Transcript French views of the Maghreb vs. sub-Saharan Africa

French views of the Maghreb vs.
sub-Saharan Africa
The construction of race in
France’s African colonies
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
• Non-Europeans were less
civilised
• Colonial apologists used
evolutionary racial
(pseudo)science to place
the world’s peoples
according to European
values (of civilisations).
• French colonial
bureaucrats’ role:
a. To educate,
b. To instruct, &
c. To bring advancement
& enlightenment to the
“colonial children”.
• France never governed
Africa under a single
colonial apparatus.
• Many French writers
distinguished between
the Maghreb & subSaharan Africa,
frequently labelled
Afrique noire (Black
Africa).
• France ignored the
longstanding
economic, cultural, &
political links between
the Maghreb & subSaharan 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.
• 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.
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 .
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 noir reflected a
division unrecognisable to
African Muslims of the time.
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.
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.
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
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.
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).
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.
• 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.
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
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:
 Algerian Arabs- fanatical, obstinate, unruly, & inclined to
violence & disruption.
 Berbers - noble, honourable , & hospitable; less Islamic &
more civilised
* 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.