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French Education in Revolutionary North Africa

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2009

Alf Andrew Heggoy  and
Paul J. Zingg
Alf Andrew Heggoy
Affiliation:
University of Georfia, Athens, Georgia
Paul J. Zingg
Affiliation:
University of Georfia, Athens, Georgia
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Extract

The very nature of colonialism—the extension of authority by one nation over another people—precludes any valid consideration of the system within a mere examination of its political and economic exploitative elements. The primary of these motives, however, has often overshadowed other traditional emphases of the colonizer himself in seeking advancement of his corrosive system. Reference to the mission civilisatrice, the cultural and moral mission of the colonizer, preoccupied and prejudiced continued justification for the colonial institution. Yet, the fallacy of the major objectives of the system revealed the untenable character of its moral, humanitarian, and cultural aspects.

Type
Articles
Information
International Journal of Middle East Studies , Volume 7 , Issue 4 , October 1976 , pp. 571 - 578
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1976

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References

1 See, for example, Memmi, Albert, The Colonizer and the Colonized, trans. Greenfeld, Howard (Boston: Beacon Press, 1969), p. 3, and passim.Google Scholar Also informative are Fanon, Frantz, A Dying Colonialism, trans. Chevalier, Haakon (New York: Grove Press, 1967),Google Scholar and Betts, Raymond F., Assimilation and Association in French Colonial Theory: 1890–1914 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1961).Google Scholar

2 The best study on this topic is Turin, Yvonne, Affrontements culturels dans l'Algérie coloniale: Écoles, médecines, religions, 1830–1880 (Paris: Maspero, 1971).Google Scholar

3 Sequestration procedures are clearly explained in Ruedy, John, Land Policy in Colonial Algeria: The Origins of the Rural Public Domaine (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1967).Google Scholar It is also essential to go back to Julien, Charles-André, Historire de l'Algéric contemporaine: La conquête et les débuts de Ia colonisation, 1827–1871 (Paris: Presse Universitaire de France, 1964).Google Scholar

4 Mirante, Jean, La France et les oeuvres indigénes en Algérie (Orléans: Imprimerie A. Pigelet for the Comité National Métropolitain du Centenaire de l'Algérie, 1930), p. 79;Google ScholarJanier, Emile, “Les Médersas Algérienne,” unpublished memoir, Centre de Hautes Etudes Administratives sur L'Afrique et L'Asie Moderne (henceforth cited as CHEAM) 1361 (Paris, 1948).Google Scholar

5 The attitude is clearly expressed in studies written by such officials as in Mirante, La France et les oeuvres indigénes en Algérie, and, more recently, in such notes as J. Richarte, “Ruraux Musulmans d'Algérie à l'école française,” unpublished memoir, CHEAM 2124 bis (Paris, 1951).Google Scholar On Maghrebi attitudes see Halstead, John P., Rebirth of a Nation: The Origins and Rise of Moroccan Nationalism, 1912–1944 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1967), p. 100. Halstead's example is Morocco rather than Algeria.Google Scholar

6 See, for example, Confer, Vincent, France and Algeria: The Problem of Civil and Political Reform, 1870–1920 (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1966),Google Scholar and Nouschi, André in Lacoste, Y., Nouschi, A. and Prenant, A., L'Algérie: Passé et présent (Paris: Editions Sociale, 1960), pp. 442–443.Google Scholar

7 Ibid.

8 Damis, John James, “The Free-School Movement in Morocco: 1919–1970,” Ph.D. dissertation, Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, 1970, pp. 30–33,Google Scholar and Halstead, Rebirth of a Nation, pp. 100–109.Google Scholar

9 Carret, Jacques, “L'Enseignement de Ia langue arabe en Algérie,” unpublished memoir, CHEAM 3414 (Paris, 1960), pp. 4, 10, 11.Google ScholarBennamoun, A., “L'Enseignement de l'arabe en Algérie,” unpublished memoir, CHEAM 2569 (Paris, 1956), pp. 11, 14.Google Scholar Problems of identity may be easily studied in Algerian novels written in French. See, for example, Yetiv, Isaac, Le Thème de l'aliénation dans le roman maghrébin d'expression française: 1952–1956 (Sherbrooke, Canada: CELEF, 1972).Google Scholar

10 This idea died hard. See, for example, what some Special Administrative Sections officers had to say about this subject: Alquier, Jean Yves, Nous avons pacifié Tazalt: Journal de Marche d'un officier parachutiste (Paris: Laffont, 1957).Google Scholar On the other side of the issue see Feraoun, Mouloud, Journal: 1955–1962 (Paris: Seuil, 1962), pp. 193–198.Google Scholar

11 Bennamoun, CHEAM 2569, pp. 11 and 14.Google Scholar

12 Richarte, CHEAM 2124-bis, and Carret, CHEAM 3414.Google Scholar

13 Charnay, Jean Paul, La Vie Musulmane en Algérie d'après la jurisprudence de la prelmère moitie du XXe siecle (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1965), pp. 20, 62;Google Scholar and Berque, Jacques, French North Africa: The Maghrib between Two World Wars, trans. Stewart, Jean (New York: Praeger, 1967), pp. 303–307.Google Scholar

14 Damis, The Free-School Movement, p. 324.Google Scholar

15 Merad, Ali, Le Réformisme musulman en Aigérie de 1925 à 1940 (Paris and the Hague: Mouton, 1967);Google ScholarHeggoy, Alf Andrew, Insurgency and Counterinsurgency in Algeria (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1972), chapters 1 and 2.Google Scholar

16 Damis, The Free-School Movement, pp. 6–7.Google Scholar

17 Ibid., pp. 30–37, 271.

18 Carret, CHEAM 3414, p. 12.Google Scholar

19 Ibid., p. 13.

20 Even then they would reach only about two-thirds of the school age population. See Gallagher, Charles F., “New Economic Plan for Algeria,” American Universities Field Staff Reports, North African Series (AUFS), IV, 8 (Algeria) CFG-II-58, p. 12.Google Scholar

21 Carrett, CHEAM 3414, p. 4.Google Scholar

22 But the plan did not come until the discovery of oil had changed the stakes. The point is clearly made by comparing two articles by Charles F. Gallagher: “What Price Algeria?” AUFS III, 8 (Algeria) CFG-8-57, and “New Economic Plan for Algeria,” AUFS IV, 8 (Algeria) CFG-II-58.Google Scholar

23 On other educational efforts, particularly military involvement in education see a paper prepared for the Middle East Studies Association meeting in 1971 written by Alf Andrew Heggoy, “Soldiers and Education in the Algerian Revolution.”Google Scholar A shorter version of this study appeared under the title “Kepi and Chalkboards: French Soldiers and Education in Revolutionary Algeria,” Military Affairs, 37 (12 1973), 141–145.CrossRefGoogle Scholar