"Over the last two or three decades, there have been a number of cities where the population keeps growing and growing, uncontrolled. With that, the infrastructure is not keeping up with the population, and that has resulted in cities becoming very densely populated," she told Al Jazeera... That allows the aedes mosquito, which likes to live among humans, to thrive and breed and multiply in this kind of environment."

ALGERIA

NUMBERS

population: 33,769,668 (July 2008 est.)
land use: arable land, 3.17%; permanent crops, 0.28%; other, 96.55% (2005)
ethnic groups: Arab-Berber 99%, European less than 1% (NB: almost all Algerians are Berber in origin, not Arab; the minority who identify themselves as Berber live mostly in the mountainous region of Kabylie east of Algiers; the Berbers are also Muslim but identify with their Berber rather than Arab cultural heritage; Berbers have long agitated, sometimes violently, for autonomy; the government is unlikely to grant autonomy but has offered to begin sponsoring teaching Berber language in schools)
religions: Sunni Muslim (state religion) 99%, Christian and Jewish 1%
literacy: total population, 69.9%; male, 79.6%; female, 60.1% (2002 est.)
economy: The hydrocarbons sector is the backbone of the economy, accounting for roughly 60% of budget revenues, 30% of GDP, and over 95% of export earnings. Algeria has the eighth-largest reserves of natural gas in the world and is the fourth-largest gas exporter; it ranks 15th in oil reserves. Sustained high oil prices in recent years have helped improve Algeria's financial and macroeconomic indicators.
GDP composition, by sector: agriculture, 8.1%; industry, 62.5%; services, 29.4%
labor force: 9.44 million (or, about 28% of the total population)
labor force by occupation: agriculture 14%, industry 13.4%, construction and public works 10%, trade 14.6%, government 32%, other 16%

HISTORY

THE PRE-COLONIAL PERIOD (-1830)

1000BC-642AD(appx.): The indigenous Berbers (who had inhabited the region since at least 10,000BC) of the area repelled, were subjugated, and/or coexisted with successive invasions and settlement: (1) the Carthaginians, who arrived around 900BC, established Carthage in 814BC (in present-day Tunisia), incompletely subjugated the Berbers to their South, but fell apart after the Punic Wars (264-146BC) --as a result, "by the second century B.C., several large but loosely administered Berber kingdoms had emerged. Two of them were established in Numidia, behind the coastal areas controlled by Carthage" (2) the Romans, who retained a tenuous grip on the Berbers (their lands were the "breadbasket" of the Empire, allegedly) until the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in 476AD; (3) the Byzantines, who under the leadership of Justinian I, in the mid-500s (AD), expelled the Vandal tribes who had settled in and around Carthage after the fall of the Romans. They exercised a "precarious grip" over the Berbers until the Arab invasions: "Local opposition delayed full Byzantine control of the region for twelve years, however, and imperial control, when it came, was but a shadow of the control exercised by Rome. Although an impressive series of fortifications were built, Byzantine rule was compromised by official corruption, incompetence, military weakness, and lack of concern in Constantinople for African affairs. As a result, many rural areas reverted to Berber rule."

642-909: From 642 to 669, a series of sporadic, almost mercenary Arab invasions first spread Islam to these areas. The Ummayads (661-750) launched a more systematic campaign in 670, recognizing the strategic import of these territories. "By 711 Umayyad forces helped by Berber converts to Islam had conquered all of North Africa." However resistance to the heavy-handedness of the ruling Arabs (taxation, discrimination, and even enslavement) soon took the form of an open revolt from 739-740, under the banner of Kharijite Islam (which was, in contrast to Ummayad doctrine, egalitarian and anti-racist). The Ummayads were succeeded by the Abbasids (750-1258) in 750, and exercised control over North Africa by proxy: the East was governed by Al Aghab; in the West, the Rustumid Imamate prevailed from (761-909), notable for the fact that its rulers were elected by "leading citizens."

909-1518: The Fatimids, a Shia caliphate organized by missionaries to North Africa over the course of the 800s, overthrew the Sunni rulers of the region. Though they expanded westward from the site of their first victory at Kairouan (in modern-day Tunisia) in 909, their ultimate ambitions lay in the Mashreq. As a result, they appointed a Berber dynasty (the Zirids: 972-1148) to rule in their stead. Despite these measures, "this period was marked by constant conflict, political instability, and economic decline." "For the first time, the extensive use of Arabic spread to the countryside."

For the latter half of this period, the Almoravids (1106-1147) ruled the Western portion of North Africa, after conquering "Morocco, the Maghrib as far east as Algiers, and Spain up to the Ebro River by 1106". They acknowledged the spiritual authority of the Abbasid caliphate in Baghdad; under their rule, "Muslim Spain (Andalus in Arabic) was a great source of artistic and intellectual inspiration." The Almoravids were toppled by the Almohads (so-called for their emphasis on the unity of God), who "took control of Morocco in 1146, captured Algiers around 1151, and by 1160 had completed the conquest of the central Maghrib and advanced to Tripolitania." Their dynasty, which hosted two of this region's most famous thinkers, Abu Bakr ibn Tufayl and Ibn Rushd (Averroes), fell eventually in 1271.

The following three hundred years (ca. 1200-1500) saw the Western territories ruled by the Almohads in the hands of the Hafsid dynasty, which was based in Tunis. In the central Maghrib, the Zayanids exercised a tenuous hold. For much of this period, effective authority was less centralized: "Many coastal cities defied the ruling dynasties and asserted their autonomy as municipal republics. They were governed by their merchant oligarchies, by tribal chieftains from the surrounding countryside, or by the privateers who operated out of their ports. " Furthermore, the "aridity of official Islam had little appeal outside the mosques and schools of the cities"--as a result, marabouts were strong influences in rural areas, inspiring numerous uprisings and small autonomous republics.

