Contents
• Biographical notes on Mohand Saïl (1894-1953)………..p.3
• The ordeal of the Algerian natives (1924)……………….p.5
• Lecentenairedelaconquêteedel’Algérie(1929)………….p.7
• To public opinion (1930)……………………………………p.9
• For her asfor you,stand up, Algerian people!(1932)……p.11
• Down with the Indigenous Code! (1936)……………………….p.12
• Letter from the front
(1936)……………………………………………p.14
• The Kabyle mentality (1951)……………………………………p.16
• Letter to the French (1951)…………………………………….p.18
• Appendix I: Algerians don’t vote (1951)…………….p.19
• Appendix II: Alert (1954) ………………………………..p.21
• Appendix III: Strange strangers……………………….p.24
Jacques Prévert (1951)
Biographical notes on Mohand Saïl
(1894-1953)
Mohand Saïl, whose full name was Mohand Amezian ben
Ameziane Saïl, was born on October 14, 1894 in Taourirt,
Souk Oufella in Kabylia. Like many Algerians at the time
At that time, he had little schooling. A driver-mechanic by profession, he lived
with Madeleine Sagot. Little is known of his youth; we learn from an account
he gives to the Semeur de Normandie, Alphonse Barbé’s newspaper, that he
was interned for insubordination and then desertion during the First World
War: “for nearly four years, in wartime, I was an insubordinator and then a
deserter”. His sympathies for the anarchist movement were already evident.
After the First World War, he joined the Union anarchiste. In 1923, with his
friend Sliman Kiouane, he founded the Comité de défense des indi- gènes
algériens.
Between 1924 and 1926, he seems to have lived in Algeria, where he
contributed to the newspaper Le Flambeau. In it, he denounced colonialism
and the code de l’indigénat, and called on Algerians to educate themselves,
revolt and “join groups of advanced ideas”. At the time, he also contributed
articles to André Colomer’s L’Insurgé and Louis Louvet’s L’Anarchie, under thebyline “un anarchiste kabyle”. In May 1925, he was imprisoned for ten days for criticizing “the marabout regime” who fool the people” in a café in Sidi-Aïch (Kabylia).
In 1929, he was secretary of a new committee to defend Algerians against the
provocations of the centenary. France was preparing to celebrate the centenary
of the conquest of Algeria (July 5, 1830). The entire anarchist movement
denounces colonialism: “Civilization? Progress? We say: as- sassinat! He
subsequently joined the CGT-SR (the French section of the AIT at the time),
where he created the Section des Indigènes Algériens. The following year, at
the Colonial Exhibition, the anarchist movement resumed its campaign
against colonialism.
In January 1932, based in Aulnay-sous-Bois, he kept a local newspaper, L’Éveil
social, which appeared from January 1932 to May 1934, before merging with
Terre libre. One of his articles earned him prosecution for “inciting soldiers to
disobedience”. Secours rouge international, a satellite organization of the
Communist Party, offered him support, which he rejected in the name of the
victims of Stalinism.
On March 3, a few weeks after the February 6, 1934 demonstration by the
fascist leagues, he was arrested in Saint-Ouen by the police, who seized several
gre- nades and pistols from his home. He was charged with “carrying a
prohibited weapon”. Sentenced to a month’s imprisonment, followed by
another month for “possession of weapons of war”, he spent four and a half
months in prison, two and a half months longer than his two previous
convictions.
After the coup d’état of July 17-18, 1936, and the start of the Spanish
Revolution, Saïl, then aged 42, joined the Groupe International de la colonne
Durruti, along with Louis Mercier-Vega and Charles Carpentier. After
Berthomieu’s death at Perdiguera, he became the group’s leader. He led the
group in the attack on Quinto. On November 21, 1936, while on a
reconnaissance mission, he was wounded in the arm by an explosive bullet 100
meters from Franco’s lines. Hospitalized in Barcelona, he returned to Aulnay
in January 1937. Mutilated, he now had to work as an earthenware repairman.
On March 17, 1937, he took part in a meeting organized at the Mutualité by all
the organizations of the revolutionary left, to protest against the banning of the
Étoile nord-africaine, led by Messali Hadj, and against the repression of
demonstrations in Tunisia, which had left sixteen people dead.
At the 1937 congress of the Union Anarchiste, where he spoke about the
conditions of the struggle in Spain, Lucien Feuillade, who transcribed the
proceedings of the congress, replaced Saïl’s usual crude remarks: “To have a
rifle, I would have licked the ass of a mobile guard”, with “…, I would have
made every concession”. (Le Libertaire, n° 575, November 11, 1937).
