A completely new doctrine of counterinsurgency emerged largely in response to these questions. Peterson argues that the French state, contrary to its own propaganda, was not necessarily a purely reactive power helplessly trying to claw back its imperial possession in the face of a mobilized underground movement. It had instead redesigned the very remit of the military’s role over Algerian society. This was not simply a war to subdue Algerian insurgents, but an attempt to transform Algerian society in the image of the metropole. The view of the French colonial administration was that the only way to maintain their country’s interests was to use the sword to mobilize and transform Algerian society.
At the heart of Peterson’s book is a counterargument to traditional narratives of postwar social reform. The very same rhetoric that justified the construction of a supposed top-down progressive modernity after 1945 was simultaneously used to justify the entrenchment of colonial rule in North Africa. As Peterson reminds us, “the modernizing project at the heart of postwar reconstruction offered a compelling framework to understand and counter the collapse of colonial order.” If deprivation, poverty, and administrative neglect appeared to drive support for radical politics in the metropole, then surely, in the eyes of French officials, the dramatic inequalities, political frustrations, and lack of autonomy in the colonial context could be remedied through major socioeconomic reform. In the process, French officials in favor of reintegration of Algeria into the fold of France sought to placate nationalism through a wholehearted embrace of modernity.
On the ground military policymaking and action soon developed into a coherent policy of “pacification,” in which social reform went hand in hand with armed action against FLN rebels. During this process, the French military would come to…
La suite est à lire sur: jacobin.com
Auteur: Charlie Taylor
