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“The most violent contemporary national repression ever applies to street protests in Western Europe.” British historians Jim House and Neil McMaster describe it like this Massacre of peaceful protesters in Algeria It was in Paris on October 17, 1961, in what is now called the Algerian War.
Protesters-30,000 pro-independence Algerians-are protesting against the curfew imposed on “Algerian Muslim workers”, “French Muslims” and “Algerian French Muslims.” According to the historian Jean-Luc Einaudi, the authorities not only had to stop the demonstrations but also killed the protesters; the police even threw some demonstrators alive into the Seine.
For many years, the official death toll in the 1961 massacre was only three. Today, historians agree that at least 48 people were killed by French police that night, although many believe that the death toll far exceeds 100.
In France, I was born to Algeria’s parents a few decades later. For a long time, the Algerian War was underplayed as “les événements” or “Algerian incidents.” However, this is one of the most important decolonization wars. A complex conflict characterized by guerrilla warfare and the use of torture by the French authorities lasted for nearly eight years and resulted in the deaths of 1 million to 1.5 million people.
My entire family is part of Algeria’s resistance to French colonialism. My grandfather was a political freedom fighter in northern Algeria in the 1930s. My father was nine years old when he was killed, but he never mentioned it before me. I learned of the family trauma from my mother when I was a teenager.
When my father was about 14 years old, his mother sent him to Paris to find a job and possibly a better future. I don’t know much about his early years in Paris. I only know that he was struggling in poverty. After decades, he found a higher-paying job before deciding to have a child.
On November 1, 1954, “Toussaint Rouge” (“Bloody All Saints’ Day”) occurred in Algeria. Algerian fighters of the newly formed National Liberation Front (FLN) launched a series of attacks on European settlers. It marked the tactical transition from fighting for independence to direct action, and symbolized the beginning of the Algerian war.
My father’s brothers and cousins joined the Algerian movement, and my father was 20 years old and sent money and documents from France to help. My grandfather also supported FLN from France, and at the same time worked in a cafe in Paris to support his family.
In response to the National Liberation Front’s attack, the French government did not try to discuss or ease tensions; it sent troops to protect the “indivisible republic”.
Most of modern Algeria belongs not only to the French Empire in Africa, but also to France itself, as an appropriate province or county, with Paris as its capital. French Prime Minister Pierre Mendes completed the liquidation of the French empire in Indochina only a few months ago, but he declared in the National Assembly: “The provinces of Algeria are part of the French Republic. They have been France for a long time. People, and they are irretrievable French. … There can be no division between them and the French mainland.” In 1945, the previous French government had ordered the massacre of Algerian Muslim indigenous Setifs. Protesters, and Mendes’ France is ready to do so again.
For the past eight years, the civil war has been going on, mainly on the land of Algeria. But the Paris massacre of October 1961 highlighted how this battle also took place in France.
Second-class citizens
During the 1961 massacre, the French used the term “Algerians” to refer to French settlers in Algeria. They were also called “pieds noirs” (“black feet”) because they were the only people wearing black leather shoes. In the French colony at the time.
It was a period of high levels of discrimination, in the form of racism against native Algerians, including limited access to political representation and the job market.
In Algiers, there is a place “Assemblée” that stands for “Algerians”/pieds noirs, in which one million French and European colonists account for two-thirds of the seats in the parliament. The other 9 million indigenous people — a mixture of different indigenous Berbers and Arabs who settled in Algeria between the 10th and 12th centuries — voted for the remaining third of the parliament.
Like my father, many Algerian natives have emigrated to France in search of work since the 1940s. In their hometown, industry is underdeveloped, and agriculture and land are mainly controlled by French owners.
Decades later, Algerians living in France-including dual citizenship and second-generation immigrants-feel that we do not exist in this country dominated by right-wing rhetoric and Islamophobia, and that those with multiple heritages must give up their Other cultures. To be considered French.
Just like the old colonial Algerian parliament established before 1962, the Algerians and Muslims of the French mainland are considered second-class citizens.
