751S.00/9–1153
The Consul General at Algiers (Lockett) to the Department of State1
No. 56
Ref:
- Despatch No. 53, September 1, 1953.2
Subject:
- Algerian Nationalist Comment on French North African Policy.
The lack of resistance to the recent French decisions in Morocco and the negative vote of the United Nations Security Council have apparently induced the Algerian nationalists to take a more sober view of the recent developments in Morocco as indicated by the latest comment in the Algerian nationalist press. Having vented their anger against the French and supported the Moroccan patriots, the Algerian nationalists are now concerned with the conclusions which they believe must be drawn from the Moroccan events for their own guidance.
For UDMA Secretary General Ferhat Abbas, writing in the September 4 issue of La République Algérienne, the loss of a man or a throne can be but an episode in the colonial peoples’ struggle for self-government. Morocco remains, and with it the Moroccan question. The fiction of El Glaoui and his Berber horsemen, created for the purpose of deluding French and international opinion and providing France’s American partner with an alibi, cannot withstand a common sense examination. According to Abbas, responsibility for the events in Morocco lies with the French bourgeoisie which has lost faith in itself and seeks to compensate for its own inferiority complex by a series of criminally brutal acts against the unarmed colonial peoples. This, he believes, is perhaps the last stand of a class which is worn out by power and feels that power is escaping it. “For us”, he says, “the way out of this impasse remains the same: we must persuade the French to start their own revolution again and to escape the Fascist forces which threaten them, and then, to build with them a great human community in which the rights of small peoples will not be at the mercy of a handful of plotters and rascals.
“The struggle is the same whether in Paris or in Rabat. M. George Bidault deceives himself and deceives us when he places it on a religious plane. The fact is that this struggle is taking place between the peoples and their exploiters, between those who have everything and those who have nothing.”3
The editorial in the same issue of La République Algérienne also seeks to explain the French actions in Morocco on the basis of an inferiority complex generated by the French defeat of 1940 and mistreatment of France by the three great powers. It then goes on to [Page 390] attack France’s “civilizing mission” by asserting that despite the vicissitudes of French politics, the one permanent aim of French colonial policy and the one aim of “real France” (la France réelle) has been the erection of colonialist structures postulating the annihilation of the native and of his personality, leaders and institutions; the means for accomplishing this is direct administration. In colonial matters, the editorial observes, the French political pendulum oscillates between Brazzaville and Ajaccio. As for the United States, it has handsomely contributed to the relief of French imperialism and betrayed Roosevelt’s promises.
The September 4 issue of MTLD journal L’Algérie Libre drew the following conclusions from the recent events in Morocco. First, that in their dealings with North Africa, the colonialists have no desire for a representative interlocutor and ruthlessly repress any tendency to resist them. Secondly, that French public opinion failed to react during these events and that it would be a dangerous illusion to depend upon French public opinion to exercise pressure upon its Government. This is contrasted with the positive support granted by the Arab-Asian bloc of nations. The latter, frustrated by the colonial states led by the United States, are advocating a large Afro-Asian conference to take the necessary steps in regard to North Africa. The final and most important conclusion (according to the paper) is that the great colonial interests are operating with perfect coordination in North Africa and that since colonialism is united, the North African nationalist movements must unify their efforts against it.
Like its UDMA counterpart, L’Algérie Libre rejects the religious aspect allegedly attributed to nationalist agitation by Foreign Minister Georges Bidault. While expressing sympathy for those who in their just anger are inclined to resort to violence, it cautions that base methods can never lead to noble ends.
The MTLD’s attitude toward the United States appears to have moderated somewhat. The editorial of this issue of L’Algérie Libre takes the position that the fate of the North African questions in the United Nations illustrates the extent to which the predominance given to strategic considerations as a result of the cold war has deflected that organization from its high purposes. Thus, each time opposition to colonialist designs manifests itself, France, fearing universal reproof, appeals to the notion of strategy to win the support or sympathetic neutrality of the leader of the Atlantic nations. “The United States”, the editorial says, “are caught in a trap. They must tolerate everything. Their security in the event of the independence of a colonial country would be endangered. The United States, a former colony, thus go in the name of strategy, against their history and the freedom which they pretend to defend throughout the world.”
[Page 391]Comment:
It appears from the foregoing that there will be no significant change in the nature or scope of Algerian nationalist activities. Cooperation between nationalists and Communists remains, as in past months, nothing more than a Communist hope.
The apparent discrepancy between Ferhat Abbas’ hope for help from the French people and La République Algérienne’s distrust of what it calls real France is probably due to a belief (similar to that of many French intellectuals) that the advent of a left of center, and therefore more sympathetic, French Government is inevitable.