Flood in Arid Lands: Imperial Durabilities in Algeria

• In Event: Reimagining Flooding in the Era of Climate Change: What Environmental History Offers to Navigate a Watery World

Abstract

In January 1868, amid catastrophic drought, a massive flood raged across the central-east part of the Algeria. Thousands of animals were swept to their deaths down the wadis of the Kabylia highlands, hundreds of people drown, and whole villages were washed away. The torrents did nothing to assuage the effects of the drought, and the crisis response from French imperial actors only exacerbated the growing divisions between settler and indigenous communities: settlers escaped the worst of the disaster; Algerians were washed to sea.

In the fall of 2001, amid a period of sustained aridity that stressed the viability of both the season’s harvests and the capital city itself, a storm surged across the Mediterranean and docked at Algiers harbor. Pummeling, incessant rain drenched the city for thirty six hours. When it finally stopped, nearly 800 people had been killed in floods, landslides, and building collapses, and another 1500 were left homeless. Most of the damage occurred in Bab el Oued, a working-class neighborhood on the western side of Algiers. This impoverished district, underserved by infrastructure, usually received only a little water per week – well under the international “water poverty” level. After the waters subsided people in the district rose in protest over the state’s preparedness and response. Month-long commemorations, including marches and demands for better services, followed each November for another decade.

In this paper I read the floods of 1868 and 2001 as markers of how “disaster” – in this case both drought and flood – is constructed through repeated claims about the knowability and regularity of nature. Events outside these supposedly regular parameters are mobilized in certain instances to create divisions between inside and outside, nature and human, safe and dangerous. These divisions, repeated over time, become the basis for inclusion and exclusion in the political community.

Author

• Brock Cutler, Radford University