Examines the roots of political violence in Algeria
Anderson, Lisa
At the beginning of 1998, accounts of massacres in Algeria horrified world opinion. The start of the holy month of Ramadan brought reports that whole villages had been savagely attacked;...
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...Algerian journalists and political figures once known for their vigorous opposition to a corrupt and antiquated regime toured the capitals of Europe and North America describing that same regime as the country's best hope for a solution, even as evidence accumulated that it was complicit in the prolonged violence and instability...
...Insofar as democracy is fundamentally about the institutionalization of uncertainty in politics, limited pluralism may better guarantee that outcome than unlimited POLITICS ABROAD participation...
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...This, and reports that several thousand criminals had been released from Algerian jails in recent years, fueled speculation that some elements in the Algerian government wanted to utilize disorder and bloodshed to intimidate ordinary Algerians, thereby safeguarding its own continued hold on power...
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...Iran, Turkey, and Algeria are all struggling to widen the circle of political inclusion and deepen the realm of uncertainty that is the hallmark of democratic politics...
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...Continuing suspicions that the government itself was colluding in the massacres— permitting if not committing the atrocities— were compounded by the Algerian prime minister's announcement the day after the European ministers departed that the number of armed civilian "self-defense" units was to be increased...
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...In much of the third world, however, the reverse is true...
...COMPLICATED AS these questions are in Iran and Turkey, however, they are not now spilling the blood of thousands of citizens...
...There were certainly many observers, within and outside the 18 n DISSENT / Spring 1998 Islamic world, who thought so...
...When popular riots challenged the ruling party in 1988, the rulers abandoned the socialist cause with remarkable alacrity, embracing democracy virtually overnight...
...Most social scientists assume that while government incumbents may come and go, regimes are relatively stable...
...men, women, and children were systematically slaughtered...
...Thus have they participated energetically in multilateral security discussions aimed at developing common approaches to combating "Islamic terrorism" while rejecting offers of humanitarian assistance...
...There is little evidence that the Algerian rulers are capable of providing either the ideological vision or the institutional foundation for democracy...
...Was Algeria's tragedy a reflection of the malign influence of Islam in politics...
...on the contrary, they appear to be willing to sacrifice the welfare of the Algerian people for as long as they feel their continued hold on power is insecure...
...There was no evidence that FIS was either more or less attached to democratic politics than the regime it failed to dislodge...
...For better or worse, except insofar as it briefly gave voice to widespread popular disaffection, Islamic politics had little impact on the character of Algeria's political competition or the stability of its political elite...
...More than seventy thousand people were thought to have died in the strife that engulfed Algeria six years earlier, when the military stepped in to cancel parliamentary elections, depose the president, and outlaw the leading political party, the Front Islamique du Salut (FIS...
...The Algerian military was happy to support single-party socialism throughout the cold war...
...Conceivably that is so, although once again, Algeria does not provide clear and satisfying confirmation...
...For ruling elites who, whether by conviction or by interest, have trouble imagining themselves out of power, that is a very difficult set of tasks...
...on the contrary, they had been adopted precisely to strengthen the power of the ruling elite...
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...The Algerian regime's proud and suspicious reactions to expressions of concern from outside suggest that the only offers of aid they will entertain will be measures that further strengthen their own hold on power...
...Unfortunately, Western failure to intervene on behalf of the country's fledgling democratic institutions and values six years ago now leaves us forced to choose between such dreadful alternatives...
...THE EDITORS DISSENT / Spring 1998 n 19...
...in January 1998, the Constitutional Court in Turkey banned the once-legal political party and barred its leader, a former prime minister, from politics...
...Yet there was very little in the Algerian story peculiar to Islam, political or otherwise...
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...LISA ANDERSON iS dean of the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University...
...Only under worldwide pressure did the regime consent to receive a mission of foreign ministers from the European Union in mid-January, and the outcome of their visit was inconclusive...
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...Is the restoration of peace in Algeria—a necessary condition for any moves towards democracy in the future—worth the price of shoring up a vicious government...
...Democratic institutions in Algeria had not been intended to permit a real contest for power...
...This history is, mercifully, quite exceptional...
...The sorry spectacle in Algeria has served as a frustrating reminder of the limits of international influence in the post–cold war world: as in nearby Iraq and Libya, a determined regime has sacrificed tens of thousands of its own people in its thirst for power...
...Certainly the ruling elite will be more tolerant of opposition if it is circumscribed by mutual agreement on the fundamental rules of the game, however much that may limit participation of other dissenting voices...
...Perhaps, as its apologists insist, the limits of democracy in Turkey are essential to its very existence and therefore to any prospect of its future evolution...
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...Throughout these dizzying political experiments, the ruling elite, particularly the military clique at its center, remained remarkably stable...
...This point merits amplification...
...If cultural and religious values do not explain the Algerian dilemma, perhaps the question is one of electoral engineering: the most indulgent interpretation of the Algerian government's post-coup elections rests on the premise that democratization can take place without participation of the parties that would poll the most votes...
...COULD ALGERIA'S fate have been avoided...
...Fear that the Islamist Welfare Party in Turkey, for example, shared what were seen as FIS's illiberal and antidemocratic inclinations prompted the Turkish military to hound it out of power...
...Whether or not the collapse of Algeria's democratic experiment could have been avoided, it was not...
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...In the face of accusations that its failure to protect its citizens suggested ineptitude at best and deliberate policy at worst, the Algerian government reiterated its claim that the perpetrators were Islamist "terrorists," and adamantly refused international intervention, objecting strenuously to offers of aid—even humanitarian relief assistance—that could be construed as interference in the internal affairs of the country...
...Or should tens of thousands more Algerians be sacrificed in the hope that the regime will ultimately lose heart and agree to humanitarian assistance and political compromise...
...We now face the difficult task not of installing democracy but of restoring peace...
...Claiming that FIS was merely utilizing democratic mechanisms to seize power that it would never relinquish, the military-backed regime proceeded to do exactly that: as violence between splinter groups from the outlawed and badly fractured FIS and the government's military forces escalated, the rulers staged a constitutional referendum and held carefully controlled presidential, parliamentary, and local elections designed to consolidate their power...
...Algeria poses an additional dilemma for advocates of democracy...
...When democratic elections threatened the stability of the government in 1992, the rulers once again switched regimes, abandoning democratic institutions for rule by switchblade...
...As the turmoil continued, many Algerians, including many in the erstwhile democratic opposition, suspended their skepticism about their government's dedication to democratic DISSENT / Spring 1998 n 17 POLITICS ABROAD politics and rallied to its support: the rulers seemed to be the only force capable of restoring calm...
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...The tactics of the antagonists in the current fighting are eerily reminiscent of the Algerian revolution, when as many as a million people are said to have died, many of them victims of unspeakable savagery...
Vol. 45 • April 1998 • No. 2
