Wednesday, October 4, 2017

Camus' Perspective on Algeria; A Settler Plantation Colony

France invaded the ports of Algeria in 1830. For generations after that, close to 1 million French settlers were in the city of Algiers. These settlers were called the pieds noirs. Camus was one of them. Right after WWII, from 1954-1962, the people of Algeria were upset that they had been marginalized in their own country; where French settlers had preferable rights to Muslim natives, and were seen as full citizens rather than the colonizers. They began to rebel...

Before we dive into what Camus' perspective was on the French-Algerian war, it is important to think about how the people back in France thought of it. Most people were having a hard time with living in a state of war, because they saw Algeria as a playground -- and not a place where people were being discriminated against every day. They weren't against the occupation, but they were not supportive of the constant resources and conflicts being boomeranged back and forth between the two countries.

In 1957, at the height of the French-Algerian war, Camus won the Nobel Prize for literature. He gave a lecture in Stockholm, where he stated "I believe in justice, but I will defend my mother before justice". By this, it can be interpreted that his Algerian heritage was more important to him than that of the French colonization, although he himself was also of French decent and was therefore torn on the issue of occupation in his homeland. Since he was primarily part of the leftist movement that was slowly fragmenting itself, this statement shows the true confusion on the topics of colonization, means of torture, and war crimes against a native people.



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