The F.L.N.’s social program drew from Islamic Ulema teachings, not Marx.
Evidence
But as the years rolled by the revolution did develop pragmatically it own social face. It was an austere one, materialistically and religiously, and borrowed more from the theological teachings of the interwar Ulema than from Karl Marx. Characteristically, the F.L.N. never offered prosperity, liberty or the pursuit of happiness as planks in its programme. Its leaders profoundly disapproved of Bourguibism, not just on account of its “cult of the personality” but also for its emphasis on the merits of bourgeois free enterprise. When one declared to the Braces, “We are not Communists, but we are not fighting and dying for a bourgeois capitalist state which will only benefit a few people,” he could hardly have taken a more representative line. — Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962, 1248
Categorization
- DEFINE: Pinpoints the ideological source of the F.L.N.’s austere, anti-bourgeois but anti-communist social vision.
- XREF: Bears on the book’s central ‘Savage War of Peace’ question — what kind of peace the revolution was actually fighting for.