Andrew Hussey believes that the only way to make sense of the problems faced by Algeria today is to return to its colonial history. Take a trip through the 21st century - a dark past Algiers
In recent weeks, the terrible violence in Mali and Algeria shocked the world. Events have reminded us of how much remains Francophone Africa and the depth of the French influence is still running in these territories. More than that, the conflicts have reminded everyone that the French still consider this part of their world as your backyard
The French longstanding involvement in African affairs, from Rwanda to North Africa, was also marked by bloody massacres and torture. This is especially true in Algeria, the largest country in Africa, first conquered by the French for almost 200 years. Independence of Algeria in 1962 after a bitter war against France, noted for the use of terrorist tactics and torture on both sides. Poverty and terrorism are increasingly present in the life of Algeria. At the same time, since the object changes the Arab Spring in North Africa is changing close to France, which has the largest Muslim population in Europe.
No wonder, then, that the French are more sensitive to changes of mood in the Muslim world and especially Algeria. In fact, this is not the first time that the events in North Africa have threatened to spread to France. In the 90s, when Algeria became a slaughterhouse and tens of thousands were killed in the dirty war between the government and Islamist insurgents, Paris was the main target of Algerian extremists. In 1995, Abdelbaki Sahraoui, moderate imam, was shot in the north of Paris by the Armed Islamic terrorist group (GIA). His death was followed by a rapid succession of attacks against civilian targets in Paris, which killed eight people and wounded more than 100.
More recently, France was rocked by a series of murders for nine days in March, three North African French soldiers killed in two separate shootings, and a rabbi, and her two young son a third child in an attack against a Jewish school in Toulouse. Anger only intensified when it emerged that the murderer was Merah Mohamed, a young French of Algerian origin. Before Merah was shot dead by armed police headquarters building where he lived, said he wanted to "put France to its knees."
Many Algerians wanted to spend the ordinary case was a French affair, and would not be contaminated by association. There was a lot of anger aloud in the Algerian press on how the murders were linked to Algeria Merah origins: it is pure racism for many. But none of this stops Merah become a hero, hailed as "lion" in the radical mosques of Algiers. Fifty years after his last real war, it seems that France and Algeria are still able to rip the throat out.
first saw for myself the harshness of these emotions when I went to study in France in 1982. I ended up living in the suburbs of Lyon, where the first known urban riots started - the precursors of the riots of the 2000s. Throughout the summer - "hot summer" - cars were torched by regular immigrant youth who have asked what kind of entertainment "rodeos" and declared war on the police. The center of the violence was
city (urbanization) in V?nissieux called Minguettes.
At that time I knew very little about French colonial history and assumed that it was racial agitation is not unlike those he had known in the United Kingdom in 1981. But I realized that most children who fought the police were of Algerian origin and must have a meaning.
Thirty years later, the company unresolved between France and Algeria has become increasingly complex. That is why last year launched a center for the study of France and North Africa (CSFNA) of the University of London Institute in Paris (ULIP) where I am Dean. The overall goal of the Center is to serve as a research center, bringing together not only academics but also to all who have an interest in understanding the complexities of French history, Algerian. It comes from journalists and government lawyers and historians
At the same time, I wrote a book called The French intifada
attempt is parallel to the direction of French colonial history North America Africa. This book is a journey through some of the most important fronts and dangerous than many historians now call World War IV. This war is not a conflict between Islam and the West or the rich North and the South, but a conflict between two very different experiences of the world - the colonizers and the colonized
The French invaded Algeria in 1830. It was the first colonization of an Arab country since the time of the Crusades and it was a big surprise for the Arab nation. This first battle of Algiers was a matter of staging. Pleasure boats from Marseille to see the bombing and landing on the beach. Arab corpses lying in the streets and along the coast viewers were only colored accessories Parisian massacre watch through binoculars from the deck of your cruise ship.
The profound trauma in a few decades, Algeria did not have the status of a colony, but annexed to France. This meant that the country had no right to be an independent identity, but it was so subservient to the government in Paris as Burgundy or Alsace-Lorraine. This had a very negative effect on the psyche of Algeria. The settlers who came to work in Algeria since the European continent is known as
Blackfoot
- Blackfoot - because, unlike the Muslim population, who wore shoes . The Blackfoot cultivated its own identity in the French metropolis.
Meanwhile, the Muslim villages were destroyed and entire populations forced to move to accommodate European farms and industry. In Blackfoot have increased in number and status, native Algerians, who had no nationality in French law does not officially exist. Albert Camus identity captures very well in his great novel
L'EtrangerThe Outsider ) when Meursault shoots Arab anonymous hero died on a beach in Algiers, we are only concerned with the fate of Meursault. Arabic is literally dead outside history.
Like most Europeans or Americans of my generation, who came first through Algeria in Algiers and in the writings of Camus, not only in
The Foreign
but his memoirs and essays. And as most readers who come to Algeria through the prism of Camus, I was baffled by this place, which, as he described it, was so French that could be in France, but it was so strange and out of range. Part of this difficulty stems from the fact that Algeria Camus describes is only part of a Muslim country. Instead, Camus sees Algeria as a perfect pan-Mediterranean civilization. In his autobiographical writings in Algiers and the Roman ruins of Tipasa, describes a place where traditional values ??pagans were alive and visible in the harsh but beautiful, sunny landscape. It is, in fact, is the key to the philosophy of Camus absurd. In Algeria, if God does not exist, life is an endless series of moral choices that must be solved by individuals alone, without any metaphysical comfort or counsel, and with little or no chance of that ever took decision absolutely right.
is easy to see here how the philosophy of Camus called the generation of French left-wing intellectuals who fought in World War II, a period when occupied France was involved in moral ambiguity and military control of the Germans. Was less effective, however, in the post-war Algerian nationalism began to assert itself against France, modeling itself on the values ??of the French Resistance.
Camus sympathized with the cause of the rights of Muslims. However, like most European Algerians
When he finally arrived in Algiers for the first time in 2009, I found the city was not. The ceasefire and amnesty had been in place for several years, but only in 2007 that there had been a wave of bombings and assassinations. However, while not having to hide their European status, the city remained tense. On the way to the airport, I went through no less than six police checkpoints and military, all managed by heavily armed men. It was getting dark and Algiers has been emptied during the night. During the long nightmare of the 1990s, nobody had dared to be outside at night and kept the habit.
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