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2 Colonial-Era Border Crossing, 1830–1911 The French colonial conquest dramatically reshaped patterns of Algerian border crossing. Force, or resistance to force, was a major factor in the movement of Algerians to other Muslim territories.At the outset,the French expelled the Janissaries based in Algiers to Anatolia, and they soon banished individuals, such as Muhammad Ibn al-‘Annabi, whom they saw as closely associated with the old regime.1 Many Algerians fled as muhajirs, or refugees, fleeing infidel conquest, heading for Morocco, Tunis, Tripoli, or the Middle East, with their most important concentration emerging in Damascus. It can be useful to distinguish between the classical model of hijra, where devout Muslims take refuge among tribal peoples living beyond the control of a central state, and the modern phenomenon of the refugee or exile who flees or is expelled to a territory controlled by a friendly, or at least accepting central government. The classical muhajir can tap into the‘asabiya, or solidarity of tribal people, adding a unifying religious dimension. But the refugee or exile comes to a territory already under the control of a government with its own goals and interests. As the colonial regime became well established in the second half of the nineteenth century, the French enrolled Algerians in new forms of border crossing to serve French imperial interests around the world and to promote France’s policy of cultural assimilation within Algeria. The English, who had been in many ways the most important European power in Algeria from the early 1800s to the mid-1820s, were now present mainly as exotic-destination tourists.2 By the 1870s,Germany had become the most likely source of support in Europe for the Algerian struggle against the French. France’s policy toward the most prominent Algerian refugee of this era, Amir‘Abd al-Qadir, was deeply ambivalent. They sought to cultivate his goodwill to further French projects in the Middle East, such as the building of the Suez Canal. By this time,‘Abd al-Qadir had become a powerful symbolic figure , much like his contemporary Imam Shamil, leader of the resistance against Colonial-Era Border Crossing, 1830–1911 r 51 Russia’s expansion in the Caucasus.3 But as a refugee dependent on the good grace of imperial powers, it was difficult to tap into that symbolic power to obtain substantive political results. In the second and third generations,‘Abd al-Qadir’s family became split into pro- and anti-French factions. Maternal ties often contributed to the different choices. There was extensive travel and communication linking the Damascus refugees to Algeria, contributing to occasional upheavals, but also connecting Algeria to new intellectual developments in the East. A figure who comes closer to the classical model of the muhajir is Muhammad Bin ‘Ali al-Sanusi, who left Algeria in the late 1820s and eventually established a Sufi order based in the remote area of Cyrenaica, in what is now eastern Libya. Within Algeria, particularly in the major cities of Algiers and Constantine, an old pattern of movement of workers and merchants from and back to rural areas and oases continued through the first decades of the colonial era. The barrani communities were organized into groups based on their region of origin and had leaders who reported to the French administration.With the transition to civilian rule in the 1870s,the growing number of European workers in the cities,and imports of manufactured goods that displaced traditional crafts, the barrani corporations were disbanded. But this migration pattern was soon transplanted to France. The migration of Algerian workers to France, which began in the 1890s,was initially limited mainly to the Kabyles,from the mountain area southeast of Algiers. As for barranis from the oases of southeastern Algeria,Tunis became a popular destination, especially for Souafa from the El Oued region. The Biskra region produced an important number of muhajirs, fleeing to both Tunisia and the Hijaz.4 Closely related to the question of labor migration is that of military recruitment . Under colonial rule, earlier patterns of local military recruitment were retained and modified,with the creation of the tirailleurs indigènes. It was these Algerians who had the most intensive experience of crossing borders in the years before the First World War, serving everywhere from Mexico to Vietnam . The experience in Morocco in 1906–12 helped lead to the imposition of military conscription on Algerian Muslims in 1912, a measure that would have far-reaching ramifications. An important element...

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