Empire elites

David Lambert’s book is devoted to the colonial notables of the two French protectorates from North Africa, during the period which runs from 1881 to 1939. If we find in this book the qualities specific to the history of history (he s’ s’ s’ s’ s’ s’ s’ s’ s’ s’ s’ s’ s’ Acts the revised version of a supported history thesis at Paris I University) and the weight of compulsory passages, it is more surprising (but no less pleasant) to reconnect with scholarship, The love of words, scientific concerns and epistemological positioning dear to the director of this thesis, the historian specialist in colonial Morocco Daniel Rivet. This colonial history work focuses on so little known “ Preponderant “, Thus qualified in his time by the historian Charles-André Julien. These colonial notables of the two protectorates of Tunisia and Morocco are studied in their ascension phase, treaties from Bardo (1881) and Fez (1912) to 1914, then during their peak in the interwar period. Jacques Berque, mentioned by the author, saw in the year 1930 the colonial acme in North Africa, but also the tipping point on the slope of decolonization.

Mediation elites

David Lambert presents a detailed and precise work which gives pride of place to historical prosopography. The group of notables selected in the work was according to criteria justified in the first part. It identifies two groups of notables: a first group of 810 people in the Chérifian Empire, and a second of 527 in the Regency of Tunis. Non -negligible, these sets of personalities combine command functions – often elective (professional or administrative chambers) -, and social influence, to the detriment of fortunes and alliances. As for metropolitan or colonial officials, often stationed for a few years, they essentially escape these groups rooted in North Africa (this is the case for officers, magistrates or detached teachers).

The author’s empathy for these mediation elites, a buffer between the colonial state, the army, the small European people and the natives of the protectorates, is manifest, despite the inadequacies and the flaws that he recognizes them. This book also constitutes a historiographical counterpart to the numerous works devoted to the colonists of Algeria, the “ black feet ». Unlike the latter, these Europeans from Tunisia and Colonial Morocco do not enjoy citizenship, since they live in states “ protected ” but “ foreigners ». David Lambert lifts the veil on these little-known minorities, which nevertheless represent nearly 600,000 people (400,000 in Morocco and 200,000 in Tunisia at the end of the period), counting the French Muslims it is true (that is, Say Algerians), but not the native Jews of the protectorates. Reported to the brevity of the colonial period, which lasted three generations in Tunisia and two in Morocco, the Europeans of the protectorates are almost as numerous as in Algeria (100,000 in Tunis, more than 200,000 in Casablanca, 50,000 in Rabat, etc.).

But the author sticks to the preponderants. This elite constitutes, with the high administration, a sort of Janus in the direction of the protectorates, once the phases of conquest and missionary deployment passed, where the army and the church had distinguished themselves in the foreground. Alongside senior officials, officers and prelates, the notables therefore constitute a fourth power, in Rabat as in Tunis. This work highlights the constitutive fragility of this elite, opportunistic and overactive by necessity (these men are raised very early and seem to burn their existence). Their condition pushes them towards multiple activities under the protection and with the favors of the colonial machine. This “ circumstances “Seems to be aware of the limits of time and law which surround its action: hence its bulimia of activities, honors and prebends. These men of action, often of modest extraction, prefigure the individualism of the democratic society of the Thirty Glorious Years, when it manages to emancipate new promoted outside the hierarchies of the lineage bourgeoisie. But unlike the post-war upstarts, they fear the precariousness of their destiny, which pushes them to integrate networks of notability and to forge links with the metropolis.

David Lambert’s study is investing in the colonial world, made up of “ history object “, And presented as such. There are certainly some lights towards the parliamentary interface and the metropolitan lobbies which maneuver and agitate in Paris. But, for the most part, the work sheds light on the power and command networks of the colonial apparatus of the protectorates. The history of the colonized peoples only appears to be the backdrop of the background.

