Jamal Awil

← A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962

Moderate leader Abbas abandoned his political past for the F.L.N. [fact]

Undoubtedly the most important single acquisition to the F.L.N. during this period was the person of the arch-apostle of moderation, Ferhat Abbas himself. … It marked a long march from Abbas’s oft-quoted statement of 1936 — “I will not die for the Algerian nation, because it does not exist.” A few weeks later, Abbas had an “exploratory” meeting with Abane, Krim and Ouamrane in Algiers. With outright frankness, Abane told him: “The revolution has been unleashed, and it is the work of neither Messali, nor the U.D.M.A. All that is out of date. Your duty is to join the Front.” When Abbas asked Abane what precisely he should do, he was told: “Dissolve the U.D.M.A., and announce that you are going over to the Front.”

XREF: Connects to the broader narrative of how the F.L.N. consolidated all Algerian nationalist factions under one umbrella, absorbing moderates into the revolutionary front.

Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Alge…, loc. 432