Editing Alexis de Tocqueville (section)

== Views on Algeria ==

Alexis de Tocqueville was an important figure in the colonization of Algeria. A member of French parliament during the [[French conquest of Algeria]] and subsequent [[July Monarchy]], Tocqueville took it upon himself to become an expert on the Algeria question, and to this end penned a number of discourses and letters. He also made a point of studying Islam, the Quran, and the Arabic language, in order to better understand the country.<ref>{{cite journal | url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/1405738 | jstor=1405738 | title=Tocqueville on Algeria | last1=Richter | first1=Melvin | journal=The Review of Politics | date=16 March 1963 | volume=25 | issue=3 | pages=362–398 | doi=10.1017/S0034670500006112 }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal | url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/25166254 | jstor=25166254 | title=Empire's Law: Alexis de Tocqueville on Colonialism and the State of Exception | last1=Kohn | first1=Margaret | journal=Canadian Journal of Political Science / Revue Canadienne de Science Politique | date=16 March 2024 | volume=41 | issue=2 | pages=255–278 | doi=10.1017/S0008423908080402 }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal | url=https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1467-9760.00104 | doi=10.1111/1467-9760.00104 | title=Empire and Democracy: Tocqueville and the Algeria Question | date=2000 | last1=Pitts | first1=Jennifer | journal=Journal of Political Philosophy | volume=8 | issue=3 | pages=295–318 }}</ref>

=== 1837 letters on Algeria ===
In a series of letters penned by Alexis de Tocqueville, he describes the situation of France as well as the geography and society of Algeria at the time.

{{blockquote|“Suppose that the Emperor of China, landing in France at the head of an armed power, should make himself master of our largest cities and of our capital. That after having burned all the public registers before suffering to read them, and having destroyed or dispersed all of the civil service without inquiring into their various attributions, he should finally seize every functionary – from the head of the government to the campesino guards, the peers, the deputies, and in general the whole ruling class – and deport them all at once to some distant country. Do you not think that this great prince, in spite of his powerful army, his fortresses and his treasures, will soon find himself extremely unprepared in administering the conquered country; that his new subjects, deprived of all those who conducted or could conduct affairs of state, will be unable to govern themselves, while he, coming from the antipodes, knows neither the religion, nor the language, nor the laws, nor the habits, nor the administrative customs of the country, and who has taken care to remove all those who could have instructed him in them, will be in no state rule them. You will therefore have no difficulty in foreseeing that if the parts of France which are materially occupied by the victor obey him, the rest of the country will soon be given over to an immense anarchy.”<ref name="Tocqueville 2023, p.135">Alexis de Tocqueville, ''Travels in Algeria'', ed. Yusuf Ritter, Tikhanov Library, 2023</ref>}}

Despite being initially critical of the French invasion of Algeria, Toccqueville also believed that geopolitical necessities of the time would not allow for a withdrawal of military forces for two reasons: first, his understanding of the international situation and France's position in the world; and second, changes in French society.<ref name="Monde diplomatique">{{cite news|author=Olivier LeCour Grandmaison|title=Torture in Algeria: Past Acts That Haunt France – Liberty, Equality and Colony|work=Le Monde diplomatique|date=June 2001|url=http://mondediplo.com/2001/06/11torture2}}</ref> Tocqueville believed that war and colonization would "restore national pride; threatened", he believed, by "the gradual softening of social mores" in the middle classes. Their taste for "material pleasures" was spreading to the whole of society, giving it "an example of weakness and egotism".<ref name="mondediplo806">Alexis de Tocqueville, "Rapports sur l'Algérie", in {{lang|fr|Œuvres complètes}}, Paris, Gallimard, Bibliothèque de [[la Pléiade]], 1991, p. 806, quoted in {{cite news|author=Olivier LeCour Grandmaison|title=Torture in Algeria: Past Acts That Haunt France – Liberty, Equality and Colony|work=Le Monde diplomatique|date=June 2001|url=http://mondediplo.com/2001/06/11torture2}}</ref>

=== 1841 discourse on the conquest of Algeria ===
Tocqueville expressed himself in an 1841 essay concerning the conquest of Algeria in which he called for a dual program of "[[Colonialism|domination]]" and "[[Colony|colonization]]".<ref name="Tocqueville 2023, p.135">Alexis de Tocqueville, ''Travels in Algeria'', ed. Yusuf Ritter, Tikhanov Library, 2023</ref><ref name="Tocqueville 2001, pp. 57–64">Alexis De Tocqueville, ''Writings on Empire and Slavery'', ed. Jennifer Pitts, Johns Hopkins (Baltimore), 2001, pp. 57–64.</ref>

