MUSLIM HATE IN ALGERIA
Algerian
academic gets 3 years for 'offending Islam'
By AFP
22 April
2021
A renowned
Algerian scholar on Islam, Said Djabelkhir, was
handed a three year prison sentence Thursday for
"offending Islam", but pledged to appeal and keep fighting for
"freedom" of thought.
Djabelkhir, 53, who has called for
"reflection" on Islam's founding texts, was put on trial after seven
lawyers and a fellow academic made complaints against him.
Speaking to
AFP after the verdict, Djabelkhir, who was released
on bail, said he was surprised by the severity of the sentence and that he
would appeal to the Court of Cassation if necessary.
"We have
the misfortune to be doing research in Algeria," said the academic, a
specialist on Sufi Islam.
But "the
fight for freedom of conscience is non-negotiable. It is a fight which must
continue."
A little
earlier, Djabelkhir's lawyer Moumen
Chadi, who also expressed shock over the ruling, said his client had "been
sentenced to three years in prison... (for) offending the precepts of
Islam."
"There is
no proof," the lawyer said, describing the case as baseless.
The offence he
was convicted of can be punished by up to five years in prison.
The scholar,
author of two well-known works, was criticised for
writing that the sacrifice of sheep predates Islam and for criticising
practises including the marriage of pre-pubescent
girls in some Muslim societies.
Algerian law
stipulates a three to five year prison term and or a
fine for "anyone who offends the Prophet or denigrates the dogmatic
precepts of Islam, whether it be by writings, drawings, a statement or another
means".
- 'Reflection
necessary' -
During his
trial earlier this month, Djabelkhir defended himself
against accusations that he had "harmed Islam", the religion of the
Algerian state, arguing he had only provided "academic reflections".
He has said
that he was targeted by accusers who "have no expertise on religious
matters".
In a recent
interview with AFP, he said that "a very great effort of new reflection on
the founding texts of Islam is necessary."
This was
"because the traditional readings no longer meet the expectations, needs
and questions of modern man."
"The
Salafists want to impose on Muslims their reading of texts as being the
absolute truth," he said. "It is this that I do not cease to contest
in my writings," he added.
Reacting to
the verdict, the Algerian League for Human Rights decried "the criminalisation of ideas, of debate and academic
research... (rights) guaranteed by the constitution."
The rights
group said it "refutes that courtrooms... replace
university lecture rooms, and that the courts transform themselves into courts
of inquisition."
Calling for
the conviction to be "quashed immediately", global rights group
Amnesty International's deputy regional director described the three-year
sentence as "outrageous".
"Punishing
someone for their analysis of religious doctrines is a flagrant violation of
the rights to freedom of expression and freedom of belief -- even if the
comments are deemed offensive by others," said Amna Guellali.
Djabelkhir's lawyers argued before the
court that the complaint against him was inadmissible because it came from
individuals and not from the public prosecutor.
They also
warned against the trial becoming a launchpad for courts becoming an arena for
"religious debates".
Djabelkhir has received the backing of many academic
colleagues and Algerian politicians since the accusations against him surfaced.
Opponents,
however, accuse him of disrespecting the Koran and the five pillars of Islam,
including the annual hajj pilgrimage to Mecca.
Algeria: people told the epidemic can be stopped with the Qurʼān
by Kamel Abderrahmani
April 14, 2020
Handing out copies
of the holy book and using loudspeakers to read passages from it are supposed
to help fight the coronavirus. In reality, by giving the current health crisis
an apocalyptic character, those in power are using religion to stay in power.
Paris (AsiaNews)
– A young Muslim intellectual slams the use of religion, specifically Qurʼānic chapters (Sūrah),
to fight the coronavirus. Recited and broadcast with loudspeakers, this keeps
people in ignorance. His criticism underscores the tragic situation of Algeria’s
civilian hospitals, which lack everything compared to military hospitals,
reserved for the elite, which are well stocked.
Ridicule may
not kill but ignorant people can do by themselves what their enemy dare not do.
This is what is happening in Algeria right now. Whilst our Mediterranean neighbours are using all medical resources at their
disposal to stop and defeat the COVID-19, in Algeria, to achieve this goal, the
Religious Affairs Ministry has undertaken two completely outlandish, abject,
inconceivable, dishonest, and even laughable initiatives.
