French jamming forced Algerians into a tactical war of the waves
Evidence
Here we come upon a phenomenon that is sufficiently unusual to retain our attention. The highly trained French services, rich with experience acquired in modern wars, past masters in the practice of “sound-wave warfare,” were quick to detect the wave lengths of the broadcasting stations. The programs were then systematically jammed, and the Voice of Fighting Algeria soon became inaudible. A new form of struggle had come into being. Tracts were distributed telling the Algerians to keep tuned in for a period of two or three hours. In the course of a single broadcast a second station, broadcasting over a different wave-length, would relay the first jammed station. The listener, enrolled in the battle of the waves, had to figure out the tactics of the enemy, and in an almost physical way circumvent the strategy of the adversary. Very often only the operator, his ear glued to the receiver, had the unhoped-for opportunity of hearing the Voice. The other Algerians present in the room would receive the echo of this voice through the privileged interpreter who, at the end of the broadcast, was literally besieged. — Frantz Fanon, A Dying Colonialism, 299 (
#expands, via linked claim)
Categorization
- XREF: connects to: French jamming forced Algerians into active radio wave-countering tactics. — Frantz Fanon, A Dying Colonialism, 299; Algerian rebels outmatched French columns using fire signals and village dogs — Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962, 323
Related
- French jamming forced Algerians into active radio wave-countering tactics. (similarity 0.95)
- Algerian rebels outmatched French columns using fire signals and village dogs (similarity 0.86)
- Even jamming static was reinterpreted as evidence of the resistance’s presence. (similarity 0.84)
- The occupier’s effort to confiscate radios and jam broadcasts ultimately failed (similarity 0.82)
- Algerian society autonomously reappropriated the radio as a weapon of revolution (similarity 0.78)
Broader Connections
- French jamming forced Algerians into active radio wave-countering tactics.
#expands(0.90) — Frantz Fanon, A Dying Colonialism, 299