A month later, he was arrested again for “provoking a soldier”, for distributing
anti-war leaflets in September 1938. He was sentenced to 18 months’ imprisonment. In 1939, for the same reason, he was arrested and
interned. It was during this arrest that his library was seized and dispersed.
In 1941, he was detained at the Riom-ès-Montagnes camp (Cantal). He then
helped to forge papers for wanted companions. After the Liberation, Saïl
reconstituted the Aulnay-sous-Bois group and tried to re-form Algerian
anarchist committees. He joined the CNT-AIT when it was founded in 1946,
and wrote a column on the situation in Algeria for Le Libertaire. In 1951, he
was appointed head of the union’s commission on North African issues, but
died in a hospital in Bobigny at the end of April 1953, to be buried in the
Bobigny Muslim cemetery.
[Notes based on Maitron and other biographical resources].
The ordeal of native Algerians
“All men are born free and equal in rights.” This is the Declaration of
the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, which states
that. But it’s easy to prove that this equality has never existed for us native
Algerians.
These are our rights, as understood by the bloodthirsty scoundrels and
rapacious pi- rats who, under the pretext of colonization, brought us the socalled “benefits” of their “civilization”.
They consist in seeing the land on which we were born, which from father to
son we fertilized with our labor, which gave us the means to live freely and
proudly, taken over by our “benefactors”.
It’s true that we have the “right” to work on these lands that have been stolen
from us, 10 to 12 hours a day for a derisory wage of 5 francs. But life is
expensive in Algeria, very expensive for us and our families.
We have another “right” that is not disputed by the makers of patriotic mass
graves: the right to die on the battlefields in defense of generous France. In
1914 and the years that followed, we benefited greatly from this. We were even
armed against our racial brothers who had the courage to resist the invaders.
No doubt in the name of the “right of peoples to self-determination“.
We also have to endure, without saying a word, all the vexations that the
whims of administrators and offices insist on imposing on us.
Italian fascism is no more odious than the methods of colonization employed
by the officials of the French Republic. So it’s hardly surprising that, with their
spoils starving, and no alternative but to beg or slave away for a pittance, so
many natives are fleeing this civilization “by the skin of their teeth”.
Many thought that, since they were good at defending France, they had the
right to work and earn a living on French soil. In fact, the condition of the
native who works in France cannot be compared to that of the one who stays
in Algeria.
When he arrived, even though he was out of work, he found a kind of
assistance from Algerians that was hardly to be found in other circles.
Of course, he falls victim to exploitation, but it’s not as savage as that which he
endures in his own country.
Naturally, the big landowners and slave traders in Algeria and Tunisia don’t
take kindly to this emigration, which brings them huge profits. So, to prevent
it, they resort to political scoundrels who have nothing to refuse them.
And what a national bloc government under Raymond Poincarré had failed to
do, the bloc des gauches government under Hérriot was not afraid to attempt.
Le Quotidien recently reported that regulations were to be introduced for “the
admission of indigenous workers to metropolitan France”. In the words of one of
the committee’s members, Marius Moutet, the aim of these regulations is “to
enable the judicious and progressive penetration of indigenous elements whose
physical and professional aptitudes meet the requirements of the various
branches of national activity in metropolitan France.
“The Commission wanted the native who comes to work in France not to be
exposed to leaving his home without the prior certainty of finding in France at
least the equivalent of what he is giving up.”
The inter-ministerial commission, chaired by Mr. Du- vernoy, Director of
Algerian Affairs at the Ministry of the Interior, also decided to set up assistance
and protection organizations for indigenous workers in France.
“Henceforth, Algerian and North African workers, before embarking for
France, will have to produce a certificate of engagement endorsed by the
Ministry of Labor, a medical certificate and an identity card with photograph
released by the mayor or administrator of the commune where the native is
domiciled.” The Ministry of the Interior has decided that these measures will
be applied from October 1, 1924.
So, from October 1, administrators will be able to prevent the departure for
France of those they embarked to fight those they called barbarians. I know, and
others will know if they haven’t already realized, where the barbarians are. They
are the hypocritical politicians who have nothing to envy to Mussolini. And to
make this hypocrisy clear, I tell them that the only reason a native leaves his
country is because he can no longer live there, because he’s been abominably
squeezed and exploited. He’s a slave they want to keep for those who stripped
him of his native land.
What he is giving up in Algeria, Mr. Marius Moutet, “socialist” deputy. “is
a little misery.