Rest assured
that the first initiative is not about handing out masks to poor people or
providing some of its budget money to help our underequipped hospitals. No, it
involves handing out copies of the Qurʼān
across the country. This is a way to push people towards irrational and
religious arguments, which are useless vis-à-vis the pandemic.
In order to
carry out this "important project", the state has mobilised
Islamic associations, local Salafist militants who ensure that neighbourhoods and villages tow
the line, and is providing residents with copies of the Qurʼān,
inviting them to "deal with" the health crisis through religion.
Meanwhile, public hospitals endure severe shortages of the most basic means of
protection against the coronavirus, except for the right to a copy of the Qurʼān; whilst military hospitals, which are
reserved for the powerful, have proper equipment that cannot be found in
regular hospitals. In short, the Qur'an is for the poor and medicine is for
VIPs and their families.
I have the
impression that the Algerian state and Islamists would like us to reserve our
place "up there". Put another way, Algerian authorities seem more
concerned with the faith of ordinary Algerians in the present and in their fate
in the afterlife than in their health and their need for hospital beds in the
here and now.
The second
initiative is more controversial and trickier than the first. The Algerian
state, faithful to its old modus operandi, uses the sacred to silence people
and manipulate the masses, through Religious Affairs Ministry. The latter
issued instructions to imams to broadcast Qurʼānic
readings via mosque loudspeakers even if mosques themselves are still closed.
Thus, Sūrah are recited for about 30 minutes
before noon prayers. According to the Ministry, this stems from “popular
demand”! I wonder who asked for this? How did they ask for it? The demand came
from social media, petitions and Islamist associations, Minister.
This argument
is entirely disingenuous. The request came from Islamist associations which try
every which way to keep up “religious appearances” as a way of holding the
ground and attach an apocalyptic character to this health crisis. This suits
the authorities too as they try to paralyse the
population. In other words, the use of the sacred is far from being a healthy
practice. The authorities seek to distract the people from the real issues and
the major problem; in this case, the health emergency that threatens people and
the dismal, if not catastrophic state of Algerian hospitals. This goes to show
that Islamism has always been the friend of dictatorship and social
deprivation.
What is the
use of this? Will it save us from the tragedy that COVID-19 can cause? Wouldn't
it have been better to inform people and teach them how to protect themselves,
how to manage confinement? Instead of reciting the Holy Qurʼān
with loudspeakers, which can upset the sick, the elderly, children, or focus on
invocations, mosques should try instead to influence people by appealing for
civility since the personnel of these religious establishments are supposed to
be role models.
For their
part, instead of providing needed care and basic products to help people avoid
endangering themselves as they rush to buy bags semolina, as we see every day,
the authorities and their institutions have chosen to leave people in ignorance
and obscurantism, feeding them an archaic notion of religion.
Islamists Seize Foreign
Hostages at Algeria Gas Field
By SCOTT SAYARE
Published: January 16, 2013
PARIS — Islamist militants took several
hostages from a foreign-operated gas field in an attack in eastern Algeria
early Wednesday morning, calling the abductions a retaliation for the
French-led military intervention in neighboring Mali.
As many as eight people were kidnapped from the
site in In Amenas, near the Libyan border, according
to news reports, including Japanese, French and Irish nationals. Several others
were wounded, and at least two deaths were reported. Algerian security forces
were dispatched to the area, the Interior Ministry said in a statement.
A Japanese official confirmed that Japanese
nationals were involved, and the Irish Foreign Ministry said one Irish citizen
had been kidnapped.
Fighters with links to Al Qaeda’s African
affiliate, Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, claimed responsibility for the
attack, according to Agence France-Presse and ANI, a
Mauritanian news agency that maintains frequent contact with militant groups
operating in West Africa. The fighters had arrived from northern Mali, several
hundred miles to the south, Agence France-Presse
reported, citing a telephone conversation with a militant who claimed
involvement in the attack.
Islamist groups have occupied the vast desert
expanse of northern Mali since last year. In retaliation for the French-led
effort to drive them out, those groups, including Al Qaeda in the Islamic
Maghreb, have pledged to strike against France’s interests abroad, as well as
those of nations backing the French operations. In France, security has been
reinforced at airports, train stations and other public spaces.
