics, that people lives, even if it is enslaved,” Ben Badis used to say. Considering the politics of denationalization of the French colonialists in Algiers, throughout the whole period of their rule—from sending Christian missionaries and transforming mosques into churches, to the seizures of estates and the suppression of Arabic language and enforcing French—it is clear that the demands made by Ben Badis and the Ulemas Association had a significant political character. However, it is obvious that, on their own, these demands were insufficient for the creation of a platform of a more modern political movement. In order to familiarize believers in Islam with new technical advances of Europe, which would make them more equal in status with their opponents, the program included the struggle against various kinds of fallacies and superstitions.
One of the first goals of the Ulemas Association was to fight against religious superstitions and against the worship of certain kind of saints, the so-called marabouts. The leaders of the organization of Ulemas took the position that it was necessary to destroy the marabouts movement which was entirely supported by the French occupying forces and which kept the people steeped in mysticism, dullness and backwardness. Therefore, members of the Ulemas who came from the universities in Cairo and Tunisia persistently worked on raising the cultural level of their own people. Influenced by the general Arab renaissance, they were opening schools, mostly private and of religious nature, where students studied Arabic, the langue to which the French occupiers did not grant the right to exist. The movement’s struggle to restore traditional religious customs powerfully influenced the awakening of the Arabic Algerian consciousness as it decidedly rejected any compromise with assimilation.
Ben Badis, who established this political aspect to the activities of the organization, died in 1940. After his death, the Association narrowed down its platform, focusing more on the religious aspect of the problem. The Ulemas Association existed until the uprising of November 1954, when it joined the FLN. Its most distinguished representative during the rebellion, to whom Ulemas gave their support at the time of the rebellion, as well as later, after Algerian independence, was Tewfik El Madani.
The Manifest, AML, UDMA
Ferhat Abbas first called attention to himself during the period between 1925 to 1930 by publishing a series of articles in the publication L’Entente where he supported the principles which not too threatening or damaging to the goals and interests of French colons in Algeria. In these articles,[23] in the collection titled A Young Algerian, Abbas argued against nationalism. He saw the future of his people’s economic and cultural advancement within the framework of the French state, a joint homeland of the French and Algerian Muslims. In his famous essay France, That is I, Ferhat Abbas identified with France while seeking equality of the Algerians and the French[24]. From the start, his movement attracted liberal Algerian intellectuals who were demanding the rights for their compatriots equal to the ones Europeans had in Algeria.
Distancing himself from Bendjelloul, his political and ideological friend, Ferhat Abbas found L’Union populaire algérienne in 1938. Thus, he began the organized action which lead to mature political conceptions. However, he remained the champion of assimilation all the way up to 1940, and as such he went to World War Two to fight for France. After the French collapse, when faced with the German military might and the establishment of the Vichy regime of Marshal Petain, Ferhat Abbas on April 10, 1940 sent him a message titled “Algeria tomorrow”. In this document he demanded necessary reforms and sharply criticized the period of colonial regime in Algeria.[25] By the end of 1942 there are again movements within the Algerian political life. PPA leaders were released from prison and transferred to house arrest, and the KPA (found in Algeria in 1936) was allowed to resume its activities again. All this was happening after November 8, 1942, when Allied forces invaded North Africa[26], and after the murder of the Admiral Darlan, and the American nomination of General Giraud for the civil and military leader of France. The situation remained as such until June 1, 1943 when General De Gaul arrived in Algeria and when the General Catroux became the governor general of Algeria. In the city of Algeirs, De Gaul established the Provisional Government of the French Republic (Gouvernement provisoire, GPRF) which was developed from the National Resistance Council (Conseil national de la resistance) it met for the first time on May 27, 1942[27] and demanded the establishment of the Temporary Government. (Interestingly, the names of these French Resistance movement’s institutions were later mirrored in the names and foundations of the revolutionary bodies and institutions of the rebel Algeria: GPRA-the Provisional Government of the Republic of Algeria; National Council of the Algerian Revolution-CNRA.).
[1] F. Abbas, op.cit.
[2] At its 6th congress in 1928, The Communist International requested that the French communists fully support ENA (the North-African Star) without turning it into an independent party, but to include it into the group of various other revolutionary organizations. One of the permanent responsibilities of the communists in Algiers ought to be “an increased and close collaboration between the revolutionary elements of the proletariat and indigenous proletariat, especially the youth. The Communist party itself ought to be “a formal and truly independent section of the Communist International.” Kommunisticeskii International, 6th Congress, August 7 – September 1, 2928. Theses: International Situation and Tasks, 835, 841, 865.
[3] At that time, the first Algerian nationalistic publications were also published. After the ban of the Ikdam newspaper, which disseminated the ideas of emir Khaled, the newspapers Attakadoum, Islam, and La Tribune, begun to be published. The ENA organ El Oum (The Nation) was aimed at Algerian workers residing in Paris and its surroundings. It was published as a weekly and did not have significant impact on the wider Algerian population, especially not at the peasantry.
[4] A. Ouzegane, tape recording
[5] According to Aron, The Congress of Algerian Muslims in June 1946 was an important step toward awakening of the nationalist consciousness/awareness of the Algerian people. It represented, for the first time, a manifestation of the Muslim elite, i.e., electorate, against the colonialist attitude of the administration. Furthermore, the organizers of the Congress advocated the unity of all political factions, against France. Its Charter, which featured very modest demands when compared to later programs of various political parties, represented an attempt to achieve: equality of Algerian citizens with the French; merging of European and native schools in Algeria, improvement of education/teaching in Arabic, and a unified electoral body for all the citizens of Algeria. R.
