The FLN’s Liberation Struggle: Righteous Violence and Third World Diplomacy

On November 1, 1954, listeners of Cairo’s Voice of the Arabs radio station were greeted with a rather dubious declaration of war against the French colonial order from Algeria’s Front Libération Nationale (FLN). The grandiose proclamation was met with sheer confusion due to the relative obscurity of the group. A complete unknown at the time to the Algerian public, the FLN was made up of a few prominent political actors as well as a younger, more revolutionary vanguard. Their message boiled down to a plea for loyalty among the Algerian people, without a clear sense of a concrete political vision. What followed was a series of poorly coordinated, targeted attacks all around Algeria that did little to convince people of their organization, let alone their odds against the French. Two years later though, these disparate acts of violence would evolve into a sizable guerilla force of nearly 40,000 fighters who carried out attacks and acts of sabotage all over the country.

The FLN’s declaration of war was indeed a radical departure from Algerian nationalist efforts primarily focused on reformism and even assimilationist efforts within the French state. Contrary to post-independence nationalist narratives, ideas regarding violent resistance and revolutionary struggle were not always on the table for Algerian nationalists. The early twentieth century saw the proliferation of several disparate nationalist initiatives that would eventually be brought into the umbrella of the FLN. Salafi Ulema, French assimilationists, and left-leaning populists mobilized different segments of Algerian society throughout the interwar period, but their competing political visions rarely called for a fully autonomous Algerian state (1). Interwar activism thus catered to a diverse set of concerns, primarily focused on worker’s rights and social justice initiatives. As described by an FLN pamphlet produced early in the war,

“None of the Algerian political parties measured up to their responsibility to give the Algerian people the tools of their liberation. The FLN arose from their rubble, just in time to nip their vague notions of reform in the bud.”(2)

In the eyes of the FLN’s founding members, interwar Algerian nationalism was summed up as cadres of big men attempting to play politics with the French colonial administration. Violence was thus posited as an alternative solution for the Algerian people.

Righteous violence as Algerian liberation’s only path would go on to become the dominant narrative of post-independence Algeria. To the extent this was true was not solely determined by the whims of the French state however, but rather by social dynamics within Algeria. Pied-Noirs routinely obstructed Algerian proposals for legislative reform, and even the most left-leaning of French administrations bent down to their will. Most prominent was the sacking of the Blum-Voilette reform bill of 1936 — a landmark reform that would have granted full French citizenship to twenty-five thousand Algerian Muslims, and was poised to be a major victory for the Algerian assimilationist movement. Despite the existence of many key political moments like this, dominant historiographies on Algerian politics subscribe to what James McDougall dubs ‘the law of violence’ (3). He goes further to describe how violence has been inscribed into popular culture and historiographies as something essential to Algeria. As he says:

“the whole history of colonial Algeria appears to conform exclusively, unremittingly, to the law of violence. A violence to which no alternative was ever possible, against which no possible political victory could be won, but which could only be overcome by a corresponding recourse to violence.” (4)

During the summer of 1955 — nearly a year after the war started, the FLN made a surprise appearance at the Summit of Asian-African Heads of State in Bandung Indonesia, where they were granted observer status. Often referred to as just Bandung, the conference was monumental in ushering in a re-emergence of non-Western diplomatic life and relations. Indeed, Bandung is remembered for various symbolic milestones regarding South-South relations, but for the Algerian delegation, the conference was a major turning point in the liberation struggle (5). It gave much needed legitimacy to the Algerian cause, as well as establishing long-lasting transnational relationships in what would be later dubbed as Third Worldism.