This is what an Algerian says, adding: “Beware that one day the outcasts will
get fed up and take up the rifles you’ve taught them to use against their real
enemies, in the name of the right to life, and not, as in the past, for the sake of
a so-called criminal motherland.
In Le Libertaire, no. 242, August 16, 1924.
_________________________________
The centenary of the conquest of Algeria
Next year, the French government and bourgeoisie will
celebrate the centenary of the conquest of Algeria. On this
occasion, we shall see patriots and chauvinists of all acabit will have a field day; the folliculars appointed by the great brainwashers will
proclaim, in massive columns, the civilizing virtues of France.
So what has this generous France brought us, whose cowards and imbeciles go around proclaiming the greatness of its soul?
Ask a simple native and try to gain his trust. The man will immediately tell you about the pitiful situation of his brothers and the absolute failure of the French admi- nistration to deal with vital problems. Almost the entire indigenous population lives in abject physical and mental poverty. This misery is widespread. In the towns of Algeria, at night, it’s nothing but ragged people lying on the ground under archways.
On building sites, in mines and on farms, unfortunate indi- genous people are
subjected to exhausting work for wages that barely allow them to eat properly.
Commanded like dogs by real brutes, they are not even allowed to strike, any
attempt to do so being violently broken by imprisonment and torture. Having
none of the rights of French citizens, and subject to the odious and barbaric
code de l’indigénat, the natives are dragged before special repressive tribunals
and condemned to harsh sentences for peccadilloes which, in metropolitan
France, would only result in a simple admonition.
With all indigenous press banned and all associations quickly disbanded, there
is no way of defending the unfortunate Indians in Algeria, who have been
robbed and exploited with the utmost scurrility.
They are obliged to perform two years’ military service, as they constitute a
considerable reservoir of cannon fodder for the butchery of war. During the
“war of right”, a large number of them were sacrificed to the victory of France,
which for them is the most appalling of cowards.
With the lowest of scoundrels, the French government has wiped out all the
country’s indigenous schools, replacing them with ridiculously inadequate
numbers of French schools. Douars with numerous villages, comprising
thousands and thousands of people, are entirely deprived of education. Most
women live in absolute ignorance. The result of this despicable policy is the
ignorance of the Algerian masses, an ignorance willed and maintained by the
French administration.
Civilization, isn’t it! Oh, you cowardly rulers! This administration’s agent
among the natives is a sinister individual called a caïd, a despicable individual,
a snitch, who buys his position as policeman and exercises a real terror over his
unfortunate compatriots. A venal scoundrel, the caïd is always for sale. Woe
betide the man who, having committed a minor offence, cannot buy his
silence! Woe betide the native who doesn’t please him! Sooner or later, he’ll
have to deal with the courts of exception.
Did French colonization bring technical progress to Algeria? It built just one
railroad line, with just one track. Throughout most of the colony, the natives
are obliged to travel by rail, long, arduous walks. In the countryside, there is no postal service for the natives; if they want to receive a letter or parcel, they have to lose several days to get to town and back. Roads and bridges are very rare, and the natives pay crushing taxes.
Nice progress, really!
Algeria’s soil is rich, and the French industrialists and big businessmen rapacious and unscrupulous. They have not hesitated to completely destroy the
once flourishing Algerian civilization, part of the great Muslim civilization.
They replaced it with fierce oppression, arrogance, misery and death. Their
civilization!
Inaugurated by outright theft – France’s refusal to pay for a delivery of wheat –
the conquest of Algeria ushered in an era of colonial banditry for the French
bourgeoisie that has not yet come to an end.
So, for your cynical parade, Messieurs les bourgeois and your henchmen of all
stripes, and despite the lofty pretensions of Napoleonet Chiappe who hopes to
muzzle colonial “subversives”, the Algerian anarchist group is determined to
demonstrate to public opinion your crimes, your ignominy that you want to
baptize with the word “civilization”.
In La Voie libertaire, n°30. September 21, 1929.
___________________
To public opinion
At a time when the celebrations marking the centenary of
the conquest of Algeria are taking place with unprecedented
festivity, Algerians living in France felt that it was useful,
even indispensable, to make metropolitan public opinion hear a few truths amidst the chorus of official praise that tends to drown out the complaints of a suffering people. Of course, it would be a fine thing to commemorate a centenary if its purpose were to magnify a fine deed: the emancipation of the Algerian people.
Unfortunately, the centenary we’re celebrating in Algeria has no such lofty significance.
What has changed since the government of Charles X imposed “civilization”
on Algeria by sword a hundred years ago? Colonizers and merchants have
followed the road traced in the blood of the Arab people by the conquerors;
the former have dispossessed the natives and bent men, women and children
under their yoke; the latter have endeavored to acquire natural products for
nothing, while selling at a high price what they have brought with them.