Aron, op. cit.
[6] In April 1939, PPN established the weekly Le Parlement algerien, which was soon banned as well.
[7] FLN points out that SAZ and PPA from the very beginning represented nationalistic liberation movements against the colonial rule and that they did not have a chauvinistic character. This accusation came from certain French circles between the two wars. Evaluating other movements, it was argued that the reforming tendencies could have been identified in the Ulema Association, KPA and The Federation of the Elected (a group of the people’s ministers in a group around Bendjelula [CHECK THE NAME] who were supporting assimilationist policies. Program FLN, Algiers 1964.
[8] When explaining his approach to the Algerian nationalist movement, Ali Mahsas, for example, says that he used to demonstrate with workers from the Algerian tobacco plant, and that he was imprisoned for 25 days when he was 15. This happened in1940-1941, at the height of World War Two. Young people aligned themselves behind the radical PPA in Belkur, Algerian region, being sworn in at the secret meeting that they will dedicate their complete lives to the struggle for national independence. Those were all young men from the peasantry background, or young workers and post-office clerks (mailmen). There was no one from the Algerian bourgeoisie and middle classes. Their ideological and revolutionary boss to whom they trusted immensely was Belouizdad. Tape recording, op. cit.
[9] From 1945 to 1954, Algerian nationalists were also gathered in sports societies, youth organizations, scouts, and thus they formed a cadre and strengthen the need for resistance against the colonizers. At the same time, nationalist opposition, utilizing its legal parties MTLD, UDMA, also formed additional, illegal oppositional groups. Nouschi, op. cit. 154.
[10] R. Aron, op. cit. 311
[11] May 23, 1953, Journée nationale de lute contre la répression et la déportation de Messali Hadj, Algiers, 1952, a brochure.
[12] Egrétaud, op. cit. 211, 212.
[13] Deuxième congrèss national du MTLD, Algiers, 1953. A pamphlet.
[14] Giving assessment of the French neocolonialism in Algeria in 1954, the central organ of the MTLD, La Nation algérienne, emphasizes that it appeared within a political context: “Give in on details in order to preserve the crucial.” For that very reason, following its theoreticians Mendès France and Francois Mitterrand, Jacques Chevalier, as the representative of Algiers, was asked to join the government, thus serving its liberal goals. La Nation algérienne, October 1, 1954.
[15] Messalists had its own publication, L’Algérie libre, a former organ of MTLD, while the centralists founded the paper La Nation algérienne. This fractional fighting grew to such feverish pitch that the newspaper sellers were physically fighting on the streets of Algiers and large French cities where Algerians worked.
[16] On September 3, 1954, MTDL central leadership argued that Messali was trying to establish his own “personal power” and that his goal was to transform the party into his own personal property which he could use as he himself wanted. C. and F. Jeanson, L’Algérie hors la loi, Paris, 1955, p. 145.
[17] La Nouvelle critique, 1957, 56, 169.
[18] Amar Ouamrane, former aide to Krim Belkacem in the 3rd vilayet, later a colonel, published in E.M. of July 1956. a piece in which he criticized treasonous activity of Messali Haj, pointing out that he, just like other patriots who believed Haj, was deceived by “this man who, in his speeches, continuously declared that we will achieve our independence by force.” As the support to that statement, while condemning Messali as a counterrevolutionary and a reformist, namely a collaborator of France, Ouamrane, one of the rebel leaders, emphasized the fact that the French government improved prison conditions of Messali Haj at the very height of the Algerian revolution. As an ALN soldier, Ouamrane asked the following question: “What did Messali do to prepare for the national uprising, and that while he was the president of the revolutionary movement from 1925 onward? Because of his actions, Haj has a lot to answer for to the Algerian people” E. M. July 2, 1956, the article by Amar Ouamrane, chef de zone: Messali est un contre-révolutionnaire et un traître à la patrie.
[19] Soustelle, op. cit. 69-70
[20] The Association of Ulemas had its periodicals: Ech Chibeb and El Bassir, which disseminated the movement’s program.
[21] The organization Jeunesse du Congrès musulman algérien began its activity in 1936. It was officially established in 1937 spreading quickly among the masses. It focused on organizing Arabic and French language courses. Its participants followed strict discipline. This youth organization soon came under the influence of the Ulemas Association.
[22] Responding to Ferhat Abbas’s claim that there is no Algerian nation, Ben Badis, the leader of the Ulemas, wrote: “We searched and found both in history and in present time that the Algerian nation was formed and that it exists, just as other nations in the world were formed. This nation has its language and religion, its culture, tradition and all characteristics, both good and bad, just as is the case with all nations in the world. Finally, we also state that Algerian nation is not the French nation. Muslim people of Algeria are not French and cannot be French, because Algerian people do not want to be French, and even if they wanted, they would not be able to be French because there is a great distance between them and France, in the language, customs, origin and religion. The people does not want assimilation with France. For over 100 years, they have been giving us promises in vain. Instead of asking and pleading, we have to get them by force. We should know how to defend ourselves, how to fight, and, furthermore, we need to be willing to sacrifice our lives in order to defeat the enemy.” El Bassir, November 19, 1937.
[23] Jeune Algerien, Algiers, 1931.
[24] In 1934, Ferhat Abbas published an article where he says:
[25] Ch. A. Julien, L’Afrique, 280.
Zdravko Pečar: Alžir do nezavisnosti 