1518-1830: In the early 1500s, after the reconquest of Grenada in 1492, the Spanish had moved to establish their authority on the Maghribi coast, "taking control of Mers el Kebir in 1505, Oran in 1509, and Tlemcen, Mostaganem, and Ténès, all west of Algiers, in 1510." However, despite the relative "ease" of these campaigns (of course they were brutal), Christian Spain never attempted to establish their authority south of these preliminary (and costly) outposts--perhaps because they sought to concentrate their efforts around the Mediterranean. Their failure to do this made it possible for the Ottomans to assert their control, instead.

In 1518, the prominent Barbary pirate Khair ad Din (aka "Redbeard" or "Barbossa"), who, together with his brother Aruj, had been operating under the Hafsids from Tunis, began a campaign to subdue the coastal region around Algeria (more-or-less establishing the modern, northern boundaries of Algeria). He did this with the patronage of the Ottomans, who in 1533 made him admiral of their fleet. "Under Khair ad Din's regency, Algiers became the center of Ottoman authority in the Maghrib, from which Tunis, Tripoli, and Tlemcen would be overcome and Morocco's independence would be threatened."

By 1587, 44 years after Khair ad Din's son had succeeded his father as beylerbey (provincial governor), the Ottomans instituted a more regular form of administration, relying upon pashas (governors) who served three-year terms (who were assisted by janissaries, recruited from Anatolian peasants, and known in Algeria as the ojaq). Turkish was the official language of the court; Arabs and Berbers were prohibited from government posts.

Over the course of the next two hundred and fifty years, this system ran into trouble on numerous occasions, and was re-formed accordingly (not by design, but by those victorious in the various feuds). From 1671-1830, for example, a dey exercised power; he was chosen by a divan, comprised of sixty nobles (at first this was the ojaq, more or less, but it gradually evolved into a group of the dey's lackeys). Remarkably, "[though] the dey was elected for a life term, ...in the 159 years (1671-1830) that the system survived, fourteen of the twenty-nine deys were removed from office by assassination."

The exact details are perhaps relatively unimportant (see, though, the block quote that follows)--the most salient fact was that the administration, like any other pre-capitalist Empire, depended heavily on the local powers that presided over any number of effectively autonomous provinces under its nominal control. In that sense, effective authority for the average citizen rested not in Constantinople, but in institutions that were entirely more local.

"The dey had direct administrative control only in the regent's enclave, the Dar as Sultan (Domain of the Sultan), which included the city of Algiers and its environs and the fertile Mitidja Plain. The rest of the territory under the regency was divided into three provinces (beyliks): Constantine in the east; Titteri in the central region, with its capital at Médéa; and a western province that after 1791 had its seat at Oran, abandoned that year by Spain when the city was destroyed in an earthquake. Each province was governed by a bey appointed by the dey, usually from the same circle of families. A contingent of the ojaq was assigned to each bey, who also had at his disposal the provincial auxiliaries provided by the privileged makhzen tribes, traditionally exempted from paying taxes on condition that they collect them from other tribes. Tax revenues were conveyed from the provinces to Algiers twice yearly, but the beys were otherwise left to their own devices. Although the regency patronized the tribal chieftains, it never had the unanimous allegiance of the countryside, where heavy taxation frequently provoked unrest. Autonomous tribal states were tolerated, and the regency's authority was seldom applied in the Kabylie."

THE COLONIAL PERIOD (1830-1962)

1830-1954: In the aftermath of decades-long tensions over piracy in the Mediterranean (eventually settled by superior European technology, ending in the Barbary Treaties; this defeat for the Dey preceded heightening tensions between him and the French), the French captured Algeria in a three-week campaign in 1930. The war pitted 34,000 of their soldiers against "7,000 janissaries, 19,000 troops from the beys of Constantine and Oran, and about 17,000 Kabyles." The invasion was violent and vicious (allegedly "disappearing" one-third of the entire Algerian population?). Almost as soon as French troops took Algiers, Charles X (of the Bourbon Restoration), who had authorized the military invasion in order to counter his declining domestic popularity, was deposed. He was replaced by Louis Philippe, the "citizen-king," who was surrounded by opponents to Charles X's decision to invade--nonetheless, withdrawing proved more difficult than invading, and in 1834 it was decided to annex the occupied population (about 3 million Muslims at that time) as a colony.

Intensive French settlement, encouraged by a nexus of private and official commercial interests, resulted in the influx of tens of thousands of European settlers (pied noirs) in the first decades of colonial rule.

the European settlers were largely of peasant farmer or working-class origin from the poor southern areas of Italy, Spain, and France. Others were criminal and political deportees from France, transported under sentence in large numbers to Algeria. In the 1840s and 1850s, to encourage settlement in rural areas official policy was to offer grants of land for a fee and a promise that improvements would be made. A distinction soon developed between the grands colons (great colonists) at one end of the scale, often self-made men who had accumulated large estates or built successful businesses, and the petits blancs (little whites), smallholders and workers at the other end, whose lot was often not much better than that of their Muslim counterparts. According to historian John Ruedy, although by 1848 only 15,000 of the 109,000 European settlers were in rural areas, "by systematically expropriating both pastoralists and farmers, rural colonization was the most important single factor in the destructuring of traditional society."

By 1848, nearly all of Northern Algeria was under French control, though not without encountering significant resistance (most notably the establishment of a Muslim state by Abd Al Qadir (he had fought the Ottomans, as well), who controlled two-thirds of Algeria in 1839; he eventually surrendered in 1847 when fully one-third of the French Army was employed, brutally and indiscriminately, against him and his rural support base).

