History
Main article: History of Algeria
Roman arch of Trajan at
Thamugadi (Timgad), Algeria
Algeria has been inhabited by Berbers (or Amazigh) since at
least 10,000 BC. From 1000 BC on, the Carthaginians became
an influence on them, establishing settlements along the
coast. Berber kingdoms began to emerge, most notably
Numidia, and seized the opportunity offered by the Punic
Wars to become independent of Carthage, only to be taken
over soon after by the Roman Republic in 200 BC. As the
western Roman Empire collapsed, the Berbers became
independent again in much of the area, while the Vandals
took over parts until later expelled by the generals of the
Byzantine Emperor, Justinian I. The Byzantine Empire then
retained a precarious grip on the east of the country until
the coming of the Arabs in the 8th century.
Roman arch of Trajan at Thamugadi (Timgad), AlgeriaAfter
some decades of fierce resistance under leaders such as
Kusayla and Kahina, the Berbers adopted Islam en masse, but
almost immediately expelled the Caliphate from Algeria,
establishing an Ibadi state under the Rustamids. Having
converted the Kutama of Kabylie to its cause, the Shia
Fatimids overthrew the Rustamids, and conquered Egypt. They
left Algeria and Tunisia to their Zirid vassals; when the
latter rebelled and adopted Sunnism, they sent in a populous
Arab tribe, the Banu Hilal, to weaken them, thus
incidentally initiating the Arabization of the countryside.
The Almoravids and Almohads, Berber dynasties from the west
founded by religious reformers, brought a period of relative
peace and development; however, with the Almohads' collapse,
Algeria became a battleground for their three successor
states, the Algerian Zayyanids, Tunisian Hafsids, and
Moroccan Merinids. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries,
Spain started attacking and taking over many coastal cities,
prompting some to seek help from the Ottoman Empire.
Algeria was brought into the Ottoman Empire by Khair ad-Din
and his brother Aruj, who established Algeria's modern
boundaries in the north and made its coast a base for the
corsairs; their privateering peaked in Algiers in the 1600s.
Piracy on American vessels in the Mediterranean resulted in
the First and Second Barbary War with the United States. On
the pretext of a slight to their consul, the French invaded
Algiers in 1830; however, intense resistance from such
personalities as Emir Abdelkader, Ahmed Bey and Fatma
N'Soumer made for a slow conquest of Algeria, not
technically completed until the early 1900s when the last
Tuareg were conquered.
Constantine, Algeria 1840Meanwhile, however, the French had
made Algeria an integral part of France, a status that would
end only with the collapse of the Fourth Republic. Tens of
thousands of settlers from France, Italy, Spain, and Malta
moved in to farm the Algerian coastal plain and occupy the
most prized parts of Algeria's cities, benefiting from the
French government's confiscation of communally held land.
People of European descent in Algeria (the so-called pieds-noirs),
as well as the native Algerian Jews, were full French
citizens starting from the end of the 19th century; by
contrast, the vast majority of Muslim Algerians remained
outside of French law. Even the main part of those who had
fought for France during the World Wars and in Indochina,
possessed neither French citizenship nor the right to vote.
Algeria's social fabric was stretched to breaking point
during this period: literacy dropped massively, while land
confiscation uprooted much of the population.
In 1954, the National Liberation Front (FLN) launched the
guerrilla Algerian War of Independence; after nearly a
decade of urban and rural warfare, and with the help of
Frenchmen sustaining Algerian independance like Henri Alleg,
or Hervé Bourges and French organisations like Témoignage
Chrétien, inside the French army itself, they succeeded in
pushing France out in 1962. Most of the 1,025,000 pieds-noirs,
as well as 91,000 harkis (pro-French Muslim Algerians
serving in the French Army), together forming about 10% of
the population of Algeria in 1962, fled Algeria for France
in just a few months in the middle of that year.
Algeria's first president, the FLN leader Ahmed Ben Bella,
was overthrown by his former ally and defense minister,
Houari Boumédiènne in 1965. Boumédienne soon set about
converting the FLN's Marxism into a Stalinist military
dictatorship. Agriculture was collectivised, and a massive
industrialization drive launched. Oil extraction facilities
were nationalized and this increased the state's wealth,
especially after the 1973 oil crisis, but the Algerian
economy became increasingly dependent on oil and this
brought hardship when the price collapsed in the 1980s. In
foreign policy Algeria was a member and leader of the
'non-aligned' nations. A dispute with Morocco over the
Western Sahara nearly led to war.
Dissent was rarely tolerated, and the state's control over
the media and the outlawing of political parties other than
the FLN was cemented in the repressive constitution of 1976.
Boumédienne died in 1978, but the rule of his successor,
Chadli Bendjedid, was not much more open. The state took on
a strongly bureaucratic character and corruption was
widespread.
The modernization drive brought considerable demographic
changes to Algeria. The ancient tribal routines of the
villages were broken, and education, a rarity in colonial
times, was extended nationwide. Improvements in healthcare
led to a dramatic increase in the birthrate (7-8 children
per mother) which had two consequences: a very youthful
population, and a housing crisis. The new generation
struggled to relate to the cultural obsession with the war
years and two conflicting protest movements developed:
progressives and Islamic 'intégristes'. Both protested
against one-party rule but also clashed with each other in
universities and on the streets during the 1980s.
Mass protests from both camps in autumn 1988 forced Benjedid
to concede the end of one-party rule, and elections were
announced for 1991.
In December 1991, the Islamic Salvation Front won the first
round of the country's first multiparty elections. The
military then canceled the second round, forced
then-president Bendjedid to resign, and banned the Islamic
Salvation Front. The ensuing conflict engulfed Algeria in
the violent Algerian Civil War. More than 100,000 people
were killed, often by unprovoked massacres and bombings of
civilians by muslim guerrilla groups such as the Armed
Islamic Group.
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