CHAPTER TWO: HISTORICAL CONTEXT AND CURRENT CHALLENGES Almohad Empire. While under Turkish rule, Algeria had to resist attacks from the Spanish. 49. The 17th century began the period of competition: the rich and powerful group of pirates competed for influence with janissaries, and won in 1671, giving power to a “dey” 4 who had three “beys” under his command. The latter were quasi-autonomous, with one based in Oran, the second in Medea and the third in Constantine. 50. Algeria‟s colonisation began in 1830 when French troops forced the dey in Algiers to capitulate. However, they soon had to contend with the army of the charismatic Emir Abdelkader. It took France over 15 years to put an end to the resistance of this Berber leader, who is deemed one of the greatest figures in Algeria‟s history. After Emir Abdelkader surrendered in 1848, Algeria was colonised by France. This involved an infrastructural programme (roads and railways), combined with the injustices of colonialism, such as denial of the local culture, transformation of mosques to churches, and confiscation of land for reallocation to white colonists. 51. From the 1920s, discontent gained ground. In 1943, the Manifesto of the Algerian peoples demanded equality between the French and the Algerians, pejoratively referred to as “natives” by the colonial administration. In the subsequent years, uprisings were ruthlessly quelled. 52. The protracted and glorious resistance to foreign occupation initiated by Emir Abdelkader, the founder of modern Algeria, ended when the country regained its national independence. The heroic battle led by this charismatic personality for over 15 years continued throughout the country with successive armed revolts led by Ouled Sidi Cheikh, El Mokrani, Boumaza, Cheikh Bouâmama, Fatma N‟Soummer and many others. 53. Similarly, political resistance, which began in the first half of the last century, gave rise to numerous political parties, more particularly the Algerian Peoples‟ Party (PPA), the Movement for the Triumph of Democratic Liberties (MTLD), the Democratic Union of the Algerian Manifesto (UDMA) and the Association of Ulemas. It constituted a real melting pot of Algerian nationalism. 54. The failure of peaceful attempts by these parties to express their demands, disregard for these same demands by the occupying colonists, the violent suppression of any desire on the part of Algerians for justice and Rostemid State created in Tahert during the eighth and tenth centuries; thereafter the Fatimid attempt from Lesser Kabylie ending up in Egypt as well as the Hammadite State of the 11th to 12th centuries, whose main capital was Bougie, can be singled out. In the 11th century, Western Algeria became part of the Almoravid Empire before the unification of the Maghreb region within the Almohad Empire during the 12th and 13th centuries. One of the main heirs of this empire was the Zianid dynasty, whose capital was Tlemcen. It was the main state of Central Maghreb from the 13th to 16th centuries. 4 The dey was the title given to the rulers of the Regency of Algiers under the Ottoman Empire from 1671 to 1830. The dey‟s realm was divided into three provinces (Constantine, Titteri and Mascara), each of which was administered by a bey. 40