The system of colonial administration employed by the French is best assessed in the context of the shifting contours of the mainland government: (1) till 1848, Algeria remained under military control, with the exception of pockets of civil administration in those areas where settlement was most intense (while the colons argued for full legal rights and integration with mainland France, the military argued that such measures would jeopardize colonial authority); (2) after the Revolution of 1848 till the advent of the Second Empire in 1852, some moves were made in this direction in three "civil" territories (Algiers, Oran, and Constantine), which were organized as French provinces under civil administration; (3) from 1852 to 1870, Napoleon III, who returned the colony to military rule, instituted a motley set of reforms that antagonized the colons while also not properly attending to the concerns of the bulk of the indigenous population. Though he imagined that European settlement would remain confined to the coast, his intentions were defied by the effects of his 1863 and 1865 decrees, which, it seems, accelerated the break-up of traditional institutions (like communal property) by allowing the individuals to whom they'd been given to sell to speculators; (4) from the birth of the Third Republic in 1870 onwards, civil administration was returned to Algeria; the gov't confirmed its intention to assimilate the colony into France. Over time, an "apartheid" system congealed (not that what went before was any distinct, conceptually), premised on the enfranchisement of the colons, and founded on the suppression, discrimination, and immiseration of the indigenous Muslim population (the Jews, against the will of the colons, were made citizens in 1870).

In 1871, in the aftermath of famines following from grain shortages owing to the Crimean War of 1854-1856 (in a three year period, an estimated 20% of the Muslim population of Constantine had perished), but in direct response to the 1870 order extending civil authority to previously self-governing tribal regions, rebellion racked the Kabyle region. It was suppressed in standard fashion, by collectively punishing the whole Muslim population.

Some assorted statistics relating to French apartheid:

• Because of the many restrictions imposed by the authorities, by 1915 only 50,000 Muslims were eligible to vote in elections in the civil communes.
• The bulk of Algeria's wealth in manufacturing, mining, agriculture, and trade was controlled by the grands colons. The modern European-owned and -managed sector of the economy centered around small industry and a highly developed export trade, designed to provide food and raw materials to France in return for capital and consumer goods. Europeans held about 30% of the total arable land, including the bulk of the most fertile land and most of the areas under irrigation. By 1900, Europeans produced more than two-thirds of the value of output in agriculture and practically all agricultural exports.
• In 1909... Muslims, who made up almost 90% of the population but produced 20% of Algeria's income, paid 70% of direct taxes and 45% of the total taxes collected. And colons controlled how these revenues would be spent. As a result, colon towns had handsome municipal buildings, paved streets lined with trees, fountains and statues, while Algerian villages and rural areas benefited little if at all from tax revenues.

Through the 1920s and 1930s, national consciousness had brewed in a new Muslim leadership: "It consisted of a small but influential class of évolués, other Algerians whose perception of themselves and their country had been shaped by wartime experiences, and a body of religious reformers and teachers." There were, correspondingly, various forms of anti-colonial agitation unfolding during this period (the Young Algerians, who were liberal integrationists active in the reformist movement, which was active from the 1890s to WWI; the Star of North Africa, the first group to call for Algerian independence (in 1927, it was banned in 1929), led by Ahmed Messali Hadj; AUMA, which, under the leadership of Shaykh Abd al Hamid Ben Badis, began in the 1920s to call for a return to the Islamic roots of Algeria). Any inclinations the French government may have had towards negotiating with these groups were nipped in the bud by the intransigence and influence of the white minority, who exercised almost total control over the local administration and had friends in high places in Paris. (It came closs to happening in 1936, when the FEI (comprised of evolues, led by Ferhat Abbas) and the ulema gave their approval to the Violette Plan, which would have given citizenship to a number of Muslims; however, it failed due to opposition from the colons).

1954-1962: In various forms, the struggle for independence had continued, through the events of WWII (Algeria had been governed by the Vichy regime from 1940 to 1942, of course)--after the 1945 massacre at Setif (of anywhere between 6,000 to 45,000 civilians, after a march organized by Abbas's AML, which had the support of Hadj and the ulema, for national liberation had turned violent and killed 103 Europeans), affairs had arguably become irreversibly polarized. On November 1, 1954, the FLN launched an uprising which marked the beginning of the Algerian War of Independence. Their increasing success over the next two years was met with very harsh repression by the French (which began, in particular, after the FLN killed 123 Pied Noir civilians in August 1955). By 1956, many nationalist groups, spurred by the repression of the colonial state, had joined the FLN, (with the notable exception of Messali Hadj, whose feud with the FLN resulted in almost 5,000 deaths in "Cafe Wars" in France.) 1956 also saw the Battle of Algiers, as the FLN sought to take the fight to the cities. Though General Jacques Massu employed "whatever means necessary" to dismantle the FLN infrastructure in Algiers, the battle had demonstrated the fact of their popular support.

By 1957, the FLN had evolved into a force of 40,000--in general, they fought as a guerrilla force, and were hardly engaged conventionally. Even still, by 1956, the French had committed almost 400,000 troops against them (including about 170,000 Muslim Algerians)--counterinsurgency tactics, as expected, ranged from napalm and aerial bombardment to the mass relocation of Algerian peasants to "safe zones" (almost 2 million, in all!).

In 1958, the crisis in Algeria led to the overthrow of the French Fourth Republic in a coup d'etat--De Gaulle took over on May 29, 1958, after Parliament approved his candidacy. The idea was that he was the only man who could give direction to the French government (the French feared a repeat of the 1954 debacle in Indochina). Though upon taking power, he had reassured the pied noir population of his support (and had proposed a new constitution for the French Fifth Republic that included an integrated Algeria), events turned in the FLN's favor by 1959. De Gaulle, in September of that year, spoke of self-determination for the Algerian population.

In January 1960, the pieds noir in Algeria, feeling betrayed, launched an insurrection as the police and army stood by. Though it was eventually pacified, another insurrection in April 1961 (this time a "general's putsch", organized by some renegade units and colons vigilantes) threatened the government's writ in a very serious way. De Gaulle was now ready to abandon the pieds noirs. From this, independence became an inevitability: talks with the FLN re-opened in May 1961, a ceasefire was agreed to, effective March 19, 1962--in their final form, these Evian Accords legislated Algerian independence. A vicious three month campaign of pro-pieds noir terrorism notwithstanding (120 bombs a day planted by the OAS), on July 1, 1962, Algerians held a referendum on independence. The vote was nearly unanimous. A few days later, independent Algeria was established.

