In Algeria as in France, the announcement did not go unnoticed. During his official trip to Algiers, Emmanuel Macron announced, Thursday, August 25, the creation of a joint commission of French and Algerian historians to work on colonization and the war in Algeria. This body should allow “look at the whole of this historical period, which is decisive for us, from the beginning of colonization to the war of liberation, without taboo”declared the President of the Republic, under the approving gaze of his counterpart, Abdelmadjid Tebboune.
An announcement that inevitably made react the historians of the two countries who have been working for several decades on these sensitive questions covering a period going from 1830 to 1962. For Amar Mohand-Amer, Algerian historian-researcher at the National Center for Research in Social and Cultural Anthropology (Crasc), in Oran, “this new body is a good thing, because history must be made by historians, and not by politicians, as it has been for too long”.
Franceinfo: How did you welcome the announcement of the forthcoming creation of such a commission?
Amar Mohand-Amer: We really had to stop playing with history. History should be made by historians and not by politicians. For too long, the field of historians has been encroached on by associations and other memory lobbies who believe that colonization is their responsibility. They are carriers of political memory who have proclaimed themselves thus, often rewriting history in their own way. This is also the case for certain nationalist political parties, both in France and in Algeria. The fact that politicians now accept that the study of colonization is finally returning to the bosom of historians is therefore a good thing. It’s like a return to reason. Afterwards, it is only a statement made with great fanfare during a diplomatic trip. I am therefore still waiting to see what the precise nature of this commission will be and who its members will be.
Do French and Algerian historians really have such a different reading of colonization and the war in Algeria?
There are two categories of historians, both in France and in Algeria. Those who do their job well, in the academic rules, and the others, who are in fact ideologues. On the French side, the latter are close to the extreme right. On the Algerian side, it is all those who believe that one must necessarily be Algerian, a member of the Arab-Islamic nationalist current, to have an approach to colonization. In my opinion, these people are not historians, because they are more interested in political one-upmanship than in real academic research. But they prosper and vampirize certain speeches in the media, at home as in France. If these people were to make up the future commission, then it would serve absolutely no purpose. Similarly, if there are only organic and consensual historians, we will not get very far. For a historian, unlike politicians, there should be no angry subjects.
This commission should allow French and Algerian historians to work together. This was not the case until now?
Yes, of course. We have organized many conferences with our French colleagues, but since last September and Emmanuel Macron’s statements on Algeria, we have hardly had any exchanges. It’s an old sea serpent. We historians have always asked to be able to take up these subjects independently, scientifically and academically.
“The recent political tensions between the two countries have delayed or even put a stop to our research on the Algerian war and colonization.”
Amar Mohand-Amer, historianat franceinfo
We have become hostages to these repeated diplomatic conflicts. As the vast majority of archives on colonization are kept in France, Algerian historians have to travel. But with the tensions between the two countries, they are prevented from doing so due to the blocking of visas. If the announcement of this commission materializes, it will once again allow our researchers to be mobile and to carry out quality work.
What exactly do you expect from the joint work of this unprecedented commission?
I expect this commission to be able to recreate good research conditions, in particular for young historian-researchers. Thanks to the report submitted by the historian Benjamin Stora on the Algerian war, scholarships were paid to fifteen Algerian researchers this year, which is a very good step forward. But this commission must now give us the means to fulfill our ambitions to study in depth subjects as strong and delicate as colonization and the war in Algeria. Three years ago, we were pleasantly surprised that the Algerian president raised these subjects with his French counterpart, because work on memory issues was not at all planned in his political program. Perhaps this commission will therefore be able to correct this false start.
“We can see that the wounds are still not healed. The proof: sixty years after the war, a French head of state returns to Algeria and we only talk about that.”
Amar Mohand-Amer, historianat franceinfo
Could you personally join this commission, if offered to you?
My criterion is the scientific and academic side of the work that we could carry out within it. If that’s the case, then I’ll be a part of it with pleasure, if I’m offered it. But if it’s to follow a political line, I won’t go. It is my condition. It is no longer possible that during each election or each political crisis, the tensions between our two countries resume on this issue. There are many French people who have helped Algeria, we must not forget that. Many French historians are also interested in colonization in a family context, because they are closely affected by this period which marked their parents or their grandparents.