The militant groups are financed in large part
through ransoms paid for the freeing of Western hostages, and regular
kidnappings have occurred in the West African desert in recent years. Seven
French nationals are presently being held there.
The attack on Wednesday was carried out by a
“heavily armed” group of “terrorists” traveling aboard three vehicles, the
Interior Ministry statement said, and targeted a bus transporting foreign
workers to a nearby airport at 5 a.m. An “indeterminate number” of hostages
were taken, the ministry said, while one foreigner was killed and six people
were wounded, including two security guards and two police officers.
A member of the Algerian Parliament said four
Japanese and one French national were kidnapped, Agence
France-Presse reported.
The gas field in In Amenas
is a joint venture operated by the British multinational BP, the Norwegian
group Statoil and the Algerian government-owned Sonatrach.
The Japanese engineering firm JGC provides services there.
BP confirmed a “security incident” had occurred
at the gas field and said in a statement that it was arranging an emergency
“help line for relatives.” The British Foreign Office said in a statement that
“we can confirm that British nationals are caught up in this incident.”
Algeria, which shares a desert border of
several hundred miles with Mali, has resisted the possibility of organizing an
armed intervention into the Malian north, fearing that fighting could spill
into Algeria or drive militants into the country. Algeria has authorized French
jets flying missions in Mali to cross Algerian airspace, however.
Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb began as an
insurgent group fighting the secular Algerian government in the 1990s.
Algeria's 'Black Decade' Still Weighs Heavily
by Eleanor Beardsley
April 25, 2011
(NPR) Islamist radicals killed more than a dozen Algerian soldiers last week in
a rare flare-up of violence between Muslim extremists and the Algerian
state.
During the 1990s the government fought a brutal civil war against an Islamist
insurgency that it eventually won. But at an enormous cost: the death of some
200,000 civilians.
Algerians say it's the memory of those years of violence and upheaval that has
kept people from demonstrating in the streets against their government; even if
they face some of the same problems as other Arab nations.
"The Black Decade" stills haunt Algerians today.
The French submission to the Oscars in March was a film about seven Trappist
monks killed by Islamist extremists at their monastery in the mountains of
northern Algeria. The movie, Of Gods and Men, is based on a true story from
1996 as the Algerian state battled an Islamist insurgency.
The movie shows the monks living in friendship with the poor, local population,
offering health services and joining in weddings and celebrations. As the
country slips deeper into conflict, the monks don't know whether to stay and
risk death, or leave and betray the local population that depends on
them.
They choose to stay and are eventually kidnapped and beheaded.
Living In Fear
Although the murders of the monks shocked the West, Algerians were suffering
similar tragedies every day, says Algerian journalist Rachid Khiari.
"People lived for eight years not knowing if they would even return home when
they left the house in the morning," he says. "People saw babies
massacred and whole village wiped out. Today there are cases of schizophrenia
relating to those years. It was horrible, and after a while, no one knew who
was killing who anymore."
The civil war began after an era of unprecedented openness in the late 1980s.
Personal freedoms blossomed and dozens of new political parties were created.
But when Islamist parties appeared ready to sweep to victory in the early 90s,
the government canceled legislative elections.
The Islamists fought back, initially targeted the army and police — but then
they began attacking civilians; artists, teachers, judges and journalists were
slain. State security forces, trying to root out the insurgency, often killed
indiscriminately. By the end of the 1990s, an estimated 200,000 Algerians had
died.
Members of the Algerian Association of the Disappeared have been protesting
once a week since 1998. They say they simply want information about the more
than 8,000 Algerians who went missing during the Black Decade.
Nassera Dutour, who is
president of the association, says she doesn't bother wearing makeup since her
son Amin was kidnapped some 13 years ago. She calls her frequent laugh a
nervous habit.
"The military and police would come together," she says, describing
how people like her son disappeared in the 1990s. "They'd circle a village
looking for so-called 'terrorists.' It was like the gestapo. They'd knock at
the door, lock up the women and take the men. And if they couldn't find who
they were looking for, they'd take other family members."
Still Affected
The government eventually put down the insurgency. In 2005, under Algerian
President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, Algerians approved a charter for national reconciliation.
It gave amnesty to Islamists who handed in their weapons, and families were
monetarily compensated for members who had disappeared.
Dutour says she and the other mothers also want
information about their children, but since the amnesty, the government
considers the issue of the missing closed and refuses to meet with them.
