The Emir Abd el-Kader kept his word and never returned to Algeria, yet he must have kept track of what was going on in his homeland.
There were many years of terrible hardship and misery for the Algerian people when drought, crop failures, locust plagues, and epidemics brought famine and death. There were years of good harvest when the tribes could revive somewhat, only to be followed by another economic crisis. Occasional outbreaks of resistance to the French continued in the 1850s and 1860s, but any rebellion was soon crushed. Then the people would be punished, their villages and forests destroyed.
The last serious insurrection started early in 1871. Some eight hundred thousand people joined in, mostly impoverished Kabyles (Berbers), and for a few months attacked settlers’ farms and villages and forts over a wide area. The French finished off the insurrection in June 1872, and this time imposed punishment intended to completely discourage any further thought of resistance. The tribes were all but ruined by land confiscation and financial penalties.
For several years the people of Algeria had one friend in a high place: the emperor of France. Napoleon III is a problematic figure in French history, criticized especially for his unwise foreign adventures. But where Algeria was concerned, he justified Abd el-Kader’s faith in him. Calling for “perfect equality between natives and Europeans,” including public education and access to civil and military employment, he promised his protection to the indigenous population. He wanted to stop the ongoing seizure of the Muslims’ land and make Algeria a better country for everyone.
But Napoleon III’s vision was doomed. In July of 1870, tensions in the European balance of power led France into a short but disastrous war with Prussia. The emperor was taken prisoner, the Second Empire met a swift end, and France became a republic once again.
Abd el-Kader’s personal loyalty to Napoleon III never wavered. On one occasion not long after the French defeat, some visitors to his home were making sarcastic remarks about the disaster. After listening in silence, Abd el-Kader got up and left the room. He reappeared a few minutes later, now wearing the medal of the French Legion of Honor. It was a wordless statement of his continued esteem for the emperor who had bestowed it on him in 1860.
The settlers (colons) in Algeria were delighted with the outcome of the Franco-Prussian War. The military administration of the country was finished, and now the road was open to their complete control of Algeria. Coming from several Mediterranean and European countries in addition to France, the colons regarded themselves as quite distinct from Frenchmen. They were Algerians—in fact, the only Algerians. The indigenous Arab and Berber people were referred to simply as Muslims, and they existed, just barely, on the margins.
Meanwhile, the relationship of Algeria to France had been made even more complicated by one of the strangest political arrangements ever thought up by a colonial power. In 1848, the government of the Second Republic had declared Algeria an actual part of France—not a colony or a possession, but as much a part of the mother country as Brittany or Provence or Paris itself. It meant, at least in theory, that the laws and policies of France would apply equally to Algeria. The colons, however, vigorously resisted any action from Paris that did not please them.
The new “Algerians” dealt with the native population in three main ways. Seizing more and more of the Muslims’ land by whatever means possible, they pushed the rural people into ever smaller, more arid, less productive areas. Second, their representatives in the French Parliament made it official policy to undermine Muslim society and identity. The traditional aristocracy lost all power. The marabouts, Abd el-Kader’s class, were given a somewhat protected status, but lost the people’s respect because regarded as collaborators. The Islamic judicial system was restricted almost out of existence.
The third line of attack consisted of humiliating and discriminatory measures. The Muslim population was subjected to prosecution and punishment in ways never applied to the Europeans, and forced to pay heavy taxes imposed exclusively on them. In short, the colons intended to reduce the Muslims to a permanent and powerless under-class, a source of cheap labor and nothing more.
There were many people in France who deplored this gross injustice. Certain statesmen and administrators tried persistently to bring about reform, but the settler society and government of Algeria could always block any change that might affect their total domination of the country.
What about the renowned French civilization, so much admired by Abd el-Kader? From the very start of the conquest, some observers had called for spreading this civilization to the conquered people through education. But how? For the entire history of French Algeria, one approach after another was tried, with little or no success. In any case it hardly mattered. The colon communities refused everything that would benefit the Muslims.
For many years the indigenous people themselves were reluctant to accept the schools offered by their conquerors. After World War I, however, when many Algerian Muslims served in the French army, people began to see the need for modern education. Suddenly the demand for schooling took off—but the schools were not there. By the 1950s, on the eve of drastic change in Algeria, the indigenous people were still 85-90% illiterate, and for women the estimate was as high as 98%. The very few urban Muslims who had managed to receive secondary and higher education did not include professions that would be needed for a modern nation. The French “civilizing mission” in Algeria was always a matter of much too little, much too late.
Nevertheless, lack of education did not stop Algerian Muslims from starting to work for reform. The early activists, in the 1920s, included former soldiers who had seen something of Europe, urban workers, and men who had gone to France for work. They found ways to organize, mostly underground, and called for civil, political, and human rights equal with the European population.