Concessionaires and ban- quiers came to double the old slavery and, united
with native feudalism, made the harshest exploitation reign in the conquered
country.
So this people, who asked nothing of anyone, saw the tyranny of their old
masters compounded by that of their new masters.
Has it at least benefited from the “civilization” imposed on it a hundred years
ago? No. Subjected to the duties of citizenship, it does not enjoy the rights of
citizenship. They remain subject to the odious regime of indigénat, which
turns all Algerians into diminutive beings.
For him, no freedom of association, thought or press, but criminal courts,
repressive tribunals that rain down administrative fines and drudgery, arbitrary
imprisonment and confiscation on unfortunate Arabs. It’s the Inquisition in
the 20th century.
For him, no right to vote, but two years’ military service, compared with 18
months for the French.
For him, requisitioning for unsanitary work, but no schools for girls and only a
few for boys.
For him again, crushing taxes, the bullying of Arab feudalists, agreement with
the administration and government, but no housing, no hygiene, no labor
laws.
Economically and politically, the Algerian people are slaves, twice slaves. They
really only have two rights: to suffer and to pay, to suffer in silence and to pay
without complaint.
It’s the centenary of such a state of affairs that Arab aristocrats and French
plou- tocrats, satisfied and happy, are currently commemorating in Algeria.
The Algerians who were able to leave this inhospitable country are in solidarity
with their brothers on the other side of the Mediterranean. On the occasion of
this centenary, they wanted to enlighten public opinion in metropolitan France,
to make it aware of the odious regime imposed on an entire people. They asked
public opinion to help them win the rights enjoyed by all other French citizens,
since greater and more onerous duties were imposed on them. In particular,
they demand: the abolition of the indigénat, trade union rights, freedom of the
press, and the extension of all French social legislation to Algeria.
They hope that their appeal will be heard in particular by their brothers: the
French workers. And, on the other hand, they assure them of their solidarity in
the struggles they will undertake for their common liberation. They know that
French and Algerians have only one enemy: their master. Fraternally united,
they will know how to get rid of him to celebrate their emancipation together.
The Algerian section of the C.G.T.S.R. / AIT.
P.S. – This article will be printed in several thousand leaflets, free to any
anarchist or federalist syndicalist individual or group wishing to distribute it.
Order them from Saïl Mohamed, Paris, 20th arrondissement, or from the head
office of the
C.G.T.S.R / AIT, Paris, 10th arrondissement
In La Voix libertaire, no. 55. March 15, 1930.
________________________
For her as for you, stand up, Algerian people! ( Here, we need to understand the Kabyle people instead of the Algerian people.)
A cry of hatred and disgust as much as despair and revolt has just burst from a young woman's chest for your deliverance.
Hear me well, my Muslim brothers, it's a woman, a French
woman, an anarchist, who, exasperated by the abominable regime of exception which oppresses you and prevents you from being men, like the others, fired a revolver at a policeman who was at the Algiers
labor exchange.
It is for your cause, Muslim people, that an anarchist is suffering in this city's
prison. But all she has done is to express her indignation on your behalf, you
who are men!
Whether in the criminal court or the Assize Court, where his actions will take
him, all the atrocities you have suffered in the century since you were "civilized"
will be evoked.
But will you, the Algerian people, the enslaved people, remain indifferent to
this cause of yours? Will you leave this woman, this sister, defenseless, in the
midst of the draconian organization that is preparing to crush her, when she
herself is using her freedom to defend your freedom?
That would be a most cowardly crime.
So be ready to answer the call of French and Algerian workers' organizations,
be ready to fight if necessary against all those who would prevent you from
demanding justice and liberation for a sister who must be sacred to you.
During the war, the government of the Third Republic showed you how it was
necessary to die for the beautiful eyes of the financiers and bankers of
metropolitan France. Now it's your turn to show them that you're ready to
fight with all your might for your own cause, and by securing the release of
Marguerite Aspes, you'll secure the liberation of an entire race shamefully
oppressed.
For her as for you, stand up, Algerian people, stand up!
In L'Eveil social, first year, n°2, February 1932.
________________________
Down with the code de l'indigénat!
Kind-hearted men, please understand our cries of pain and
distress, and join us in calling for the total abolition of the
despicable Code de l'Indigénat, which is slowly undermining the morale and physique of the Algerian people, and is a stain on the honor of so-called republican and democratic France.
