Voice Out of Silence

For two days, Algiers' Moslems watched silently as European mobs shouted for "Algerie Franc,aise" and tangled with security forces. Then, in their frustrated rage, the Europeans went too far. Squads of toughs plunged into the Moslem quarters. They beat up passers-by and forced shopkeepers to join the general strike ordered by the extremist Front de l'Algerie Franc,aise.

Flagged Spires. Suddenly, the Moslems' long restraint snapped. Screaming like men who have been too long silent, Moslem mobs flooded the narrow lanes of the casbah. From under thin mattresses and floor boards came hundreds of forbidden flags of the F.L.N. rebels--green-and-white banners bearing a red crescent and star. In bright green paint, slogans were splashed on any and every convenlent wall: "The F.L.N. Forever," "Long Live Ferhat Abbas," "Long Live Moslem Algeria."

It was as if a dam had burst. In the slum suburbs of Belcourt and Clos Salembier, from the tar-paper shacks of Maison-Carree, Moslems erupted in wild demonstrations. Rebel flags blossomed on dozens of minarets. Cars belonging to Europeans were smashed and burned, shops and cafes turned into a shambles. A luckless policeman was caught by the crowd and his throat cut. Nine other Europeans were beaten to death, burned alive or fatally stabbed with sharpened screwdrivers.

The government had massed 30,000 police and soldiers in Algiers to handle rioting by European mobs; they could not handle the' outpouring of Moslems. On Sunday afternoon, a paratroop regiment arrived from the back country, where it had been battling the rebel F.L.N. Rushed to the Moslem quarter of Belcourt, the paratroops took one look at the flag-waving Moslems and then advanced, firing submachine guns from the hip. Explained the paratroop colonel: "My men have been fighting the rebels in the Aures Mountains. They are amazed to come up against the very same rebel flag in the heart of Algiers." As the guns spoke and Moslems died, frantic European women on nearby balconies screamed encouragement to the paratroops: "Kill them! Kill them!"

Defiant Orphans. In Algiers and Oran and Bone, 127 Moslems died and hundreds more were wounded. European gangs joined in the hunt and dropped stray Moslems with pistols and iron bars. But still the green-and-white flags waved, and the Moslem crowds, scattered by police charges, re-formed as soon as the police withdrew. From rooftops and windows, Moslem women cheered on their men with high-pitched cries of "Yu! Yu! Yu!" One woman shouted at a group of paratroops: "Cowards! You were thrown out of Indo-China, you were thrown out of Tunisia, you were thrown out of Morocco. You will be thrown out of Algeria. Here, all you can do is make war on women and children!"

The Europeans were stunned. Ever since 1957, when paratroops brutally suppressed the F.L.N. terrorists in the cities, Moslem city dwellers have practiced attentisme, a zombielike acceptance of every indignity just to stay alive. The advocates of a French Algeria argued that the casbah really wanted association with France but was intimidated into silence for fear of the F.L.N. Attentisme (wait-and-see-ism) virtually disappeared last week in the explosive espousal of the F.L.N. The extremist Front de l'Algerie Franc,aise had claimed the support of 500,000 Moslems--if they ever existed, they have now vanished into thin air. The wife of extremist General Jacques Massu operated a social center in the casbah for Moslem orphans, and worked industriously to win them to the cause of Algerie Franc,aise. During the furious demonstrations in the casbah, Mme. Massu's orphans were in the forefront of the flag-waving crowds.

Make or Break. President Charles de Gaulle, touring the Algerian countryside, went pale with fury at the news of the riots. To an aide he snapped: "All those who are responsible--I will break them!" Cutting short his tour by a day. De Gaulle went to Bone to emplane for Paris. Gunfire accompanied his take-off as European and Moslem crowds angrily shouted their rival slogans. Foreign Legion paratroops, long the darlings of the European extremists, tried to separate the demonstrators. The European rioters refused to disperse. For the first time in Algerian history, French troops opened fire on a European crowd, killing three and wounding 15. As if to show their impartiality, the Legionnaires poured bullets into the Moslems as well, killing nine.

What Can We Do? De Gaulle landed in Paris in freezing weather. Without an overcoat, and looking tired and drawn, he spoke to a welcoming party headed by obedient Premier Michel Debre. His words were curt but comprehensive: "We have but one policy, and it must be followed. It is the right one."

Despite the tension in Algeria, the nationwide referendum date De Gaulle has set for January 8 remains unchanged: Frenchmen would be called upon to vote oui or non to his policies. De Gaulle brusquely showed he would not tolerate extremist European defiance in Algiers, incidentally making clear that he blamed the Europeans, not the Moslems, for instigating the riots. Forty civil servants in Algeria, who had quit work in answer to the strike call of the extremist Front de l' Algerie Franc,aise, were sacked from their jobs and the Front itself ordered dissolved. The same fate was visited upon the Front's right-wing affiliate in France. The Europeans reacted with a numbed and disconsolate silence. Groaned a European extremist: "What will we do? What can we do? We've tried, and France doesn't understand us."

The army can still impose its will in the cities of Algeria, and Charles de Gaulle is serenely confident that he has the army's loyalty. His belief may be exaggerated, but if the army continues neutral, it is enough. Further, a substantial part of the security police--many of whom were brought over from France --are shocked by the tactics of the Europeans. Said one gendarme disgustedly: "We're dealing with slobs."

Desperately, a band of right-wing Deputies rallied behind Jacques Soustelle, the most prominent extremist leader not yet in jail or exile. Their new "Regroupement pour l'Unite de la Republique" may not change many votes, but it will enable Soustelle to participate legally in the pre-referendum campaign and entitle him to have his full say on government radio and television.

Sinister Masquerade. The six-year-old Algerian war caused the ruin of the Fourth Republic and has almost wrecked the Fifth. It has estranged France from its former colonies (two of them voted against France last week in the U.N. debate on Algeria; eleven others, including usually docile Malagasy and Cameroun, refused to vote for France and abstained) and embarrassed France's Western allies. Worst of all, the struggle has brutalized both sides and opened the door to Soviet and Red Chinese penetration of a new continent.

Last week's tumult in Algeria made it clear that De Gaulle must act with all the forcefulness at his command. He could expect no help from the F.L.N., which clearly saw victory in sight. From the safety of Tunis. Ferhat Abbas, "Premier" of the F.L.N. government in exile, denounced the Jan. 8 referendum as a French attempt to "impose a statute upon us," and warned Moslems: "It is another battle for which you must prepare. You will be called upon to check this sinister masquerade." Abbas obviously did not want De Gaulle getting credit for what the rebels claim to have won in blood and battle, seemed determined to close the door on any offers from De Gaulle. "Freedom cannot be granted, it must be seized," he cried.

De Gaulle did not underestimate his problem. While in Algeria, he had addressed 200 army officers, who stood at silent attention in an airplane hangar as he confessed the weight of his burden. From the fact of the six-year war, he said, "the population of this Algeria, which is in the great majority Moslem, has acquired an awareness it did not have. Nothing can stop this. It is also true that this insurrection . . . takes place in a new world, in a world which is not at all like that which I knew myself when I was young. There is," De Gaulle added sadly but resolutely, "a whole context of emancipation which is sweeping the world from one end to the other, which has swept over our black Africa, which has swept over all those who once had empires."

De Gaulle recognizes that the end of empire must come in Algeria, too.

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