Algerian Independence Day: A Legacy of Freedom, Courage, and Self-Determination

Introduction: The Epistemology of Liberation and the Algerian Paradigm

Decolonisation is the most radical change within the system of the twentieth century, the architecture of global politics. It redefined legal and philosophical boundaries of state sovereignty, human dignity, and international law, as well as reconstructing the maps of the world. In this historical epic, the Algerian struggle for national liberation has a sacred position, which is of core nature. Algerian Independence Day, observed on July 5th annually, is not just a celebration of the birth of a post-colonial Algeria, but a testament to the force of human agency, communal strength, and an indomitable drive for independence.

Politically speaking, the Algerian Revolution (1954-1962) is a typical but particularly acute example of an anti-colonial struggle waged against a fully-fledged settler-colonial system (Jureidini, 1963). The French colonial regime for more than 132 years endeavored to rule on Algeria, systematically destroying its socio-political institutions, its Islamic-Arabic-Berber identity, and its cultural memory. The colonial power looked to do a permanent ontological excision on the Algerian territory (Bellisari, 2018) by declaring Algeria as a part of metropolitan France.

Thus the victory for 1962 was an enormous accomplishment. It broke the illusion of colonial permanency and offered a wonderful blueprint for the liberation movements in Asia and Africa, and Latin America. Meanwhile, Algeria's victorious outcome on the battlefield over Belgium, a key western power, firmly established its position as an early belief leader of the post-colonial Global South arena and the Non-Aligned Movement (Işıksal, n.d.).

The Mechanics of Subjugation: The 132-Year Colonial Night

One has to deconstruct the darkness in order to fully comprehend the majestic dawn of July 5, 1962. Immediate, systemic violence, land expropriation, and structural disenfranchisement accompanied the French invasion of Algiers in 1830. Algeria did not have the typical type of colonial rule that occurred through indirect rule or commercial proxyism, but rather one of assimilation and colonalisation de peuplement or settler-colonialism.

By late 19th century the colonist Government issued a Code de l'Indigenat (Native Code) in 1881, which codified in law a racist ordering. In this system, indigenous Muslim people lost the right to hold political office and were left as colonial subjects (indigenes), unless they completely renounce their Islamic personal status and become followers of French civil law (Brown, n.d.). The economic system was made clear: ancestral lands intended for agriculture were systematically expropriated and handed over to the European settlers (pieds-noirs); the native population, the majority, was systematically forced towards low income jobs, structural poverty, and geographic resettlement.

In addition, it is worth to note that Algerian culture was the target of a deliberate war by the colonial administration (Bellisari, 2018). The teaching of Arabic was very limited, traditional Islamic endowments (awqaf) were abolished, and old mosques, in particular, were converted for use in secular government offices or churches. Members of this systematic project aimed at the psychological backbone of the nation. But this repressive process also facilitated to create a fixed national consciousness. It showed that there was no room for manoeuvre in the colonial structure and complete and unqualified freedom was the only way ahead.

The Catalyst of Resurgence: From Constitutionalism to Armed Struggle

Decades of development in the Algerian nationalist movement prepared the way to July 5th. In the early 20th century, leaders such as Messali Hadj and Ferhat Abbas pursued different constitutional and political options, which included equal citizenship rights, up to full independence (Brown, n.d.). Neither the third, fourth, nor fifth republic of France could, however, afford to each these peaceful overtures, its own structure being too inflexible to yield to the changes required, and a more or less governmental response of electoral manipulation and political crackdowns invariably resulted.

The absolute turning point came on the day Europe was celebrating the fall of Nazi tyranny—May 8, 1945. Algerian citizens marched in the towns of Setif and Guelma to call for Algerian independence and to celebrate the end of WWII when thousands of Algerian soldiers fought and died for the liberation of France. The answer of the colonial government and settler militias was a terrible and disproportionate series of massacres resulting in the death of thousands of Algerians.

The massacre at Setif put an end to any optimism for constitutional reforms by the colonists. It revealed a hypocrisy: a city that purported to have the values of liberte, egalite and fraternite was willing to use mass violence to preserve colonial subjugation (Brown, n.d.).

This historical trauma gave rise to a new generation of young nationalists who felt that they could not compromise freedom through legalistic negotiations but had to fight for it in an organized manner using armed struggle. The Front de Liberation Nationale (FLN) proclaimed itself on 1st November 1954 and got itself organized for the national liberation struggle, which spread all over the country's wilayas (military districts)

The Algerian War of Independence (1954–1962): A Global Masterclass in Resilience

The eight year war which ensued is one of the most intense and strategically analysed asymmetrical wars in the military history of the modern era as is stated by ‘Jureidini, 1963'. The Algerian mujahideen and the fidayeen were matched against a European military force, far superior in both troops and weaponry and with NATO supplies. To the aim of suppressing the revolution, the French army implemented extreme COIN (counter-insurgency) approaches, such as routine use of torture, the use of psychological warfare, the establishment of militarized internment camps (camps de regroupement), and the displacement of more than two million Algerians from their villages.