INDEPENDENCE AND AFTER (1962-2009)

1962-1965: In the immediate aftermath of independence, almost 10% of the population fled for Paris (" most of the 1,025,000 Pieds-Noirs, as well as 81,000 Harkis (pro-French Algerians serving in the French Army"). Appended to the devastation of war, this exodus left Algeria in tatters: "the exodus of the colons deprived the country of most of its managers, civil servants, engineers, teachers, physicians, and skilled workers--all occupations from which the Muslim population had been excluded or discouraged from pursuing by colonial policy. The homeless and displaced numbered in the hundreds of thousands, many suffering from illness, and some 70 percent of the work force was unemployed. Distribution of goods was at a standstill. Departing colons destroyed or carried off public records and utility plans, leaving public services in a shambles. "

FLN leader Ahmed Ben Bella took over as independent Algeria's first president. In his March Decrees of 1963, he announced a program to bring the abandoned land, houses, factories, etc., under state control; additionally, however, the spontaneous cooperatives that had emerged amidst the chaos were to be supported.

At the same time, under Ben Bella's authority, bureaucratic and dictatorial tendencies were clearly in evidence. As Vijay Prashad writes, "The 1963 Constitution of Algeria abolished all political parities except the FLN, and elevated the president of the FLN to the sole formulator of State policy. The energy of the Algerian Revolution would now be concentrated in the body of the president, who for the moment was Ben Bella."

Similarly, the FLN's somewhat opportunistic seizure of the leadership of the anti-colonial struggle reflected the tenuous nature of the alliances that had formed in opposition to the French. It was unsurprising, then, that these began to come apart at the seams, as the FLN one-party state congealed. Indeed, talk of securing the power of the vanguard party against those defying the "general interest" are best situated in the context of these anxieties. Thus, though Ben Bella had support in the National Assembly, he moved to repress other resistance to his rule (in the form of an opposition group eventually led by Ait Ahmed (the FFS-- a Berber Socialist party founded in 1963, and still in existence today); general opposition included also the communists, Messali Hadj, Mohamed Boudiaf of the PRS (or Socialist Revolution Party)). There were also regional insurgencies that needed supressing--in the Kabylie and Southern Sahara (These partly merged with what was left of the general resistance led by Ait Ahmed and Boudiaf).

Ben Bella attempted to further establish his authority by purging figures who were loyal to then minister of defense, Boumediene. Up until this point, it seems, Boumediene had been complicit in the construction of a one-party State, who sought to command the national liberation project in the name of the people (and, of course, against their explicit politics). Nonetheless, Ben Bella went too far, his attempts eventually backfiring in a bloodless military coup, on June 9, 1965. (According to Prashad, however, it was actually Ben Bella's rapproachment with the organized left, perhaps threatening the Army, that inspired to Boumediene to action).

1965-1978: Under Boumediene's authority, "the state dominated society and ruled in the name of socialism." Nationalization increasingly stood for anti-democratic control by the State. "The military played a larger role in society." Revenue from oil and gas reserves played a significant role in the charade of socialism from above. Politically, he cracked down further on the organized left. In all these senses and more, Prashad argues, by the late 1960s Algeria "had moved from an attempt to create a socialist state to a state capitalist one, with a parasitic bourgeoisie confident beside the strong arms of the military."

1978-1992: Boumediene died in December 1978, after which a struggle for succession ensued. As a compromise to the two principal candidates, a relative outsider (but also army man), Chadli Bendjedid, took power in February 1979. He moved to liberalize the economy; in his first Five Year Plan (1980-1984), for example, which turned many state-controlled industries over to private hands. Nonetheless, Algeria suffered from a serious economic crisis throughout the 80's--a state of affairs which deteriorated after a dramatic 1986 fall in the price of oil (oil prices had been declining throughout the decade).

Benjdedid also had to confront an increasingly militant Islamist opposition (can this be theorized as the inevitable outcome of the failure to meaningfully politicize the public?)--he did so by a combination of appeasement and repression: arresting prominent activists but also modifying family law in patriarchal ways. A wave of general outrage from 1985 to 1988 culminated in the the riots of October 1988 (which began as student and worker strikes). In the State's effort to re-assert its control through declaring a State of Emergency, about 500 were estimated killed and 3,000 arrested.

Widespread public agitation in the wake of this incident prompted Benjedid to move towards reform. A new constitution was promulgated in February 1989 (dropping "socialist" from the description of the Algerian state), liberalizing the political sphere but also curtailing women's rights. Local and provincial elections in June 1990 were won by the Islamists (the FIS), but largely because secular parties boycotted--in the aftermath, the FLN attempted to curb electoral laws in their favor, and declared martial law from June to September 1991 under a gov't of national reconciliation, after the FIS responded with a general strike and general agitation.

Nonetheless, the FIS contested the first round of the December 1991 elections, and won handily, trouncing the FLN. This prompted panic amongst the ruling elite, who feared an FIS takeover--on January 11, 1992, members of Benjedid's cabinet dissolved parliament and declared the elections null and void, cancelling the second round and banning all religious parties. Both the FIS and FLN clamored for a return to the electoral process, but police and troops countered with arrests and repression. On February 9th, 1992, a one year state of emergency was announced--Mohammed Boudiaf returned from exile to head the caretaker government.
Massive demonstrations erupted in cities.

1992-2009: All this, of course, set the stage for the Algerian civil war, a conflict which claimed more than 160,000 lives between 1992 and 2002, and pitted the MIA (guerillas in mountains) and the GIA (guerillas in towns)--whose stregnth peaked at 40,000 in 1994, which is also when the GIA and MIA split (which became the AIS), over the question of the latter's loyalty to the FIS (who were locked in soon-to-fail peace talks)--against the military. It was notoriously brutal, claiming the lives of significant numbers of civilians. Nonetheless, it began to subside in intensity after 1997, when the AIS opted for a unilateral ceasefire; the GIA was rent apart by internal divisions, though sporadic fighting continued until about 2002.