Almost every Algerian was touched by the killings of the 1990s.
Dr. Amel Abbess is seeing patients at one of the main
hospitals in the capital of Algiers. She says the violence of the 1990s still
profoundly affects Algerians.
During the Black Decade, people just tried to stay alive and prayed that the
killing would stop. That's why they don't take to the streets in protest
now.
"People want to live peacefully and normally now," she says.
"And we want to become more prosperous, too. I think once we've done that,
we'll think more about democracy."
Abbess and other Algerians say they want change to come, but they want to take
their time and make sure it comes peacefully.
As Algeria grows more Islamic, nightlife suffers
August
3, 2009
The Associated Press
ALFRED de MONTESQUIOU (Associated Press Writer)
ALGIERS, Algeria (AP) — All through the 1990s, when Islamic militants waged a
ferocious war on the Algerian state and nightlife died in the city that once
called itself "The Paris of Africa," the Hanani
bar and restaurant stayed open. It was "an act of resistance," says
owner Achour Ait Oussaid.
Yet today, at a time when the bloodshed has ebbed, local authorities have
shuttered the hole-in-the-wall bar. "This same state has done what the
Islamists never managed to do," Ait Oussaid said, standing amid abandoned tables and empty
shelves gathering dust.
At least 40 bars, restaurants and nightclubs have been closed in the past year
around Algiers alone, according to local media. The government insists that the
closures are strictly a matter of safety and hygiene, but suspicion is
widespread that Muslim conservative pressure is to blame.
Ait Oussaid, a Muslim like
almost all of Algeria's 32 million people, contends that officials caved in to
a petition circulated in his seaside neighborhood of La Perouse demanding that
the Muslim prohibition of alcohol be enforced.
Many see this as one of a series of measures the government is taking in
Algiers and other cities to soothe Muslim sensitivities and isolate the
militants who still carry out bombings and assassinations.
The North African country has a history of tolerance and secular-leaning
government, but its nightlife has gone through several ups and downs.
When it was a French colony it boasted countless
classy nightclubs and restaurants. The fun went on in the early years of
independence in the 1960s, lost its flair when doctrinaire socialists ran the
country, made an exuberant comeback, and then was devastated by the so-called
"Black Decade" of Islamic violence and government countermeasures
that left up to 200,000 dead.
The fighting erupted in 1992 when the army canceled elections that Islamic
candidates were expected to win. In the ensuing years, bars, nightclubs and
anything else the militants deemed Western could be targeted.
Ait Oussaid says he defied
death threats to keep Hanani open. "For me, it
was an act of resistance, a way to defend the Algerian state," he said.
Youcef Kerdache, a
construction entrepreneur who still drops by Hanani
for old times sake, calls the bar a victim of
"the ostentatious Islamization of Algerian society."
Mohamed El Kebir, Algiers' regional governor,
declined to comment for this report, but speaking to the French-language Liberte newspaper, he said safety regulations are the only
consideration, not "religion or other pressures."
Still, other signs point to increasing enforcement of a stricter, more visible
version of Islam. Several workers were prosecuted last fall for smoking in
public during the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan. Groups of Algerian Muslims
have recently been put on trial for converting to Christianity.
Censorship of sexual content on national TV has become stricter, and although
women aren't officially obligated to cover their heads, students at provincial
universities complain of being pressured to wear head scarves.
While the affluent elite can unwind at Algiers' costly private clubs or
international hotels, the closures appear to be hitting lower-income
neighborhoods hardest.
In the Boumerdes province next to Algiers, Gov. Brahim Merad has pledged not to
approve a single liquor license. "Even better; I won't miss a single
opportunity to close the existing establishments," the French-language El
Watan newspaper quoted him as saying in June.
Rundown Boumerdes remains one of Algeria's most
violent areas, with several killings and roadside bombings a week on average,
blamed on Al-Qaida-linked militants.
The program of "national reconciliation" put forward by President
Abdelaziz Bouteflika in 2005 is widely credited with ending the worst of the
civil strife. But Rachid Tlemcani, a political
science professor at Algiers University says: "We're witnessing the slow
growth and triumph of Islamism through society."
Conservatives, he charged, "are nibbling at Algerian values, and
authorities are following suit."
