The Maghreb

North Africa, so often portrayed in old American movies, may conjure up intriguing images of Berber or Tuareg camel caravans transporting exotic goods across the Sahara from Tombouctou (Timbuktu) to Tripoli or Tangier; the Barbary Coast pirates; Field Marshal Rommel, the German World War II “Desert Fox”; or the classic lovers played by Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman in Casablanca. These images—some real, some fantasy, some merely exaggerated—are of the western part of North Africa, what Arabs call the Maghreb (“the place of the sunset”). The reality of the Maghreb, however, is much more complex than popular Western images of it.

The countries of the Maghreb stretch along the North African coast from Western Sahara through Libya (Figure 6.31). A low-lying coastal zone is backed by the Atlas Mountains, except in Western Sahara and Libya. Despite the region’s overall aridity, these mountains trigger sufficient rainfall in the coastal zone to support export-oriented agriculture and, in winter, a modest skiing industry. Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya have interiors that reach into the huge expanse of the Sahara.

FIGURE 6.31 The Maghreb subregion (Northwest Africa). (A) A street in Chefchaouen, Morocco, a city built in 1471 by Moorish exiles from Spain to defend northern Morocco against Portuguese invasion. The city, known for its blue-washed houses, was invaded by Spain in 1920 and held until Morocco’s independence from France in 1955, when it was returned to Morocco. It is now a popular tourist destination for Europeans, given its proximity to the city of Ceuta, which is still held by Spain. Courtesy Sally Walton/Flickr Vision/Getty Images

The cultural landscapes of the Maghreb reflect the long and changing relationships all the countries have had with Europe. European domination in this area lasted from the mid-nineteenth century well into the twentieth century, during which time the people of North Africa took on many European ways: consumerism; mechanized market agriculture; and manners of dress, language, and popular culture. The cities, beaches, and numerous historic sites of the Maghreb continue to attract millions of European tourists every year who come to buy North African products—fine leather goods, textiles, handmade rugs, sheepskins, brass and wood furnishings, and paintings—and to enjoy a culture that, despite Europeanization, seems exotic. The agricultural lands in the coastal zones of the Maghreb are strategically located close to Europe, where there is a strong demand for Mediterranean food crops: olives, olive oil, citrus fruits, melons, tomatoes, peppers, dates, grains, and fish. Before the Arab Spring, oil, gas, and petroleum production from the Maghreb made up more than 30 percent of GDP and 95 percent of total exports in both Algeria and Libya, and the region supplied about 25 percent of the oil and gas used by the European Union. By 2013, petroleum production was undergoing only halting reorganization, especially in Libya.

Europe is also a source of jobs for people from the Maghreb. Local firms are supported by European investment and tourism, and millions of guest workers have migrated to Europe, many after losing jobs as a result of agricultural modernization. Widespread debates in the European Union about immigration often center on North African migrants in Spain, France, and Italy, where altogether there are an estimated 6 million to 10 million North African migrants, many of them undocumented.

In North Africa, settlement and economic activities are concentrated along the narrow coastal zone where water is more available (see Figures 6.21 and 6.23). Most people live in the cities that line the Atlantic and Mediterranean shores—Casablanca, Rabat, Tangier, Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli—and in the towns and villages that link them. The architecture, spatial organization, and lifestyles of these cities mark them as cultural transition zones between African and Arab lands and Europe. The city centers retain an ancient ambience, with narrow walkways and huge heavy doors leading to secluded family compounds, but most people live in modern apartment complexes around the peripheries of these old cities (see Figure 6.31A). Multilane highways, shopping malls, restaurants with international cuisine, and art galleries serve citizens and tourists.