Elections in Algeria resumed in 1995 (parliamentary elections were held in 1997). Both of these were won by the Army's party, the National Democratic Rally (RND). In 1999, however, the FLN candidate, Abdelaziz Bouteflika, who had allied himself with Boumedienne at the time of Ben Bella's overthrow, won the presidency in ultimately uncontested elections (opposition candidates had pulled out, citing fraud concerns). Even still, in April 2004, he was re-elected, with 85% of the vote in an election deemed free and fair (though his opponents cite State control of the media). He is seeking a constitutional amendment, which would allow him to seek a third term.

The aim of this essay is to reply to these arguments. It starts not from the fantasies circulated about Islam in France but from reality. Islam is not the threat many would have us believe. What characterises any religion is its ambiguity. It is a tool of domination for those who run the system. But it can also be a tool of resistance for the oppressed. Islam is not homogenous. The state Islam of the Middle East should not be confused with that of French immigrants who are subjected to state racism. Olivier Roy, an authority in this matter, underlines the point:

Most of the young are radicalised in the West. Those drawn to radical Islamism are mostly ‘born again Muslims’.⁶ They have become Islamised in the West. What they contest is something very modern: US imperialism, capitalism, etc. In a word, they have taken over domain of intellectual debate which 30 years ago belonged to the proletarian left, 20 years ago to ‘direct action’ and a century ago to the ‘Bonnot Gang’,⁷ etc. We are talking here of a domain of militant debate abandoned by the extreme left. It is the only one available to these young people who wish to ‘break’ the system.⁸

We need a coherent left wing answer to the discrimination from which Muslims, and more particularly Muslim women, suffer. Socialists’ aim is to combat racist divisions and to strengthen the unity of all those whose interest it is to change the world. The real enemy is the system, capitalism, which exploits and oppresses the vast majority of the planet. We need to unite the majority of the exploited and oppressed, no matter their religion or sex, if we are to give ourselves the means to transform the world. In constructing this unity we can forge a genuine political alternative (one which Islam does not offer). It can be the motor for radically overthrowing this society.

ALBANIA

population: 3,619,778 (July 2008 est.)
religion: Muslim 70%, Albanian Orthodox 20%, Roman Catholic 10%
literacy: 98.7%
GDP by sector: agriculture 20.6%; industry 19.9%; services 59.5% (2008 est.)
labor force: 1.09 million (not including 352,000 emigrant workers)
labor force by occupation: agriculture 58%; industry 15%; services 27% (September 2006 est.)

1385-1912: Ottoman rule in the Balkan region can be dated to the Battle of Savra, when they routed Serbian forces in the region, and "the principal Albanian clans swore fealty to the Sultan." Though tribal chiefs retained their property and positions, they had to pay tribute and provide an auxiliary army to the Sultan upon request. Even so, in the 15th century, Albania saw fierce resistance to Ottoman rule. Under the leadership of Skanderberg (who, as the Muslim Iskander, had been a prominent Ottoman commander before converting and turning against the Turks), they fought against the Ottomans throughout the mid and late-1400s. Albania's flag today bears Skanderberg's family crest. The rentrenchment of Ottoman rule saw a mass exodus of Albanians to Italy; a community that would be important in the movement toward Albanian nation-hood. Throughout the five hundred year occupation, the Ottomans relied upon a never-fully-successful structure of governance, patronizing individual lords over others (with land, etc.--much like any other Empire at this time). "As the centuries passed, however, Ottoman rulers lost the capacity to command the loyalty of local pashas, who governed districts on the empire's fringes, which threatened stability in the region. The Ottoman rulers of the nineteenth century struggled to shore up central authority, introducing reforms aimed at harnessing unruly pashas and checking the spread of nationalist ideas"

1912-1914: In 1912, after a major uprising against the Ottoman Empire (there had been many others preceding this one, as well), on the eve of the First Balkan War (1912-1913: Serbia, Montenegro, Greece, and Bulgaria against the Ottomans). Given the anxiety, for Albanians and their foreign patrons, that these powers might come to control Albania, independence was declared against the claims of Serbia, Montenegro and Greece to their territory. After the Second Balkan War in 1913, however, parts of what was considered Albania proper was partitioned between Serbia, Montenegro, and Greece (particularly the Serbs)--as per the wishes of the Great powers, a principality was established in this smaller territory under the sovereignty of a German prince in February 1914. However, by September, a revolt established the authority of a local Muslim warrior, Haji Kamal.

1914-1919: As World War I broke out, however, Albania was quickly invaded by Montenegro, Serbia, Austria-Hungary, Greece, Italy, and France. At the War's end, Serb and Italian forces remained in control of much of the territory--but resistance eventually pushed these forces beyond what are today considered the borders of Albania (with the help of US influence--see below)

1919-1939: Though at the Paris Peace Conference in 1920, Albania was virtually carved up and given to the competing claimants, intervention by Woodrow Wilson saved the fledgling nation-state (though its borders remained unclear, it was admitted to the League of Nations in December 1920). Over the next few years, a struggle for power ensued (via apparently democratic institutions--assemblies, elections), all exacerbated by the fact that the Yugoslavs and the Italians were still both seeking to dominate the country. After defeating the more radical Fan Noli, who had taken power on an anti-feudal platform in June 1924, Ahmed Bay Zogu emerged victorious in December of that same year. He sought dictatorial powers (in 1928, Parliament was dissolved), against the nominally democratic provisions of the constitution. Though patronized by the Yugoslavs, he soon looked instead to Mussolini for support. What followed was harsh and repressive rule, ensured by military men in his pay. Over the latter decade of his rule, though, Zogu slowly fell out with Mussolini.

1939-1944: Mussolini invaded the country in 1939; for the next five years, Albania is under Axis occupation. With him, Mussolini brought 100,000 troops, and 10,000 Italian colonists (the purpose being to integrate the country into Greater Italia). While he initially received some support for his success in expanding the borders of Albania to Yugoslav- and Greek- occupied territories (Kosovo, for example), by mid-1942 the newly-founded Communist Party (led by Enver Hoxha) had begun to mobilize the population to resist. In October 1942 the Party organized a popular front organization, the National Liberation Movement (and the National Liberation Army), to lead the resistance. After Italy's surrender in mid-1943, the Italian establishment in Albania buckled: the Communists took control of most of Albania's south, though an anti-Communist, conservative "resistance" Balli Kombetar held Vlore. By September 1943, though, the Germans had sent paratroopers to take control of Tirana before the resistance was able to--the guerrillas were driven back. Though many Balli Kombetar units collaborated with the Nazi occupiers, the 70,000-strong NLA eventually liberated the country in November 1944 (the only East European country to do so without Soviet assistance; furthermore, Albania was the only country occupied by the Axis powers that ended the war with a higher population of Jews than it started with).

