The Development of the Algerian Independence Movement

Pan-Islamism he defines as "a fundamentalist reassertion of the governmental unity of all Moslems irrespective of nationality, and of the applicability of Islamic doctrine to all human personal matters" (317)

Because of its tortured history, nationalism, often in an extreme form, has characterized Algerian political life. In 1990, the universe of discourse of Algeria was roughly 80 percent Arab and 20 percent Berber and about 117,000 foreigners (Algeria 55). Almost all the European, primarily French, settlers (pieds-noirs), who had cut to Algeria aft(prenominal) it was conquered by the French in the 1830s, left Algeria after 1962 together with almost the Jews and some pro-French Muslims. More than a gazillion people, almost four percent of the total population f conduct abroad (Metz 55).

The Berbers have a long history of bitter resistance to foreign figure by Phoenicians, Romans, Arabs, Turks and French. The firstly national hero, the Numidian king Jugartha, was tortured to death by the Romans. The Arab conquest arrived in the mid-7th century. It took the Arabs more than 50 years to conquer the Berbers. According to Entelis, "Arab rule was dictatorial, with the conquerors setting themselves apart as an urban clique that refused to bind the newly converted to the equality granted by Islam" (13). down the stairs the Turks, nests of pirates who marauded Western shipping operated from Algerian coasts. Behr says that outsid

Nickerson, Joan S. A Short History of North Africa. New York: Devin-Adair, 1961.

Algerian nationalism began to find expression in the early 1900s. political consciousness was raised by the experiences of the large numbers of Algerians send to the front during World War I and the growing population of Algerian residents in France during the 20th century. The first nationalist movements were led by members of a privileged French-educated Arab elite, the evolues, who petitioned the French government without succeeder for equal rights, but favored assimilation with France. They were heavily influenced by Western concepts of political democracy along French lines. The first nationalist party, the Federation of Elected Muslims in Algeria. Its first leader, the guide Ferhat Abbas, who in 1958 became the figurehead President of the FLN's Provisional Government, said in the 1940s "I would not die for an Algerian fatherland because such a fatherland does not exist" (Behr 48).

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