Star of North Africa

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STAR OF NORTH AFRICA

The first Algerian political movement to call openly for independence.

The Star of North Africa, also known as the Etoile Nord-Africaine (ENA) was founded in 1926 in Paris by Hadj Ali Abd al-Qadir and Messali alHadj. With a base in the large Algerian immigrant community that was influenced by the Communist-dominated French labor movement, it also propounded a leftist social and economic agenda.

The movement was banned in 1929 but grew clandestinely until it reappeared in reorganized form in 1933. Messali al-Hadj returned to Algeria in the summer of 1936 to address the Algerian Muslim Congress that was designing a program of reforms within the Colonial framework. Before that audience, he became the first individual to speak openly of independence within Algeria itself. He then turned to organizing ENA cells across the country. Authorities in January 1937 banned the ENA. Its successor was the Parti du Peuple Algérien (PPA), which was outlawed, in its turn, in September 1939.

see also hadj, messali al-.

john ruedy