Content deleted Content added
Citation bot (talk | contribs) Alter: url. URLs might have been anonymized. Add: authors 1-1. Removed parameters. Some additions/deletions were parameter name changes. | Use this bot. Report bugs. | Suggested by AManWithNoPlan | #UCB_CommandLine Tag: Reverted |
Undid revision 1231341566 by 93.131.198.234 (talk): please see WP:PBUH |
||
(22 intermediate revisions by 16 users not shown) | |||
Line 4:
{{History of Algeria}}
'''Algerian nationalism''' is pride in the Algerian identity and culture. It has been historically
== Early manifestations ==
=== Formation of the Algerian identity ===
It is hard to designate when Algerian identity formed. Medieval
* ''Maghreb al-Aqsa'' (Western Maghreb, approximately modern Morocco)
Line 17:
The exact borders of these regions were flexible and were not fixed at that time.<ref name=":0" /> After the collapse of the [[Almohad Caliphate]] the empire was divided by 3 dynasties: The Merinids in al-Aqsa (Morocco, with the exception of the Moulouya region), the Zayyanids in al-Awsat (between the [[Moulouya River]] and western [[Kabylia]]), and finally the Hafsids in [[Ifriqiya]] (from [[Béjaïa]] to [[Tripoli, Libya|Tripoli]]),<ref name=":0" /><ref>{{Cite book |last1=ʻAẓmah |first1=ʻAzīz |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=a9a09frOD3wC&dq=Zayyanids+central+maghreb&pg=PA3 |title=Ibn Khaldūn, an Essay in Reinterpretation |last2=ʿAẓma |first2=ʿAzīz |last3=Al-Azmeh |first3=Professor Aziz |date=1982 |publisher=Psychology Press |isbn=978-0-7146-3130-1 |language=en}}</ref> but there existed dynasties controlling these regions previously, and the borders were constantly changing between these 3 rival dynasties.
The area of the Central Maghreb (Maghreb al-Awsat) or what could be seen as the predecessor of Algeria were defined as being between the [[Moulouya River]] in the west, and [[Annaba]] in the east by most medieval chroniclers such as [[Ibn Khaldun]],<ref>{{Cite book |last=Merouche |first=Lemnouar |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=w-NPDwAAQBAJ |title=Recherches sur l'Algérie à l'époque ottomane I.: Monnaies, prix et revenus, 1520-1830 |date=2002-09-15 |publisher=Editions Bouchène |isbn=978-2-35676-054-8 |language=fr}}</ref> although this
{{Quote|text=O people of Tlemcen, do you not know that this land [Maghreb al-Awsat] is the country of our fathers and our ancestors, which we have inherited from generation to generation from the time of Yaghmurāsan ibn Zayān until today? Khayr al-Dīn will not stop until he sends envoys to threaten us and seize our property every year. Was it not true that the province of Algiers was in our possession and that our sovereignty extended to M'sila, as was mentioned for our ancestors among the kings?
Line 26:
* Moors (ساراكينوس, or "Sarākīnūs"). Referring to the urban population often descended or mixed with [[Moors|Moorish]] refugees from [[Al-Andalus]].
* Bedouins (بدوي, or "Badawī"). Referring to the various Arab or [[Arabized Berber]] nomadic tribes of Algeria.
* Kabyles (القبايل, or "al-Qabāyel"). Referring to all [[Berber People|Berber peoples]] of the region meaning "the tribes".
* Turks (الأتراك, or "Al-Atrāk"). A general classification from all people from the Ottoman Empire, including [[Turkish people|Turkish]], [[Albanians|Albanian]], [[Greeks|Greek]] people.
Line 41:
== Early 1900s ==
{{Main|1920 Algerian Political Rights Petition}}
<ref name="web.archive.org">Original text from: Library of Congress, 1994.
===Political movements===
Line 88:
===The manifesto of the Algerian People===
In March 1943, Abbas, who had abandoned assimilation as a viable alternative to [[self-determination]], presented the French administration with the Manifesto of the Algerian People, signed by fifty-six Algerian nationalist and international leaders. Outlining the perceived past and present problems of colonial rule, the manifesto demanded specifically an Algerian constitution that would guarantee immediate and effective political participation and legal equality for Muslims. It called for agrarian reform, recognition of [[Arabic language|Arabic]] as an official language on equal terms with [[French language|French]], recognition of a full range of civil liberties, and the freeing of political prisoners of all parties.<ref name="web.archive.org"/>▼
▲In March 1943, Abbas, who had abandoned assimilation as a viable alternative to self-determination, presented the French administration with the Manifesto of the Algerian People, signed by fifty-six Algerian nationalist and international leaders. Outlining the perceived past and present problems of colonial rule, the manifesto demanded specifically an Algerian constitution that would guarantee immediate and effective political participation and legal equality for Muslims. It called for agrarian reform, recognition of [[Arabic language|Arabic]] as an official language on equal terms with [[French language|French]], recognition of a full range of civil liberties, and the freeing of political prisoners of all parties.
