Alexis de Tocqueville
1841 discourse on the conquest of Algeria

Tocqueville expressed himself in an 1841 essay concerning the conquest of Algeria in which he called for a dual program of “domination” and “colonization.”

For my part, I have brought back from Africa the distressing notion that at the moment we are waging war in a much more barbaric manner than the Arabs themselves. At present, theirs is the side of civilization. This way of waging war seems to me as stupid as it is cruel. It can only enter into the crude and brutal mind of a soldier. It was not worth putting displacing the Turks to reproduce that which in them deserved the detestation of the world. That, even from the point of view of interest, is much more harmful than useful; because, as another officer said to me, if we only aim to equal the Turks we will be by the fact in a position much lower than them: barbarians among barbarians, the Turks will always have on us the advantage of being Muslim barbarians. It is thus to a principle superior to theirs that we must appeal.

I have often heard in France men whom I respect, but whom I do not agree with, say that it wrong to burn the harvests, to empty the silos and finally to imprison unarmed men, women and children. These are, in my opinion, unfortunate necessities, but ones to which any people who want to make war on the Arabs will be obliged to submit. And, if I must say what I think, these acts do not revolt me more or even as much as several others which the law of war obviously authorizes and which take place in all the wars of Europe. Why is it more odious to burn harvests and take women and children prisoner than to bombard the harmless population of a besieged city or to seize merchant ships belonging to the subjects of an enemy power at sea? The one is, in my opinion, much crueler and less justifiable than the other.

Applauding the methods of General Bugeaud, Tocqueville went so far to claim that "war in Africa is a science. Everyone is familiar with its rules and everyone can apply those rules with almost complete certainty of success. One of the greatest services that Field Marshal Bugeaud has rendered his country is to have spread, perfected and made everyone aware of this new science".

Tocqueville advocated racial segregation as a form of consociationalism in Algeria with two distinct legislations, one for European colonists and one for the Arab population.

Without doubt, it would be as dangerous as it would be useless to try to suggest to them our morals, our ideas, our customs. It is not in the direction of our European civilization that we must now push them, but in the direction of their own civilization; we must ask of them what they desire and not what they despise. Individual property, industry, sedentary living are not contrary to the religion of Mohammed. Arabs have known or know these things elsewhere; they are appreciated and enjoyed by some of them in Algeria itself. Why should we despair of making them familiar to the greatest number? It has already been attempted on some points with success. Islam is not absolutely impenetrable to the Enlightenment; it has often admitted in its bosom certain sciences or certain arts. Why should we not try to make these flourish under our empire? Let us not force the natives to come to our schools, but let us help them to raise theirs, to multiply those who teach there, to train the men of law and the men of religion, of whom the Muslim civilization cannot do without any more than us.

Such a two-tier arrangement would be fully realised with the 1870 Crémieux decree and the Indigenousness Code, which extended French citizenship to European settlers and Algerian Jews whereas Muslim Algerians would be governed under the Code de l'indigénat. However Tocqueville hoped for an eventual mixing of the French and Arab populations into a single body:

Every day the French are developing clearer and more accurate notions about the inhabitants of Algeria. They learn their languages, become familiar with their customs, and one even sees some who show a kind of unthinking enthusiasm for them. On the other hand, the whole of the young Arab generation in Algiers speaks our language and has already taken on some of our customs. There is therefore no reason to believe that time cannot succeed in amalgamating the two races. God does not prevent it; only the faults of men could impede it.
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