Yet the FLN managed to integrate rural guerrilla warfare and tactical activity in urban warfare, most spectacular in the famous Battle of Algiers (1956-1957). An important element was that the Algerian leadership was aware that military activity would need to go hand in hand with international diplomacy.

The provisional government, know also as Gouvernement Provisoire de la Republique Algerienne (GPRA) had however managed to internationalise the conflict, taking the Algerian question to the floor of the United Nations General Assembly and forming important diplomatic alliances (Teniou, 2020). The war was vast, human, economic and political; even so, France was forced into a severe constitutional crisis which eventually saw the fall of the Fourth Republic and the rise of Charles de Gaulle.

By March 1962, France was forced to sign the Evian Accords because it realized that it could not prevail in a never-ending war against a people united in their desire for deathless freedom. An overwhelming 99.7% of Algerians voted for Independence in a national referendum that followed. On July 5, 1962--exactly 132 years to the day after the French landings in Algiers- the independent Democratic and Popular Republic of Algeria was officially proclaimed.

Ideological Formations: Frantz Fanon and the Philosophy of Decolonization

The intellectual legacy of the Algerian Revolution transcended its boundaries and had a deep impact on the theory of anti-colonialism on a global scale. It was the melting pot of the Algerian struggle that formed the foundation and empirical base for the seminal work of the Martinican psychiatrist Frantz Fanon, who joined the FLN and gave his life for the cause of Algerian independence (Srivastava, 2022).

Fanon's seminal works such as The Wretched of the Earth and A Dying Colonialism, delved into the psychological and sociological aspects of the Algerian conflict. According to Fanon, settler-colonialism is fundamentally a system of absolute violence and so the decolonisation process must be a counter-violence, a cleansing, to restore the dignity to the oppressed individual.

"Decolonization is the veritable creation of new men. But this creation owes nothing of its legitimacy to any supernatural power; the 'thing' which has been colonized becomes man during the same process by which it frees itself."

— Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth

The Algerian movement (FLN) used Fanon's and FLN's perspectives to show that the liberation movement is a comprehensive exercise (Srivastava, 2022). The nature of independence is total revalidation of the national identity, the system of the socio-economic relations, and elimination of colonized mentality. The Algerian experience gave the whole world a new vision of resistance, where unity, mobilization of women and culture are irreplaceable weapons of national liberation.

Internationalist Dimensions: Algiers as the "Mecca of Revolutionaries" and Bangladesh-Algeria Affinities

Algeria, once independent in 1962, was immediately a major player on the international political scene, and it became a vibrant international centre for liberation struggle. Algiers was famous for the role it played in providing strong diplomatic, financial, and military support to anti-colonial and civil rights movements around the world such as the African National Congress (ANC) in South Africa and the Black Panther Party in the United States of America (Lamrani, 2022).

From then on, the foreign policy of Algeria took a firm turn towards Third world, South-South solidarity, and the NonAligned Movement (Srivastava 2022, Stojanovic 1980). The country was a leader at the historic 1973 NAM Summit in Algiers, which initiated the concept of the New International Economic Order (NIEO) aimed at the structural restructuring of the global economic system to safeguard the sovereignty and resource-based wealth of developing countries.

As a Bangladeshi academic, historical parallels and diplomatic connections between Bangladesh and Algeria resonate with me deeply both academically and emotionally. Both countries were coming out from terrible bloody liberation war against armies of power. Each prolonged conflict involved an indomitable spirit of independence, each one having taken an enormous number of human lives, Algeria lost 1.5 million martyrs (shuhada) and Bangladesh honored 3 million martyrs.

This common history engendered an instant and profound connection both diplomatic and fraternal. After Independence in 1971, Algeria was the first Arab State that welcomed Bangladesh into the international community. During the early 1970s, Algeria helped Bangladesh join the Non-Aligned Movement and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) as a member country under the leadership of President Houari Boumediene.

Conclusion: The Living Legacy of July 5

In celebrating the legacy of Algerian Independence Day, July 5th is not just a chapter closing in the books of history. Today, it is still another living breathing story to say that national freedom and dignity of human being are a right and can be achieved through resilience and unity.

The Algerian paradigm remains an important one to be learned in the twenty-first century in a changing global landscape. It reminds us that state sovereignty has to be forcibly preserved from modernity; in economic and political dependency. Algeria's historic struggle remains an immortal moral compass for the academic community, diplomatists and citizens of the Global South. It commemorates the memory of martyrs who sacrificed their lives and is a proud and enduring testament that the march of a united people towards freedom and self-determination can never be halted.

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Dr Mohammad Tarikul Islam

Professor in Government and Politics, Jahangirnagar University, Bangladesh

Visiting Professor at Oxford, Cambridge, LSE, and Harvard