You, who shudder when injustice occurs in the
Those around you who protest energetically when a victim of fascism groans in
prison, who revolt when, on the other side of the world (Algeria is only 750 km
from mainland France), an innocent is dying, a victim of repression, you
cannot remain deaf to our appeal and be insensitive to this monstrous iniquity:
an entire people, whose only crime is to have been vanquished and
dispossessed by force, languishes in miserable living conditions and undergoes
a slavery that dishonors our century.
After all, what is the code de l'indigénat?
Quite simply, it's a set of laws which place the Algerian natives at the mercy of
the metropolis, which demand crushing duties and burdens, but which in
exchange give them no rights whatsoever. The French overseas worker is
formally forbidden to form a union to defend himself against the employers
who exploit and oppress him. For them, there is no freedom of opinion, no
freedom of the press. Its schools are rare, and education is at such a low level
that very few can take advantage of it and remain in a complete ignorance that
allows shameless exploitation. As natives are not allowed to vote, a dictatorship
is imposed on them, which hunts them down and holds them to ransom. The
crushing taxes are partly swallowed up in shady dealings, for despite their
importance, the native villages are for the most part deprived of light, post and
telegraph, and there are virtually no passable roads.
To conceal this negligence, the government invokes this absurd and ridiculous
reason: "To be placed among the 'civilized', the native must renounce his
personal status, which gives him the right to marry several women. Because in
France, you see, there is no harem, but hypocrisy in sexual matters is more
prevalent than in Algeria. And from a religious point of view, when secular
ministers kneel cynically and faithlessly before a god made of car- ton or
plaster, what do they have to reproach the unfortunate bicot who practices
rites that are no more ridiculous than those of other religions, because they are
all equal and are founded only on the credulity of their followers.
But now, in 1936, the Popular Front government is said to want to attenuate
this evil, not cure it completely, even if it has power.
Does he think that a bone to gnaw will calm the rumbling revolt? Does he not
think that the "sidi" who was taught to die for the merchants of patriotism on the
battlefields of the last butchery could perhaps push his revolt to total
deliverance? Can't he see that over there, the Fascists are hard at work, that the
fruits of their propaganda are beginning to appear at an accelerated rate? Are
Hitler's henchmen going to be the sole beneficiaries of the negligence of
governments who don't want to realize that their harmful policy towards an
oppressed people is throwing them hand and foot into the bars of fascism? We
who were born and have lived in Algeria, and who know the temperament of
our compatriots, say: "Beware, if you do not give equal rights to the natives, if you
deny them education, you will be guilty of revolt". of an overwhelmed people who have been suffering for a hundred years and who
will be capable of attempting the worst adventure to regain their freedom." We
see this danger so clearly that we feel it is our duty to alert you.
We're not politicians, but ordinary working people who see much further
ahead than most people think.
Our appeal must be heard by all those for whom freedom is not an empty word.
Down with fascism!
For the anarchist group of Algerian natives, Saïl Mohand.
In Le Libertaire, no. 506, July 24, 1936.
____________________________
Letter from the front
Farlete, October 30, 1936,
To my good comrades at CGTSR-AIT,
I wrote to you recently to tell you that there were a dozen of us from the CGTSR. in the international group. There are now 52 of us, from all over France, and to celebrate this little grouping of comrades on the battlefield, we improvised a rag painted in red and black, with the words: CGTSR, FAF,
AIT, in large letters, and planted it there, facing
the trembling fascist scoundrel.
That's right! Here we are, clearly hearing the
sirens of the Saragosse factories from our
vantage points. This is to tell you, pure and
simple, that we're not far from our goal.
Without glasses, much less binoculars, we can
see the city with our SIMPLE EYES.
Understand who will (except Clément
Vautel, Larocque and other comedians who
entertain the gallery!). Believe me, brave comrades, I'm not writing to you f r o m Perpignan or any other city.
frontier as is the rule among the pisscopies of the fine fascist, republican or even democratic press. I'm not even writing from Farlete, but from much further away, near Zaragoza. By the way, what does the big news press have to say?
Here, I don't read, but I know she won't
change her food, so I address her with
the disgust of a fighting militiaman fed
up with her servility and villainous
men-songes.
My old mother thinks she's beautiful at 80, just like dying fascism, which thinks
it's still alive.
As for the question of the militarization of militias, shout it out to anyone who will listen without risk of being contradicted: in all the columns run by anarcho-syndicalists, and they are the most numerous: "Militiamen, yes, soldiers, never! ".
We're all about freedom, and that freedom makes us disciplined men, braving death and torture.
We'll never walk a tightrope, but we'll never pale in the face of the enemy.