Many North Africans are seeking an identity that is less European and that retains their own distinctive heritage. Historians note that for those people who were Westernized during the era of European domination and who now make up the educated middle class, independence from Europe meant the right to establish their own secular countries, with constitutions influenced by European models. But by the 1990s, Islamist movements were challenging these independent secular states, linking them negatively with ongoing European and North American influences. The Arab Spring-related shifts toward greater political freedoms have, ironically, tended to strengthen these Islamist political movements, which are opposed to wider political freedoms for all, even though the Islamist movements were themselves previously repressed by secular governments. Now those North Africans who prefer secular governments are fearful of the outcome if Islamists win elections and change constitutions.

Violence in Algeria

Algeria, with 38 million people, nearly one-quarter of whom are under the age of 15, is just emerging from a long period of trouble. Inhabited since antiquity by groups that eventually formed the Berber culture, now considered the indigenous people of all the Maghreb, Algeria has also long been home to outsiders who have often dominated the coastal areas. Many Phoenician and Carthaginian coastal settlements flourished during the first millennium b.c.e., at different times fighting with and cooperating with the Berbers. Rome controlled much of Algeria following their defeat of the Carthaginians in the first century b.c.e., and their control lasted, off and on, until the Arab-Muslim empires swept through the Maghreb in the seventh century c.e. As the Berbers converted from their indigenous religions to Islam, Berber states came to control much of Algeria. By the 1500s, Algeria was controlled by the Ottoman Empire, during which time the coast became a major center of piracy, with thousands of Mediterranean merchants and sailors killed or enslaved over the next three centuries. This “Barbary Coast” of Algeria was eventually subdued by British and later U.S. forces, and in the 1830s, France invaded Algeria and took control of the country for 130 years.

French rule provoked deep resentment among Algerians that is still felt to this day. Tens of thousands of French colonists immigrated to Algeria, and many were given land that had been forcibly taken from Algerians. While these migrants were granted full citizenship and protection under French law, Algerians were only granted these rights if they renounced certain aspects of Islamic law in favor of French law. Most Algerians saw this as a renunciation of Islam and very few became full French citizens. The French colonial government followed the strategy of “divide and rule” used by many other European powers in their colonies. The French favored certain groups and pitted them against other groups in a scramble for power and resources. Resistance and rebellions against French rule were brutally suppressed by the French military, which confiscated land and created food shortages to subdue the Algerian population. Over time, Algeria’s economy was reoriented away from local economic development and toward supplying food, minerals, and other raw materials to France’s rapidly industrializing economy. French colonists controlled most of the fertile land, which was taxed at a lower rate than Algerian-owned land.

Agitation against French rule increased dramatically after World War II, when the many Algerians who had fought in the war on the side of France began to request full citizenship that did not require them to renounce Islamic law. The violent protests and brutal repression by the French military that resulted paved the way for a war of independence. This brutal war, which lasted from 1954 to1962, resulted in the deaths of between 400,000 and 1,500,000 people. It brought full independence from France, but also brought an enduring legacy of violence and authoritarian rule to Algeria.

After independence, Algerian politics were plagued by conflicts between secular socialists, who were backed by the military and seen by many as the inheritors of French colonial authority, and Islamists, who wanted an explicitly Islamic government above all else. Tensions erupted into full-scale civil war in 1991 when the government, then controlled by the secular socialists, intervened to nullify elections that would have given the Islamists control of the government. The resulting civil war between Islamist militias and the Algerian military resulted in more than 100,000 deaths. A military-backed secularist, Abdelaziz Bouteflika, came to power in the aftermath of this civil war in 1999 and has stayed in power to the present because of his ability to bring reconciliation between warring parties and stability to the overall political and economic system of Algeria.

The protests of the Arab Spring, which brought Islamists to power in neighboring Tunisia and Egypt, reminded many Algerians of the bloody civil war of the 1990s. Because of this, Islamist militants gained little momentum in Algerian politics when in 2013 there was an Islamist attempt to take over a natural gas plant near the Algerian southern border with Mali and Libya. Algerians were adamant that they would take care of the situation without Western aid, and they did, while the French sent aid to their former colony, Mali.