What is sadder — a day without bread or one without a newspaper? To the French poet Jacques Prevert it was the day without a newspaper that appeared worse.
The reason is not hard to guess. While bread is essential for man’s physical survival as an individual, culture, of which a newspaper is but a symbol in this context, is vital for the continuation of the species.
Man can always find a way of silencing his hunger for food. Some Japanese soldiers of World War II, unaware that the hostilities had ceased, spent almost half a century in the jungles of Borneo feeding on wild plants and animals. When they were eventually found they were physically fit. Spiritually, however, they had fallen to the level of savage beasts. The first thing they asked for was a newspaper to assure them that the war had ended.
During the Iranian revolution of 1978-79 the sudden disappearance of newspapers, caused by a journalists’ strike, was a key factor in spelling the end of the Shah’s regime. The spectacle of empty newspaper stalls and idle newsboys prompted a feeling of unease that no amount of goodwill spin-meistering by the state-owned radio and television could efface. It was as if the whole society had been plunged into darkness, not knowing what was going on.
Ever since newspapers came into being, sometime around the middle of the 18th century, power elites have been aware of their social and political importance. Even in societies where the ruling establishment controls virtually all levers of power the ownership of a newspaper is of paramount importance. Even in the middle of the war Stalin found time to write some of the editorials of Pravda. Hitler, who had briefly been an unsuccessful journalist, dictated some editorial of the Deutsche Beobachter. As for Mao Zedong his quaint, almost childish, prose style can be detected in many of the editorials of People’s Daily during the so-called Cultural Revolution. One of the first moves of Ayatollah Khomeini was to seize control of the newspapers by appointing his own men to key editorial posts.
Throughout the 19th century owning a newspaper was a key element in every politician’s strategy for achieving high power. Louis Bonaparte, who later became emperor of France, began his quest for power by launching a newspaper. Such a scheme is no longer possible in the major industrial societies where the media are owned and controlled by multi-billion dollar conglomerates. In the developing world, however, the ownership of newspapers remains an important political ploy.
All this brings us to the “day without newspapers” that Algeria is set to experience on Monday. The blackout has been decided by journalists in protest against the new Penal Code part of which is clearly designed to end the little media freedom that Algeria has enjoyed since 1989. The new code imposes prison terms and hefty fines on journalists and editors found guilty of publishing “untrue” information. Taken literally, the code would prevent the Algerian media from publishing anything but officially approved government bulletins.
“ All this is part of a larger plan to kill the independent press in this country,” claims Outoudert Abrous, editor of the daily Liberte.
Other a measures allegedly approved by the authorities is the use of government monopolies on imports of newsprint, printing and press distribution to force independent newspapers to either toe the official line or go out of business.
The experience of the independent press in Algeria in the past decade is a fascinating story that remains to be told. It started with the appearance of one or two small and amateurish newspapers with a hand-to-mouth structure. Ten years ago there were almost no trained reporters and editors in Algeria that had had state-owned media since independence. Gradually, however, a new generation of journalists has taken shape. Algeria’s independent newspapers have become more professional, better written and edited, and certainly more outspoken in their denunciation of social ills, economic woes and political crimes. Some of them have also become big businesses, by Algerian standards, thus creating a sound economic base for their long-term survival.
The emergence of the independent press filled an institutional gap in Algeria. In a country where the parliament, the political parties and the trade unions were regarded as mere facades for an occult ruling elite, the press was quickly cast into the role of an all-purpose institution assuming many functions outside its proper remit.
The fundamentalist extremists who have been trying to size power by force for more than a decade were quick to realize the importance of the independent press that they saw as a new line of defense by the established order. Having failed to terrorize the journalists into complicity or silence the fundamentalists went for the physical liquidation of individual journalists. Since 1991 an estimated 50 Algerian media workers have been murdered while several others have “disappeared” and many more forced into exile.
The authorities were also concerned about the independent press seeing it as a gadfly at best and a threat at worst. After a brief duel in 1995, however, the authorities decided to tolerate the independent press as a necessary evil in Algeria’s move toward pluralism.
It is that position that President Abdelaziz Bouteflika is trying to change. A child of the one-party system where no dissent is allowed, Bouteflika feels uncomfortable with newspapers whose editorials he cannot read in advance of publication.
To be sure, the independent press has not been tender toward Bouteflika, subjecting him to systematic, and at times unjustified, criticism. This, however, must be seen as one result of Algeria’s failure to develop its proper democratic institutions. When there is no criticism in the parliament and little more than vile flattery from the political parties, the press is propelled into an adversarial position vis-à-vis the authorities. This, of course, is bad both for the press and for the long-term prospects of pluralism.
Part of the current showdown between Bouteflika and the independent press is due to a set of misunderstandings. Bouteflika has concluded that the independent press is automatically against him because of the controversial circumstances under which he won his election two years ago. The independent press, for its part, is persuaded that Bouteflika will never tolerate any organ of power outside his own control.
The misunderstandings have been compounded by a failure of communication. During the past two years Bouteflika has granted an estimated 300 interviews, including to many obscure newspapers across the globe. But he has methodically excluded Algeria’s independent press. He has tried to circumvent the press by establishing direct contact with the people through the state-owned radio and television networks.
The result is a day without newspapers, and, perhaps, many more such days. In the duel that begins between the president and the press the latter is in a weaker position — at least in the short run. A prolonged strike combined with financial pressure from the state could kill even the most successful of the independent newspapers. In the longer-run, however, Algeria as a whole could be the loser. At a time that Algerian politics is moving outside the institutions and into the streets, while part of it continues in the mountains and forest as well, the country would ill afford the loss of part of its media. Algeria needs a space in which the ruling establishment and the people can communicate. Algeria’s independent press, its many faults and weaknesses notwithstanding, is just beginning to become mature enough to play provide part of that space.