Militarization? In the columns of politicians, nothing surprises us, but with us there are only comrades without god or master, all on the same footing. Durruti is our guide and our brother. He eats and sleeps with us, he's less well dressed than we are, he's neither a general nor a kaid, but a militiaman worthy of our friendship.
Ranks, bragging rights and ambition are the dream of all kinds of minions, not of the thousands and thousands of anarcho-syndicalists who make libertarian Spain so beautiful.
Until next time, and on behalf of my comrades I send you all our fraternal greetings.
Saïl Mohamed, without rank or serial number, like all his comrades.
In L'Espagne Antifasciste, n°17, November 4, 1936.
__________________________
The Kabyle mentality
On many occasions, I have spoken in these
columns of the libertarian and individualistic temperament of my Berber
compatriots.of Algeria. But today, as the overseas Ali Baba's cave cracks
and crumbles, I think it's worth asserting, against all the
professional pessimists or broken dreamers lucrative positions that Algeria, liberated from the colonialist yoke, would be
ungovernable in the religious, political and bourgeois sense of the word. And I challenge all the scoundrels pretending to the crown to come up with the slightest valid and honest reason for their unhealthy aspirations, for I oppose them with palpable and controllable specifics, without denying however that
their policy has some success when it comes to action against the colonialist tyrant.
We need to see the indigenous Algerian, especially the Kabyle, in his
environment, in his native village, and not judge him by his behavior at a rally, demonstrating against his mortal enemy: colonialism.
For the native Algerian, discipline is a degrading submission if it is not freely consented to. However, the Berber is very sensitive to organization, mutual aid and camaraderie, but as a federalist, he will only accept orders if they express the desires of the common people, the grassroots. When a village delegate is appointed by the Administration, Algeria considers him an enemy.
The religion that once bent him to the marabout’s will is in decline, to the
point where it’s commonplace to see Allah’s representative join the infidel in the
same abjection. Everybody still talks about God, out of habit, but in reality
nobody believes in it anymore. Allah is being routed thanks to the constant
contact between the Algerian worker and his brother in misery in the
metropolis, and a few Algerian cama- rades are also playing a big part in this
fight against obscurantism.
As for the nationalism I often hear Algerians criticize, we mustn’t forget that
it’s the sad fruit of the French occupation. A rapprochement of peoples will
make it disappear, just as it will make religions disappear. And, more than any
other, the Algerian people are accessible to internationalism, either because
they have a taste for it or because their wandering lifestyle inevitably opens
– 18 –
their eyes. Kabyles can be found in the four corners of the world; they enjoy
themselves everywhere, fraternizing with everyone, and their dream is always
knowledge, well-being and freedom.
So I refuse to believe that nationalist clowns could one day become ministers or
sultans with the aim of subjugating this people, rebellious by temperament.
Until the arrival of the French, the Kabyles never agreed to pay taxes to any
government, including that of the Arabs and Turks, whose religion they had only
em- breached by force of arms. I’m particularly insistent on the Ka- byle, not
because I’m Kabyle myself, but because it really is the dominant element in every
respect, and because it is capable of leading the rest of the Algerian people into
revolt against any form of authoritarian centralism. The most amusing part of
the story is that the gang of forty thieves or political charla- tans represent
overseas nationalism in the form of an Arab union with a Muslim emblem and
political, military and spiritual leaders in the image of the countries of the
Levant. I confess that the Arab god of our sinister Algerian puppets got things
right, as the Judeo-Arab war revealed to us that the leaders of all-out Islamism
are nothing more than vulgar sell-outs to the Americans, the British, and the
Jews themselves, their supposed enemies. A treacherous blow for our Algerian
dervishes, but a salutary one for the people, who are beginning to see things
clearly.
Just think, a good little Algerian government in which they would be the caïds, a
government far more arrogant than that of the roumis, for the simple reason
that an arriviste is always tougher and more ruthless than an “arrivé”!
Algerians want neither the plague nor the cholera, neither the government of a
rou- mi nor that of a caïd. What’s more, the great mass of Kabyle workers
know that a Muslim government, both religious and political, can only be
feudal, and therefore primitive. All Muslim governments have proved this to
date.
Algerians will govern themselves in the village or douar way, without deputies or
ministers who fatten themselves at their expense, because the Algerian people, freed from one yoke, will never want to give themselves another, and their federalist and libertarian temperament is a sure guarantee of this. Robust intelli- gence and nobility of spirit are to be found in the mass of manual workers, whereas the horde of “intellectuals” is, for the most part, devoid of any generous sentiment.
