Unsolved:Kabyle myth

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Short description: French colonial interpretation trope propagated in French Algeria

The Kabyle myth is a long-standing colonial interpretation that was propagated by French colonists in French Algeria based on a fundamental distinctions between the Arab and Kabyle peoples, consisting of a set of differences between them such as religion or culture. Kabyles were often portrayed by European writers as having an identity and culture closer to Mediterranean or European societies.[1][2][3] The myth emerged in the 19th century with French colonialism in Algeria, positing that the Kabyle people were more predisposed than Arabs to assimilate into "French civilization".[2][4]

This myth was largely based off the Roman influence in the region of Kabylia. When the Roman Empire controlled North Africa, the region of Kabylia was integrated into Roman provincial life. By the 3rd-5th centuries, Kabylia was influenced by the Roman Empire, especially through the spread of Christianity and Roman culture. Christianity declined in North Africa after the Muslim conquest of the Maghreb. However, Kabylia’s mountainous geography meant many communities stayed relatively independent and less arabized than the rest of North Africa. When the French Conquest of Algeria happened, French thinkers developed the Kabyle Myth, as they argued that Kabyles were less influenced by Islam and closer to Europeans. Later, exaggerating theses European/Kabyle connections to separate the Kabyles from the broader Algerian Identity, creating a group more aligned with France and use them as intermediaries in colonial administration. [5]

History

While elements can be traced to the writings of Abbé Raynal and precolonial travelers, the myth was seriously elaborated by French colonists between 1840 and 1857.[6] It emerged largely in the writings of French military men, such as Baron Aucapitaine (fr) and Adolphe Hanoteau (fr).[1] The Kabyle myth was diffused between 1860 and 1871, reaching its climax between 1871 and 1892[6][7] before finally being abandoned as a basis for social policy in 1915.[6]

The French colony came to consider the Kabyle population more prepared to assimilate into French civilization "by virtue of the supposed democratic nature of their society, their superficial Islamicization, and the higher status of Kabyle women,"[4] as well as the belief that they were ancient Christians, of Celtic origin, who could easily be re-Christianized.[7]

Among the proponents of this myth was the French officer Baron Aucapitaine (fr), who claimed: "In one hundred years, the Kabyles will be French!"[4] Camille Sabatier (fr), a colonist theorist of "Berber separatism" and racist, claimed that the qanuns (customary laws) of the Kabyles came from someone who was "not of the family of Mohamed and Moses but of that of Montesquieu and Condorcet."[4]

Eugène Daumas and Paul-Dieudonné Fabar published in 1847: "Beneath the Muslim peel, one finds a Christian seed. We recognize now that the Kabyle people, partly autochthonous, partly German in origin, previously entirely Christian, did not completely transform itself with its new religion ... [The Kabyle] re-dressed himself in a burnous, but he kept underneath his anterior social form, and it is not only with his facial tattoos that he displays before us, unbeknownst to him, the symbol of the Cross" (Daumas and Fabar 1847: I, 77).[8][3]

Political Implementation

The concept named "berbère" influenced multiple policies in an effort to further assimilate the Kabyle peoples. For example, in the 1880s education efforts were greatly increased in Kabylia. They were also favored in recruitment for the Zouave colonial army, while the White Fathers attempted to convert them to Christianity[9].

Legacy

An analogous dichotomy played out in the Berber policy of the French protectorate in Morocco (1912–1956).[1] According to Edmund Burke III, who described it as "one of the most enduring aspects of the French sociology of Islam, the myth and its supposed Arab-Berber dichotomy was fundamental to colonial discourse in North Africa, and its impact shaped postcolonial political discourse as well.[1][2]

Alfred Rosenberg's 1930 book The Myth of the Twentieth Century, a touchstone of Nazi philosophy, includes the Berbers in with the Nordic Aryans.[10]

See also

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Tilmatine, Mohand (2016-01-01). "French and Spanish colonial policy in North Africa: revisiting the Kabyle and Berber myth". International Journal of the Sociology of Language 2016 (239). doi:10.1515/ijsl-2016-0006. ISSN 0165-2516. 
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Burke, Edmund (December 2007). "France and the Classical Sociology of Islam, 1798–1962". The Journal of North African Studies 12 (4): 551–561. doi:10.1080/13629380701633414. ISSN 1362-9387. 
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Silverstein, Paul A. (2002), "The Kabyle Myth: Colonization and the Production of Ethnicity" (in en), From the Margins (Duke University Press): pp. 122–155, doi:10.1215/9780822383345-005, ISBN 978-0-8223-2861-2, http://read.dukeupress.edu/books/book/687/chapter/132724/The-Kabyle-MythColonization-and-the-Production-of, retrieved 2022-08-30 
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 Burke, Edmund III. The ethnographic state: France and the invention of Moroccan Islam. p. 33. ISBN 978-0-520-95799-2. OCLC 906782010. 
  5. ↑ "Office of the President | Bethel University". bethel.edu. http://www.bethel.edu/~letnie/AfricanChristianity/WesternNorthAfricaHomepage.html. 
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 Lazreg, Marnia. "The Reproduction of Colonial Ideology: The Case of the Kabyle Berbers." Arab Studies Quarterly, vol. 5, no. 4, 1983, pp. 380–95. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/41857696. Accessed 31 Aug. 2022.
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 Islam in the West. OUP India. 2018. p. 250. ISBN 978-0-19-909366-3. 
  8. ↑ Eugène., Daumas (1847) (in fr). La Grande Kabylie: Études historiques.. i. p. 77. ISBN 978-2-346-05496-1. OCLC 1041018616. 
  9. ↑ Yidir Plantade, «  », Journal d'étude des relations internationales au Moyen-Orient, vol. 2, no 1,‎ 2007, p. 81-94
  10. ↑ Rosenberg, Alfred. Dalton, Thomas. ed. The Myth of the Twentieth Century. Requiem Publications. p. 36. https://ia800405.us.archive.org/31/items/alfred-rosenberg-and-the-track-of-the-jew-through-the-ages/The%20Myth%20of%20the%2020th%20Century.pdf. 



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