Algeria: Anger of the Dispossessed - Hardcover

John Phillips; Martin Evans

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0300108818 ISBN 13: 9780300108811

Publisher: Yale University Press, 2008

Synopsis

How Algeria became a breeding ground for instability, violence, and Islamic terrorism

After liberating itself from French colonial rule in one of the twentieth century’s most brutal wars of independence, Algeria became a standard-bearer for the non-aligned movement. By the 1990s, however, its revolutionary political model had collapsed, degenerating into a savage conflict between the military and Islamist guerillas that killed some 200,000 citizens. In this lucid and gripping account, Martin Evans and John Phillips explore Algeria’s recent and very bloody history, demonstrating how the high hopes of independence turned into anger as young Algerians grew increasingly alienated. Unemployed, frustrated by the corrupt military regime, and excluded by the West, the post-independence generation needed new heroes, and some found them in Osama bin Laden and the rising Islamist movement. Evans and Phillips trace the complex roots of this alienation, arguing that Algeria’s predicament—political instability, pressing economic and social problems, bad governance, a disenfranchised youth—is emblematic of an arc of insecurity stretching from Morocco to Indonesia. Looking back at the pre-colonial and colonial periods, they place Algeria’s complex present into historical context, demonstrating how successive governments have manipulated the past for their own ends. The result is a fractured society with a complicated and bitter relationship with the Western powers—and an increasing tendency to export terrorism to France, America, and beyond.

About this title

About the Author:

Martin Evans is professor of contemporary history at the University of Portsmouth and author of The Memory of Resistance: French Opposition to the Algerian War 1954–62 (1997). John Phillips has reported from Algeria for The Times as a special correspondent from 1991 to 1997, and is author of Macedonia: Warlords & Rebels in the Balkans (2004).

From The Washington Post:

Reviewed by Michael Mewshaw

As the occupation of Iraq began to unravel in 2003, the State Department and the Pentagon reportedly screened "The Battle of Algiers" for their employees. While this fictionalized, 40-year-old docudrama about Algeria's struggle for independence might offer some insights into Islamic insurgencies, true understanding of the currents that have convulsed the Islamic world requires the kind of analysis that distinguishes Algeria: Anger of the Dispossessed. The product of extensive research and courageous reporting, this book combines the best efforts of an academic, Martin Evans, and a journalist, John Phillips, both of whom have many years of experience in North Africa.

Like Iraq, Algeria was largely the creation of colonizing Europeans. On the flimsiest pretext, France invaded in 1830 and imposed its language, laws and tax system. Any resistance to this "civilizing mission" was viewed as an excuse for merciless punishment and military expansion deeper into the mineral-rich Sahara. By the end of the 19th century, the indigenous people were utterly disenfranchised, Algeria had become a département of France, and the largest cities and best land were flooded with European settlers. With all the obligations and none of the privileges of citizenship, Algerians served loyally in both world wars. But after 1945, when the French refused to grant them greater autonomy, insurrection spread and turned into open warfare in 1954.

Viewing Algeria's National Liberation Front (NLF) as a terrorist organization, France resorted to systematic torture -- waterboarding was a frequent method -- as the most effective way of dealing with people it considered fanatics. Even Nobel laureate Albert Camus couldn't countenance handing the country over to the Algerians. More than matching France's cruelty, the NLF inflicted unspeakable atrocities on the French as well as on Algerians who sided with the colonizers. To the NLF, violence was not so much a military tactic as a cathartic assertion of identity.

After France capitulated in 1962, newly independent Algeria became the darling of the non-aligned world, theoretically egalitarian and socialist. In fact, as Evans and Phillips show in meticulous detail, it was riven by coups, counter-coups, assassinations and bloody reprisals against collaborators. Algerians who had remained loyal to the French were slaughtered by the thousands. The NLF claimed an inherent, ongoing right to rule, but the authoritarian and anti-democratic regime was also spectacularly inefficient and kleptocratic. Soon dependent on France for financial aid, Algeria became another economic basket-case bailed out by the International Monetary Fund. This didn't, however, prevent an entrenched oligarchy from amassing fortunes through kickbacks from oil and gas deals.

By the 1980s, former NLF combatants questioned whether the war had been a ruse to allow a few generals to seize power. With unemployment rising and essential services in short supply, people took to the streets. As Evans and Phillips describe it, the situation replicated the conditions that preceded the rebellion against France -- only now the Algerian government was in the role of oppressor, while a miscellany of disaffected women, disenfranchised Berbers and Islamic fundamentalists demanded recognition. In desperation, the government called elections. When it became clear that the fundamentalists would win, there was a military putsch. The nation spiraled into chaos as terrorists, state provocateurs and government death squads reduced the countryside to a killing zone. An estimated 200,000 people were killed from 1992 to 2002, and, as recent bombings in Algiers demonstrate, the savagery continues.

In chronicling this violence and the racial, religious and tribal frictions that still plague Algeria, the authors provide an implicit warning about what may happen in Iraq. Indeed, the question that hovers over much of this book is: What kind of audacity or arrogance leads another state to try to impose its will, much less its political system, on such chaos?

The darkest irony, Evans and Phillips conclude, is that only 9/11 prevented Algeria from falling into a worse cataclysm. Spotting an opportunity, President Abdelaziz Bouteflika flew to Washington and convinced the Bush administration that he stood shoulder-to-shoulder in the war on terror. That his regime had sponsored terrorism and tortured its own citizens -- using the French technique of waterboarding and adding blowtorches for good measure -- slipped down the memory hole. Money, military advisers and political support floated in from Washington on bilious clouds of self-delusion, and U.S. officials blessed Algeria as "the most democratic" Arab nation.

In its 50-year quest for a national identity, Algeria, like Iraq and Afghanistan, has passed from colonialism to revolution to socialism to Islamic insurgency. Now it is said to be our partner in combating terrorism. But, as this chilling and important book makes clear, it remains a country controlled by unelected men who have left most of the population disinherited and at continuing risk of political violence.

Copyright 2008, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved.

About this edition

• Publisher: Yale University Press
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 0300108818
• ISBN 13: 9780300108811
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 352