(Page 2 of 33) - Making Differences Matter: Liberal Reform Movements and Nationalist Mobilization in Colonial Morocco and Algeria authored by Lawrence, Adria.

In the mid 1930s, Moroccan elites living under French protectorate rule petitioned French
officials for a number of democratic liberties and reforms within the context of the protectorate.
In other parts of the French empire, the inter-war period saw elite mobilization in favor of similar
liberal reforms (Flint 1983; Betts 1991). In Algeria, demands for reform were extensive;
Algerian elites asked for political equality with French colons, and criticized the French for
failing to assimilate Algerian Muslims (Gallissot 1989). But by the end of World War II, the
content of demands from people living under colonial rule had changed. In 1944, the Istiqlal
(Independence) Party was formed in Morocco, and unlike earlier organizations, began
demanding independent statehood (Rivet 1999, p. 358). In Algeria, Ferhat Abbas issued the
“Manifesto of the Algerian People” in 1943, calling for the creation of an Algerian state (Horne
1977, p. 43). In North Africa, and across the French Empire, demands for independence largely
replaced demands for democratic rights and reforms. Why was mobilization in favor of reform
within the French Empire supplanted by demands for independence from the empire?

By posing this question, this paper seeks to unsettle conventional understandings of
decolonization in which nationalism is presumed to be the obvious and only organizing idiom for
people living under foreign rule. The resonance of nationalism in the colonial context is often
taken for granted in the literature on empire, decolonization, and post-colonial studies. There is a
tendency to code all resistance to empire as nationalist in nature. The historical literature has
treated both demands in favor of liberal reform and demands for independence as instances of
nationalism. Historians have described the early demands for equality with Frenchmen and
better provision of services as “proto-nationalist” or “early nationalist” activities, suggesting that
these kinds of demands represent an early stage in an evolution toward nationalist mobilization.
In their memoirs, nationalists also claim that democratic goals were merely a first step in the
nationalist project of separation from empire and spoke of their intention to demand
independence all along. Colonial administrators too called the reformists nationalists and
accused them of harboring separatist goals, even though such goals were not explicitly stated.

In this paper, I contend that mobilization in favor of liberal reforms constituted an alternative to
nationalist demands for separation, and I investigate the historical conditions that led people and
organizations living under colonial rule to begin framing political requests in the language of
nationalism. I argue against assuming a static preference for independent nation-states among
political organizers in Morocco and Algeria and demonstrate that the goals of collective action
shifted over time. In so doing, I wish to propose a more dynamic understanding of resistance to
French rule, one in which the preferences of Moroccan and Algerian political actors are not
given, but are shaped by political opportunities and by their interactions with French
administrators and politicians.

In Part 1, I examine the movement for liberal reforms in French-controlled Morocco and Algeria.
I critique conventional understandings of the movement and discuss how it differed from the
nationalist platform. Instead of seeing demands for separation as the natural outcome of
demands for reform, I offer an alternative interpretation that sees these mobilization platforms as
very different kinds of challenges to colonial rule. The movement for liberal reforms largely
opposed the authoritarian nature of the French empire rather than its foreignness. Demands for
liberal reforms often implied a desire for inclusion and equality, rather than separation;
proponents sought to be treated like Frenchmen were treated. While the movement for liberal