A Spectre of Colonialism is Haunting Africa, From Algeria to South Africa
One of the things that struck me about the French occupation of Algeria was its similarities
to apartheid South Africa. A white minority population ruling over a disenfranchised indigenous majority,
displacing them and confiscating their lands, attempting to force them into a degree of servility and only
governing for the interests of the newfound whites. The Code de 'indigénat and policies of forced
resettlement are eerily similar to the Native Land Act of 1913, The Bantu Education Act of 1953 and
other colonial and apartheid era laws. While being similar, the South African and Algerian struggles are
by no means identical. Both were cases of political domination based on race and enforced by a police or
semi-militarised state, built on the same divide and conquer tactics that allowed the vitamin D deprived
island of Britain to colonise the Asian subcontinent. But the South African armed resistance never turned
into a full-scale war. One of the main reasons for that is because South Africa was incredibly divided on
ethnic lines and there was no cohesive factor to rally support from most of the nation. In Algeria, however,
Islam was pivotal to their national identity and history, and by aligning political groups and goals with
Islamic values, it allowed them to appeal to people on a moral level and resist French attempts to
francophone-ise the country and do away with traditional Algerian and Muslim culture.
Racism served as a foundational element driving colonial exploitation in both Algeria and South
Africa, perpetuating systems of white supremacy and entitlement. In both Algeria and South Africa, there
was a feeling of entitlement that as Europeans, they were the chosen civilized and advanced race, and if
they wanted land for settlements and a pool of cheap labourers, well, they were a superior race to Africans,
so why shouldn’t they take what they want? The system of white supremacy that the French enacted,
legally, economically and socially in Algeria, was and would continue to be a key part of the French Colonial rule in Algeria, but this ideology is opposed to Islamic teachings that preach we are all
brothers and sisters in Islam.
Attempts were made to assimilate people into the French Empire through various
policies and educational initiatives that diminished the importance of Arabic and Algerian national
identity. The relatively inadequate education that the French schools provided taught European subjects,
and created the next generation of Algerian civil service administrators and collaborators. The new
Algerian intelligentsia were born from Algerians who were educated in France and returned with
egalitarian, socialistic and anti-imperialist beliefs and had experienced racism in France as well and knew
that their colonial overlords would never be able to recognize them as equals and grant universal suffrage.
These people would become part of the ideological backbone behind resistance and reform movements.
Some Algerians who went to French-Arab or French schools felt to some degree that they would
assimilate to French society while still maintaining their social and legal identities. But Algerians would
not become equal citizens of the French Empire. Not only was it economically beneficial to keep them as
undereducated second class citizens as a pool of cheap labour, but it was viewed as socially impossible.
For Algerian Muslims to be given the same voting rights and truly representative democratic government,
it would mean that they were on par with the native-born French and with the racial attitudes present in
Europe at this time, very few people would agree or concede that Algerian Muslims and French Christians
were equal.
In Algeria, the integration of Islamic values into resistance efforts provided a cohesive framework
for mobilizing against French attempts to suppress Algerian culture and identity. Not only was Islam
pivotal in shaping Algerian history and cultural identity, but it was also under threat from the French who
aimed to diminish the influence and significance of Islamic institutions and passed laws that suppressed
Islam to make the territory more “acceptable” for the French Empire. Before the French invasion of
Algeria Sufi orders retained a high degree of prestige and power in rural life, and support either came
from kinship or religious loyalty. Early resistance to the French was often Sufi-led, with no shortage of
people claiming divine protection and right, and while these initial rebellions and revolts were localized
Sufis and other Islamic preachers were trying to work the country into a religious fervor about
Colonialism. After French control of Algeria was established, many of the primary schools, madrasas and
that had taught children Arabic, arithmetic, Quranic interpretation, law, astronomy were either destroyed
or shut down by confiscation of funds. In response to this, political groups began establishing schools
where Arabic, reading, writing, Algerian history and some variation of Quranic interpretation were
taught. An important part of the Islamic revival in Algeria were the reformers, those who viewed Sufism
as a deviation from true Islam and stressed the importance of following the revealed word of God,
emulating the Prophet Muhammed (PBUH) and emphasizing Islamic sources of knowledge without
diminishing the use of reason. At the centre of everything, was Islam. At the end of the day, almost all
Algerians could find a connection with their countrymen and feel solidarity with their Muslim brothers
and sisters because the Ummah supersedes all ethnic, tribal and familial ties. Ulama and Imams played
important roles in organizing the new schools and community efforts to resist the French, mosques and
madrasas became schools and later space to mobilise and prepare militants and these men were able to
infuse the national liberation struggle with religious justifications, Islamic iconography and inspiration,
and create the sentiment that the fight for the emancipation of Algeria and for the release of Islamic
peoples from European domination and humiliation. It also helped that the Quran
preaches a religion of peace, tolerance and non-aggression except in self-defense, and so it was only
natural for Muslims to resist cultural and economic subjugation under a white supremacist system. South
Africa lacked any national unifying factor comparable to Islam, and resistance movements existed
predominantly on ethnic and racial lines, with each group acting in the best interests of their people
and not the country.
The enduring legacy of anti-Islamic sentiment in Europe continues to shape political discourse
and policies, perpetuating systemic inequalities and marginalization of Muslim communities. Europeans
tend to see their countries and cultures as the gold standard, and as more successful when any material or
ideological shortfalls of a global south nation are brought up. The fact that Algerian society had a strong
pastoral segment, had not fully been exposed to the horrors of free-market capitalism and people still
treated religion not just as an affiliation but as a way of life was markedly different to the French and their
ideas of efficient secular democracy. The abject strangeness of the land and its inhabitants to the French
was combined with beliefs of racial hierarchy to create an environment where the French would never be
able to see North Africans as true members of the empire, just lowly possessions of the Empire that didDo
not deserve the same rights and considerations as white Christian French. Europe has always been rife
with anti-Islamic sentiment owing to centuries of Muslim empires and kingdoms posing a grave threat to
predominantly Christian Europe, and this feeling of Islam as the enemy has not left Europe. We
consistently see the French government enacting laws that clamp down on the religious autonomy of
Muslims and parroting anti-Islamic dog whistles in regards to immigration, the Poles have been strongly
against accepting refugees from predominantly Muslim countries, and the rise in power of the far-right
political parties like Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) increase as more Turkish immigrants move to
Germany. The European political and financial elite will almost always see Muslims as backwards people
incapable of guiding themselves to prosperity because this not only fits their white supremacist political
beliefs that are most likely entrenched in the political system of their country, but also because by
othering and dehumanising this religious group, you have a scapegoat that you can point to in tumultuous
times and treat them as a fifth column if necessary to gain the support and security of the dominant socio-
economic group within society. This is why it is so unlikely for Turkey to ever be given admission into
the European Union (EU). Although they are members of NATO, act as western allies in the region and
have tried to bring their country towards the EU standards with their various socio-economic reforms, at theAt the
end of the day, it is very unlikely all EU member states will agree on the admission of 86 million Muslims
into their union, making Turks de facto Europeans at least politically and economically.
By: Oren-Andrew Wentzel