Map of Algeria
Algeria is the largest country in Africa that is four times larger than France that occupied Algeria and called it one of its departments and not a colony. The French built the roads and some infrastructure to serve its interest and developed agriculture to export its produce to France. The Frenchmen and women who lived in Algeria owned massive vineyards to make wine for France but also exported oranges, cereals and other products but the people of Algeria remained poor and abused by their masters called Pied noir.
The pied noirs Frenchmen and women lived in big villas in style while the Algerians worked for them in the vineyards for pittance or doing other menial works for their Patron as they called them but the Algerians wanted to be free, so they started a guerilla warfare in the countryside and fought the French tooth and nail starting in the year 1954 and were eventually successful only in 1962 when Charles De Gaulle announced independence for Algeria. The Casbah in Algiers was the epicenter of guerilla activities where they hid and planned their next move. The French secret police often demolished their homes by bombs, but they hid somewhere else. Today Casbah is not the same. It has numerous shops and clean streets.
It led to a massive exodus of the French from Algeria that left a newly independent country in dire shape because the guerilla leaders knew how to fight but had little knowledge of how to run a country. The freedom came at a tremendous cost of the loss of nearly 1 and a half million lives and hundreds of thousands of people who received serious injuries, but the country had to govern itself somehow, so they started to hire teachers and agricultural experts from other countries.
I arrived as an agronomist in 1971, a mere 9 years after the end of their very bloody conflict, and saw a country that was trying hard to stand on its feet, so they built apartments, schools and colleges, new roads and set up numerous industries speedily. Since then, a new Algeria has emerged that has impressed me more than I can write about so I post some videos that you must watch to know how beautiful Algeria really is and how far they have come since its independence.
To enjoy the beauty of Algeria, you should watch the video on a big screen TV because the cinematography is stunningly beautiful and in high resolution that will amaze you in its details. The credit for this masterpiece film goes to Yann Arthus Bertrand who filmed the whole country and its numerous features from above, probably using a high-resolution drone camera or himself in a small plane.
The second video is on Kabylie mountains in the East of Algiers where I was posted in the town of Tizi Ouzou for a while before I left for Mostaganem in the West. I have written extensively about Algeria and Tizi Ouzou in my biography so I will not repeat myself here. Just read Chapter Five using the link given below to learn all about Algeria as I knew in 1971. The whole Kabylie region and Tizi Ouzou have changed a great deal since then so I may not even recognize the new Tizi Ouzou now.
The Chapter on Algeria is called Remember Djamila, Algeria where you will read about their national heroine Djamila Boupacha who was tortured by the French secret police for days that led to massive protests throughout France to force De Gaulle to grant independence to Algeria but some officers in the French Army were firmly against the independence, so they tried to assassinate De Gaule and failed.
I have poured my heart out on Algeria and recorded every detail I could think of regarding its brutal fight to independence, its culture, its agriculture, its physical beauty, its marvelous people who offered me food and shelter during the rain and invited me to their homes during the Id festival. I will never forget their hospitality and their benevolence because they treated me so well.
The French people came back to Algeria to teach at their numerous schools and technical agricultural colleges, so I met some of them who became my friends in Tizi Ouzou and some in Mostaganem.
I have lived in countries that have gone through war and revolution like in Vietnam, Algeria and Haiti where I was a mute observer of the tragedies the people suffered in Vietnam, the pain and agony of a protracted war of independence in Algeria and the horrible revolution in Haiti in 1986.
I am happy to see the progress and the incredible development of the infrastructure in Algeria today. It has reduced poverty and has given every Algerian a reason to be proud of their country.