As for the Stalinists, they don’t represent a force; their members are recruited
solely from among the cretins or refuse of the people. For the native has little
appetite for labels, be they false or super-fascist. For collaborators, policemen,
magistrates, caïds and other slavers of Algerian cheese, their fate is settled in
advance: the rope, which they are hardly worth.
For all these reasons, should my compatriots be considered genuine
revolutionaries bordering on anarchy? No, because while their temperament is
indisputably federalist and libertarian, they lack education and culture, and
our propaganda, which is nonetheless indispensable to these rebellious spirits,
is lacking.
This is what our anarchist companions in the North African Federation [NDR:
the MLNA, Mouvement Libertaire Nord Africain] are working for.
In Le Libertaire, February 16, 1951.
____________________
Letter to the French
to legitimize the most vile gangsterism against my
compatriots, France’s rulers continue to use the
most outrageous lies.
They call themselves “civilizers”, but that only fools the morons – too
many, alas, in this France of 1951!
The term “civilizers” is a deception just good enough to make the most stubborn of asses laugh; the history you’ve written, oh, sad sires, is that the Spanish Moors who went as far as Perpignan and even Poitiers and were the builders of the Alhambra in Granada were the destroyers of your squalid huts and among the fathers of your so-called “French” civilization! So shut your mouths and admit that you’re nothing but sinister, unscrupulous puppets, heartless cads, slaves to the golden calf, professional thieves and murderers
with no other excuse.
For Hitler, France was a savage country that had to be civilized at all costs. For Stalin, Poland, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, etc., were backward countries that also had to be brought to their senses… and the “civilization” spiel went on its way, to the detriment of the idiots who ignored themselves and applauded.
At worst, and to please your pitiful pride, let’s admit that you’re the civilizers of North Africa, despite the irrefutable proof to the contrary I’ve provided in my six previous articles and the coup de grâce I’m delivering in the present one. In 1830, Algeria was conquered following France’s refusal to pay the bey of
Algiers for a livraison of wheat, which earned the French consul a fly swat… I now hand over the pen to an official representative of the country
The “civilizer” who will rub the noses of these… to the unconfessed scoundrels:
Here is a letter from Adjutant-Major Canrobert, dated January 1, 1842 from Koliah.
“We have just carried out several raids in the Little Atlas Mountains. At night, we surprised a fairly large number of Kabyles and took several herds, women, children and old people. These operations, which I must confess are a great resource for the army’s supplies, are from a military point of view of the most unfortunate effect. Soldiers, poorly or not at all supervised, excited by the lure of plunder, indulge in the greatest excesses, which singularly vitiate their character“.
The quotation from this letter is the beginning of a series of others that will follow. An old warhorse, I intend to take up the defense of my unfortunate oppressed compatriots, if necessary at the cost of my freedom and even my life, without any weakness, and it is with deep emotion, I’m sure, that the damned overseas will welcome the total selflessness of a humble representative of the anarchist federation.
In Le Libertaire, August 3, 1951.
_____________________
Algerians, don’t vote
The emancipation of the workers will be the work of the workers themselves. The emancipation of colonial peoples will be the work of the colonies themselves.
Don’t entrust your rights to upstarts in search of armchairs, to traitors who will forget their promises in no time, to feudalists and agrarians.
ALGERIANS DON’T VOTE.
Parliamentarianism is a deception on the international (UN), national and Algerian levels.
On the national leve
THE AMERICAN PARLIAMENT accentuates its warmongering stance (votes
to designate China as aggressor); China as aggressor = war.
THE RUSSIAN SOVIETS have lived on: their popular essence has been
entirely lost to a totalitarian bureaucracy and its leader, the tyrant Stalin, who
provides America with the chromium and manganese weapons for future
massacres.
THE FRENCH PARLIAMENT ratifies all the laws of misery and anti-worker
repression, votes the crushing military budgets, and makes itself the slavish
lackey of America at war.
The parliaments of Italy, England, Belgium, Slovakia, Poland, Hungary, etc.,
are merely echoes of their masters’ voices.
DON’T VOTE IT’S ALWAYS BEEN THE CASE THAT IMPORTANT REFORMS OF STRUCTURE AND SUBSTANTIAL GAINS HAVE BEEN
RIPPED AWAY
THE ALGERIAN RUMP PARLIAMENT ? an almshouse of imperialist status,
concentrates all the vices listed above, compounded by its colonialist taint.
“The Governor is responsible for his actions before the Government of the
Republic” (Article 5 of the Statute of Algeria).
“The Algerian Assembly is free, after approval, to extend metropolitan law to
Algeria, either purely and simply, or after ADAPTATION.
