From one extreme to the other

Decolonisation has not been a happy experience for Africa. But nowhere in the continent has it been as disastrous as in Algeria. The country had once been the most successful of France’s colonies. Before the war, it was rich in resources and heavily subsidised by France. The educational system worked moderately well. It had produced a large class of native Algerians who spoke French, felt at home in France and successfully integrated themselves into the structures of the state. Politically, Algeria was a départment of France. There was a large European settlement, kept on top by a gerrymandered voting system. What would have happened if it had remained French into the age when such arrangements were no longer defensible? A different France perhaps.

A different Algeria certainly. It all began to go wrong with the war of independence which broke out in 1954 and continued until France conceded defeat in 1962. Colonies which have to fight for their independence have generally had a far more troubled history afterwards than those which were granted it more or less voluntarily. The problem about wars of independence is that they are rarely truly national. They tend to be fought by ambitious minorities within the indigenous population, against the hostility and indifference of the rest. Most people just want a quiet life. This spells trouble when the insurgents triumph. The victors expect a dominant position in the new state, and are usually in a position to take it by force. Zimbabwe is the nearest British analogy.

The post-independence history of Algeria is largely the story of rival groups claiming the mantle of revolution. The claims of Ben Bella and Boumédienne, who dominated the politics of the 1960s and 1970s, no doubt had some justification.