The French governor general created a commission composed of prominent Muslims and Europeans to study the manifesto. This commission produced a supplementary reform program, which was forwarded to General [[Charles de Gaulle]], leader of the Free French movement. De Gaulle and his newly appointed governor general in Algeria, General [[Georges Catroux]], a recognized liberal, viewed the manifesto as evidence of a need to develop a mutually advantageous relationship between the European and Muslim communities. Catroux was reportedly shocked by the "blinded spirit of social conservatism" of the colons, but he did not regard the manifesto as a satisfactory basis for cooperation because he felt it would submerge the European minority in a Muslim state. Instead, the French administration in 1944 instituted a reform package, based on the 1936 Viollette Plan, that granted full French citizenship to certain categories of "meritorious" Algerian Muslims—military officers and decorated veterans, university graduates, government officials, and members of the [[Legion of Honor]]—who numbered about 60,000.
===Demanding autonomy from France===
A new factor influencing Muslim reaction to the reintroduction of the Viollette Plan — which by that date even many moderates had rejected as inadequate — was the shift in Abbas's position from support for integration to the demand for an autonomous state federated with France. Abbas gained the support of the AUMA and formed [[Friends of the Manifesto and Liberty]] (''Amis du Manifeste et de la Liberté'', AML) to work for Algerian autonomie with equal rights for both Europeans and Muslims. Within a short time, the AML's newspaper, ''Égalité'', claimed 500,000 subscribers, indicating unprecedented interest in independence. By this time, over 350,000 Algerian Muslims (out of a total Algerian Muslim population of nine million) were working in France to support their relatives in Algeria, and many thousands more worked in towns. Messali and his PPA still rejected anything short of independence.<ref name="web.archive.org"/>▼
▲A new factor influencing Muslim reaction to the reintroduction of the Viollette Plan — which by that date even many moderates had rejected as inadequate — was the shift in Abbas's position from support for integration to the demand for an autonomous state federated with France. Abbas gained the support of the AUMA and formed [[Friends of the Manifesto and Liberty]] (''Amis du Manifeste et de la Liberté'', AML) to work for Algerian autonomie with equal rights for both Europeans and Muslims. Within a short time, the AML's newspaper, ''Égalité'', claimed 500,000 subscribers, indicating unprecedented interest in independence. By this time, over 350,000 Algerian Muslims (out of a total Algerian Muslim population of nine million) were working in France to support their relatives in Algeria, and many thousands more worked in towns. Messali and his PPA still rejected anything short of independence.
Social unrest grew in the winter of 1944–45, fueled in part by a poor wheat harvest, shortages of manufactured goods, and severe unemployment. On [[May Day]], the clandestine PPA organized demonstrations in twenty-one towns across the country, with marchers demanding freedom for Messali Hadj and independence for Algeria. Violence erupted in some locations, including Algiers and Oran, leaving many wounded and three dead.
Line 118 ⟶ 114:
== Algerian nationalism and the war of independence ==
===Political mobilisation===
Between March and October 1954, the CRUA organised a military network in Algeria comprising six military regions (referred to at the time as ''[[wilayat]]''; singular: ''wilaya''). The leaders of these regions and their followers became known as the "internals". [[Ben Bella]], [[Mohammed Khider]], and [[Hocine Aït Ahmed]] formed the [[External Delegation in Cairo]].<ref>Library of Congress, 1994.
===Defining the nation===
Line 126 ⟶ 123:
The many and versatile events of the war of liberation in Algeria (see [[Algerian war]]) between 1954 - 1962, one of the longest and bloodiest decolonisation struggles, have in different ways shaped past and present ideas about the Algerian nation.<ref name="Phillips, John 2007. p.58">Phillips, John, and Martin Evans. Algeria: Anger of the Dispossessed. Yale University Press, 2007. p.58</ref> Both warring parties resorted extensively to violence, and the collective memory of torture during the Algerian war of Independence still lingers heavily on the national identity of Algeria.
