The FLN's Evolution

The FLN (Front de Libération Nationale) is a political movement founded in 1954 that uses violence to achieve its claimed political goals. Algerians experienced sleepless nights and concern about their future as a result of the movement. Algeria appeared to the rest of the world as if it would never have a democratic state or peace. During the Algerian independence struggle, both Europeans and Algerians were victims of terror. Islamic factions fought amongst themselves as well as against the government. The FLN was so powerful that Islamic groups could not use polls and votes to gain control of the government. Initially the FLN gained independence over the French via terrorism and violence and they used the same tactics to suppress Islamic violence to get into power in order to prevent Algeria from becoming an Islamic state.
The French Colonialism in Algeria
A large number of Europeans also known as the pied noirs were sent to Algeria and all they caused was terror and pain. The French were unable to settle their debt with Algeria and thus the leader Dey Hussein hit the French Counsel with a fly whisk three times for not explaining the issues in regards to the outstanding debt. The French took that act as an insult and decided to blockade Algeria. The French soldiers grabbed land from Algerian farmers and gave them to the Europeans colonists for free forcing many Algerians to move out of their fertile plains and into the mountains. They tried to impose the French rules of governance on the Algerians and when the Algerians declined they set out on a full invasion. They looted, raped and massacred entire villages, desecrated mosques and destroyed cemeteries. The Muslims who were the majority then were treated as subjects and were not given citizenship until they changed their religion (Willis 59).
The French changed Algeria's economy to one of cash crop production where produce such as wheat, vines, olives, citrus fruits, tobacco and vegetables were exported to France. Export of wine was the country's most economical product. Algeria had minerals such as Phosphates, iron and oil which were exploited by the French hence were not utilized to industrialize Algeria. The Algerian leaders no longer had power and were oppressed as most other Algerians suffered from hunger and poverty as they were refused to get into the cities unless they had a job. Emir Abdelkader El Djezairi a religious and military leader formed a socialist movement the National Liberation Front (NFL) which supported the Algerians during the war against the French to regain their land and status in governance and the movement continued to grow by recruiting Algerians. The Soviet Union also supported Algeria by providing military assistance (Bennoune 172). The French and the Algerians did not agree as Algerians wanted their independence and the French wanted to rule the country. Their war lasted between 1954 and 1962 after more than a million Algerians and only 26,000 French men lost their lives but Algeria walked out of the war victorious.
The Algerian war of independence was a prototype for modern insurgency and counterinsurgency. It showed the need for access to information and improvement of communication during the brutal and terrorism encounters. They had to form strong alliances both within Algeria and abroad in order to conquer the French colonialists, nationalists, radicals and intellectuals who were against them. They then reformed NFL to FLN. The French Army was then known to be the mightiest in the world. They had Special Forces, paratroopers, foreign legion and a wealth of knowledge and experience in the war. There was no foreseen victory for Algeria. But the unity and strength, hope and passion they put into their fight for independence without caring how many people they lost due to the terrorism and brutal attacks they encountered as their focus was to push away the French and reclaim their land which they did successfully. They were victorious despite their being outnumbered had less technology, guns, knowledge or skill on how to win that war. The mountains, caves, natives with strong tribal culture, different languages and dialects and mutual hatred for the government all formed excellent insurgency for Algeria. The French could not infiltrate the FLN who were well spread within the villages, the city and everywhere the French operated thus their victory.
The battle of Algiers was the fight for control over the capital city of Algeria which was the main city. The FLN bombed the city a number of times to push out the French and Muslims but the France vigilantes and Muslim residents declared an eight day general strike in order to win favor from the U.N (Takeyh 62). General Massu and his paratroopers who had been called upon to regain control of the city ceased that opportunity to impose marital laws, set up check points and shock the Casbah back into submissiveness. They made them stop the strike at gunpoint and work with them to resolve the matter. Massive intelligence and information gatherings were done and a lot of the Muslims were arrested and FLN thought that General Massu and his troops were on their side but also thousands of Algerians disappeared which made the FLN fear for their lives, regroup, reorganize themselves and re-strategize their moves (De La Ferrière 171-183). The French then had to disguise themselves as labor workers known as Les Bleus and spy on the FLN officials so as to have information on what they were planning to do. They also tortured and imprisoned a lot of Algerians into cooperating as their spies. Some Algerians who fought amongst themselves due to cultural differences and a sense of betrayal from the FLN offered information to the French making the French stronger in the attacks as they knew the FLN plans and the locations of the Algiers. They captured the first FLN leaders and their bomb makers. That made the remaining FLN team flee into the caves, mountains and villages where they could not be found by the French as they could not tell apart those who were FLN members and those who were not. Some of the FLN members who fled to the desert starved to death but the rest regrouped, became stronger as a unit and defeated the French to their independence in 1962 (Alessandrini 78-90). It was easy to defeat the French as the French had also started fighting amongst themselves on mass French-on French terrorism and coup.
Conclusion
The Algerian War of Independence has a great lesson on how a small group can win a big war irrespective of being out numbered and having less technology by forming good information channels, intelligence and human network operations. The FLN are a very good example of a strong informative human network and despite the French having the strongest military operation and skilled soldiers, they lost the war and Algerians regained their land. Algeria lost millions of residents in the war and the French lost only tens of thousands but Algeria was still victorious. The FLN had their minds, focus and effort directed to the right cause. Organisations and governments today can learn a lot from the Algerians war for Independence. Even as communication and technology changes, the human network and operations that utilize them should still be firm and strong.


Works Cited:
Alessandrini, Anthony C., ed. Frantz Fanon: Critical Perspectives. Routledge, 2005.
Bennoune, Mahfoud. The making of contemporary Algeria, 1830-1987. Vol. 19. Cambridge University Press, 2002.
De La Ferrière, Alexis Artaud. "Colonial Education and Political Violence in the Algerian War of Independence." The Contested Role of Education in Conflict and Fragility. SensePublishers, 2015. 171-183.
Sartre, Jean-Paul. Sketch for a Theory of the Emotions. Routledge, 2015.
Takeyh, Ray. "Islamism in Algeria: A struggle between hope and agony." Middle East Policy 10.2 (2003): 62.
Willis, Michael. Politics and power in the Maghreb: Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco from independence to the Arab Spring. Oxford University Press, USA, 2014.