[Marxism] Algeria, FLN, Harkis

[Aaron Aarons <aaron@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>From: Shane Mage <shmage@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
>Date: Wed, 17 Sep 2008 16:19:49 -0400
>Subject: Re: [Marxism] BOLIVIA: What the hell is going on in the Bolivian
>
>On Sep 17, 2008, at 12:47 PM, Marvin Gandall wrote:
>> ...I recall many ARVN troops going over to the NLF, and I
>> think also Muslim FLN sympathizers from the French army of 
>> occupation...
>
>Not so.  Conscription did not apply to Muslim Algerians, so the French 
>Army included very few Muslims.

Do you mean that it didn't apply to French citizens of Algerian Muslim 
background or ancestry?

>However, the French forces included hundreds of thousands of anti-FLN  
>Algerians, the so.called harkis, 

The harkis were mostly Muslims, but had, for mercenary or other reasons, fought 
for the colonial power against the independence movement. It would be 
interesting to know what those other reasons might have been. Was there, for 
instance, any correlation between the Arab-vs.-Amazigh (Berber) division and 
that between supporters and opponents of the FLN? (Were there less world and 
had I more time, I would look into it more.)

>who were betrayed by deGaulle even more shamefully than the Algerians of 
>European origin, all of whom at least were allowed to escape with  their lives.

The "harkis" were clearly treated with wildly excessive vengeance by those they 
had fought _against_, and with racist callousness, or worse, by those they had 
fought _for_. (Even Daniel Pipes says the French treatment of the harkis was 
racist!)

As for the settler-colonists, I'm not sure what Shane would have wanted 
deGaulle to do for them.

BTW, I recall that, shortly after the Evian Accords, the deal ending formal 
French rule in Algeria, was announced, Shane took advantage of the fact that 
the SWP hadn't officially came out in support of it yet to use a 15-minute 
commentary slot on New York's WBAI to attack the deal as a sellout of the 
anti-imperialist struggle. This was the position of the "revolutionary minority 
tendency" (RMT) of the SWP, of which Shane was a member( and I joined shortly 
thereafter). (The Wohlforth/Mazelis group, the future Workers League, was still 
part of the RMT, although it split from the future Spartacist League a few 
months later.)

>Shane Mage
>
>Chirac at mass demonstration welcoming him to Algiers:
>"Qu'est-ce-que vous voulez de nous?"
>Hundred thousand young Algerians:
>"Des Visas! Des Visas!"

When was this? And, given the horrors of the dirty war between the neo-colonial 
Algerian army and Islamists, wouldn't millions of Algerians rather be almost 
anywhere else?

 - Aaron

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