We saw how the AA ADAPTED agricultural Social Security, by sabotaging it,
and how the Communes Mixtes were abolished without being abolished.
How could it be otherwise: 70 delegates totalling over 200,000 inhabitants.
FLINOIS wants to cut the social budget in favor of the army: AA will vote.
In addition, rigged ballot boxes, police pressure and make-up will make
“Your elected representatives”, not what you would have wanted them to be,
but what the Proconsul of the Empire would have made them.
And yet you know the disgusting results of free voting elsewhere: rigged.
NO. Make the future exploiters understand that they represent only
themselves. Don’t give a blank mandate to those who, tomorrow, will be the
servile agents of private American or Russian state capital, of war-mongering, colonialist or nationalist exploitation.
But work for the advent of an egalitarian and free organization in which
workers (who have become owners of the means of production).
Consumers themselves will manage production, distribution and distribution
through their unions and cooperatives, and the Commune will be managed by
all for the benefit of all.
Organization from the bottom up, through the free association and federation
of workers in their associations, in communes, regions, nations and in a great
international federation of workers, realizing the order of freedom and general
happiness, affirming and harmonizing the interests of individuals and Society.
NORTH AFRICAN LIBERTARIAN MOVEMENT,
6 rue du Roussillon,
Algiers. Read Le
Libertaire.
MLNA leaflet, 1951.
_____________________
Appendix II:
Alert
he Mouvement Libertaire Nord Africain
believes that the person truly responsible for
current events, in conjunction with those in
Morocco and Tunisia, is the
sie is the colonialist regime, based on land expropriation, overexploitation,
unemployment, repression and opposition to the rights of peoples to selfdetermination and their revolutionary aspirations.
The M.L.N.A. points out that the accusation against foreign propaganda is
merely a diversion to divert international attention from the real
responsibilities of the colonialist regime.
The M.L.N.A. protests violently against the arbitrary dissolution of the MTLD,
the no less arbitrary detention of its leaders and activists, with whom it
expresses its solidarity, the procedures used to make them “confess”, and
demands their immediate release and the reversal of the dissolution decree, the
attacks on freedom of the press and of expression, in Algeria and in France, by
the illegal seizure of the premises of the MTLD, and the “illegal seizure of the
premises of the M.L.N.A.”.
newspapers, including Le Libertaire, organ of the Fédération Commu- niste
Libertaire, 145 Quai de Valmy, Paris Xe.
And, on this occasion, he expressed his solidarity with the latter organization,
a member like himself of the Libertarian Communist International, which, in
liaison with colonial peoples and workers, is leading the anti-colonialist
struggle, and has launched a solemn appeal in France for the formation of a
“Committee to fight colonialist repression”.
The M.L.N.A. denounces the provocative nature of military and police
measures, and in particular those likely to fall on the unfortunate population
of the Aurès, through which the most reactive colonialist elements hope to
renew the massacres of Constantinois and consolidate their over-exploitation.
The M.L.N.A. denounces the hateful, mendacious nature of the colonialist
press, which does the bidding of big business to safeguard its privileges.
The solution does not lie in the economic and social neo-colonialism of the
Mendès France government, at the service of French imperialism and its
bourgeoisie. It does not lie in the reinforcement of “L’Ordre” (order),
advocated and obtained by the Federation of Mayors, agents of big
colonization, thanks to a panic campaign skilfully orchestrated among public
opinion and threats against officials who fail to enforce “L’Ordre”.
Nor is it that of the so-called Communist Party, at the orders of Soviet
imperialism, with its betrayal, as in Geneva, of the revolutionary liberation of
peoples and workers, by bargaining between imperialist governments.
Nor is it a collaboration, as in Tunisia, between a native bourgeoisie, betraying
the revolutionary emancipation of the workers, and the French bourgeoisie.
The solution lies, beyond simple national political liberation, in the struggle of all
the exploited, in close union with the revolutionary workers of France, the enemy
being the same, against all exploiters, whatever their race, towards a classless,
stateless society, a libertarian communist society. The M.L.N.A. solemnly calls
on all anti-colonialists, revolutionaries, trade unionists and men of free
conscience to form these committees as a matter of urgency, if they do not want
repression to fall on them too, and on the revolutionary ideal they represent.
The North African Libertarian Movement.
MLNA leaflet following the “Red All Saints’ Day”, November 1954.
Source: CAOM/Alger/3F60,
Letter from the Divisional Commissioner to the Prefect, Algiers,
12/3/1954
_____________________
To Algerian workers
(and to the others…)