Impossible reconciliation?
When I was born in 1980 — my first family born in France — racism against North Africans was still widespread. My father avoided talking about Kabyle in public (even at home). My mother told me that when we moved to the outskirts of Paris in 1981, our neighbors tried to discourage the landlord from letting us live in this building. Despite the equality and anti-racism marches-or “marchs” as the French media is familiar, the use of Arabic slang is usually applied to those whose parents or grandparents were born in North Africa-in 1983, the situation never really happened The situation has improved and the French authorities have mostly avoided discussing the Algerian war and its legacy.
When running for office in 2017, French President Emmanuel Macron pledged to improve Algeria’s relations with France. However, in the past 12 months, he has increased the tensions, so much so that on October 2nd, the Algerian authorities recalled their ambassador from Paris.
The quarrel began when Macron accused the Algerian authorities of relying on a “commemorative ransom” cultivated by a “military political system”, which he claimed was using anger against the former colonial country to control its population.
Earlier this month, Macron once again sparked controversy at a public event for the grandchildren of combatants in the war. At the time, he stated that before the French colonization, Algeria was never a country and the Ottoman Empire was also a “colonial”.者”, but not many accusations have been received. France.
On Saturday, the day before the 60th anniversary of the Paris Massacre, he finally Condemning the killing as an “unforgivable” crime But did not apologize for the massacre.
On October 17, 2011, people participated in a rally in Marseille to commemorate the victims of the Paris Massacre, when French police attacked Algerians participating in a peaceful demonstration [Gerard Julien/ AFP]Taking another approach, Anne Hidalgo, the mayor of Paris and the presidential candidate for next year’s election, organized a commemorative event today in the center of the capital, near the Pont Saint-Michel.
I used to live five minutes away from the area and received an invitation to participate in the ceremony. Although I have been Parisian for most of my life, I now live in England, where I can write about post-colonial issues that are still so taboo in France. But if I am in Paris, will I go? I might, because I really want the country where I was born and the country of my parents to reconcile.
But frankly, small ceremonies are not enough.Not at this stage, when the far right is leading the polls, some publications are spreading racist hatred mainly against the Muslim population, and there are an estimated 5 million people in France (despite racial and religious statistics) forbidden, In the name of anti-discrimination).
At this stage, what I want is not a ceremony or even a compensation plan. Persistent discrimination and racism against North Africans, the recent decision to reduce the number of visas for people from the former colonies, cases of police brutality leading to deaths of people of color, and the increasing Islamophobia indicate that what we need is a major event. Anti-fascist movement. There have been voices condemning these developments; they must be amplified, not silenced.
‘Persistent colonization’
This month, French historian and Algerian expert Malika Rahal announced that she had been reviewed by the weekly L’Express after the content of her interview was deemed too controversial. “A few days ago, after asking me to interview Macron about the history of Algeria, L’Express chose not to publish an editorial,” she wrote in a message posted on her Facebook page.
However, she is one of the few women of North African descent to be included in the debate about the enduring legacy of French colonization. Most scholars in the country continue to discuss “Decolonization of France”, but this does not include any French Algerians. For French intellectuals and politicians, there seems to be no post-colonial problem at all.
Lahal recently wrote that it is important to remember: “Algeria is a unique case of the decolonization movement: after such a long period of settlement and colonization, there is no other example of decolonization, and the proportion of European settlers is so high. .”
She added: “Territories that have been colonized for a long time and have a high proportion of European populations, such as Australia, New Zealand or New Caledonia, have not yet experienced independence or decolonization. Therefore, Algeria embodies a long-lasting impact with far-reaching influence. We are able to return from the marginal case of colonization, which is a basic experience for this country and its residents.”
Sixty years after October 17, 1961, the problem was that the French government still refused to promote reconciliation with Algeria on equal terms. As long as the French authorities refuse to recognize the crimes, torture and human rights violations committed in Algeria, reconciliation will remain impossible.
If almost no progress has been made in 60 years, how long will it take for France?
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
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