Ottoman Algeria in Western Diplomatic History with ... - Bibliothèque

Appraisal of the long history of Algiers has revealed that westerners
built numerous misrepresentations of the region and its population, fortified
them, and ended by exploiting their ingenious propaganda towards the
fulfillment of ideological purposes. In sum, according to western views, the
inhabitants of Algiers were barbarians, their homeland was a nest of thieves
and banditti, and their state was a piratical entity which lived parasitically on
plunder and ransom of Christian slaves. These images were perpetuated for
over three hundred years and many of them found a way into the twenty first
century. The terminology may have changed today but the essence and the
purpose remain the same.
The Muslim, past and present, is regarded as
pirate/terrorist, slaveholder and despotic/undemocratic, and barbarian/
underdeveloped.
As a matter of fact, Algiers as it stood in the western mind was a
creation that was fabricated at a time when animosity between Islam and
Christianity reached a zenith. Out of enmity to Islam and ignorance about it,
Christian redemptionists spread the scare of the cruel ‘Barbary pirate’ and
multiplied one-sided travel accounts to discourage Christians from converting
to Islam—the loss in ‘renegades’ was considerable—and by the same way
increase their funding. The move was soon picked up by politicians who
encouraged captivity narratives. Dehumanized and debased to the rank of
animals, the Muslim populations were then considered ripe for colonization.
After investigation, this study has identified five major distortions to
historical truth and attempted to straighten them. The conclusions are as
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