The seventieth anniversary of the outbreak of the armed insurrection
against French colonialism in Algeria was celebrated on November 1st.While the event gave rise to an imposing military parade in the streets
of Algiers and the release of several prisoners of conscience (including
the journalist Ihsane El Kadi and the "hirak poet" Mohamed Tadjadit), it
did not, however, provoke much reaction in France from activists who
declare or wish, not without some illusions, to follow in the footsteps
of those who, over the last century, courageously took part in the fight
against this criminal, unjust and racist system. How can we understand
this state of affairs?
Until relatively recently, it was not uncommon to read contributions in
the libertarian or Marxist press, sometimes giving in to the register of
commemoration, but emphasizing, in the same movement, the legitimacy of
the struggle of the oppressed masses in the colonies - supported by a
handful of revolutionaries in the metropolis -, as well as the need to
support autonomous struggles in societies freed from foreign tutelage.
Indeed, if independence meant the end of a system of subjugation,
national liberation was not accompanied by the abolition of exploitation
and other forms of oppression, despite the hopes - or illusions - of
sincere anti-colonialists.
The situation undoubtedly explains this relative silence. Indeed,
Algeria and France have been experiencing a new diplomatic crisis since
Emmanuel Macron recognized Moroccan sovereignty over the disputed
territories of Western Sahara. But it is appropriate to look for other
elements of explanation, without claiming to be exhaustive. In fact, the
war waged by the Israeli army against Palestinian civilians, as well as
its multiple repercussions in the Middle East but also elsewhere in the
world, capture the attention - rightly - of our contemporaries horrified
by the destruction and dehumanization of a people who aspire, like so
many others, to freedom and equality.
In addition, the activists for Algerian independence, like their allies
in France, are, by force of circumstances, few in number and very old.
Many have left us, thus depriving the rising generations of an
experience and a lucidity that are sorely lacking in these times. This
is not the case of Mohammed Harbi who is still with us - fortunately -,
even if he has just announced, from the height of his 91 years, that he
is taking his "political retirement". Nevertheless, this very
understandable decision is accompanied by editorial news since his
classic work, Le FLN, mirage et réalité (Jeune Afrique, 1980) was
republished by Syllepse, while the first volume of his memoirs, Une vie
debout (La Découverte, 2001), was translated into Tamazight by Koukou -
a publishing house, founded by Arezki Aït Larbi, banned from
participating in the Algiers International Book Fair this year.
Our era is therefore one in which the words of those involved in the
fight against French colonialism in Algeria are irresistibly giving way
to those of the heirs, thereby allowing misunderstandings or
manipulations of all kinds - which already existed, of course, but with
the possibility of being confronted with a living testimony, regardless
of its credibility, not to mention the expertise of researchers whose
voice carries little weight and whose reliability sometimes remains
questionable. Nevertheless, it is worth emphasizing the appetite of the
new generations for this issue, the specter of which haunts the
intellectual and political elites of both countries. Except that this
social demand - oh so legitimate - is far from being satisfied by the
revolutionaries, thus giving way to identity or memorial entrepreneurs,
more or less linked to the state apparatus, and rarely bearers of
emancipatory perspectives.
This distance is undeniably explained by the decline, in recent years,
of libertarian or Marxist organizations in France, just as the collapse,
at the same time, of the groups of the Algerian left - certainly, most
often influenced by Leninism or nationalism -, under the blows of
repression or because of the changes in society, strongly restricting
the probabilities of fruitful interactions in an internationalist
perspective. In this regard, the popular movement (hirak) of 2019 was a
serious test but, alas, a failed one. However, the future belongs
neither to the capitulators nor to the defeatists. And nothing tells us
that what was not possible in the past will not be possible in the
future, in more favorable circumstances, on the condition, however, that
certain pitfalls are avoided. This is something that only experience
will be able to demonstrate.
