Book Review: Algeria since 1989

James D. Le Sueur’s Algeria since 1989: Between Terror and Democracy (Zed: 2010) provides for the most up-to-date reading on the Algerian Civil War since Algeria: Anger of the Dispossessed by John Philips and Martin Evans (Yale University Press: 2007). The book offers a comprehensive introduction to the country’s history since 1989, using English and French sources and interviews with Algerian and foreign experts and exiles (notable examples include Hugh Roberts and Anouar Benmalek; Roberts’s comments are especially insightful and add much to the book’s themes and perspective). Le Sueur gives the “national reconciliation” process a hard and studied look. He attempts to place the 1988-1992 “transition” into a global context, emphasizing its importance for political Islamists and the end of the Cold War, comparing its abrupt end to the 1956  Hungarian Revolution, the Prague Spring and the Tiananmen Square protests of 1988. In this, Algeria since 1989 represents a noble effort to contextualize Algeria’s recent history for English-speakers. The book spends thankfully little time rehashing the colonial history or struggling to make Camus relevant to the Civil War; it tells the Algerian story from 1989 straight. The author may assign too much importance to ideology, particularly where Chadhli Bendjedid’s initiation of liberal market and political reforms are concerned. The 1989 moment came from rather cynical political calculations (as shown in the design of the electoral law, which was meant to favor large parties and thus re-enforce the FLN’s hold on power, but ended up aiding the FIS because of the unpopularity of and elite divisions within the FLN) which are not emphasized here. Le Sueur begins (and finishes) the book by referencing identity conflicts (Arab vs. Berber, arabisant vs. francisant, etc.), especially when referring to the tensions that produced the Civil War; this is common in writing on Algeria, but Le Sueur does well in disallowing identity-centric analysis to dominate his history. It is also relatively free of Cold War baggage. This is a praiseworthy tome. 

Lions and Foxes

Let us think, broadly and beyond the short-term.

Vilfredo Pareto once wrote:

A society does best when there is a predominance of lions among the population as a whole and a healthy element of foxes in the leadership. The leadership must allow for new blood to avoid degeneration. In war more lions again rise to positions of power, and as surely as the war disappears so do the majority of lions. Lions being ready to use force, relying on it rather than their brains to solve their problems. They are conservative, patriotic, and loyal, to tradition and solidly tied to supra-individual groups like family, the church and or nation. In economic affairs they are cautious, saving and orthodox. They dislike the new, and praise character and duty rather than wits. Foxes being ones that live by their wits. They put their reliance on fraud, deceit, and shrewdness. They do not have strong attachment to family, church, and nation and tradition (though they may exploit these attachments in others).

The above is relevant when one considers the widespread and growing discontent within the Mauritanian political class as result of recent developments in the country’s politics and economy.

Thoughts RE: S. Hamid “Underestimating religious parties”

On 5 April, Shadi Hamid wrote:

Yes, many Islamist groups, including the Muslim Brotherhood and Jordan’s Islamic Action Front, are dealing with internal divisions and struggling to devise a coherent response to regime repression. But, if that’s the case, then Islamist weakness reflects not their declining popularity but rather that Arab regimes are very good at repressing their strongest opponents.

And even when Islamist parties suffer relative defeats in the electoral arena, it does not necessarily follow that they’ve suffered such defeats because they are Islamist. In other words, voters can decide not to vote for Islamist parties for a whole host of reasons that have nothing to do with their Islamist character. Similarly, just because people vote for Islamist parties does not necessarily mean that they have any particular affinity for Islamism as such. There is a reason, after all, that some Christians vote for Hezbollah, and many secularists for Hamas.

In short, it would be a mistake to assume that when Islamist parties lose, that this reflects a broader shift away from religious politics or from religion, and towards “secularism” – the kind of thing we like to believe is happening in the Middle East but, for both better and worse, rarely does and most likely won’t.

This an important point. It is very frequently the case that when Islamist parties suffer in elections they lose votes not because of their ideology per se but because of their inability to meet their followers’ expectations. There is a distinct difference between the electoral problems that the Algerian MSP has seen in recent parliamentary cycles (especially when one separates genuine dissatisfaction among the few Algerians who do vote from electoral manipulation) and the struggle that Mauritania’s Tawassoul faces when it comes to elections. Both offer interesting and different examples as to Islamist political performance and behavior.

This blogger thinks Hamid’s points are important, especially when one considers the way North American political science deals with elections in the Arab world. Hamid is right that western analysis sometimes underestimates the importance or relevance of Islamist actors until after they issue “surprising” electoral results. Smart people (and not so smart people) have warned against this since at least the Iranian Revolution; but the response is sometimes to overemphasize the role of religious actors at the expense of secular ones, producing myopic analysis that gives all opposition activity a green tinge that tells us less than it could if the analysis were broader and more qualitatively substantive.

Comments and Observations on the “Arabization Crisis”

The non-Arab population of Mauritania traditionally has been discriminated against by the ruling Arab-Berber class, to a large degree being enslaved. Class division in Mauritania still mainly goes along ethnic lines. Many fear that an Arabisation of Mauritanian administration and education will deepen differences and segregation.

“Mauritanian students protest Arabisation,” Afrol. 16 April, 2010.

Analysts believe that this is an essential fight for the Fulani, Wolof, Soninke and other black-skinned groups, who account for about a third of the country’s population, as the Arabic language consolidates the position of the Arab-Berber majority who wield more political and economic power, and who have often been accused of enslaving the minority Black populations. Slavery which is still practiced by the Arab-Berber populations was abolished three times in Mauritania in the last century alone.

“Mauritania: Marginalised Black populations fight against Arabisation,” 8 April, 2010.

Arabization debate

A short post on the struggle among Mauritanian students over Arabic and French language will appear here sometime next week. Mauritanians on the front lines are encouraged to send the blogger their thoughts and accounts either in the comments field here or by email (found on the “About TMND” page). Contact with some students already exists; the more the better.

RE: Shadi Hamid on Obama & Bush “nostalgia”

Shadi Hamid of Brookings (Doha) had an op-ed in the Christian Science Monitor on 12 April looking at “nostalgia” for the Bush years among Arab reformers. It deserves some comment and consideration.

Mauritania Update

Maneuvers at Tourine. From "Al-Bayan Raqam Wahed," Aljazeera.

Three sets of observations on recent things related to Mauritania in terms of: (1) terrorism and the military, (2) Mali and (3) politics in general. On the whole, sources report general displeasure with the political situation among the political class, the tribes, among Afro-Mauritanians and parts of the military. This has been the trend, in general, since late last autumn. The Mauritanian president has strengthened his immediate inner circle while frequently alienating large segments of the population, including his own allies.