By examining Algerian diplomatic efforts, the piece seeks to problematize the notion that Algerians were relegated to a deterministic fate of violence as the sole means to liberation. Through exploring the FLN’s diplomatic campaigns, the piece asserts that the goal of an independent Algerian state founded through armed struggle was forged through the myriad symbolic and material political/diplomatic victories experienced by Algerians on the international stage. These diplomatic initiatives allowed the FLN to incorporate competing reformist and nationalist constituencies into a broader project of a new Algerian political community united by revolutionary struggle. Furthermore, these same transnational ties, through FLN molding and propaganda within Algeria, formed an imagination that Algerians were engaged in a righteous violent struggle that was being enacted all over the colonized world. Thus, Third World diplomacy enacted by the FLN was the legitimating force of revolutionary violence, rather than something that just ran parallel to it.

Contrary to previous nationalist initiatives, the FLN defined their mission solely by their commitment to praxis rather the ideological bumblings of their predecessors. Before 1954 though, a rather one-sided sort of diplomacy was the modus operandi for leading Algerian activists. For many, an independent Algerian state was almost unfathomable, thus efforts were primarily focused on reform and negotiation with the French colonial administration. These assimilationists hailed from Algeria’s petit bourgeois Muslim population with Phillipeville (now Skikda) pharmacist Ferhat Abbas being a leading figure. While eventually becoming a high ranking member of the FLN, his politics and activism sought to truly integrate Muslims as full fledged French citizens. In 1936, he even wrote an editorial article titled “I am France” where he claimed the idea of a previous, organic Algerian nation never existed (6). This claim would later be challenged by Sheikh Abdel Hamid Ben Badis who publicly asserted that “this Muslim population is not part of France, cannot be part of France, and does not want to be part of France.” (7) A leading figure in Algeria’s salafi movement, Ben Badis — among several reformist Ulema — would be the first to express clear nationalist sentiments in the interwar period.

Ahmed Ben Messali Hadj’s Algerian People’s Party (PPA) was by far the most radical of interwar nationalist factions, with its origins lying with France’s disenfranchised Algerian worker’s population. Originally called the Etoile Nord Africaine (ENA), the group had intimate ties with France’s left-wing mileu, particularly with France’s Communist Party (PCF). In 1927, the group would attend the Anti-Imperialism Congress in Belgium the two would diverge when the PCF pivoted its efforts to support the socialist/marxist government of then French prime minister Léon Blum. Hadj would eventually return to Algeria where he became a champion of the rural peasantry. Donning traditional Algerian garb, Messali toured throughout Algeria’s countryside, rallying Algeria’s rural communities.

Exasperated and horrified at the lack of political progress and the 1945 Sétif Massacre respectively, a new group of young men hailing from Algeria’s rural peasantry decided to shift the narrative of Algerian liberation (8). These men were largely involved with ideologue Messali Hadj’s leftist PPA which found its base among Algeria’s rural peasantry. Frustrated with Hadj’s cult of personality and overall ambivalent political message, members Hocene Aït Ahmed, Ahmed Ben Bella, and Mohammed Khider created the Special Organization (OS), an armed wing of the PPA. Inspired by the anticolonial struggles in Ireland and French Indochina, these men called for reform along revolutionary lines which included the possible use of violence to achieve independence. As Aït Ahmed would go on to describe, “the notion of revolution being simultaneously the goal and the means of struggle, and that the whole nationalist doctrine must refocus on this” (9). The OS was short lived, as the French quickly dismantled the operation, which forced its leading members to flee to Egypt. Thus the FLN as we know it came to be formalized outside of Algeria, signalling a shift from a politics interior to Algeria, to a politics straddling both what FLN leaders described as the ‘interior’ and ‘exterior’ fronts.

The FLN divided their efforts between diplomatic endeavors and guerilla warfare, with the former being novel to Algerian nationalism. Behind this master plan was FLN co-founder Hocene Aït Ahmed. In his extensive studies of other colonial contexts, Aït Ahmed advocated for a resistance not relegated to the borders of colonial Algeria. As he put it:

“The isolation has lasted too long. The party that has the heavy responsibility of liberating Algeria must break this isolation . . . This is an imperative, essential at this decisive stage of preparation, which will make our revolutionary strategy one of expansion and of opening onto the world.(10)

