An affront to colonial France
The drafters of the exceptional Declaration of November 1, 1954, were genius to elevate the Algerian people to the rank of a major actor on which rested not only the fate of the Revolution but the future of Algeria.
Today, Algeria will celebrate the 66th anniversary of the outbreak of the National Liberation War. Terrible, painful, and costly in human lives of 1.5 million chouhada, this war crowned by a victory, marked the time and constituted a stage in the struggle of the Third World against colonial domination and for the reconquest of its wealth national.
Sixty-six years later, the Declaration of November 1 still arouses the interest of historians. “The Proclamation of November 1, 1954 was an affront to a proud and contemptuous France and a real rebellion against the colonial order,” said historian Mohammed Ould Si Kaddour El Korso.
The writers of this exceptional declaration were genius to elevate the Algerian people, until then bullied, ignored, to the rank of a major actor on whom rested not only the fate of the Revolution but the future of Algeria in the present and in the future.
To the dithering and tensions that marked the National Movement in the early 1950s, the Declaration of November 1 came to seal the fate of these internal struggles. “This declaration had at least the merit of making a clean sweep of the past, by putting each one in front of its responsibilities, in the first place France”, affirmed El Korso, explaining that the latter was put before a choice that it does not have never considered, “in this case that of an honorable way out of the crisis by negotiating with the National Liberation Front (NLF) on the one hand, or the option of arms and violence, on the other hand”.
It takes also admit that the Declaration of November 1 caught the Algerians themselves by surprise, “including the most politicized among his elite, in addition to those who remembered only the name of Zaïm Messali Hadj”. Should we limit the advent of this declaration to the night of All Saints? The French historian Gilles Manceron maintains that the Revolution of November 1, 1954, against French colonization appears to be the culmination of the revolt movements that began with the landing of the French armies in Algeria in 1830. It is a historical fact because, in reality, the Algerian people have never ceased resistance since the first day of the colonial invasion, July 5, 1830.
The outbreak of the armed struggle on November 1, 1954 was “the culmination of several revolt movements against French colonial rule, which began as soon as the French armies landed in 1830”, recalls Manceron, specifying that these revolt movements against the colonizer were not reduced to the armed resistance led by Emir Abdelkader in western Algeria, but also included the struggle of Ahmed Bey against the capture of Constantine and the revolts of Ouled Sidi Cheikh, of Mohamed Ben Toumi Ben Brahim said Cherif Bouchoucha, Lalla Fadhma N’Soumer, Cheikh Boubaghla, El Mokrani, Cheikh El Haddad, Cheikh Bouamama and many others throughout the 19th century.