Associated Press Writer Aomar Ouali
in Algiers contributed to this report.
Suspected bomber kills 3 in Algeria
By ALFRED de MONTESQUIOU –
October 4, 2008
ALGER, Algeria (AP) — A suspected suicide
bombing killed three people and wounded six in a village east of the Algerian
capital, local media reported Monday.
The attack occurred in the Dellys
area of Boumerdes, some 50 kilometers (30 miles) east
of Algiers, late Sunday during Iftar, the meal that breaks the daily fast
during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, the state-run APS news agency said.
The six wounded people were in stable condition
at a local hospital, APS said, quoting unnamed security sources as saying the
attack was suspected to have been carried out by a suicide bomber.
Security officials did not immediately return
calls for comment Monday.
A local resident told The Associated Press that
two soldiers, a communal guard and the bomber had been killed. The resident,
who saw the bodies at the hospital, spoke on condition of anonymity because
many Algerians are wary of talking publicly about their country's violence.
Communal guards form an armed citizens' unit
that supplements police in rural areas. Two guards were executed last week by
Islamist militants manning a fake check point in the mountainous region inland
from Boumerdes, a region known for violence by
Islamic extremists.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility.
But many attacks in Algeria have been claimed by Al-Qaida in Islamic North
Africa, a local militant group that joined Osama bin Laden's terror network in
2006.
Violence has dramatically increased since then.
A string of suicide bombings, ambushes and attacks killed more than 100 people
in August alone, according to an Associated Press count.
However, bloodshed has been at its lowest point
in a decade during this year's Ramadan, which ends within days. Local media
have reported that army and police sweeps throughout
the country this month have led to the capture of several militant support
networks.
Official media said a senior terrorist chief
was killed this month, and that three others were slain during a shootout last
week.
Algeria has been battling an Islamic insurgency
since 1992 when the army canceled national elections to thwart a Muslim
fundamentalist party from likely victory. Violence was at its height in the
1990s.
Language Lends Hand To
Religion In Tearing Algeria Apart.
By Our Man in Tizi Ouzou
Civil wars are usually soul-searching times
were sections of the nation search for identities. For Algerians, language is
inextricably bound up with the conflicting visions of their country's identity.
Half the population are Berber who despise Arabic, while half the Arabs prefer
French to Arabic for daily communication. So is
Algeria Arab or Berber? Is it Islamic, as the armed Muslims would
have it? Or is it Mediterranean, as most intellectuals prefer? Algeria may be
all of the above, but 36 years after the departure of French colonisers who left a well
founded legacy of dominant French language and culture, the country
is still struggling to reconcile the various aspects of its personality.
For an onlooker, the conflict seems simple to
describe: Islamic militants using extreme violence to overthrow a secular
authoritarian regime and establish an Iranian style Islamic republic - although
nasty and brutal conflict even by the standard of African civil wars.
In a both ill timed
and ill advised move the military backed government
of President Liamine Zeroual
made language - an important national identity tool- another cause of conflict
in the already religious-war torn nation. On July 5th, a law came into force
making Arabic the only language allowed in public life, fury exploded in the Berber-speaking mountain region of Kabylia.
The law bans any official use of French and the Berber language, Tamazight,
which means ``the language of free men''.
As the law came to force Kabylia
was already on fire following the killing of an immensely popular Berber
singer, Lounes Matoub, on
25th June. His wife and two sisters-in-law were wounded in the attack. Although
most Algerians, Berbers and Arabs alike, believe that the singer, an outspoken
secularist, was killed by GIS militants, Berber anger swiftly turned against
the state and its Arabisation policy. Protesters
sacked government-owned shops and tore down Arabic signs. As tens of thousands
of Kabyles poured into a mountain village for his
burial, the divisions in Algerian society were never more obvious. Mourners
shouted ``Pouvoir (the generic name given to the
military-political power) - assassins!'' They threw stones at a security forces
helicopter flying overhead. The accusation seemed to be that the authorities
had failed to protect the singer from his Islamist enemies. The crowds,
carrying banners declared, `We are not Arabs,' chanted anti-government slogans
in Berber and French.
