Once a Model of Liberation, Algeria is a Disappointment

By Henry Srebrni, [Summerside, PEI] Journal Pioneer

Before the Vietnamese struggle for unification took centre stage as its cause in the mid-1960s, the Algerian National Liberation Front (FLN) was the darling of the European left.

French intellectuals like Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir lionized its fighters, and Italian filmmakers such as Gillo Pontecorvo made movies of the fight.

Anti-colonial revolutionary nationalists were mistakenly viewed as socialists. 

Even Americans, and not only radicals, supported its battle for liberation. John F. Kennedy, then a U.S. senator from Massachusetts, in 1957 argued that excessive American support for French colonialism would only further weaken France, transform moderate Algerian nationalists into Communist rebels, thus helping the Soviets gain a foothold in the Mediterranean.

Kennedy viewed anticolonial liberation as the wave of the future and felt and the United States should not subordinate its support for that wave by supporting the colonial powers of Western Europe.

Though legally part of France, Algerian Arab and Berber Muslims outnumbered European colons (settlers) by nine million to one million when the war began in 1954.

By the time it concluded in 1962, at least 150,000 FLN guerrillas, 25,000 French troops, and hundreds of thousands of civilians – some estimates place it a 1.5 million -- had been killed.

Most of the European-descended population left for France; they remained a sullen and right-wing group, accusing French President Charles de Gaulle of betraying them.

The new Algeria was seen as a beacon of Third World liberation and a socialist model for others to emulate. Revolutionaries from the Black Panthers to the African National Congress were feted in Algiers.

Algeria never lived up to its bright promise, though. The FLN established a one-party state, stifling all opposition, and the country became just another military-backed kleptocracy, kept afloat by the sale of oil and natural gas.

A once-fervent supporter of the revolution, the French-Tunisian writer Albert Memmi noted with sadness that “After decades of independence they are still cutting throats in Algeria… and condemning the uncovered faces of women.” In his 2004 book Decolonization and the Decolonized, he asserted that “In Algeria the army has maintained a reign of terror.”

Algerian writer and journalist Kamel Daoud, who, like many Algerians lives in France, is even more critical, and has published widely on his views, including in the New York Times, something that does not endear him to his fellow Algerians.

“My concerns and commitments in Algeria today are about individual liberties, a regime incapable of change and the rise of Islamism,” he wrote in a Times opinion piece last October 15.

Today the country has a population of around 42 million, with over 3.5 million living in the capital, Algiers. Arabic is the official language, while French and Berber Tamazight are also spoken. The currency is the dinar.

The oil and gas sector is the backbone of the economy, accounting for about 20 per cent of the gross domestic product, and 85 per cent of total exports. The country’s other natural resources include iron ore, phosphates, uranium and lead.

But its long-suffering people seem to have had enough. With the price of oil in decline, unemployment among the young increased, and the government cut social benefits.

The long-governing dictator, 82-year-old President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, in power since 1999, in mid-February began to face demonstrations demanding his departure, and that of the entourage around him.

These are the high-ranking officials, wealthy businessmen and military officers who actually run the country. They got rich on public money.

After the army brutally crushed an Islamist insurgency in the 1990s that saw more than 200,000 deaths, following a coup negating an Islamist electoral victory, they chose ex-foreign minister Bouteflika to lead the country.

As the demonstrations grew larger, he at first announced he would not run for a fifth term. But this was rejected by the protesters who demanded he step down immediately.

Bouteflika’s fate was sealed once the army chief of staff, Gen. Ahmed Gaid Salah, threw his weight behind what he called the “legitimate demands” of the demonstrators, and resigned on April 2. And some high-level politicians, including two former prime ministers, have been arrested.

But protesters rejected an offer from interim President Abdelkader Bensalah to hold a dialogue, so no date for a presidential election has been set, the demonstrations continue, and the army remains the most powerful institution in the country.