Bringing together the local, national, and international dimensions of the Algerian war (1954–62), Jennifer Johnson's book is an argument that in the global struggle for decolonization, debates about sovereignty, humanitarianism, and human rights were interdependent and mutually reinforcing as both colonizing and nationalist forces sought legitimacy among their populations and on the world stage. Given the long nineteenth-century history of colonizers justifying their interventions against the sovereignty of African and Asian powers on ‘philanthropic’ and humanitarian grounds, that the battle over decolonization should be fought on similar ground should not be surprising. In fact, the historiography of African decolonization, as Johnson acknowledges, has long argued that the late colonial development projects initiated by France and Britain attempted to recast the role of the state, but lost ground to nationalists who argued they would do a better job of that development. The Cold War and the establishment of international organizations such as the United Nations gave decolonized countries new avenues for seeking help in realizing those welfare goals.
Johnson brings this international understanding of the decolonizing moment to bear on the Algerian War. The book has six chapters, drawing on research in national archives and the archives of international organizations, including the UN and the International Committee of the Red Cross. The first chapter outlines the rise of the nationalist movement in Algeria and the specific relationship of that movement to the development projects and emerging rights language of the late colonial period. Specifically, the Geneva Conventions played an important role in shaping the FLN's approach to prisoners of war, health care provision for volunteers, and medical outreach in the community after the initial phase of the war.
The second chapter deals with the Special Administrative Sections, developed by the French colonial administration to improve the quality of life for Algerians, and ‘capture the hearts and minds of the population through health-care campaigns’ (41). This chapter looks at both the official SAS policies and propaganda and the details of who joined and what they experienced.
The third chapter moves to the Algerian side of the conflict, looking at the Algerian health services and their role in presenting the FLN as a legitimate successor to the French colonial state. Importantly, Johnson notes that ‘the FLN developed a medical sector before it had a fully functioning government’ (64). The chapter includes discussion of the role of women and French nationals in the FLN-ALN medical services.
Chapter Four addresses the Algerian Red Crescent's attempts to use the universal claims on rights and a commitment to international norms – specifically with regard to French torture and prisoner and refugee treatment – to appeal to the international aid community. Although the French Red Cross operated in Algeria, their partiality towards the French cause and their lack of Algerian staff led to the development of the FLN alternative in 1957.
In Chapter Five, Johnson uses the cases of the International Committee of the Red Cross to tackle one of the persistent problems of modern humanitarian assistance: the struggle between ‘real’ humanitarian need and the political use of relief and intervention. The controversial leak of ICRC reports on wartime conditions highlights the fragile position that international organizations found themselves in during and after decolonization, when the line between conventional and civil wars was particularly unclear.
Finally, Chapter Six turns to the UN and the non-aligned movement, to show how the FLN made its case in the new Cold War internationalist setting. The FLN appealed to other Bandung participants as well as communist countries, Arab nations, and the US directly, using the language of rights and self-determination.
This book adds to a growing historiography of the era of French decolonization that reveals the struggle for legitimacy – imperial or national – as one conducted both in response to the local colonial circumstances and one playing itself out in the very specific postwar international environment, one in which rights and access to welfare provision were increasingly important for both colonial and metropolitan claims on the state. The formation of the medical service as the first function of the state in Algeria was an extreme example of the broader international prioritization of welfare in the rebuilding of postwar states. It also helps to advance the nuanced understanding of the relationship between colonial rule, humanitarianism, welfare, and human rights in the creation of international norms in the long twentieth century. There are places where the book is a bit heavy on dissertation-style background and light on argument – perhaps especially in unpacking the relationships between various medical, welfare, developmentalist, humanitarian, human rights, and right to self-determination arguments as put forward by the various actors. But as a holistic picture of the role of rights-based arguments in the broader story of Algerian independence, the book is indispensible.