The Berber, for their own interest, were on the
government side in the conflict against Islamists. They always opposed the programme of the FIS - the Islamic Salvation Front. FIS was
cheated from a possible victory in a French style second round of General
elections in 1992 by a military coup- which was demanded by trade unionists,
women groups and secular movement fearing an Islamic takeover. The coup was
tacitly supported by the French. The Islamists started a wave of terror that
turned into a civil war.
The Islamists, known as GIS - the armed Islamic
group as the FIS leaders like leaders of Muslim Brothers and other Islamic
parties in the region who take political asylum in the West- try to distant
themselves from the violence. The leaders argue that their `armed comrades' -
or terrorists in the book of official media- do not represent the true face of
Islam which is all about tolerance, compassion and mercy. However, Berber, like
Copts in Egypt and other minorities as well as women Journalists and artists in
the region know better: FIS, like Muslim Brothers never unequivocally condemned
violence by Islamic extremists. So why should they trust FIS?
Berber speakers, and many secular Algerians,
regard the Arabisation law as a heavy-handed attempt
to appease the government's Islamist opponents FIS. Berber, is an oral language
still in the process of being codified. A succession of authoritarian central
governments, uneasy with pluralism and eager to shore up their nationalist
credentials, discouraged its use outside the private domain.
With independence in 1962, the FLN - National
Liberation Front - one party dictatorship that ruled Algeria since thought the
adoption of Arabic as the national language was a natural choice to mark the
break with France and forge an identity suited to the country's new status as a
third-world leader. But the choice was by no means practical then or now. Many
Algerians, including many in top positions, had been educated in French and
could not master Arabic. Arabisation move had to take
a back seat as the civil war engulfed Algeria claiming over 75,000 lives in the
past five years.
In 1995, President Zeroual,
wanting to woo the Kabyle political parties and enlist their support against
Islamists, set up a body attached to the presidency that had the task of
introducing Berber teaching in schools. Proclaiming a secular Mediterranean
identity, Berber activists resent the emphasis on Algeria's Arab-Islamic
aspects. They want their own language to have official status. Only then, they
argue, will it be protected from measures such as the new law, which makes it
an offence for a political party to address a rally in Kabylia
in Berber.
The Berbers believed the Islamists' doctrine to
be alien to Algeria in general. Many of terror ringleaders are ex-Mujahedine fighters who were armed and financed by the CIA
to fight the soviet backed government in Afghanistan in the 1980's.
Ex-Mujahedine
unwanted by their countries of origin and had no other skill but fighting a war
that broke all known international war conventions were dispersed in the Middle
East dealing in drugs or becoming hire guns. They went from Sudan or Lebanon to
Bosnia or sneaked to Egypt to launch a campaign of terror. Those who went to
Algeria to decided to use the 1992 upheaval to take
over the country. Their first base was known as the ` Afghan mosque'; their
first Amir (leader) to be killed by the security forces was Abu El-Tayyeb Al-Afghani who commanded ex-Mujahedine
fighters heavily dependent on drugs. Unlike elsewhere in the region, the GIS
fight was brutal, nasty and barbaric. Bombs frequently going-off daily in
crowded markets and outside newspapers' buildings - Algerian journalists seem
to be number one target of the Islamists' wrath. Then came the brutalities that
became the hallmark of GIS: slitting of throats from ear to ear, disembowelling pregnant women, decapitating young children,
throwing babies -headfirst- against the walls and kidnapping teenage girls to
be sex-slaves in the mountains.In
its bare-knuckle fight against GIS, the government in turn violated every known
human-rights rule in the book - according to Amnesty International and the
United States' State Department reports-.
The Berbers, who were never too fond of the
current military backed government, or its predecessors, carried greater
disliking to the Islamists and their brutalities. They were active in
confronting the GIS on all civil, and some times
armed fronts.
The Berbers, who gave their name to Barbary,
inhabited North Africa since 5th century BC. The Berbers strongly resisted the
Arab invaders of the seventh century. Although there was some Arabisation of several cities and most of the coastal area
but most of Algeria's countryside remained Berber- speaking well into the
twelfth century.
Arabisation of the countryside
accelerated during the invasion of Arab nomads from Egyptian desert in the late
eleventh century and by the late eighteenth century Berber speakers were
limited to the least accessible parts of the country--high mountains, distant
oases and desert plateau, and mountain areas where the vast majority of Berbers
continue to live today. These areas include: Kabylia
(Djurdia Mountains) Southeast of Algiers, the Auras
Mountains Southeast of Constantine and Ouarseni
Massive, Southwest of Algiers.
