21 Facts About Messali Hadj

Ahmed Ben Messali Hadj was an Algerian nationalist politician dedicated to the independence of his homeland from French colonial rule.

Messali Hadj is often called the "father" of Algerian nationalism.

Messali Hadj co-founded the Etoile nord-africaine, and founded the Parti du peuple algerien and the Mouvement pour le triomphe des libertes democratiques before dissociating himself from the armed struggle for Independence in 1954.

Messali Hadj founded the Mouvement national algerien to counteract the ongoing efforts of the Front de liberation nationale.

Ahmed Ben Messali Hadj was born in Tlemcen in 1898.

Messali Hadj was educated in a local French primary school and received a religious education influenced by the Darqawiyya Sufi order.

Messali Hadj served in the French army from 1918 to 1921; having trained in Bordeaux and then promoted as sergeant in 1919.

Messali Hadj went to Brussels in 1927 to outline the ENA's demands for the abolition of the Indigenat and amnesty for all those convicted under it; moreover, he listed several other demands including: the right to form trade unions, education for all, and social welfare and representational legislation.

Thereafter, Messali Hadj rebranded the ENA several times in the 1930s and 1940s; hence, he would find himself frequently jailed or exiled.

However, whilst he was in temporary exile in Geneva, Switzerland, Messali Hadj met Shakib Arslan and reoriented from Marxism to Pan-Arabism and Islamism.

Consequently, Messali Hadj reorganised his nationalist movement as the "Parti du Peuple Algerien" in March 1937.

However, in March 1941 Messali Hadj was tried by a Vichy court and sentenced to 16 years of hard labour.

Messali Hadj was confined first to southern Algeria and then in Brazzaville in French Equatorial Africa.

However, straining relations between the "Parti du Peuple Algerien" and the "Amis du Manifeste et de la Liberte", as well as the decision to arrest and deport Messali Hadj, contributed to the outbreak of riots in Setif and Constantinois on May 8,1945.

Messali Hadj had been exiled to Brazzaville as soon as French authorities received word of plans by Parti du Peuple Algerien to escalate the deepening unrest between the French settler colons and the Muslims.

Once the Algerian War of Liberation began, Messali Hadj sought to compete with the Front de Liberation Nationale by mobilising the Mouvement National Algerien in December 1954.

Messali Hadj's followers clashed with the FLN; it was the only socialist faction not absorbed into the Front's fight for independence.

In 1958, Messali Hadj supported the proposals of President Charles de Gaulle, and France probably attempted to capitalize on the internal rivalries of the nationalist movement.

In 1962, as Algeria gained independence from France, Messali Hadj tried to transform his group into a legitimate political party, but it was not successful, and the FLN seized control over Algeria as a one-party state.

Messali Hadj was married to Emilie Busquant, a French feminist, anarcho-syndicalist and anti-colonial activist.

Messali Hadj was in exile in France when he died in 1974.