1944-1953: Enver Hoxha, as Secretary General of the Party of Labor (the Communist Party) is the de facto leader of the country after a few years of political turmoil, following the war (most of the interwar elite is forcibly exiled after the end of the Nazi occupation). These changes see a shift in authority in country from the North (the Ghegs) to the South (Tosks). In December December 1945, a new people's assembly is elected; amidst allegations of voter intimidation and terror tactics, 93% of the voters choose the Democratic Front ticket. In January 1946, this assembly convenes and annuls the monarchy. After months of debate, they also adopt a constitution modeled on the Yugoslav and Soviet examples. Hoxha becomes prime minister, defence minister, foreign minister, and the army's commander-in-chief. By early 1946, moderates have allegedly been purged. Economically, by December 1944, the State moves to take control of much of industry, trade, as well as expropriating all German- and Italian- owned property. In August 1945, significant agrarian reforms, which had been stifled in the past, are carried out. By 1946, a system of central planning is in place. Significant spending on education and health also improves social indicators considerably--most notably, illiteracy declines from about 85% to 31% in just five years.

All the while, tensions with Yugsolavia (which is expelled from the Comintern in 1948) begin to build, particularly over the question of Kosovo (which is reincorporated into Yugoslavia in January 1945). Despite the signing of a treaty of friendship and cooperation in 1946, Hoxha and his allies (in particular, Nako Spiru, the head of the planning commission) begin to believe that Yugoslavia is exploiting Albania, economically (by paying too little for raw materials, etc.). In 1947, despite some reciprocal purgues within the respective governments, Yugoslavia attempts to buy off the support of an increasingly skeptical Communist party by extending credits to the Albanian State; Spiru, for his part, proposes a path less dependent on the Yugsolav economy, but is driven to commit suicide for lack of support within the cadre. In 1947, Albania is not even invited to the Cominform meetings; Yugoslavia represents them, instead. Stalin is even reported as saying that Yugoslavia should "swallow" Albania.

However, things change dramatically in 1948. Though the pro-Yugoslav faction had held sway in Albania until this point, the dramatic fall-out between Tito and Stalin led to an about-face in Albanian policy towards Yugoslavia, as well. "The move surely saved Hoxha from a firing squad and as surely doomed Xoxe to one. Three days later, Tirana gave the Yugoslav advisers in Albania 48 hours to leave the country, rescinded all bilateral economic agreements with its neighbor, and launched a virulent anti-Yugoslav propaganda blitz that transformed Stalin into an Albanian national hero, Hoxha into a warrior against foreign aggression, and Tito into an imperialist monster."

Xoxe was soon purged (executed in May 1949, after a secret trial), as Albania moved more squarely into the Soviet orbit (despite not being contiguous, of course). "The subsequent anti-Titoist purges in Albania brought the liquidation of 14 members of the party's 31 person Central Committee and 32 of the 109 People's Assembly deputies. Overall, the party expelled about 25 % of its membership. Yugoslavia responded with a propaganda counterattack, canceled its treaty of friendship with Albania, and in 1950 withdrew its diplomatic mission from Tirana."

1953-1970: After Stalin's death in 1953, however, this unsteady skein of alliances shifts. As Nikita Kruschev moves to reconcile Moscow with Belgrade, Hoxha grows increasingly worried, defending Stalin's legacy and denouncing the rhetoric of "peaceful coexistence" and "many different socialisms." Various events in this vein set the stage for rapproachment with China--in the aftermath of the making public of the Sino-Soviet split in June 1960, Albania sides with the Chinese. In November of that same year, at a Moscow conference, Hoxha denounces the Soviet Union (and, in particular, their failure to deliver grain to Albania). Hoxha's third Five-Year plan of 1961-1965 allocated 54% of all investment to industry, directly in opposition to Kruschev's plans to make Albania into an agarian satellite of the Soviet Union. However, because of the withdrawal of much of Soviet aid (and the insufficiency of Chinese replacements), Hoxha was forced to launch an austerity program in 1962. Despite the replacement of Krushchev (with Breshnev), relations between Tirana and Moscow continued to worsen--after the 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia, Albania withdrew from the Soviet alliance.

On the social and economic front, the pattern was similar: aggressive interventions in property regimes had destroyed old kinship patterns; women were encouraged to work, to compensate for labor shortages. In 1967, a campaign was launched to make Albania athiest; religious institutions were seized and converted into gyms, warehouses, and workshops.

1970-1983: Albania's relations with China begin to deterioriate, as the latter begins to emerge from its international isolation. Tirana, for its part, also broadens its contacts with the non-Communist world, opening trade negotiations with France, Italy, and the recently independent African and Asian states. Especially after Nixon's visit to the PRC in 1972 (completely ignored by State media in Tirana), Hoxha tried hard to diversify Albania's economic and political ties. By 1978, after Mao's death, China ended its assistance programs to Albania.

At this stage, Hoxha's health was failing, as well. A second Stalinist constitution in 1976 was an attempt to institutionalize his vision for Albania, in the hope that it would outlive his death: The document "guaranteed" Albanians freedom of speech, the press, organization, association, and assembly but subordinated these rights to the individual's duties to society as a whole. The constitution enshrined in law the idea of autarky and prohibited the government from seeking financial aid or credits or from forming joint companies with partners from capitalist or revisionist communist countries. The constitution's preamble also boasted that the foundations of religious belief in Albania had been abolished."

