Algérie

This article aims to show that the illusion that independence had been won following the war of national liberation in Algeria did not give the newly decolonized population the opportunity to grasp the reality of the economic and social situation into which they had been plunged and even less, that of the political situation. The army had never given up power and seized it openly as soon as it was possible, for the promises which had been expressed through slogans could not be kept. The country was ravaged by war. In the countryside, the villages were destroyed and farm animals had been lost in fires, along with fields and forests. On the other hand, in the regions dominated by colonial settlers, such as the Mitidja plain, or the high plateaux of the south west controlled by wealthy Algerians, there was relatively little damage and life continued much as before. There was no equality between the various types of farmers – whether they were members of management committees, inhabitants of destroyed villages who now found themselves landless, wage labourers, or on farms taken over by the army. There were several occasions when optimism flourished, such as the Congress of agricultural workers (1964) or the women’s demonstration of 8 March 1965. However, these remained isolated and with no long term effect

Archaeology · Colonialism · Development economics · Economic history · Economics · Geography · Independence (probability theory · Political science · Politics · Population · Power (physics · Sociology · Spanish Civil War · African history and culture studies · Demography · History · Law · Multiculturalism, Politics, Migration, Gender · North African History and Literature