Burning the Veil: The Algerian War and the 'Emancipation' of Muslim women, 1954-1962

Abstract

In May 1958, as part of an orchestrated ‘Revolution’ to topple the Fourth Republic, Muslim Algerian women dramatically removed their veils, and then threw them into a fire. This moment was one of the last symbolic events of the increasingly defunct civilizing mission in Algeria. It is the centrepiece of Neil MacMaster's seminal book, which illustrates the critical role of Muslim women in the propaganda war between the French Army and the FLN. On the eve of the Algerian War, Muslim women were symbols of humanitarian need because of their degraded social status. The French government saw in them an untapped opportunity not only to persuade, but also to transform the entirety of Algerian-Muslim society. The 13 May coup, in which Muslims, pied-noirs, and the French military all appeared to be allied, set off the campaign for Fraternisation, wherein the French wanted to show that they had culturally influenced the Muslim-Algerian private sphere. With this carefully orchestrated “revolution from above” came an obsession with the status of Muslim Algerian women, and a final incisive effort to dismantle the structure of Muslim-Algerian society hidden behind the guise of emancipation. Beneath the banners of humanitarianism and civil rights, the pillars of Muslim life and values were systematically assaulted. A new Committee of Public Safety was created by the French colonial government in 1958 as a propagandist instrument demonstrating that Muslims and Christian French citizens stood in alliance for a French Algeria led by De Gaulle. Within the committee, Muslim women held a special importance as a bridge between the two populations; the removal of the veil was a theatrical statement of cultural integration.