A screed of lead paralyzes the country! Hundreds of political prisoners languish in the jails of “New Algeria” in deplorable conditions. Political leaders, community activists, academics, journalists, lawyers… no one is spared by the wave of repression which has not gone into detail. Among the victims: seven women. Even during the dark years of the one-party dictatorship, never has such a heavy list been displayed with such arrogance. Their only crime: to peacefully express critical opinions against the power or its leaders, or to defend an alternative political project not approved by the guardians of the temple.
Despite empty files, the charges are chilling. The indictment of “terrorism and attack on national unity and territorial integrity” against peaceful militants who did not use violence or advocate its use, is set in motion with incredible lightness; it targets “Hirak” activists on social networks, but above all Kabyle separatists and activists for a federal state, respectful of regional specificities, particularly cultural and linguistic.
For the 60th anniversary of independence celebrated with an imposing military parade, President Abdelmadjid Tebboune decreed a presidential pardon for more than 14,000 detainees, mainly common law convicts, and “recommended measures of appeasement for the benefit of young people criminally prosecuted and placed in detention for having committed acts of mob and related acts”. Since July 5, the families of more than 300 prisoners of conscience have been camping outside the penitentiaries, in the hope of seeing the activists regain their freedom. For the time being, releases are being done in dribs and drabs and the courts are still handing down heavy sentences for political offences.
Drive out the French language!
This return to the years of lead did not spare the press. During a televised debate with embedded journalists, the Algerian President exhibited the “187 newspapers of the national media landscape” as a pledge of “freedom of expression and political openness non-existent even in Western democracies!” Whereas Freedoma major French-language daily, was scuttled last April in opaque circumstances, whileEl Watan, another French-language daily with a relatively critical tone, risks experiencing the same fate, dozens of alibis newspapers, with confidential circulation, receive several pages of government a day. These publications belonging to the clientele of the regime who prostrated themselves before the portraits of Abdelaziz Bouteflika, are now redoubled in ferocity to spit in the face of the ousted president in April 2019, to enter the good graces of the new masters of the country. In this win-win market that defies legality, the public prosecutor yet so quick to crack down on peaceful activists, did not dare to open a judicial investigation for embezzlement of public funds.
At a time when the country is going through one of the most critical phases of its tormented history, the retrograde forces that have taken over the state apparatus are trying to revive an old ideological war to create a diversion and consolidate their positions in the institutions. After the boycott of the legislative elections of June 12, 2021 by the democratic opposition, parliament is dominated by the alliance of the regime’s clienteles with the domesticated Islamists, who demanded ideological concessions against their rallying.
Faced with soaring fruit and vegetable prices and endless queues for a bag of milk, the Minister of Trade has decided… to Arabize his department, thus giving the signal start to a chain reaction that will contaminate all the administrations. The latest measure comes from the Ministry of National Education: “drive out the French language from school and replace it with English”! Hate speech and provocations of a racist nature attempt to stir up ethnic and regionalist antagonisms. With impunity. This is to say the power of the occult godfathers who pull the strings in the shadows, and protect the thugs in charge of mission.
Save the country or save the regime?
In this risky drift, the patriots in rabbit skin who declared war, 60 years after independence, against “France, enemy of yesterday and today”, will make contrition before its consular representatives to obtain a long-term visa, or a place at the Lycée français d’Alger for their children. In a book published a few months ago, a former French ambassador to Algiers reveals the duplicity of the Algerian leaders, and partially lifts the veil on the counterparties he demanded from his obligees. But he will be careful not to give names to preserve a powerful lever of maneuver during future negotiations, in particular on gas.
Far from the land of plenty of television news, the real Algeria of the working classes who drag the devil by the tail is on the verge of implosion. In a degraded social climate and all-out repression, against a backdrop of political deadlock and threats to its borders, the country is heading straight for the wall. With soaring food prices, all the preliminary ingredients for “food riots” are in place. All it takes is a fortuitous spark, a remote-controlled provocation or an innocuous news item to trigger the fatal explosion.
In this mad race towards nothingness, the Head of State and the Chief of the Armed Forces who play the authoritarian score as a duo, are faced with a binary choice: save the country by letting go of the ballast, or save the regime at the cost of a serious national divide. Stop the infernal machine by measures of appeasement, or precipitate chaos by headlong rush into repression.
These appeasement measures, demanded by the opposition and associations for the defense of human rights, involve the release of all prisoners of conscience, respect for fundamental freedoms and the rule of law, the opening of the political and media fields.
Retrograde Arab-Islamism
For power, it is first and foremost a survival operation. Strongly contested in the street, in the spring of 2019, by the “Hirak”, the “decision makers” succeeded in keeping the regime afloat by throwing overboard the elements most discredited by corruption. Two prime ministers, several ministers and around thirty generals who fell into disgrace after the fall of President Bouteflika were sentenced to heavy sentences and thrown into prison. Thanks to the Covid-19 pandemic, the repression will do the rest to neutralize the impressive popular movement, which, for the first time, had brought together Islamists and secularists around the same slogan: “for a civil state and not military. Despite the hopes aroused by the phase of euphoric conviviality which revealed a plural Algeria in communion and civic-mindedness, the “Hirak” did not succeed in imposing an alternative project. The necessary reflection which was to give meaning to the great marches did not take place, due to the resignation of the intellectual elite. The questions of power, put forward by the activist fringes of the movement, in particular the domesticated Islamists, played the game of secret meetings and compromises between apparatuses, to the detriment of freedoms and civil rights. In this historical sequence which could have influenced the destiny of the country towards democracy, popular mobilization will have played, in the end, the role of useful idiot of a clan coup d’etat in the seraglio. “The new Algeria”, sung by the official discourse, now presents itself as a return to the past, under the tinsel of the most retrograde Arab-Islamism: political authoritarianism, Arabization at the pace, Islamization of mores…
With the war in Ukraine, the increase in oil and gas prices will allow Algeria to bail out the coffers and see the future with optimism; the last chance economic burst can save most of what still brings Algerians together, provided there is the political will. In this existential challenge, the responsibility of the Head of State and the Chief of the Defense Staff is engaged in the front line…