The high walls that surround the houses in Algeria, the delightful courtyards concealed in total privacy behind squalid exteriors in the Casbah, hint at an Algerian characteristic that also does not ease the path of an historian. This natural instinct for secretiveness, developed over the five generations of French suzerainty, was further heightened to the point where few inklings leaked out during the eight years of clandestine warfare of the many internal splits that repeatedly threatened to rive the FLN leadership. It is no less difficult to discover the truth of such divisions today. Compounded with secretiveness there also remains some degree of apprehension. Factionalism of the Revolution continued long after Independence in 1962, and as late as 1967 there was an abortive coup against Boumedienne. Two of the neuf historiques founders of the revolt against France have been mysteriously murdered in exile in Europe; Ben Bella remains in prison, who knows where? Several other former revolutionary leaders live, like Trotsky, nervously in disfavour abroad.

DEFINE: Explains the Algerian 'instinct for secretiveness'—a cultural trait shaped under French rule and intensified by clandestine warfare that frustrates historical research.

Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Alge…, loc. 14