French views of the Maghreb vs. sub-Saharan Africa

1. French views of the Maghreb vs. sub-Saharan Africa The construction of race in France’s African colonies

2. French colonial policies were based on racist exclusion & racial theories as we have seen before..Gobineau: 3 main races (white, yellow, black); weaknesses & qualities, but white people placed on top of racial hierarchy. Indigenous muscians, Morocco

3. Non-Europeans were less civilised • Colonial apologists usedevolutionary racial (pseudo)science to place the world’s peoples according to European values (of civilisations). • French colonial bureaucrats’ role: • To educate, • To instruct, & • To bring advancement & enlightenment to the “colonial children”.

4. France never governed Africa under a single colonial apparatus. • Many French writers distinguished between the Maghreb & sub-Saharan Africa, frequently labelled Afrique noire (Black Africa). • France ignored the longstanding economic, cultural, & political links between the Maghreb & sub-Saharan Africa. Many in France & Europe preferred to regard the Sahara not as the highway & meeting place, but rather as a racialised boundary dividing black Africa from the Mediterranean world.

5. Algeria: attempted to sever France’s largest & most important colony from Africa & bind it to France through the racialisation of colonial boundaries. • Algeria was not “black” but Mediterranean, a kind of lesser-white region more closely tied to Europe than to Africa. The oasis town of El-Oved in the Sahara, Algeria.

6. In many ways, this view & policy succeeded in achieving the intellectual separation of the Maghreb from Africa in French thinking. • Colonial scholars largely dismissed the continued connections across the Sahara, & Africa, & administrators encouraged attempts to ‘seal’ the Maghreb (meaning “white”) from l’Afrique noire.

7. Islam • Colonial administrators & academics saw: Islam south of the Sahara as Islam noir(Black Islam). (Islam: emphasis on equality of all Muslims, regardless of ethnic origin, in the eyes of God & the faith.) Islam noirreflected a division unrecognisable to African Muslims of the time.

8. Christopher Harrison • France and Islam in West Africa(1988), • French policy clearly differentiated Muslim practices & beliefs in the Maghreb from those of French West Africa & French Equatorial Africa • sub-Saharan Islam differed from Islam in the Middle East & North Africa because of racial difference.

9. Religion • Colonial scholars & the administrators could not imagine religious practice outside of an organised scheme. • They ranked civilisations & races = Europeans (especially French) at the top of civilisational achievement. • Arabs: distinctly less advanced society, though still considered as “white.” • Africans (sub- Saharans) located at bottom of this scale & were portrayed Africans as primitive • French view : Arab Muslims had a cultural predisposition towards fanaticism &anti-European hostility.

10. Colonial administrators created artificial, racialised distinctions within Islam • Algeria- 2 major population groups, speaking Arabic & various Berber languages. • Berbers & Arabs(late arrivals): lived without much conflict for centuries- trading, inter-marrying, & often cooperating despite differences in language, customs, & culture. • French Empire changed this • * footnotes next 3 slides

11. Pause for footnotes: Algeria’s population now consists almost entirely of Arabs • Arabs in Algeria are chiefly of Berber derivation, particularly in the Kabilia & Aurès areas & in the Sahara oases, or mixtures of Berbers with invaders from earlier periods. • The Berbers, who resemble the Mediterranean sub-race of Southern Europe, are descendants of the original inhabitants of Algeria & are divided into many subgroups. • They account for 99% of the population.

12. The Berbers (continued) • Kabyles (Kaba'il), mostly farmers, live in the compact mountainous section in the northern part of the country between Algiers & Constantine. • Chaouia (Shawiyyah) live in the Aurès Mountains of the northeast. • Mzab, or Mozabites, include sedentary date growers in the Ued Mzab oases. • Desert groups: Tuareg, Tuat, & Wargla (Ouargla).

13. There were Jews in Algeria before & during the arrival of the French • ½ descended from converted Berbers, • & the remainder were mainly descendants of Spanish Jews. • After independence, about 70,000 Jews emigrated to France & 10,000 to Israel. • Almost all the rest left Algeria during the next seven years <100 Jews remained as of 1998, & virtually all synagogues were converted to mosques.

14. Colonial scholars thought : Arabs invaded Algeria, usurpers who brought Islam to the region & imposed it, by force, on Berbers. • Thus somehow the Berbers retained a collective cultural empathy for France & for European civilisation.

15. Kabyle Myth • Berbers gave the impression in colonial texts as similar to Europeans, as open to the French civilising mission, as noble & ultimately less rebellious to French colonialism. • Patricia Lorcin calls it the Kabyle Myth: it completely diminished both manifest* & frequent demonstrations of Berber opposition to the extension of French colonial rule and the similarities & connections between Arabs and Berbers. • * obvious

16. Consequences for both colonial govt. postcolonial Algeria • French policy did in fact favour Berbers. • French reinforced ideas of difference between Arabs & Berbers. • Myths set up the 2 groups in opposition to each other: • AlgerianArabs- fanatical, obstinate, unruly, & inclined to violence & disruption. • Berbers - noble, honourable , & hospitable; less Islamic & more civilised

17. * Berber opposition to colonial rule fed into myths about Algerian cultural identities. • Many writers created an artificial separation between Arab & Berber Muslims in Algeria. • In contemporary Algeria & among Algerian populations in France: Arab & Berber now mean something in terms of social, cultural, & political difference. • * French colonial mythmaking & racialisation of identity worsened, & mostly created, tensions between ethnic communities in Algeria.