For good and bad reasons, the Algerian experience has often served as a
political compass for revolutionaries in France to think about
situations deemed analogous, such as the Palestinian question. This is
for example the case of the libertarian communist Roland Breton
(1931-2016) who, under the pseudonym of J. Presly, signed the article
"French Algerians = Israel" in the Noir & Rouge bulletin (summer 1956)
which concludes as follows:
"Today we understand that the only colonizations that have succeeded in
the last century and a half are those that have previously physically
destroyed the natives.
Purchase by the American state of Indian scalps.
Systematic manhunts in Tasmania.
Indian reserves in the United States.
Already the Bantu reserves in South Africa, foreshadow the inevitable
failure of "Apartheid".
No more than the Anglo-Boers, the French of the Maghreb or the Jews of
Israel will be able to swallow a continent.
The days are numbered for these annexes of European civilization that
can only assert themselves by the negation of other social and national
forms.
We are not going to regret their ephemeral reign."
This correlation "Algerian settlers-Israel", considered "stupid" by the
anti-colonialist writer Jean Duvignaud (1921-2007) in the journal
Arguments (April-May 1957), ended up imposing itself on the left of
social democracy, like the journalist and activist of the New Left
Gilles Martinet (L'Arche, February 1957). Indeed, in contrast to the
sacred union that prevailed during the creation of the State of Israel
in 1948, the analysis of the situation evolved in a direction
unfavorable to the Zionist project due to the combination of several
factors: the fierce war waged against the uprising of the Algerian
people since November 1, 1954; the intervention of the Israeli army,
alongside France and Great Britain, during the Suez Canal crisis in the
fall of 1956; the fate of Palestinian refugees and the discrimination
endured by Arabs who remained in Israel - publicized by Jewish activists
who broke with the status quo, such as those of the "Third Force" (see
La Révolution prolétarienne, February 1957).
A decade later, in June 1967, in response to the Six-Day War and the
surge of anti-Arab racism in France, Maurice Laisant (1909-1991),
co-founder of the Anarchist Federation, published in Le Monde libertaire
(September-October 1967) an article entitled "The Palestinian problem"
in which we can read the following passage:
"If, as anarchists, we claim the right to life of the Israeli people, it
is not to deny it to another people. If we have deplored the
Israeli-Arab conflict, it is not to applaud the escalation in the Far East.
It is the association of all peoples (that of the Jews is part of it),
which will put an end to the gang of all rulers, of which that of Israel
is not excluded. (...)
Let the Israelis consider those who applauded their victory: let them
think that for them the triumph of Israel was above all the massacre of
Arabs and revenge for the fascists of French Algeria disappointed at no
longer being able to make the burnous sweat the "bicots", let them think
that those who acclaim them are racists whose anti-Semitism has only
changed sides."
Whatever one may think of the relevance of certain formulations, it
remains no less true that French passions regarding the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which are based, in large part, on the
painful memory of the persecution and deportation of Jews during the
Second World War, can also be explained by the repercussions of Algerian
independence on society as a whole. This was still fully understood and
made explicit in the following years, even if it gave rise to divergent
orientations within the extra-parliamentary left.
Indeed, the third-world journal Partisans published two significant
contributions in this regard in an issue dated March-April 1970. The
first, signed by the Belgian Trotskyist Guy Desolre (1939-2016) and
entitled "Notes on the Algerian Revolution and the Palestinian
Revolution" is resolutely in line with the paradigm of the "Arab
revolution" defended at the time by the Unified Secretariat of the
Fourth International, which has since reversed the unconditional support
given to the National Liberation Front (FLN), as evidenced by this
extract which addresses more specifically the question of armed struggle:
"The Algerian experience also indicates that in conditions where the
combatants are necessarily isolated from the bulk of the population by
military borders, extreme attention must be paid to the danger of
creating a "border army", professionalized and solidly armed but
separated from the people. This danger can only be combated by
preventing the combatants from being privileged over the masses, by
eliminating as much as possible the distinctions between the combatants
and the armed masses themselves and by making a particular effort of
politicization both among the combatants and among the masses themselves."
