Kryzys berberyjski z 1949 roku – zapomniany epizod historii algierskiego ruchu niepodległościowego
The Berber Crisis of 1949 – a Forgotten Episode in the History of the Algerian Independence Movement

Summary/Abstract: The main subject of the article is the issue of the ‘Berberist Crisis’ of 1949, which has shaken the Algerian national movement in the late 1940s. Its first act was an unprecedented speech by a young Paris law student and a high-ranking member of the national movement structure Rašīd ‘Alī Yaḥya. During one of the party meetings, this activist from Berber-speaking Kabylia region appealed to those gathered to discuss the official proposal, which explicitly condemned the “myth of Arab-Muslim Algeria”. The controversial proposal was not only put for discussion but also voted with 28 votes in favour and 4 against. In Algiers, the action of Kabyle activists was read as an act of disobedience and even potential secession, as a result of which the Parisian structures of the Movement were immediately dissolved. In practical term, this meant the beginning of the fratricidal struggles within Algerian national movement, which on the eve of the outbreak of the War of Independence almost led to its split. The events of the ‘Berberist Crisis’ of 1949 have permanently entered the history of difficult Arab-Kabyle relations in independent Algeria, becoming largely the first act of conflict between the two largest ethnic groups in this country.

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