In their November 1st declaration, the FLN called for an “internationalization” of the ‘Algerian Question’. The FLN were well aware that a military victory was all but impossible, so they focused their efforts on a “the total weakening of the French army to make victory by arms impossible.” (11) As the FLN had no recognized claims to territory in Algeria, their actions had to 1) establish the FLN as Algeria’s legitimate government, and 2) adhere to the laws and norms of the international system. In the early days of the war, efforts on the diplomatic front were not that notable. The FLN initially relied on ties with its North African compatriots, but the Egyptian, Tunisian, and Moroccan governments combined did little in terms of material aid aside from some scant amounts of munitions shipments. A month after the initial declaration, an FLN delegation petitioned the meeting of the Colombo group of neutral Asian countries — Burma, Ceylon, India, Indonesia, and Pakistan — to mention an acknowledgement of Algerian sovereignty in their final communique. They eventually refused, calling on Arab states to show solidarity first. Later Saudi Arabia did petition the U.N. Security Council, but most Arab League members were unwilling to challenge French claims to Algeria.

A few months later, Bandung became the catalyst for a renewed wave of vigor in the Algerian resistance. In his closing remarks, Jawaharlal Nehru summed up the spirit of the conference as “Asia wants to help Africa.” (12) Almost immediately there was a sharp increase in the number of FLN incidents in Algeria — from 158 in April to 432 in May. As Philippe Tripier notes

“every important international event affecting the allies or sympathizers of the Algerian uprising would immediately have an effect on Algerian opinion and on the morale of the rebels themselves.” (13)

Conversely, every reported exploit of the rebels within Algeria aided the FLN’s allies and irked France and its allies. Indeed, in September 1958 the French at the UN ordered up a chart showing the relationship between General Assembly debates on Algeria and the incidence of FLN attacks in Kabylia. Thus the relationship between violence and diplomacy was mutually reinforcing, with an aim to internationalize the Algerian question.

As a brief aside, I feel its important to note Israel’s ambivalent position within both the FLN, and broader Global South relations. Events in the Middle East occasionally served as a backdrop for anti-Semitic violence in Algeria, but the Zionist project also served as an inspiration for several key FLN members. As the Egyptian Jewish Writer Jacqueline Kahanoff recounted, future Algerian president Ahmed Ben Bella owned a copy of Menachem Begin’s The Revolt, going as far as describing the book as his ‘bible’. Living on and off at Kahanoff’s parent’s house in Cairo, Ben Bella called the Jewish state a “civilization of the avant-garde”, as well as a model that a new independent Algeria could look to (14).

Aside from these idealist sort of views, FLN members like Ferhat Abbas also took a favorable stance towards Israel for more strategic purposes. Even though Israel was a recipient of French arms and military support, Israeli votes at the UN General Assembly were just another stepping stone towards independence. In a 1957 message to the Jewish Telegraph Agency, Abbas stressed that Jewish Algerians in the independent state would have full rights, as well as the ability to emigrate to Israel. In a rather striking statement, he also added

“There is no paradox between the Franco-Israeli friendship and the eventual support of Israel [for] the Algerian cause. This support is the only way of bridging the gap that separates Israel from the rest of the Afro- Asiatic nations.” (15)

This is all to highlight Israel’s rather complicated relationship with Algerian nationalists and the broader Global South. Zionism as a project and ideology was multifaceted, allowing figures from Marcus Garvey to Ben Bella to find inspiration within it. Obviously the nature of Israel and Algeria’s relationship has changed since independence, but the FLN’s ambivalent stance towards the Zionist state showcases how politics and coalition-building is much more than symbolic, moralistic showings of solidarity. Furthermore, Algeria’s Jewish population became a site of struggle between the French state and Algerian nationalists. As I explain later, the idea of establishing a multicultural social democracy was propagated by the FLN as a means to establish legitimacy on the international stage. The question of Jewish inclusion in the new Algerian state was central to this goal, with the FLN making several attempts to reach out to their Jewish compatriots.

