The Algerian Revolution: Social and Economic Background .

Tue Algerian revolution has entered its fourth and— let us hope—last year. For three bloody years this small. and impoverished nation, whose cultural and ethnic unity has been suppressed for over a century, has resisted the massive superiority of the French army and the squalid reforms of the Lacoste administration.

Despite tremendous losses—more. than. 100,000. killed and a greater number rendered homeless—and despite the terror of the French police and army, the Algerian workers and peasants . have stubbornly refused to yield to the French. _ What are the sources of this remarkable resistance? What sustains it? What are its prospects of success? I shall try to answer the first two questions in: this . article, the third next week.

128 years of oppression Since the conquest of 1830 the French have systematically tried to obliterate every vestige of national identity in Algeria by incorporating the maritime areas (Oran, Constantine and Algiers) as departments of Metropolitan. France.

Unlike Morocco and Tunisia, which were annexed much later and whose social and political order was not greatly changed, the process of. colonization and exploitation i in Algeria went much deeper.

The French took seventeen years to pacify Algeria. In the insurrection of 1871 alone more than 60,000 tribesmen were massacred and another 6,000 hanged.

Not satisfied with killing whole tribes, sacking entire towns. and burning down villages, the French discouraged the use of Arabic and the practice of the Mohammedan faith.

Arabic is considered a foreign language in the French and State secondary schools. As a result the Arabic language has degenerated into a clumsy dialect written in French script.

Incredible as it seems, one of the first things an Algerian Moslem learns in school is that his ahcestors were Gauls and that Algeria is a geographical extension of Metropolitan France! Not so long ago an Algerian teacher was given four years’ imprisonment for teaching, Algerian history.

The result of this ‘educational’ policy is easily guessed. Ninety per cent. of the people are illiterate. In 1948 the number of children attending school represented 0.7 per cent. of the population.

This policy of ‘assimilation’ was designed _ primarily to detach Algeria from the rest of the Arab Maghreb and break up the long-established pattern of Arab unity.

Demecracy a meaningless word Democracy is a meaningless word in Algeria. Until 1947 a Moslem had to reject his faith in order to acquire the franchise. Under the 1947 statute an Algerian Assembly was . Created on a two-college: basis. ~. ‘Fhe French—outnumbered nine to one—had 60 representatives and the Moslems also 60. Even this mockery of democracy has been disbanded: only a few communes, on which sit a few “Beni Oui Ouis’ (yes-men), exist. These, too, are dominated by the SAS—the Special Administrative Service of the French army.

- Representation of Algerians in the French Parliament too “Was. organized -on a two-college basis with each college send« ing 15- representatives. . .

When the nationalists demand a Constituent Assembly the French respond by dangling the bait-of administrative reforms. When the nationalists demand independence the French respond by brandishing the ‘big stick’ of military power.

The attitude of the French is summed up by Marcel-Edmond. Naegelen (French socialist deputy) in Western World:

_ ‘What must be given to Algeria is not independence, but the right to administer its own affairs. What has been sought _.. 2 is a broad form of autonomy, one which will leave the country within the orbit of the Western world and protect the country against the risks of civil war between the Europeans and Moslems loyal to France on the one hand, and those Moslems who have gone over to pan-Arabism or to communism on the other.’ i The economy is distorted Agriculture dominates Algerian economy. And Algerian economy is distorted to serve the interests of French industry and finance. Three-quarters of the population are directly dependent on agriculture.

Minerals—iron ore, phosphate rock, coal and non-ferrous metals—constitute 4 per cent. of the total economic output. . There is little industry and production costs are extremely high because of scarce and expensive fuels. - The importance of the land question is shown in the fact that six-sevenths of Algeria is desert and that only one-sixteenth of the total area of 850,000 square miles is cultivable.

This area, called the ‘tell’, is approximately 16 million acres. One-third of this area belongs to 25,000 French landlords and the rest belongs to 2 million Algerian Moslems.

Needless to say that Algerian Moslems own the worst land, which in most cases cannot be irrigated. More than 70 per cent of the. Moslem holdings cannot be considered normally viable. “Most ‘of-the Moslem farmets“are ‘siibsistence~ farmers: Most~ cash crops are grown on the big French estates, many of them This is the first of two articles by Michael Banda on . the struggle of the Algeriam people for national independence.

owned by firms in France, for instance the Compagnie Algérienne, which owned in 1930 about 174,000 acres. Out of 2,400,000 acres belonging to the French 1,700,000 were obtained by bloody expropriation.

Thus the land question is the fundamental and decisive problem of the Algerian revolution. It is the source of -he terrible poverty, misery and oppression that prevails in this martyred land.

A workable solution of the agrarian problem demands first of all the nationalization of the big landed estates and the banks, arid secondly a programme of intensive industrialization which would absorb the rural unemployed and help. to increase agricultural productivity. -The land problem is aggravated by the colonial nature of Algeria’s economy. The biggest anomaly is the wine industry. Of the total annual production only 6 per cent. is consumed in Algeria. The rest goes to France, where it is distilled into commercial alcohol.

The Sahara’s black gold Yet half a million acres of Algeria’s best land is devoted to wine production! This also: helps to explain the fact why Algeria has to import three-quarters of her food requirements.

The French—after eleven years of prospecting—have discovered a new reason for hanging on to Algeria: the existence of huge resérves of oil in the Sahara desert, which would make France independent of Middle East oil (and, incidentally, of

Nasser’s canal) for at least fifty years.

At Haasi Messaoud and Edjele in the Sahara oil has been struck and pipelines have been laid. The total reserves of this area amount to more than 7,150 million barrels of oil.

Since Algeria is the gateway to the Sahara the question of holding Algeria has become a life or death question for French The creation of the Sahara Territorial Organization and the incorporation of the Sahara territories within the French Union indicate that France is determined to continue her repression for a long time to come.

The French administration boasts about. its enlightened policy of social reform, but reality belies its propaganda. Fifty per cent. of Arab children die before the age of five, thanks _to poverty and malnutrition.

For every 100,000 Arabs there are only six doctors. As for malnutrition, the daily diet of the Arab is 1,500 calories; of the Frenchman, 3,000. _ The major source of profit for the French is the cheap labour of the Algerian labourer. The income per head of the rural worker until quite recently was £20 a year. The town worker received about three times as much. -The fragmentation of Moslem land, the low level of productivity and the absence of big industry have driven thousands of Algerians to seek employment in France.

The figures speak more eloquently that all the thetoric of the French government. They speak for Algerian freedom.

While there was excessive investment in some sectors there