In this same issue, but on a different register, the anti-colonialist
historian Pierre Vidal-Naquet (1930-2006) published his luminous
"Reflections on the Margins of a Tragedy" which tempered the enthusiasm
of the article cited above by refuting the validity of the comparison
between the military capabilities of the Algerian insurgents and those,
much weaker, of the Palestinian groups - which does not prevent him from
pointing out the risk of seeing Zionism "caught tomorrow in an Algerian
or South African type of logic".
During the following decade, the Algerian experience was called upon in
the wake of the assassination of the Kanak independence activists Éloi
Machoro and Marcel Nonnaro. The libertarian monthly Lutter! (February
1985) published a declaration which, while recalling the
anti-colonialist commitment of the Libertarian Communist Federation,
stipulated in particular:
"In the past, Interior Minister François Mitterrand believed he could
put an end to the Algerian revolt through repression. He had set the
Algerian war alight. Does the President of the Republic François
Mitterrand imagine in 1985 that he could stop the Kanak revolt by
executing leaders esteemed by an entire people? There is even worse.
Thousands of soldiers, paratroopers, CRS, gendarmes, are crisscrossing
New Caledonia. Every day hundreds of new men come to reinforce the
system. The leading bodies of the Socialist Party are cynically
assessing the risks and advantages of a military crushing of the
separatists."
This parallel is again established in the monthly published by the
Libertarian Communist Organization, Courant Alternatif (April 1985),
which questions the existence of an "Algerian War" in Kanaky. The
comparison is justified by the links of solidarity between a "Caledonian
extreme right" and former supporters of French Algeria. However, a major
difference between the two situations is immediately stated: it is the
demographic weight of the indigenous and European populations, not to
mention the over-armament of the Caldoches.
However, the bloody repression of the October 1988 uprising by the
forces of law and order in Algeria leads to further tarnishing the aura
of the anti-colonial revolution judged in terms of its authoritarian
outcome, while fueling, here again, contrasting reflections. Thus, the
tract "The Battle of Algiers" (Paris, October 10, 1988) signed "Des
canailles" addresses its fraternal greetings to the insurgents,
comparing them to emblematic riots of the period:
"Our young brothers, in that they directly attack the STATE and the
COMMODITY in a way that is not without recalling that of the joyous
rioters of LIVERPOOL, BRIXTON, MANCHESTER and further on those of WATTS
in their criticism of everything that exists, have received the fiery
testimony of the sympathy of a whole section of the KANAK youth who, a
few nights ago, spread to NOUMEA, looting supermarkets, destroying goods
like their ALGERIAN Brothers."
However, the following month, Le Monde libertaire (November 3, 1988)
published an article with the eloquent title: "So that Noumea is not
Algiers". In doing so, the Algerian experience becomes a counter-example
at a time of the crisis of Third Worldism. However, far from denying the
legitimacy of the anti-colonial struggle, the anarchist activist warns
against the absence of a positive project and draws attention to the
forms taken by this fight:
"Fighting against colonialism is necessary, but on condition that the
form of the struggle and the objective of the struggle guarantee the
building of a society that respects human rights and political and trade
union pluralism. The rest leads to the mass graves of Cambodia or the
bursts of machine guns of Bab-el-Oued. We refuse to get on those trains."
Without a doubt, this warning remains valid in the current context.
Instructed by the lessons of the past, those who support - rightly - the
centers of resistance to colonial oppression in an authentically
emancipatory perspective, must be able to distinguish the shadows and
the lights of the Algerian revolution, as well as the relevance of the
analogies raised by this rich experience. And this, contrary to
attitudes motivated by unconditional support for authoritarian
organizations or by indifference, tinged with racism - it must be noted
-, as to the fate of the populations abandoned by the bourgeoisies of
the "North" as well as the "South". The criticism of the biases -
theoretical or practical - engendered by the fight against colonialism
cannot be formulated to the detriment of the affirmation of humanist and
universal principles. This is rather what we should start with.
Nedjib SIDI MOUSSA
http://oclibertaire.lautre.net/spip.php?article4317
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