Tocqueville's Opposition To The Invasion of Kabylie
In opposition to Olivier Le Cour Grandmaison, Jean-Louis Benoît claimed that given the extent of racial prejudices during the colonization of Algeria, Tocqueville was one of its "most moderate supporters." Benoît claimed that it was wrong to assume Tocqueville was a supporter of Bugeaud, despite his 1841 apologetic discourse. It seems that Tocqueville changed viewpoint in particular after his second travel to Algeria in 1846. Hereafter, he criticized Bugeaud's desire to invade Kabylie (home of the Kabyle people) in a 1847 speech to the Assembly. Tocqueville, who did advocate racial segregation between Europeans and Arabs, judged otherwise the Berbers. In an August 22, 1837 proposal, Tocqueville distinguished the Berbers from the Arabs. He considered that these last ones should have a self-government (a bit on the model of British indirect rule, thus going against the French assimilationist stance).
Tocqueville's views on the matter were complex, and evolved over time. Even though in his 1841 report on Algeria Tocqueville admitted that Bugeaud succeeded in implementing a technique of war that enabled him to defeat Abd al-Qadir's resistance and applauded him on one hand, he opposed on the other hand the conquest of Kabylie in his first Letter about Algeria (1837). In this document, he advocated that France and the French military leave Kabylie apart to preserve a peaceful zone so as to try to develop commercial links. In all his subsequent speeches and writings he kept on being against any attempt towards intrusion into Kabylie.
During the debate concerning the 1846 extraordinary funds, Tocqueville denounced Bugeaud's conduct of military operations, and succeeded in convincing the Assembly of not voting the funds in support of Bugeaud's military columns. Tocqueville considered Bugeaud's will to invade Kabylie, despite the opposition of the Assembly, as a seditious move in front of which the government opted for cowardice.
Read more about this topic: Alexis De Tocqueville
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