The FLN was after some time more or less the predominant organisation in the national struggle against France, however support of the national liberation rested partly on a cornerstone of intimidation, aimed at promoting compliance from the native population. To be seen as a pro-French Muslim - a
=== The dissonant role of the Woman in Algerian nationalism===
Women played a major yet diverse role in the war of independence in Algeria (see [[Women in the Algerian War]]), as physical participants but also as symbolic contestation. The war could in one way be seen as a battle to win hearts and minds of the people, and the body and idea of the Muslim woman was an arena of major confrontation between the French and the FLN. On the one hand, French rule was justified (as in many other conflicts and contexts) by pointing to the Islamic family regulations as problematic and backwards and something that needed to be corrected and governed, an issue that only the
However, the FLN's nationalistic discourse on women was constructed in a similar fashion to the French one, and was to some extent maybe directed to an international audience rather than the (rural) females who were subjects of the propaganda.<ref name="Vince, Natalya p.73">Vince, Natalya. Our Fighting Sisters: Nation, Memory and Gender in Algeria, 1954-2012. Manchester University Press, 2015. p.73</ref> They made sure to diffuse images of women who were bearing weapons and who were participating in the war, and argued that only emancipation from colonial rule would lead to this absolute liberation of women. Abbas once said, inspired by the works of Fanon, that
On 30 September 1956, three female FLN members, [[Zora Drif]], [[Djamila Bouhired]] and [[Samia Lakhdari]] placed bombs in two cafés in the French settler neighbourhoods as a response to an earlier bomb placed by units of the French police in a Muslim quarter.<ref name="Phillips, John 2007. p.58"/> They had managed to trespass the French checkpoint by simulating
The treatment and torture of these women and other prisoners taken during the battle of Algiers also played great role in damaging French legitimacy as a moral authority. Simultaneously, the (partly self-chosen) de-politisation of their own actions contributed to a scattered gender order.<ref name="Vince, Natalya 2012. p.66">Vince, Natalya. Our Fighting Sisters: Nation, Memory and Gender in Algeria, 1954-2012. Manchester University Press, 2015. p.66</ref>
Line 140 ⟶ 137:
=== FLN as the symbol of national liberation===
{{Main|Declaration of 1 November 1954}}
The [[Battle of Algiers (1956-57)]] was a phase of the war that could be described as militarily won by the French but politically won by FLN.<ref name="Phillips, John 2007. p.58"/> The French strategy, led by [[Charles de Gaulle]] and General [[Maurice Challe]], alienated the population and resulted in international condemnation of the brutality of the French method. The first time
==Evolution of Algerian nationalism after independence==
Line 151 ⟶ 143:
===Algeria – Mecca of the revolutionaries===
In 1962, [[Ben Bella]] was after a turbulent couple of months named president of the independent Algeria, and drawing upon a largely mythical and invented past tried to ambitiously govern the post-colonial reality.<ref name="Phillips, John 2007. p. 74">Phillips, John, and Martin Evans. ''Algeria: Anger of the Dispossessed''. Yale University Press, 2007. p. 74</ref> The relationship between leaders and ordinary people was under the first years of independence a seemingly egalitarian one, building upon the social levelling present in Algerian nationalism even since [[Messali Hadj]].<ref name="Phillips, John 2007. p. 74"/> [[Ben Bella]] contributed to the mapping of Algeria as a model country in the fight against colonial and imperial rule, and the portrayal of Algeria as a new form of socialist society. Shortly after independence, Algeria's borders were opened up to
The epitome of the socialist and revolutionary Algerian nation-building project was the PANAF ([[Festival panafricain d'Alger]]), the first pan-African cultural festival of enormous size, that took place in 1969.{{Opinion|date=April 2019}} Under the leadership of Boumediene, the city continued to play its role of a capital of liberation movements, although denunciation of the anti-Islamic
===Diverse 1970s and 80s===
During the 1970s and 80s, much happened in the Algerian society. Early on, Boumedienne made efforts to strengthen the national image, independence from the outside world was emphasised and oil and gas was nationalised. Even though the idea of a collective independence remained present, multiple identities increasingly competed to patent what it was to be Algerian. The cultural battle between French, Berber and Arabic boomed - and the political elite favoured [[Arabisation]] on the expense of for example Berber culture and what could be deemed as western.<ref>Hafid, Gafaiti. Language and de/reconstruction of National Identity in Postcolonial Algeria (in ed. Berger. Algeria - in others' language.</ref> One of the consequences of arabisation was the introduction of the [[Algerian Family Code]], a law informed by a reading of Islamic law which highly compromised the rights of women. The
==="Black
