Mohamed Belouizdad

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Mohamed Belouizdad

Mohamed Belouizdad ( Arabic محمد بلوزداد, DMG Muḥammad Bilwazdād ; * November 3, 1924 in Belcourt , Algiers ; † January 14, 1952 in Paris ) was an Algerian politician ( PPA / MTLD ), militant activist and co-founder and first leader of the organization Spéciale .

Life

Mohamed Belouizdad was on November 3, 1924 as the son of one of the ostalgerischen Guenzet originating family in the district of Belcourt , in Algiers , was born. His father ran a kiosk there. He grew up in modest circumstances with his five brothers and two sisters.

In addition to working in the family business, Belouizdad finished his secondary education in 1943 with the Baccalauréat . In addition, he was active in local youth organizations and founded the Jeunes de Belcourt (CJB) association , with whom Belouizdad increasingly came into contact with the organization of football games, leisure programs and the communication of nationalist ideas attracted over 500 young people.

This fact also brought him the attention of the management level of the Parti du peuple algérien (PPA), which was dissolved by French colonial rule in 1939 , around its leader Messali Hadj , whom he joined in 1943. Within the party, Mohamed Belouizdad founded the Comité Central jeune du Grand Alger (CCJGA) (German Central Youth Committee of Greater Algiers). In the same year, however, he gave up this activity in order to participate in the establishment of local, elite, nationalist circles and at the end of 1943 was appointed head of his party in Belcourt. Belouizdad was also one of the co-publishers of the secret party magazine El Watan , which first appeared in Algiers in January 1944. In the same year he also took a position as a staff member in the Department of Religious Affairs of the French Government General in Algeria.

After the demonstrations in Algiers in May 1945 , of which he was one of the initiators, the police wanted Belouizdad and was forced to go into hiding. In the course of the ensuing waves of arrests, his father and his brothers Mustapha and Sahnoun Belouizdad were arrested. The latter died in prison in 1945.

In the months following these events, he was appointed head of the PPA in the Constantine region , where he joined a group of young activists , including Muhammad Boudiaf , Larbi Ben M'hidi , Abdelhafid Boussouf , Mostefa Ben Boulaïd, Lakhdar Ben Tobbal , Badji Mokhtar and Youcef Zighoud was on the board. This group is often associated with the origins of the Algerian Revolution , as a number of important actors - some of whom were later revered as national heroes - emerged from it. The influence of the PPA to jointly tried with Ben Boulaïd Belouizdad Aurès expanding region and the residents there, mostly from Chaoui - Berbers existing to inspire people to nationalist ideas.

In October 1946 he was one of the co-founders of the Mouvement pour le triomphe des libértes démocratiques (MTLD) , which as a legal party could represent the interests of the PPA. As a delegate at the PPA conference, Belouizdad was also involved in the founding of the paramilitary organization Spéciale (OS) on February 18, 1947, of which he was appointed first leader. Through his election to the party's Politburo, he finally rose to the leadership of the PPA and henceforth MTLD.

The OS, viewed as a militant forerunner of the later independence movement, acted under Belouizdad's leadership as an underground organization in preparation for an armed struggle, which recruited over 1,500 members and trained them militarily over a period of two years under the strictest secrecy. It also organized the establishment of contact networks and ammunition depots, which were filled by smuggling weapons across the border with Tunisia and Libya .

In 1948 and 1949 his health deteriorated drastically. Due to the consequences of a tuberculosis disease and increasing symptoms of paralysis, Belouizdad was replaced by his deputies Hocine Aït Ahmed and Ahmed Ben Bella and finally admitted to a Paris hospital in December 1949 .

Mohamed Belouizdad died on January 14, 1952 at the age of 27 in the La Bruyère sanatorium in Paris. He was buried in the Sidi M'hamed cemetery in Algiers.

In his honor, the Belcourt district was renamed in 1992 after his name, Mohamed Belouizdad . The local football club CR Belouizdad then also adopted this name. Belouizdad's portrait is a common mural in Algiers.

family

His younger brother Othman Belouizdad (* 1929) was also active in the Organization Spéciale and belonged to the group of 22 , the Comité révolutionnaire d'unité et d'action , which later became the National Liberation Front .

literature

  • Muḥammad Yāysī: Muḥammad Bilwazdād - ʿ Ilm min I ʿ lām aṯ-Ṯawra al-Ǧazā ʾ irīya . Dār Hūma, 2015, ISBN 978-9931-03047-8 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Muḥammad Yāysī: Muḥammad Bilwazdād - ʿIlm min Iʿlām aṯ-Ṯawra al-Ǧazāʾirīya. Algiers: Dār Hūma. 2015.
  2. ^ A b Benjamin Stora: Dictionnaire biographique de militants nationalistes algériens. ENA, PPA, MTLD (1926-1954). Paris: L'Harmattan. 1985. p. 271
  3. ↑ a b Achour Cheurfi (ar. ʿĀšūr Šarfī): La classe politique algérienne de 1900 à nos jours. Dictionnaire biographique. Algiers: Casbah Éditions. 2001. pp. 61, 122
  4. ^ Benjamin Stora: Dictionnaire biographique de militants nationalistes algériens. ENA, PPA, MTLD (1926-1954). Paris: L'Harmattan. 1985. p. 322
personal data
SURNAME Belouizdad, Mohamed
ALTERNATIVE NAMES محمد بلوزداد (Arabic)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Algerian activist and politician
DATE OF BIRTH November 3, 1924
PLACE OF BIRTH Belcourt , Algiers
DATE OF DEATH January 14, 1952
Place of death Paris