Arab League, Bouteflika, Syria, and the no-fly zone

The Arab League, and its chief Amr Mussa, has officially called on the UN Security Council to impose a no-fly zone over Libya. The League has also opened contact with the rebel Libyan National Council in Benghazi.

The United States has supported the Arab League for a United Nations no-fly zone over Libya, where government troops backed by fighter jets are battling rebels seeking to remove Muammar Gaddafi from power.

Algerians were schocked when they heard that their president has voted against the Arab League's decision for a no-fly zone over Libya. Algeria, Yemen, and Syria have voted against the Arab League initiative to impose a no-fly zone in Libya. The no-fly zone would have provided the regional support which NATO needs for any military action. 

Algeria and the Surrealistic Vote

To get a taste of the kind of bias one finds toward Bouteflika in much of the media, understand that El Moudjahid, the semi-official French-language paper, describes Bouteflika as
“l’homme qui défend les valeurs authentiquement algériennes dans leur triple dimension l’amazighité, l’islam et l’arabité pour imprégner les valeurs nationales, de paix et de fraternité à la jeunesse”.

Bouteflika always wins the elections with a surrealistic 84.99 per cent of the votes cast. When Bouteflika first ran for the presidency in 1999, all opposition candidates dropped out on the eve of the election. Why do you think all the candidates gave up? The vote was marred by fraud, of course!

Bouteflika is the chosen one by the shadowy military structure that we call (the Algerians and I) "the power" or the "deciders."

Bouteflika presented himself as the savior of the nation: the only man who could guarantee the eradication of terrorism and the miracle of the "national reconciliation"!!!

But Bouteflika does not rule the country! It is the army, the Algerian Generals, who rule Algeria with their cruel methods and their repressive methods. Bouteflika is indeed trying to limite the army's function and role but it is very difficult since the army is still the actor who decides for Algeria! We do not have any laws that limit the power of the army and the security forces. The gendarmerie, the army and the security forces kill the demonstrators without impunity.

Impunity, in the human rights context, refers to the lack of accountability for human rights violations committed by the agents of state. The army, which considers itself as the guardian of justice, is killing the demonstrators.

The FLN, since its foundation in 1954, represented itself as the "incarnation of the unified nation whose survival had to be guaranteed by an all-compassing state represented by the FLN regime" (Lamchichi:1991). As Frantz Fanon said it so well, in order to be free, the subjugated Algerians have to purge their minds of the regime left by the FLN.


Hutchinson, Martha, Crenshaw, 1978. Revolutionary Terrorism: The FLN in Algeria, 1954-
62. Stanford, Calif: Hoover Institute Press.

Lamchichi, Adderrahim, 1991. L’Algérie en crise. Paris: L’Harmattan

FLN is the acronym for Front de Libération nationale. FLN launched the Independence War in 1954. FLN was the only legal party since the independence 1962 up to 1989.

http:///www.mission-algerie.ch/anglais/index2.htm. Preamble to the 1996 Constitution.

Democracy and the World

Democracy does not mean one man, one vote, one time,... right?

The new Arab generation is not motivated by religion or ideology, but by the aspiration for a peaceful transition to a decent, democratic, and "normal" government.

Arabs politicians who complain that Islamists are no democrats should be told that they are not DEMOCRATS either!

In 1991, the government of Algeria said that the ISF (Islamic Salvation Front) cannot be trusted and if they grab power, they could never be trusted to give it up again. Therefore, the government of Algeria cancelled the second round of the election in which the Islamic Salvation Front was going for a second round.

But look! who is still holding the power in Algeria?? Bouteflika! He is ruling Algeria with a tough hand since 1999, maintaining power through elections that we all know were rigged.

Mostafa Boshashi, head of the Algerian League for Human Rights, said: "Algerians want their voices to be heard too. They want democratic change.

Algeria has the eighth largest reserves of natural gas in the world, and is also oil-rich, but its youthful population suffers mass unemployment, a chronic lack of housing, and widespread poverty. Political corruption is also endemic.

Thousands defied a government ban to hold a pro-democracy rally in Algiers. They chanted "Bouteflika out!" - in reference to the country's President Abdelaziz Bouteflika.

About 30,000 police are reportedly deployed in and around capital, and extra police with water cannons are on stand-by.

Earlier this month, President Bouteflika said the country's state of emergency would be lifted in the "very near future". He said protests would be allowed everywhere in the country except in the capital.

President Bouteflika, when are we going to have democracy in Algeria? Algerians are longing for freedom and liberty. Algerians want a change of the system not a change in the system!

Maqam Shahid , the monument to the million martyrs of the war of independence, graces the heights of Algiers.

Youth of Algeria! your great grandparents made enormous sacrifices to create Algeria, a free Algeria. You must be ready to make great sacrifices to fight for DEMOCRACY! fight for a truly free country!

The Berber in Algeria

"I employed the word “state”: it is obvious what is meant—some pack of blond beasts of prey, a conqueror and master race which, organized for war and with the ability to organize, unhesitatingly lays its terrible claws upon a populace perhaps tremendously superior in numbers but still formless and nomad … their work is an instinctive creation and imposition of forms; they are the most involuntary, unconscious artists there are—wherever they appear something new soon arises, a ruling structure that lives, in which parts and functions are delimited and coordinated, in which nothing whatever finds a place that has not first been assigned a “meaning” in relation to the whole."
(Nietzsche 2000: 522)

There was a civilian regime once in Algeria. It means that the land (not the people) was an extended part of France. The civilian regime, according to Abdelmajid Hannoum, saw Algeria as a French territory, not a colony, but rather an inseparable part of France.

For the military regime, Algeria was a French colony, with a population to control.