{{blockquote|For my part, I have brought back from Africa the distressing notion that at the moment we are waging war in a much more barbaric manner than the Arabs themselves. At present, theirs is the side of civilization. This way of waging war seems to me as stupid as it is cruel. It can only enter into the crude and brutal mind of a soldier. It was not worth putting displacing the Turks to reproduce that which in them deserved the detestation of the world. That, even from the point of view of interest, is much more harmful than useful; because, as another officer said to me, if we only aim to equal the Turks we will be by the fact in a position much lower than them: barbarians among barbarians, the Turks will always have on us the advantage of being Muslim barbarians. It is thus to a principle superior to theirs that we must appeal.<ref>1841 – Extract of {{lang|fr|Travail sur l'Algérie}}, in {{lang|fr|Œuvres complètes}}, Gallimard, Pléïade, 1991, pp. 704–705.</ref><ref>{{cite news|author=Olivier LeCour Grandmaison |title=Torture in Algeria: Past Acts That Haunt France – Liberty, Equality and Colony|work=[[Le Monde diplomatique]]|date=June 2001|url=http://mondediplo.com/2001/06/11torture2}} (quoting Alexis de Tocqueville, {{lang|fr|Travail sur l'Algérie}} in {{lang|fr|Œuvres complètes}}, Paris, Gallimard, [[Bibliothèque de la Pléiade]], 1991, pp. 704–705).</ref>{{parabreak}}
I have often heard in France men whom I respect, but whom I do not agree with, say that it wrong to burn the harvests, to empty the silos and finally to imprison unarmed men, women and children. These are, in my opinion, unfortunate necessities, but ones to which any people who want to make war on the Arabs will be obliged to submit. And, if I must say what I think, these acts do not revolt me more or even as much as several others which the law of war obviously authorizes and which take place in all the wars of Europe. Why is it more odious to burn harvests and take women and children prisoner than to bombard the harmless population of a besieged city or to seize merchant ships belonging to the subjects of an enemy power at sea? The one is, in my opinion, much crueler and less justifiable than the other.<ref>{{cite web|author=Olivier LeCour Grandmaison|title=Tocqueville et la conquête de l'Algérie|year=2001|publisher=La Mazarine|url=http://perso.wanadoo.fr/felina/doc/alg/olcg.htm|language=fr}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1345216431 |title=Sanctions as War: Anti-Imperialist Perspectives on American Geo-Economic Strategy |date=2023 |publisher= Haymarket Books|isbn=978-1-64259-812-4 |location= |pages=52 |oclc=1345216431|last1=Davis |first1=Stuart }}</ref>}}

Applauding the methods of [[Thomas Robert Bugeaud de la Piconnerie|General Bugeaud]], Tocqueville went so far to claim that "war in Africa is a science. Everyone is familiar with its rules and everyone can apply those rules with almost complete certainty of success. One of the greatest services that Field Marshal Bugeaud has rendered his country is to have spread, perfected and made everyone aware of this new science."<ref name="mondediplo806"/> Tocqueville advocated [[racial segregation]] as a form of [[consociationalism]] in Algeria with two distinct legislations, one for European colonists and one for the Arab population.<ref>{{lang|fr|Travail sur l'Algérie}}, {{lang|la|op.cit.}} p. 752. Quoted in {{cite news|author=Olivier LeCour Grandmaison|title=Torture in Algeria: Past Acts That Haunt France – Liberty, Equality and Colony|work=Le Monde diplomatique|date=June 2001|url=http://mondediplo.com/2001/06/11torture2}}</ref>{{blockquote|	Without doubt, it would be as dangerous as it would be useless to try to suggest to them our morals, our ideas, our customs. It is not in the direction of our European civilization that we must now push them, but in the direction of their own civilization; we must ask of them what they desire and not what they despise. Individual property, industry, sedentary living are not contrary to the religion of Mohammed. Arabs have known or know these things elsewhere; they are appreciated and enjoyed by some of them in Algeria itself. Why should we despair of making them familiar to the greatest number? It has already been attempted on some points with success. Islam is not absolutely impenetrable to the Enlightenment; it has often admitted in its bosom certain sciences or certain arts. Why should we not try to make these flourish under our empire? Let us not force the natives to come to our schools, but let us help them to raise theirs, to multiply those who teach there, to train the men of law and the men of religion, of whom the Muslim civilization cannot do without any more than us.<ref name="Tocqueville 2023, p.135">Alexis de Tocqueville, ''Travels in Algeria'', ed. Yusuf Ritter, Tikhanov Library, 2023</ref>}}

Such a two-tier arrangement would be fully realised with the 1870 [[Crémieux Decree|Crémieux decree]] and the [[Indigénat|Indigenousness Code]], which extended [[French nationality law|French citizenship]] to European settlers and Algerian Jews whereas Muslim Algerians would be governed under the Code de l'indigénat; however Tocqueville hoped for an eventual mixing of the French and Arab populations into a single body:

{{blockquote|Every day the French are developing clearer and more accurate notions about the inhabitants of Algeria. They learn their languages, become familiar with their customs, and one even sees some who show a kind of unthinking enthusiasm for them. On the other hand, the whole of the young Arab generation in Algiers speaks our language and has already taken on some of our customs. ... There is therefore no reason to believe that time cannot succeed in amalgamating the two races. God does not prevent it; only the faults of men could impede it.<ref name="Tocqueville 2023, p.135">Alexis de Tocqueville, ''Travels in Algeria'', ed. Yusuf Ritter, Tikhanov Library, 2023</ref>}}