Later they played a significant role in the Muslim
conquest and rule of Spain after conversion to Islam in the 8th century.
Berbers have a long history of resisting Arab rule. They were periodically able
to maintain independent kingdoms and empires from shortly after the time of the
Arab invasion until the sixteenth century. They resisted the rule of the
Ottoman Turks and also opposed French colonial rule despite a policy of
preferential treatment by the French. They had a yearlong rebellion in 1871 and
a strong participation in the Algerian war of independence.
Having been barred from top official posts in
the FLN - the national Liberation Front that ruled Algeria from 1962, the
Berber members split and formed the Socialist Forces Front (FFS) in 1963 and
called for a pluralist culture. Thus they see this law
- although was passed by a rubber stamp parliament in 1996- as a betrayal of
the joint struggle against French colonial rule.
Their assassinated singer Lounes
Matoub was a symbol of resistance to attacks on
Berber culture - whether from the murderous Muslim zealots or government
bureaucrats. GIS who kidnapped and then released him three years ago said they
killed him because he was an enemy of Islam. Matoub
music and poetry symbolised the struggle to get
Berber recognised as an official language on a par
with Arabic. His songs, glorifying Kabyle village life, mocked both the
military-backed government and its Islamist opponents. Not only was he scathing
about Arabisation, which he held responsible for the
rise of Islamic militancy, but he was contemptuous of Arabic language itself,
describing it as `uninteresting', and `unsuitable for knowledge and science'.
Secular Berbers point at the example of Egypt
when its late authoritarian leader Colonel Gamal Abdel-Nasser's forced Arabisation on Egyptian culture. They see that as the root
of the current Islamic terror campaign which destroyed Egypt's tourist industry
and claimed hundreds of lives. `` When colonel Nasser Changed the flag, the
National anthem and even the name of the country in his false Arabisation,'' said Algerian Berber journalist Liabdallah BelQassim referring to
Nasser's 1958 forced unity with Syria, when he replaced the 5000 years old name
Egypt with United Arab Republic, `` The Egyptians lost their ancient identity,
and after years of humiliation, the Islamists presented them with a false sense
of identity, but also violence came with it.'' To accelerate Arabisation in 1970's many Arabic teachers were imported
from Egypt and Syria. They carried with them Colonel Nasser's vague romantic
pan- Arab nationalism ideology, which only added confusion to the blurred
mosaic of Algeria.
For the Kabyles, who
are heavily represented in French speaking sectors of culture and economy,
French is even more important as so many of them work or have worked in France.
In Kabylia, Arabic is often the third language.
For their part, supporters of Arabisation are deeply suspicious of Berber activism,
charging that behind the protests lurks an unpatriotic desire to perpetuate
French dominance. They regard figures such as the assassinated singer as
representing an extreme, even racist, anti-Arab streak that has to be fought.
The two political parties with Kabyle constituencies have already said that
they will defy the Arabisation law. ``The government
is condemning to perilous disorder a society which is already fragmented and
ill-educated, and whose administration is undermined by corruption and
incompetence,'' said Hocine Ait
Ahmed, leader of the FFS. A lesser worry, expressed by many, is how the law can
be enforced, given the large number of people who cannot master Arabic. Some
fear that the enforcement will be selective, turning the law into a political
weapon applied selectively.
In the face of fierce resistance, western
condemnation, and more important, fear that the arms given to Berber by the
authorities to fight the GIS terror groups, might be turned against the
government (a previously unheard-of organisation
calling itself the Armed Berber Movement threatened to avenge Matoub's death and kill anyone who tries to implement the Arabisation law), President Zerual
who has long resisted any outside probe into the civil war, has agreed on July
9th to let a UN team investigate the killings. The government has ensured the
group of international diplomats. Prepared to leave for visit Algeria on July
22, ``free and complete access to all sources of information,'' UN spokesman
Juan Carlos Brandt said. Demands for such an international inquiry, from a
number of nations, including the US, and international human rights groups,
were spurred by suggestions that the army or government-armed self-defence forces might have had at least a passive role
in some massacres. Mr Brandt credited the mounting
international pressure and UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan with bringing about
a change of heart in the Algerian leadership. ``I think Algeria has recognised the need to work with and assist the international
community on this,'' he said. The team is headed by former Portuguese President
Mario Soares. Other team members include: former Indian Prime Minister Inder Kumar Gujral, former
Jordanian Minister Abdel Karim Kabariti, the
attorney-general of Kenya, Amos Wako, ex-American UN Ambassador Donald McHenry,
and Simone Veil, France's former secretary of state. The group is seeking ``a
clear vision and a precise perception'' of the situation and will report back
to Annan, Brandt said. Last month western diplomats gave a cautious welcome to
the involvement of the United Nations.