There is a certain interest in reconstructing and presenting these dynasties of colonial notables. We regret that the cut in 1939 forbidden to follow families and groups having seized the opportunity of the war, having managed to enter the good graces of Gaullism and the Americans, and to consolidate their fortune and their economic and social ascent. In this regard, one day it will be necessary to devote a thesis to the Corsican dynasties of North Africa (and the Empire), too quickly mentioned here, less in their community form in networks than through the elevation of a few notables . Now from Marseille to Paris, via New York, the power of the Corsican diaspora during the Cold War (in its various ramifications) is not understandable without this imperial rear base in Africa, often reinforced by independence.

Forgetting the indigenous society

But the most embarrassing in this work is his forgetting, or more exactly his absence of a look at indigenous society, almost ignored. It is true that colonial society experiences its domination in the illusion of its right, and that it attaches little to the Muslim (and secondarily Israelite) elites dominated. Nevertheless, the relationships of notables with the “ natives Are daily, whether on their land, in their businesses or in elected councils where they sit. Moreover, these French protectors are not citizens, but foreigners in law. At their Dam, they cannot elect municipalities as in Algeria, and in Tunisia the president of the municipal council is a native. These often patelin notables, the mediation function of which was underlined between indigenous elites and colonial officials, are in contact with the Tunisian and Moroccan elites. Native collaborators, “ Beni-yes-yes », Liberal, business, ambitious, old, old turbans and opportunistic professions. The book tells us very little about this in-between.

Language practice, rare mixed marriages, professional and political relationships, feelings of friendship or fear, are barely mentioned through a few biases or various quotes. The last pages of the work devote some passages to the interface between the preponderants and the colonized people. But nothing is said of the look taken by the natives on these men often imbued with themselves and their recent notability. However, the political effects of the morgue and a certain colonial condescension (without being in no way exclusive) were considerable on the political becoming of the region. Marc Ferro highlighted the power of resentment in the future and the history of societies.

This forgetfulness is accompanied (in a coherent way) with holes in the bibliography, in which very few works are devoted to the history of the natives and their elites. Paradoxically, it presents more books on colonial empires around the world than on colonial Algeria. However, the work that Charles-Robert Ageron devoted to Muslim natives in the face of France (at the same time as this study) could have educated us on a situation which deeply inspires the notables of the protectorates (the author specifies that a high proportion of them was born in Algeria).

To be legitimate, this historiographical bias is nonetheless problematic. He is part of the field of “ two schools From the colonial history observed by Daniel Rivet in 1992, when he opposed a structuralist school (of which he denounced the spirit of system) to a school that could be described as “ personalist », Centered on individual actors and trajectories ? This study devoted to notables is well in this second field. But that did not necessarily exclude the study of interactions with indigenous society. This work actually participates in a new historiographical trend in French colonial studies, more and more tightened on the colonial machine and the men who serve it, at the risk of forgetting the natives.

Admittedly, this approach takes note of the particular situation of the colonial elites, suspended between two worlds, that of their homeland of origin, and the indigenous society in which they are immersed. Placed in this in-between, these expatriate elites are as suspended in the air, deterritorialized in the middle of the invisible world of the natives (this is how they show themselves during the celebrations of the centenary of Algeria in 1930 , where the natives are invisible, except as elements of the decor). Perhaps it had been necessary to return to these considerations beforehand, in order to better introduce this rich prosopographic study of expatriate French elites. Because the ignorance of the indigenous environment and terrain takes us from Postcolonial Studies (It is true little developed in the French historiographical field).

The research practiced on the repatriated colonial archives, on colonial literary production and through interviews of former colonial actors produces sometimes surprising effects. Because the cut between these colonial elites, made up of handlers and business brewers (whose author highlights hyperactivity), and the native world is certainly less real than built (or rather rebuilt). The gaps in the archives do not explain everything, because this hemiplegia is also an epistemological choice, if not political. It is certain that he carries the risk of aggravating the cut with North African historiographies and historians, more and more turned, conversely, towards their society, its foundations, its productions and the Arabic language.

If this divergence between new generations of French and Maghreb historians was led to last, even to amplify, it would become delicate to consider compatible stories, if not converging. It is necessary to wonder how this work will be received by the rising generation of historians in the Maghreb who has less and less contact with our language and our country. The worst would be his indifference.