Another Arab Spring In Algeria Or Is It Something
Else?
Saeed Naqvi
President
Abdelaziz Bouteflika is a tragic variation on Shaukat Thanvi’s short story “Mir
Bedana”, the toothless old man who fantasized he could still frolic. Bouteflika
is much worse. He is on a wheelchair after a stroke in 2013. Lakhdar Brahimi a
former Foreign Minister and a friend of the incapacitated President has the
following health report on him: “I think he can hear, but you can’t hear him.”
Robert Fisk of
the Independent tells it as it is: “he is being prevented from entering his
grave”. But the space in Bouteflika’s heart is not yet devoid of desire. At 82,
he was aiming for a record fifth term. But his rendezvous with destiny has been
cut by the army chief Gen. Ahmed Gaid Salah who, alas, is a loyalist. He owes
his stature to the President. So the Gen. has softened the blow by invoking
article 102 of the constitution which calls for a constitutional council which,
lo and behold, is headed by another loyalist, Tayeb Belaiz. The Council to certify
the President’s health, has 12 members.
These fun and
games have been managed by a narrow, incestuous elite which is being asked to
shed power by a confluence of circumstances. Hundreds of thousands of youth and
middle class professional have taken to the streets demanding democratic
reforms. What has boosted the power of these protests is because the
establishment can no longer conceal the decrepit President from public view.
Arab history
has no examples of elites vacating power because the people want them to.
The people
smell a rat in the army’s slow moves. They fear that once demonstrations end,
the elite will resurface.
The Viceregal
presence of the French in Algiers must never be underestimated. The French have
coped with stirrings of their own. The yellow vest have been on the streets of
France for the past five months. They had started out as a threat to President
Emanuel Macron but have, by sheer attrition, been tamed. As a result Macron’s
popularity has risen. Since the French have their fingers deep in the colonial
pies, whether in Algeria or Mali and Chad, all rich in oil and minerals, they
at the moment can set themselves up as a model. Look how patiently the yellow
vests are being allowed to dissipate themselves.
The most
convenient idea to take root in the minds of the army, businessmen, war
veterans – in brief the ruling clique or the oligarchy is this: not to upset
the status quo. The easiest trick is to run fast to stand still. The
implication is not that the Algerian army, part of the country’s romance
claiming continuity with the war which brought independence from France in 1962,
may seize power. It is already the most powerful pillar of the establishment.
It needs a pliable front. But decades of non-politics since independence has
rendered the soil infertile for democratic political faces to shine. As a
consequence there is no noticeable political talent around.
A crucial
phase of democracy did flare up but was doused. This brief history appears to
have become a victim of amnesia. Some Algerians justifiably, claim that they
authored the first Arab Spring in 1988 when nationwide violence erupted,
demanding an end to one party rule since 1962.
Multi-Party
elections in 1991 did deliver a democratic verdict but one not to the liking of
the army and its patrons in Paris. The Islamic Salvation Front won nearly two
thirds of the seats in the first round. The army panicked and cancelled the
second round. That triggered a civil war which lasted a decade.
The myopic
elite in Paris, Algiers and elsewhere had learnt no lessons from, say, the
coming to power of the Ayatullahs in Iran. The Islamic revolution is a complex
subject but, for the sake of simplicity, consider this: the Shah and the
notorious Savak shut out all political expression. The mosque became the only ventilator
for the people. The mosques were not likely to preach Marxism: they educated
the congregations about Islamic tenets to overthrow monarchies. The Shah of
Iran was Shia. Consider then the anxiety with which the West Asian Wahabi,
Sunni monarchies view Iran. Coordination with Israel has come in handy.
Instead of
realizing that snuffing popular discontent by strong arm tactics would heat up
the Algerian basement and strengthen anything that grows in mosques, the army
chose to throttle democracy by cancelling the election of 1991. At a terrible
cost too – taking a toll of 2,00,000 Algerian lives. Embedded in this brief
history is answer to a question: why did the Arab Spring of 2011 not touch
Algeria? Algerians refused to be infected by the Arab Spring. They had fresh
memories of a brutal civil war.
True, the army
defeated the insurgency. Btu has the Islamic Salvation Front been totally
erased? It would be a mistake to imagine so. Let us for a moment consider the
case of the Islamic movement in Turkey. Televised brutalities of Bosnia,
Sarajevo, once Turkish enclaves, aggravated anti West Islamism in Turkey. The
Refah party under Necmettin Erbakan came to power. The Army as guardians of
Mustafa Kemal Pasha’s secular constitution, removed Erbakan. It was later, in
the second round, that Erbakan’s disciples, Tayyip Erdogan and Abdullah Gul
launched their secular “Justice and Development Party” which has been in the
saddle for the fourth term and there is no end in sight.
The Army in
Algeria was able to set aside the Islamic Front with the total support of the
West. It has never been properly analyzed what contribution severe repression
of the Islamic Front played in the post 9/11 exponential growth of both,
Islamism and Islamophobia.
More recently,
Egyptian army Chief Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, with full support of the Pentagon and
Israel, placed the popularly elected Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohamed Morsi in
jail. In whose interest was this expedition undertaken? Have those interests
been served? The jury is out on that one.
Incarcerating
the popular will is never a good idea in the long run. The Algerian army
triggered a civil war in 1992 by suppressing the popular will. They must be
careful this time.
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