=== Opposition to the invasion of Kabylia ===
[[File:Tocqueville by Daumier.jpg|thumb|250px|1849 caricature by [[Honoré Daumier]]]]
In opposition to Olivier Le Cour Grandmaison, Jean-Louis Benoît said that given the extent of racial prejudices during the colonization of Algeria, Tocqueville was one of its "most moderate supporters". Benoît said that it was wrong to assume Tocqueville was a supporter of Bugeaud despite his 1841 apologetic discourse. It seems that Tocqueville modified his views after his second visit to Algeria in 1846 as he criticized Bugeaud's desire to invade [[Kabylia]] in an 1847 speech to the Assembly.{{citation needed|date=July 2020}} Although Tocqueville had favoured retention of distinct traditional law, administrators, schools and so on for [[Arab]]s who had come under French control, he compared the Berber tribes of Kabylia (in his second of ''Two Letters on Algeria'', 1837) to Rousseau's concept of the "noble savage", stating:

<blockquote>If Rousseau had known the Kabyles ... he would not have spouted so much nonsense about the Caribbean and other American Indians: He would have looked to the Atlas for his models; there he would have found men who are subject to a kind of social police and yet almost as free as the isolated individual who enjoys his wild independence in the depths of the woods; men who are neither rich nor poor, neither servants nor masters; who appoint their own chiefs, and scarcely notice that they have chiefs, who are content with their state and remain in it<ref name="Travels in Algeria, Alexis de Tocqueville">{{cite book|author=Alexis de Tocqueville|translator=Yusuf Ritter|title=Travels in Algeria, The United Empire Loyalists|publisher=Tikhanov Library|isbn=978-1-7776460-9-7|pages=17}}</ref></blockquote>

Tocqueville's views on the matter were complex. Although in his 1841 report on Algeria he applauded Bugeaud for making war in a way that defeated [[Abdelkader El Djezairi|Abd-el-Kader]]'s resistance, he had advocated in the ''Two Letters'' that the French military advance leave Kabylia undisturbed and in subsequent speeches and writings he continued to oppose intrusion into Kabylia.<ref name="Travels in Algeria, Alexis de Tocqueville"/> In the debate about the 1846 extraordinary funds, Tocqueville denounced Bugeaud's conduct of military operations and succeeded in convincing the Assembly not to vote funds in support of Bugeaud's military columns.<ref>Tocqueville, {{lang|fr|Oeuvres completes}}, III, 1, Gallimard, 1962, pp. 299–300.</ref> Tocqueville considered Bugeaud's plan to invade Kabylia despite the opposition of the Assembly as a seditious act in the face of which the government was opting for cowardice.<ref>Tocqueville, {{lang|fr|Oeuvres completes}}, III, 1, Gallimard, 1962, p. 303.</ref><ref>Tocqueville, {{lang|fr|Œuvres complètes}}, III, 1, Gallimard, 1962, pp. 299–306.</ref>

=== 1847 "Report on Algeria" ===
In his 1847 "Report on Algeria", Tocqueville declared that Europe should avoid making the same mistake they made with the [[European colonization of the Americas]] in order to avoid the bloody consequences.<ref>{{in lang|fr}} Jean-Louis Benoît. [http://www.revue-lebanquet.com/fr/art/2001/299.htm "Arguments in favor of Tocqueville"]. {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060216051008/http://www.revue-lebanquet.com/fr/art/2001/299.htm|date=16 February 2006}}.</ref> More particularly he reminds his countrymen of a solemn caution whereby he warns them that if the methods used towards the Algerian people remain unchanged, colonization will end in a blood bath. Tocqueville includes in his report on Algeria that the fate of their soldiers and finances depended on how the French government treats the various native populations of Algeria, including the various Arab tribes, independent Kabyles living in the [[Atlas Mountains]] and the powerful political leader [[Abdelkader El Djezairi|Abd-el-Kader]]. The latter stresses the obtainment and protection of land and passageways that promise commercial wealth. In the case of Algeria, the Port of Algiers and the control over the [[Strait of Gibraltar]] were considered by Tocqueville to be particularly valuable whereas direct control of the political operations of the entirety of Algeria was not. Thus, the author stresses domination over only certain points of political influence as a means to colonization of commercially valuable areas.<ref name="Tocqueville 2001, pp. 57–64" />

Tocqueville argued that although unpleasant, domination via violent means is necessary for colonization and justified by the laws of war. Such laws are not discussed in detail; however, given that the goal of the French mission in Algeria was to obtain commercial and military interest as opposed to self-defense, it can be deduced that Tocqueville would not concur with [[just war theory]]'s ''[[jus ad bellum]]'' criteria of just cause. Furthermore, given that Tocqueville approved of the use of force to eliminate civilian housing in enemy territory, his approach does not accord with just war theory's ''jus in bello'' criteria of [[Proportionality (law)|proportionality]] and discrimination.<ref>De Tocqueville. ''Writings on Empire and Slavery'', ed. Jennifer Pitts (2001), pp. 57–64, 70–78.</ref>