| Popis: |
From the 1930s onwards the aristocratic élite that monopolized the caidat in the Chelif entered a phase of deepening economic and political crisis, so that the key instrument of colonial governance in the interior was weakened and internally divided. A case study of two prominent Chelif leaders, Abdelkader Saiah and Mohammed Bentaieb, shows how the grandes familles, facing economic ruin, were forced towards electoral competition as a way to tap into the state gravy train, but in doing so they had to extend their patron-client base by moving towards a populist agenda, reformism, and moderate nationalism. The aristocratic élite, who retained a degree of cultural and religious identity in opposition towards French secularism, played an ambiguous role, a ‘double jeu’, of public loyalty to France, and private opposition. Prior to the 1954 insurrection deep internal cracks had thus appeared inside the class that held the key to indirect rule of the rural masses, fatally weakening the CM system and the intelligence state. |