Before the French colonization, Mercier speaks about northern Africa as the stage for ethnic conflict between the Phoenicians and the Romans, with the Berbers caught in the middle.

The Berbers, according to Mercier, are a mixture of races; some of them are from Iberian and Celtic races, "a blond population" (Mercier 1905: 23-59).

While the Romans chased the Phenicians, they themselves were chased by the Vandals, who where ousted by the Byzantines. The Berber helped the Roman chase the Phenicians, and the Vandal defeat the Roman, and the Byzantine end the rule of the latter!

By the end of the 7th century, another conqueror arrived: The Arabs!

Such was the state of Africa in the time when the Arabs erupted.
The Berbers, one can see, had almost regained their independence. It was against them that the invaders had to fight. However, the disunion of the indigenous population, the absence of patriotic feelings among these people who were not unified yet, would allow their temporary enslavement to the Muslims of the Orient who were unified and disciplined by a strong religious idea. (Mercier 1875: 40)

The Berbers could not fight the Arabs because their nationalism was not mature.

Gautier wrote: "It is sufficient to remember that the Berber in the twentieth century, as in the seventh century, has no idea of a nation. He does not even conceive the Maghreb as a whole towards which he has obligations. He is not more interested in the smaller nation of the Numidians or the country of Zaïan. He does not have any idea of this. The only thing for which the Berber has passion and is ready to sacrifice his life is his clan, his family. (Gautier 1927: 252)

For Gautier, there are still Berbers and there are still Arabs, and neither of them like the
other. Berbers and Arabs are fundamentally different because of their lifestyle—one of them
is a city dweller, the other one is a nomad. Of course, Arabs are occupiers and Berbers are the real inhabitants of the Maghreb.

Gautier’s description of the greatest threat to western civilization throughout the history of the Maghreb, since Roman times. This greatest danger is a man:

"This man is the nomad, the great nomad, the camel rider, grouped in fearful tribes, each is in itself a sort of a born regiment, without preliminary training. Quick, elusive, capable of emerging at any moment, unexpected, like a catastrophe of unwatched loneliness. A powerful military tool. This great nomad hardened by the privations of the desert is by natural consequence ardent, of deep desire, thirsty for pleasures. In his terrible poverty, this wild animal pursues inside himself, in a confusing manner, a dream of plundering and domination." (Gautier 1927: 184)

In 1930, when France celebrated the century of its occupation of Algiers, they were Arabs versus Berbers versus Arabized Berbers versus Arabs.

Tribalism is still inherent in all these divisions!!!




De Slane, William (1852), Histoire des Berbères d’Ibn Khaldûn, Imprimerie du Gouvernement,
Algiers
Gautier, Emile-Félix (1920), L’Algérie et la métropole, Payot, Paris.
Gautier, Emile-Félix (1927), Les siècles obscures, Payot, Paris.
Gautier, Emile-Félix (1929), “Native life in French North Africa”, Geographical Review, vol. 13, no. 1,pp. 27–39.
Hannoum, Abdelmajid (2001a), “Colonialism and knowledge in Algeria: The archives of the Arab
Bureau”, History and Anthropology, vol. 4, pp. 343–379.
Hannoum, Abdelmajid (2001b), Colonial Histories, Post-Colonial Memories, Greenwood, Portsmouth, N.H.
Ibn Khaldûn/de Slane (1842–1856), Histoire des Berbères, Imprimerie du gouvernement, Algiers.
Nietzsche, Frederick (2000), Basic Writings of Nietzsche, Modern Library, New York.

People's Democratic Republic of Algeria

Algerian president Abdelaziz Bouteflika won a third-year term last April with a reported 90 percent of the vote!!!

We can only react with sullen DISDAIN, right?? another crooked election like all the other elections which had taken place in Algeria!

But how to promote Democracy in Algeria? How to promote Human Rights and the rule of law in the country in order to have a more secure environment?

We need to analyse the case of Algeria in a particular context: the colonial legacy, the threat of political Islam, and the impact of the political elite.

Algeria was a French colony from 1830 to 1954, when the War of Liberation began, and, after eight years of war, Algeria declared its independence in 1962. The major legacy of the colonial war and the war of Liberation was the strong, centralized state structure designed by the military and civilian elite, which affected the prospects for democratization in Algeria.
The supremacy of the military, an authoritarian government, the bureaucratic elite...

The military, the bureaucratic elite, and the PRESIDENT, form the three pillars of the centralized state structure... and power is centered in their hands!

The Algerian parliament is bicameral, consisting of a lower chamber, the National People's Assembly (APN), with 380 members and an upper chamber, the Council of Nation, with 144 members.

The APN is elected every 5 years. Two-thirds of the Council of the Nation are elected by regional and municipal authorities; the rest are appointed by the President.

The Council of the Nation serves a 6-year term with one-half of the seats up for election or reappointment every 3 years. Either the President or one of the parliamentary chambers may initiate legislation. Legislation must be brought before both chambers before it becomes law. Sessions of the APN are televised!

Algeria's central bank has some $140 billion in foreign exchange reserves, invested in treasury bills and central bank deposits abroad.

The finance ministry also has a hydrocarbon stabilization fund, known as the Fonds de Régulation des Recettes. According to finance minister, this has a dinar-denominated equivalent of about € 50 billion. It acts as a savings fund, helping ensure that the budget will balance if there is a hydrocarbon price crash, so that, for example, infrastructure projects can continue.

Everyone in Algeria knows that the country is far too dependent on using hydrocarbon exports to fund imports, which are often subsidized. Algeria, for example, is the world's largest importer of wheat, and Africa's largest importer of milk. This is despite vast tracts of unused farmland.

"Northwestern Africa, after all, was the breadbasket of the Roman Empire." (O'Neill Dominic, 2008).