1983-1985: By 1983, Ramiz Alia had replaced Hoxha, who had moved into semi-retirement. The succession was bloody; Hoxha had overlooked his long-standing comrade-in-arms Mehmet Shehu, who was instead purged, along with his family and relatives (Shehu allegedly committed suicide in December 1981, but Hoxha may have had him killed). "When Hoxha died on April 11, 1985, he left Albania a legacy of repression, technological backwardness, isolation, and fear of the outside world. Alia succeeded to the presidency and became legal secretary of the APL two days later."

1985-1997: Despite Alia's own intentions, it was clear from happenings in Eastern Europe and elsewhere that change was on its way. In 1991, owing to pressure from workers and students, the country held its first pluralist elections in March. Though the Communists won, a general strike two months later collapsed the government. In new elections in March 1992, after an interim government had been in power for almost a year, the Democratic Party defeated the Communists.

1997-2005: Albania's transition to a liberal democratic order was marred by the collapse of several pyramid schemes in January 1997 (in which around 70% of the country's population had invested!). The schemes, which were actually fronts for money laundering and arms dealing, were no longer able to pay out, once the majority of Albanians became involved. As a result, the country descended into "anarchy": by March 1997, the month in which President Sali Berisha declared a State of Emergency, the protests had turned more violent, especially in the South of the country. From late-March to August, an Italian-led mission of 7,000 UN peacekeepers were called to intervene. In elections in June and July, the Socialist Party replaced the Democrats, with Rexhep Meidani as President and Fatos Nano as Prime Minister (though he was replaced by Pandeli Majko in 1998, who was, in turn, replaced by Ilir Meta in November 1999) . A new constitution was approved, despite an opposition boycott, by popular referendum in 1998. In October 2000, the Democratic Party lost elections at the local level, as well. Parliamentary elections in 2001 were also won by the Socialists.

2005-2009: After 8 years of Socialist Party rule, a pro-Berisha coalition returned to power in elections in 2005 (Berisha is today the Prime Minister). Moves are being made, now, to integrate Albania with greater Europe (NATO and the EU).

AFGHANISTAN

population: 32,738,376 (July 2008 est.)
ethnic groups: Pashtun 42%, Tajik 27%, Hazara 9%, Uzbek 9%, Aimak 4%, Turkmen 3%, Baloch 2%, other 4%
languages: Afghan Persian or Dari (official) 50%, Pashto (official) 35%, Turkic languages (primarily Uzbek and Turkmen) 11%, 30 minor languages (primarily Balochi and Pashai) 4%, much bilingualism
religion: Sunni Muslim 80%, Shia Muslim 19%, other 1%
literacy: 28.1% (male 43.6%, female 12.6%)
GDP composition: agriculture 38%, industry 24%, services 38%.
labor force, by sector: agriculture 80%, industry 10%, services 10% (2004 est.)


1747-1823: Ahmed Shah Durrani creates the Durrani Empire, after the end of Nadir Shah's reign over Persia. Expanded east, sacking Delhi in 1757 (where he agreed to leave the weakened Mughals in power "as long as Shah Alam II acknowledged Ahmad Shah's suzerainty over Punjab, Sindh, and Kashmir"). Later forced to confront the expanding powers of the Maratha Empire at the Third Battle of Panipat in 1761. "The victory at Panipat was the high point of Ahmad Shah's -- and Afghan -- power." Already, soon after, he was losing control of Punjab to the Sikhs--he took Amritsar, sacked Lahore in 1762 and massacred thousands of inhabitants, but could not subjugate the resistance in Punjab. In the North, as well, compelled to negotiate borders with the Uzbek Emir of Bukhara. After Ahmed Shah's death in 1772, the Empire fell apart--his successors failed to stitch together competing tribes, and by 1818 controlled only Kabul and surrounding areas.

1823-1839: The Barkazai Dynasty takes power after battling the Durrani Empire (Shuja Shah had assasinated the elder brother of Dost Muhammad Khan, triggering the feud). Dost Muhammad Khan rules from 1826-1839; initially receptive to British overtures, but following their entreaties to him to keep to himself and abandon hopes of retaking Peshawar from the Sikhs, he renews relations with the Russians.

1838-1842: Fearful that Tsarist moves (1813 Treaty of Gulistan, 1826 Treaty of Turkmanchai, and other advances) indicated that the Russians were preparing for an invasion of British India, via Afghanistan, the British launched the First Anglo-Afghan War--an attempt to impose a reliable puppet regime under the leadership of Shuja Shah (who had ruled the Durrani Empire till 1809, and tried to retake it from Dost Muhammad Khan in 1834--under the cover of this battle the Sikhs had taken Peshawar). But by 1842 they were forced to retreat--a retreat which ended in a complete massacre of the occupying forces (of roughly thirty thousand personnel, only one man escaped).

1842-1878: After these troops were expelled by Mohammad Akbar Khan, Afghanistan was ruled again by his father, Dost Mohammad Khan till 1863. After his death, his sons Sher Ali Khan and Mohammad Afzal Khan who feuded over the kingdom until Afzal's death in 1867. (Akbar Khan had died in1845, possibly poisoned by his father, who feared his ambitions).

1878-1880: Though the 1855 Treaty of Peshawar had cemented British support for Sher Ali Khan in Afghanistan (the British saw his emirate as a buffer state), Sher Ali Khan grew distrustful at the weakness of British support, which only went so far. Sher Ali Khan's 1878 refusal to accept a British diplomatic mission triggered the Second Anglo-Afghan war. In May 1879, Sher Ali Khan's successor and son Muhammad Yaqub Khan signed the Treaty of Gandamak with the British, relinquishing control of foreign affairs to the British (and ceding Quetta and other frontier areas--the British had already taken Baluchistan in 1859, leaving Afghanistan land-locked). Though the British more-or-less withdrew, further uprisings followed--though the were unsuccessful, Yaqub Khan was suspected of complicity, and thus replaced by his cousin Abdur Rahman Khan in 1880.