There has not been any
serious western attempts either to force the Algerian government into finding a
compromised peaceful solution with the Islamists, or given a total help to
overcome the terror campaign. The French government has been divided in its
Algerian policy, with the foreign ministry urging a negotiated settlement and
the defence ministry supporting the Algerian
military. NATO's northern European members have evinced little inclination to
fashion approaches to deal with Algeria's political turbulence. As a prudent
measure, France, Italy and Spain have developed plans for emergency evacuation
of their nationals including Algerians with dual citizen-ship in the case of
France which would number tens of thousands. Reportedly, military preparations
for evacuation are well advanced. At present, the U.S. military is not directly
involved in the plans, but has been kept apprised.
Algeria violence claims three lives
ALGIERS, Algeria
June 02, 2005
Two Algerian soldiers were killed and a third injured in eastern Algeria in the
last few days in attacks by Muslim fundamentalist gunmen.
Daily al-Watan said the incident occurred in
the province of Boumedras, 60 kilometers (37 miles)
east of Algiers, when a landmine planted by Islamic gunmen exploded under a
military vehicle on its way to a nearby base.
In another incident, gunmen believed to belong
to the radical Salafi Group for Daawa and Fighting,
killed a farmer in western Algeria Tuesday.
ALGIERS, Algeria (AP) — A bomb ripped through a
crowd waiting for the Algerian president to arrive in an eastern town on
Thursday, killing as many as 16 people and injuring more than 70, officials
said.
The bomb exploded about 45 minutes before
President Abdelaziz Bouteflika's scheduled arrival in Batna,
a town about 280 miles east of the capital, Algiers — and the last stop on the
president's tour of eastern Algeria.
Local police said a man between 30 and 35 years
old carrying the bomb in a bag walked into the crowd at the Al-Atik mosque. He was behaving strangely and onlookers
alerted police, the officials said.
As police moved in toward the man, he threw
down the bag and tried to flee. The bomb exploded, and it was not immediately
clear whether he died or was wounded in the attack, police said. There was no
immediate claim of responsibility.
Hospital and security officials put the death
toll at 16, but the official APS news agency reported 14 dead. The discrepancy
could not be immediately reconciled.
Bouteflika, who arrived after the blast, made
brief remarks to Algerian television, saying "the only solution was
national consensus."
Coordinated terror attacks killed dozens of
people on April 11, when bombs ripped through the Algerian prime minister's
office and a police station in an Algiers suburb.
A new al-Qaida wing claimed responsibility for
the April bombings, saying they were carried out by suicide bombers in trucks
packed with explosives.
The attacks were a devastating setback for the
North African nation's efforts to close that violent chapter in its history —
an Islamic insurgency that has killed an estimated 200,000 people.
Bouteflika has devoted his presidency to ending
the violence, launching a national reconciliation plan offering amnesty to
insurgents who lay down their arms and stepping up military sweeps of remaining
insurgent strongholds.
"This reconciliation, which does not
exclude anyone," is part of "an effort for the reconstruction of
Algeria, because without political stability there will be no economic and
social development," Bouteflika said.
Bouteflika often tours the country to check on
the progress of development programs and other initiatives. He visited several
western regions about a month ago and began his tour of the east on Tuesday,
visiting four regions over three days.
The bombing comes just days before the sixth
anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks. Analysts and security officials have been
warning al-Qaida could be plotting attacks around this period.
German authorities arrested three Islamic
militants suspected of plotting massive bomb attacks Tuesday.
The same day eight men — of Pakistani, Afghan,
Somali and Turkish origin — were arrested in Denmark. Authorities said the men
were linked to senior al-Qaida leaders, but have not revealed what their
targets were, or when they planned to strike.