About a year after Bandung, top FLN leaders secretly met in the Soummam Valley where they codified the official strategy and platform of the front. Affirming Aït Ahmed’s initial blueprint, the conference established three guiding principles for the liberation movement: the primacy of the political over the military; the primacy of the interior over the exterior; and the concept of collective leadership at all echelons (16). The Conseil National de la Révolution Algérienne (CNRA) would serve as the provisional governing apparatus, and in the meantime, the FLN engineered strategies of social and economic disruption in the metropole and Algeria as to make it impossible for France to continue the war. Equally important, it would work towards the political isolation of France in both Algeria and the world. Measures to increase support among the Algerian population and to eliminate opposing groups were adopted, and terms were laid down for any future peace negotiations with the French, including the provision that there should be no cease-fire before the French recognized Algerian independence (17). The negotiating points adopted at Soummam were subsequently adhered to without modification until independence was achieved in 1962.

Finally, the platform called for a publicity campaign within the country and abroad. It included films and photos, along with press offices that would assure their dissemination. The FLN were especially concerned with countering French propaganda “describing the Algerian resistance movement as a fanatical religious movement at the service of Pan-Islamism.” (18) The platform stressed the national and political nature of the revolution, highlighting the liberation struggle as part of the normal course of human progress. Moreover, the platform decided to highlight a Western-oriented moderate nationalism. Most interestingly, it carefully expressed that the settlers did not constitute a uniformly racist bloc and guaranteed that Algerian citizenship would be open to all. Thus as Matthew Connelly describes,

“if the struggle in North Africa was between Middle Eastern Islamic fanaticism and Western-oriented moderate nationalism, the FLN had decisively opted for the latter while at the same time adopting a more intransigent position toward France.” (19)

While the French developed a robust propaganda machine as an attempt to control the narrative of the war, the FLN’s efforts were just as sophisticated. Even though the French banned and seized the majority of leftist and foreign newspapers/publications, Algerians managed to stay in tune with the revolution by way of radio. As one Armée Libération Nationale (ALN) member recounted the Skikda massacre — the platoon excitedly listened to Cairo’s broadcast, detailing their exploits shortly after they embarked on their surprise attack on the city’s civilian pied-noir population (20). As Martinican Psychiatrist, and FLN ideologue Frantz Fanon stressed the importance of radio and mass violence to the success of anti-colonial struggle, arguing that they allowed the colonial subject to overcome a state of internalized subservience (21). The Voice of the Arabs routinely broadcasted assurances of Arab solidarity — with some of their Algerian audience even speaking of a 70,000 man Egyptian army descending on Algeria. In response, FLN leaders tried to discourage fighters placing hope in an international intervention. This interplay showcases how Algerian Muslims were not mere receptors of the propaganda but rather active participants in a process that re-imagined Algeria and its people as a concern of the wider world. In this way, radio and hearsay together formed a network that connected colonized peoples and encouraged a radical consciousness of their common condition.

This process however, oscillated in its utility to the aims of the FLN’s international delegation. Even if the FLN’s official international platform was that of a moderate, secular nationalism, that did not always translate to the motivations of Algerians fighting on the ground. Whether it was a more politically minded defense of Islam, or a generalized theory of armed struggle, these positions were not useful and quite possibly harmful to the FLN’s efforts on the international stage. In their eyes, Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth described decolonization as a winner-takes-all race war. While this vision would go to capture the imagination of some European intellectuals and subsequent post-colonial theory, his FLN colleagues considered it a losing strategy in a world still dominated by white powers (22). Indeed, even the editor of their official newspaper, El Moudjahid, once had to stop the presses to prevent publication of one of his more inflammatory pieces. The idea of propagating a race war was an even more dreadful prospect for a party already combating French narratives of Islamic fundamentalism. As one El Moudjahid article put it,

“Ours is an organized revolution — it is not an anarchic revolt. Ours is a national struggle to destroy an anarchic colonial regime — it is NOT a religious war. It represents a march forward in the historical path of human progress.” (23)

