While the law also excluded a variety of colonized subjects of various creeds throughout the Empire in Africa and Asia, its Algerian context is particularly instructive because it specifically targeted Muslims. In colonial Algeria “citizens” were all those who were not Muslims, and the terms musulman, indigene, and sujet usually (though not always) overlapped. Muslim was a racialized legal category stripped of any religious significance. For instance, in a beautiful show of absurdity, several court cases confirmed that even if they converted to Christianity, natives remained legally Muslim, that is subject to discriminatory laws and stripped of citizenship.[1] The famous 1905 law on the separation of Church and State was also meant to be applied to Algeria. Tellingly, this never occurred because authorities, in particular, wanted to control what imams said in mosques. Imams remained civil servants of the French state until 1962.
Posted on: Mon, 12 Jan 2015 05:21:16 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015