Writings on Empire and Slavery by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: history, Africa, General, Europe, France, World, political science, Political Ideologies, democracy, History & Theory, Social Science, Slavery
ISBN: 9780801865091
Google: V_HGOSbe2nYC
Publisher: JHU Press
Published: 2001-11-15T00:13:08.496523+00:00

PART II

Civil Administration—Governing the Europeans

Algeria is administratively divided into three territories: one, populated mostly by Europeans, is called the civil territory [le territoire civil]; another, populated by Europeans and Arabs, is called the mixed territory; and the third, where only indigenous people live or are supposed to live, is known as the Arab territory. The mixed and Arab territories are solely or principally administered by the military, and according to military regulations. Only the civil territory approximates French common law. We shall concern ourselves above all with this last, although it is by far the smallest of the three. It is on the civil territory that we create and establish European society; permanent regulations can govern it there. The Europeans who settle in the mixed territories, by contrast, are in an exceptional and temporary position. As their numbers increase and their interests become more varied and more respectable, they will demand and obtain the institutions of the civil territory, which will soon expand toward them. What happens in the civil territory is what must happen everywhere, bit by bit. It holds the majority of the Europeans in Algeria, and, in some sense, it holds the future of all of them. Its administration thus deserves our particular attention.

We ask the Chamber’s permission to state that at this moment the Algerian administration properly speaking, that which has as its principal mission to settle and govern the European population in the country, functions only very imperfectly, that its machinery is remarkably complicated, its procedures very slow. Despite many officials, it is unproductive; often, despite a great deal of work, effort, and money, it performs poorly. Later we shall have occasion to clarify these truths with examples. For the moment, we limit ourselves to stating them. We believe that the Algerian administration’s vices are among the principal causes of the missteps that have afflicted us in this country, and that administrative reform is the most pressing of all our needs today.

This fact stated thus, let us now examine the causes.

Administrative personnel. How much should be attributed to the poor selection of men? The committee is under no obligation to examine this question. It is a question of personnel, into which the Chamber should not enter. Here all the power, but also, you must understand, all the responsibility, lies with the government.

On this subject, we can say that it would be wise, before sending officials to govern Algeria, to prepare them for this task, or at least ensure that they have prepared themselves. A special school, or at the very least special examinations, would seem necessary to us. This is what the English have done in India.* The officials we send to Africa, by contrast, know almost nothing of the language, the customs, the history of the country they go to govern. What is more, they act in the name of an administration whose particular structure they have never studied, and they apply an exceptional legislation whose rules they know nothing about. How can we be surprised that they often are not up to the task?

We shall say nothing more about the personnel.

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