Published date: 9 July 2017 20:39 UTC | Last update: 3 years 8 months ago
On 5 July, Algeria celebrated the 55th anniversary of its independence, one that everyone thought was bound to happen. But archives show the event could easily have never happened
In his memoirs,
Portrait of the Young Man in Red, Lebanese Communist militant Fawwaz Traboulsi recounts “his” independence of Algeria. In 1962, he was living, studying and campaigning in England. The Algerian revolution had been at the heart of his activity, so much so that he was sometimes mistaken for an Algerian, he explains.
Fifty-five years on, this independence seems inevitable. However, a recent dive into the archives of 1962 showed me a different angle