Did the Emir Abd el-Kader, who had fought so hard for freedom a century earlier, leave a personal heritage that could contribute to the future struggle? His large family of brothers and ten sons, did not follow in his footsteps. His grandson Khaled, however, became one of the first Muslims who could be called an Algerian nationalist.
In 1919, Khaled presented a petition to the American president, Woodrow Wilson, calling for justice toward the Algerian Muslims. A few years later, with a military education and career behind him, Khaled became a prominent voice for reforms such as equal status and greater political representation. He was elected to public office, wrote a weekly paper called “Audacity,” and bothered the colon government enough for them to send him into exile. Khaled attempted to keep up the struggle by connecting with political groups in Paris, but was caught, imprisoned, and again exiled. Like his grandfather he was sent to Damascus, where he died in 1936; but his reputation continued to influence the growing nationalist organizations.
The Emir Abd el-Kader’s importance as a national symbol would come later.
The North African campaign of the Allies during World War II, especially the American military landing in November 1942, brought international attention to Algeria. One of the most prominent nationalist leaders, Ferhat Abbas, drew up a manifesto in 1943 calling for an autonomous Algerian state, still connected to France. A year later, General Charles de Gaulle, president of the Free French government in exile, signed a decree abolishing all discrimination against Muslims. But again, it was too little, too late. Most of the nationalist leaders by then wanted a free Algerian state. After ten years of frustration, even the moderate Ferhat Abbas had to admit that “There is no other solution than the machine gun.”1
On November 1, 1954, a series of terrorist actions in Algeria and a formal declaration announced the start of the Algerian war for independence. The primary organization coordinating the struggle, the FLN (National Liberation Front), were ready to negotiate with the French government if it recognized the Algerian Muslims’ rights to self-determination, but the answer was “No.” French Algeria, still regarded as an integral part of the mother country, would be defended by every means possible.
The Algerian war grew into the longest, most destructive, bitter, and bloody of any of the struggles for self-determination following World War II. It not only devastated the land of Algeria, but led to violent crises in the French homeland and within the French army. By March 1962, France finally realized that military victory was impossible and Algeria was lost.
With an independent Algeria established, almost the entire European population packed their bags and left. With them went most of the managers, merchants, professionals—in short, the people needed to run a modern state. It was something like the exodus of the Turkish ruling class in 1830, which left the French conquerors facing an ungovernable country.
Fortunately, the modern Algerian nationalists had foreseen the need for organization. Much as Abd el-Kader had tried desperately to organize his people, army, and state under constant threat of war, the nationalists had to learn how to manage in the midst of conflict. While perhaps inevitably, independence for Algeria has been marked by dissension and disappointment, the free nation has withstood severe threats and has succeeded as a fully functioning, vigorous member of the international community.
One of the first ceremonial acts of the new government was to bring the great national hero, the Emir Abd el-Kader, home at last. In 1966 his remains were transported from the tomb in the foothills above Damascus and reinterred in the cemetery of Algiers. A fitting gesture—but not without irony. Abd el-Kader’s own wishes had been to remain for eternity in Damascus, next to his spiritual guide Ibn Arabi.
The Emir Abd el-Kader—young, handsome, and vigorous at the start of his struggle, noble and astonishingly able throughout his career—was a true international celebrity. In the nineteenth century many books and articles were written about him as a resistance-leader and as the embodiment of interfaith good will. For the French and others who knew him, including people of the Arab and Muslim worlds, he was a hero of the highest order. In 1873 the New York Times summed up his career thus: “If to be an ardent patriot, a soldier whose genius is unquestioned and whose honor is stainless, a statesman who could weld the wild tribes of Africa into a formidable army, and a hero who could accept defeat and disaster without a murmur—if to be all these constitutes a great man, Abd-el-Kader deserves to be ranked among the foremost of the few great men of the century.”2
Although his fame had dwindled by the middle of the twentieth century and few people unfamiliar with North Africa knew about him, today Abd el-Kader is again starting to receive the attention he deserves. His story is highly appropriate for our times, when we need understanding and cooperation among followers of the world’s religious faiths more than ever.
It seems right, moreover, that Abd el-Kader should be remembered as one who faithfully tried to carry out jihad—in its most authentic sense of struggle for righteousness and in the most meaningful ways. Just as he fought against the oppression of his own people, he fought against wrongdoing that afflicted others. Throughout his life, he tried to combat injustice and narrow-minded ignorance. And perhaps most valuably for today, he encouraged the spiritual and moral meeting of minds, the shared path of mutual respect by which all humans may walk toward truth.