By the end of the war, the FLN managed to do what looked to be impossible: lead a national liberation movement without formally liberating any of the national territory. It was the culmination of the strategy Aït Ahmed had first articulated more than a decade before, a strategy that established a mutually reinforcing relationship between the Algerians’ diplomatic efforts in the Third World and manifestations of popular support within the country. In this light, the Algerian liberation struggle was not merely organized violent resistance. The revolution was a calculated diplomatic effort that solidified the idea of an independent Algerian state. The proliferation of trans-national ties throughout the Third World crafted senses of global community which served to isolate France while incorporating Algerians into a new, imagined political order. This relationship consequently transformed the Algerian political landscape where freedom fighters now felt closer to those within the broader Third World movement, rather than their own Jewish compatriots and the European population. Thus, trans-national networks of mass media and communication incorporated Algeria into the Third World anti-colonial struggle as well as fracturing Algerian society in an effort to forge a new political community.

Bibliography

(1) Mahfoud Bennoune, The Making of Contemporary Algeria, 1830–1987: Colonial Upheavals and Post-independence Development (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 60–82.

(2) Byrne, Jeffrey James. Mecca of Revolution: Algeria, Decolonization, and the Third World Order. New York, NY, United Stats of America: Oxford University Press, 2019.

(3) McDougall, James. “Savage Wars? Codes of Violence in Algeria, 1830s-1990s.” Third World Quarterly 26, no. 1 (2005): 117–31.

(4) Ibid. Pg.124

(5) Christelow, Allen, Algerians without Borders: The Making of a Global Frontier Society, Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2012. 3–4.

(6) Tucker, Spencer C. “Ferhat Abbas and the Algerian Manifesto of 1943.” Proceedings of the Meeting of the French Colonial Historical Society 4 (1979): 221–32.

(7) Charles-Robert Ageron, Modern Algeria: a History from 1830 to the Present (London: Hurst & Company, 1991): 135

(8) Byrne, Jeffrey James. Mecca of Revolution: Algeria, Decolonization, and the Third World Order. 31

(9) Ahmed, Hocene, Memoires d’un combatant, 93–94.

(10) Rapport d’Ait Ahmed, membre du Bureau Politique du PPA, au Comite Centrale largi,” December 1948, in Harbi, Les Archives, 41.

(11) Matthew Connelly, A Diplomatic Revolution: Algeria’s Fight for Independence and the Origins of the Post-Cold War Era (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2003). 110

(12) Robert Malley, The Call from Algeria: Third Worldism, Revolution, and the Turn to Islam (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1996). 124

(13) Tripier, Philippe. Autopsie de la guerre d’Algérie. Paris: France-Empire, 1972. Vaısse, Maurice. “Aux origines du mémorandum de septembre 1958.” Relations Internationales 58.2 (Summer 1989): 253–268.

(14) Jacqueline Shohet Kahanoff, “Rebel, My Brother,” in Kahanoff, Mon-grels or Marvels: The Levantine Writings of Jacqueline Shohet Kahanoff, eds. Deborah Starr and Sasson Somekh (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 177–92

(15) Katz, Ethan B. “Expanding The Republic or Ending The Empire?” In The Burdens of Brotherhood: Jews and Muslims from North Africa to France, 155–200. Cambridge, Massachusetts; London, England: Harvard University Press, 2015.

(16) Charles R. Shrader, The First Helicopter War: Logistics and Mobility in Algeria, 1954–1962 (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1999).

(17) Katz, Ethan B. The Burdens of Brotherhood: Jews and Muslims from North Africa to France.

(18) Connelly, Matthew, A Diplomatic Revolution. 138

(19) Ibid., 111

(20) Algeria: Unspoken Stories, directed by. Jean-Pierre Lledo (2007).

(21) Frantz Fanon et al., The Wretched of the Earth (Cape Town: Kwela Books, 2017).

(22) Connelly, Matthew, A Diplomatic Revolution. 36

(23) “Une revolution democratique,” El Moudjahid, November 15, 1957.