The search is on for a word that can best express what is happening in Algeria today.
Within the past five weeks more than 30 Algerian cities, including the capital Algiers, have witnessed mass demonstrations attracting up to a million people. At the same time at least 100 people, including three journalists, have been killed in clashes between demonstrators and security forces. On some occasions demonstrations have degenerated into scenes of lawlessness and pillage. On Thursday, angry demonstrators in the capital sacked and looted more than 300 shops and several luxury hotels.
More significantly, rioters attacked an oil company’s center in Sour el-Gozlan. This is the first time that Algeria’s energy industry is targeted by angry demonstrators.
“What we are witnessing is no ordinary show of anger,” says Mostafa Bouhadef, a leader of the opposition Front for Socialist Forces (FFS). “The Algerian people are quite simply fed up with lies and excuses. They are demanding a genuine change of the very model of our society.”
What seems certain is that the current series of demonstrations have not been planned by the traditional political organization. The FFS and its rival the Rally for Culture and Democracy (RCD) have tried to gain control of the crowds but have so far failed. Attempts by leftist leaders such as Rahmani Sharif and Louisa Hanoune to provide a measure of leadership have also failed.
The Islamist groups have also been unsuccessful in gaining a foothold among the demonstrators. The slogans chanted by the demonstrators and the 15-point charter they approved in Algiers on Thursday are clearly secular and democratic.
In fact the demonstrations have been made possible because most Algerians believe that the threat of a seizure of power by fundamentalists is no longer there.
“People know that the armed Islamists have been defeated and have absolutely no chance of coming to power by force,” says journalist Rizki Sherif.
“This is why many believe that it is time for the system to reform itself rather than find excuses about armed Islamists.”
In fact, many Algerian analysts believe that the issue of armed fundamentalists is kept alive by the authorities as a means of denying the reforms needed. There is even a suspicion that some armed fundamentalists are still allowed to operate under the gaze of security forces as a means of terrorizing the people.
“What we are witnessing is a spontaneous explosion,” says RCD leader Said Sadi.” The authorities would be making a big mistake if they believe that this is no more than a moment of anger.”
Former Prime Minister Ahmad Ghozali agrees. “For the past two years Algeria has been plunged into a political vacuum,” he says. “It was inevitable that some force would try to fill that vacuum. The absence of leadership in this country has taken our politics into the streets — with unpredictable consequences.”
Former Prime Minister Mouloud Hamrouche whose own government collapsed after similar events in the late 1980s makes a similar analysis. “ Algeria suffers from what looks like a total absence of government at the top,” he says. “ And when it comes to government at the lower levels which touch on every day life, all that people see is arrogance, incompetence, confusion and corruption.”
The sentiment that no one is really in charge at the top has led demonstrators to chant slogans against the military leaders who are believed to be pulling the strings from behind the scenes.
The key word is “ hogra” which designates the government’s alleged indifference, in fact contempt, toward the people.
Sources close to President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, however, claim that the uprising is a result of “ foreign machinations.” “ We can see the fingerprints of our foreign enemies,” says Yazid Zerhouni, the controversial Interior Minister.
Nevertheless, he is not prepared to name the “foreign enemies.”
The former colonial power, France, is known to be backing President Bouteflika as the best guarantor of stability in Algeria at the moment. It was no accident that a senior French Cabinet minister flew to Algiers hours before the demonstrations began. The rest of the European Union as well as the United States also backs Bouteflika. Thus, the “foreign conspiracy” scenario is unlikely to convince many Algerians. Nor can the demonstrations be described as a plot by Kabyle “secessionists”. To be sure the current series of street riots began in the Kabylie after the police shot dead a schoolboy.
In the past weeks, however, the mood of insurrection has spread throughout the country. Some of the biggest anti-government demonstrations took place in the western capital of Oran that had remained calm for the past decade.
President Bouteflika has focused on improving Algeria’s image abroad and has spent almost a third of his time traveling to the five continents. Even his friends admit that it is, perhaps, time that he stayed home more often and focused more closely on developing an economic, political and social agenda. What is certain is that the relative stability achieved in the second half of the 1990s is now on the verge of collapse.
Is history repeating itself in Algeria? Will the current street violence also lead to changes at the apex of the state?
There is no easy answer. Algeria has radically changed in the past decade. The army now includes a new generation of officers who do not wish to become directly involved in politics. Even if the top military leaders decide to push Bouteflika out it is hard to see how they can agree on a successor. Or whether or not that successor can be acceptable to a deeply angry population.
More importantly, perhaps, the political parties and organizations that were able to channel at least part of the popular anger into institutional action are now largely discredited. Also discredited is the parliament whose upper chamber has been the scene of childish maneuvers, and resignations, for the past few weeks. In other words there is no discernible interface between the state and the masses. And that is often a recipe for disaster.
