Explain to what causes intellectuals committed themselves during the Algerian War and why. You will illustrate your ideas with clear references to two of the following intellectuals: Camus, Sartre or Fanon

Résumé du document

The French political establishment, the vast majority of the French population and the pieds noirs denied the existence of an Algerian nationalist movement because, according to them, "there was no such thing as an 'Algerian nation' and that Algérie would always be française" (Drake, 2002, p107). The turning point took place at the end of 1955 when Esprit published another article called "Let us Stop the War in Algeria" which confirmed that the French were already using torture in Algeria and that it was the role of intellectuals to report what was happening there. In the beginning of 1956, many intellectuals took sides on the Algerian question: on one side, the liberals such as Albert Camus who advocated a reformed colonialism, and on the other, the radicals such as Frantz Fanon who openly demanded that Algeria become independent. If the war was made with guns in Algeria, it was made with pens and ideas in France.

Extraits

[...] Hence, many authors tried to demonstrate that even if Camus advocated another colonialism, he however stayed a colonialist. Thus, Dine made a parallel between Camus and Daru (the schoolmaster in Camus's novel L'Hôte): “Daru like Camus himself, can never be anything other than an objective oppressor: willingly or unwillingly, he is condemned by his race to be a coloniser” (Dine p.96). In 1957, Albert Memmi even defined Camus as a “well-meaning colonizer: colonizer who refuses to acknowledge himself as such' or colonizer in denial'” (Foxlee p.80). [...]

[...] “Terrorism Veiled: Frantz Fanon and the Women of Algiers”, Cultural Critique Winter, pp. 177-195. Dine, P. (1994). Images of the Algerian War: French Fiction and Film 1954- 1962. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Drake, D. (2002). Intellectuals and politics in post-war France. London: Palgrave. Fanon, F. [...]

[...] (2000). Frantz Fanon. Portrait. Paris : Seuil. Davies, H. (1987). Sartre and Les Temps Modernes. Cambridge: CUP. Decker, J. L. (1990). [...]

[...] Torn between his moral commitments and his sentimental attachments, he had nothing to say and accordingly said nothing”. Many scholars made a link between the silence of Camus and the character of Daru in L'Hôte : “Daru personnifie le destin de son créateur: [ ] il ne se qualifie auprès d'aucun des deux groupes en conflit. Il ne veut pas se mêler de l'affaire à laquelle les instances coloniales, par le biais du gendarme Balducci, veulent l'associer [ ] sa position de médiateur culturel lui interdit de prendre position, de choisir entre colonisateurs et colonisés” (Chaulet-Achour p.150). [...]

[...] Then Fanon rejected the use of the local bourgeoisie in the new Third World project because they were trained by the French. French culture was embedded in their mind. This bourgeoisie was composed of assimilés who tried to be more French than the French and if they stayed at power, nothing would change. Fanon rather emphasized the importance of the peasantry and the spontaneity of masses: est clair que [ ] seule la paysannerie est révolutionnaire. Elle n'a rien à perdre et tout à gagner” (Fanon p.24). [...]