In the shift from 1980 to 1990 the political culture in Algeria was steaming. Internationally, the communist eastern bloc had just fallen and Islamism was on the rise. Meanwhile, the country was ongoing democratisation and was planning its first multi party election, which the FIS ([[Islamic Salvation Front]]) seemed to win.<ref>Malika Rahal. Multipartism, Islamism and the descent into civil war, in Algeria: Nation, Culture and Transnationalism, 1988-2015, edited by Patrick Crowley, Liverpool University Press, 2017.</ref> In this context, polarisation bloomed, the political climate toughened and materialised in violence and it got increasingly hard to debate differences verbally. The situation culminated in the [[Algerian civil war]] between multiple Islamist groups and the military, who had taken control over the government when the FLN seemed to face defeat. Once again the Algerian society experienced extensive and ruthless violence, which culminated in the late 1990s.<ref>[https://ucdp.uu.se/#country/615 UCDP (Uppsala Conflict Data Program). Algeria. 2019.]</ref> In essence, the Algerian entre-soi was torn apart.<ref>Malika Rahal. ''Multipartism, Islamism and the descent into civil war, in Algeria: Nation, Culture and Transnationalism, 1988-2015'', edited by Patrick Crowley, Liverpool University Press, 2017.</ref> In 1999 [[Abdelaziz Bouteflika]], a member of the FLN, was elected president and a number of amnesty laws allowed many former Islamists to lay down arms, simultaneously launching extensive counter-terrorist attacks which forced a large number of insurgents out of the country.<ref>William Thornberry and Jaclyn Levy, 2011, Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, Homeland Security & Counterterrorism Program Transnational Threats Project, Case Study Number 4</ref> The violence continued but slowly changed form, and by 2006 the only Islamist splinter group that was still in place, GSPC, joined Al-Qaeda and internationalised their goal. Having before stated that they wanted to "build an Islamic state with sharia law in Algeria", they later proclaimed that they had moved ideologically towards Al-Qaeda's global jihad and aspired to establish an Islamic state in the entire Maghreb.<ref>[http://www.ag.gov.au/agd/WWW/nationalsecurity.nsf/Page/What_Governments_are_doing_Listing_of_ Terrorism_Organisations_Al-Qaida_in_the_Lands_of_the_Is- lamic_Maghreb_-_AQIM. Australian National Security.
===Young generation and the fall of Bouteflika===
The current anti-Bouteflika demonstrations in Algeria ([[Manifestations de 2019 en Algérie]] or [[2019 Algerian protests]]) were, especially in the beginning, extremely careful not to be identified with the Islamist civil war of the 1990s or with the Arab spring of early 2010. The protests have been enormous and reoccurred every Friday – but remained peaceful for a long time. Later protests have seen increased presence of the military, which has a long history of intervening in Algerian politics.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20190426122906/https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/africa/10th-week-of-algeria-protests-aim-for-ex-presidents-brother/2019/04/26/53117e2c-680c-11e9-a698-2a8f808c9cfb_story.html Aomar Ouali,
Some important symbols stemming from earlier times of Algerian history have however appeared later in the movement. For example, the slogan
==Algerianism==
{{See also|Algérianité}}
The term ''Algerianism'' has had two meanings in history, one during the French colonial era, and another one after the independence of [[Algeria]].
During the French era, ''algérianisme'' was a literary genre with political overtones, born among French Algerian writers (see ''[[Algerian literature]]'') who hoped for a common Algerian future culture, uniting French settlers and native Algerians. The term ''algérianiste'' was used for the first time in a 1911 novel by Robert Randau, "Les Algérianistes".<ref>reedited by Tchou éditeur, coll. «
In Algerian contemporary politics, ''algerianist'' is a political label given to Algerian nationalists whose policies focus more on the unity of Algeria's [[nation-state]] beyond regional idiosyncrasies.
The modern [[Arabic language]] has two distinct words which can be translated into English as "[[nationalism]]": ''qawmiyya'' قومية, derived from the word ''qawm'' (meaning "tribe, ethnic nationality"), and ''wataniyya'' وطنية, derived from the word ''watan'' (meaning "homeland, native country"). The word ''qawmiyya'' has been used to refer to pan-Arab nationalism, while ''wataniyya'' has been used to refer to patriotism at a more local level (sometimes disparaged as "regionalism" by those who consider [[pan-Arabism]] the only true form of [[Arab nationalism]]).<ref>[[Avraham Sela|Sela, Avraham]]. "Arab Nationalism". ''The Continuum Political Encyclopedia of the Middle East''. Ed. Sela. New York: Continuum, 2002. pp. 151–155</ref> '''Algerianism''' is the Algerian patriotism, against pan-Arabist nationalism and different forms of regionalisms.
==References==
Line 179 ⟶ 172:
*Original text: ''[https://web.archive.org/web/20130115052428/http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/dztoc.html Library of Congress Country Study of Algeria]''
*''[[Encyclopædia Britannica]]''
==Further reading==
* Horne, Alistair. (1977). ''[[A Savage War of Peace: Algeria, 1954-1962]]''. Viking Press.
* McDougall, James. (2017). ''[[A History of Algeria]]''. Cambridge University Press.
* McDougall, James. (2006). ''[[History and the culture of nationalism in Algeria]]''. Cambridge University Press.
==External links==
Line 184 ⟶ 182:
{{Ethnic nationalism}}
{{Arab nationalism}}
{{Authority control}}
[[Category:Algerian nationalism| ]]
[[Category:Background and causes of the Algerian War]]
[[Category:National liberation movements]]
[[Category:Resistance movements]]
|