1880-1919: Abdur Rahman Khan answered the prayers of the British, respecting their diktats. He united the disparate tribes, as well as tried to "modernize" Afghanistan (his vizier, Mahmud Tarzi, was important in this process). Under his rule, the Durand Line was drawn in 1893. His son, Habibullah Khan, who peacefully succeeded him in 1901, then ruled till 1919. (In 1907, an Anglo-Russian Convention marked the end of "The Great Game").

1919-1929: After Habibullah Khan was assasinated on a hunting trip, his third son, Amanullah Khan took power. Amanullah, under the influence of Tarzi (who was his father-in-law), introduced further reforms (women's rights, educational rights, Western dress, etc.). However, to stem intrigue in his own court, he crossed the Durand Line in May 1919, which trigged the Third Anglo-Afghan War. After recovering from defeats in the initial skirmishes, the superior technology of the British told--indeed, this war saw the inaugural aerial bombardment of Afghanistan. The fighting concluded in three months, at which point the British dictated the terms of the Rawalpindi Agreement in August 1919. Amanullah eventually succumbed in 1929--after he abdicated, his brother was deposed by the Tajik Habibullah Kalani, who ruled from January to October.

1929-1973: Nadir Shah, who had served as Amanullah Khan's minister of war until he quit in protest at the reforms, toppled Habibullah Kalani in October (the Pashtun tribesmen were unwilling to submit to a Tajik king). He abolished most of Amanullah's reforms. After his assasination by a college student in 1933, his 19 yr-old son, Mohammad Zahir Shah took control (though Nadir Shah's three younger brothers formed an influential clique of advisers around Zahir Shah). Some limited steps towards political liberalization were made (a legislature, education for women, etc.). In 1953, power shifted away from the uncles to the younger generation of the family--Zahir Shah's cousin, Mohammad Daud Khan, became Prime Minister in 1953. He concentrated much of his energies on the issue of Pashtunistan, resulting in numerous skirmishes with Pakistan on the border in the 1950s and 1960s (in 1962, Daud sent Afghan troops into Bajaur). He resigned, however, in 1963--the King had requested his resignation due to the deleterious effects of his Pashtunistan policies. In 1964, a new, democratic constitution was passed--relatively fair elections were held in 1965 and 1969, though the country could not yet be said to be a functioning democracy, in any sense (still closer to an absolute monarchy than a constitutional one).

1973-1978: In 1973, Daud took advantage of the King's absence to launch a bloodless coup. His rule was brutish, marked by harsh repression of dissident politics (he replaced Zahir Shah's constitutional set-up with a largely nominated loya jirga; in 1977, a presidential, one-party system was approved by said assembly). Though he didn't pursue the issue of Pashtunistan, he distanced himself from the USSR ("At first Daoud’s dictatorship leaned towards the Soviet Union in foreign policy and the Communists supported him. By early 1978, though, Daoud was swinging back towards the US and he had the main Communist leaders arrested.")

1978-1979: The PDPA, which had been founded in 1965 by Nur Mohammad Taraki, Hafizullah Amin, and Babrak Karmal, had been marred by a serious internal schism: Taraki and the Khalq faction represented the more radical arm, committed to a Marxist-Leninst vision of revolution carried out by educated cadres, whereas Karmal and the Parcham faction believed that the underdeveloped character of Afghanistan meant that the emphasis should instead be on building a federation of national and democratic forces. Though they split in the late 60s, the USSR compelled them to reconcile in 1977. In April 1978 (the Saur revolution), the PDPA organized a coup, led by Hafizullah Amin--Daud and most of his family was killed in the uprising. While in power, they were ambitiously secular, and moved to waive farmers' debts and nationalize agricultural resources. Nonetheless, "[though they] had support in the cities [they had] very little in the countryside, where 90 percent of Afghans lived," and soon confronted peasant rebellions led by village mullahs. It was brutal in repressing this opposition (including opposition led by the soon-to-be-purged Parcham faction)--thousands of political prisoners were held and executed in the months leading up to the Soviet invasion in 1979. In September 1979, Amin took over after a palace shootout in which Taraki was killed. (There was also, of course, the small matter of pre-emptive American funding for mujahideen groups, admitted later by Brzezinski.)

(A different view, articulated by Parenti: "“It was a totally indigenous happening. Not even the CIA blamed the USSR for it,” writes John Ryan, a retired professor at the University of Winnipeg, who was conducting an agricultural research project in Afghanistan at about that time. The Taraki government proceeded to legalize labor unions, and set up a minimum wage, a progressive income tax, a literacy campaign, and programs that gave ordinary people greater access to health care, housing, and public sanitation. Fledgling peasant cooperatives were started and price reductions on some key foods were imposed.")

1979-1992: The USSR invaded in December 1979 to prop up the teetering, besieged government (only after months of PDPA requests had gone largely unheeded). There was some suspsicion that Amin was untrustworthy (even that he was a CIA agent!). Kamral was installed as President, the Khalq faction was purged. "The mullahs had been saying that the Communists were Russian puppets. Now everyone could see that this was true." The phases of the Russian Operation:

• Decmeber 1979-February 1980: Occupation of major urban centers, military bases, strategic installations.
  
• March 1980-April 1985: "The Soviet armed forces held the cities and patrolled the highways with tanks. But in the countryside they came under sustained attack. Here their main tactics were land mines, helicopter gunships, bombers and free fire zones." The resistance was waging a guerilla war, and winning.
  
• April 1985-January 1987: Gorbachev came to power in Moscow, declared his impatience with the war. Gradually the USSR shifted the burden of fighting onto the Afghan army.
• January 1987-February 1989: A general peaceful withdrawal of Soviet troops, leaving behind a strained DRA to fight the mujahideen.

In 1986, Mohammad Najibullah was elected President, in place of Kamral. Yet, despite a new constitution and a policy of national reconciliation, insurgents did not negotiate with the new government and the war raged on. Though the Soviets withdrew, they supported Najibullah until the fall of the USSR in 1991.

1992-1996: As a result of the war, "about two thirds of the population were killed, wounded or forced to flee." In 1992, mujahideen entered Kabul, and Najibullah was forced to flee--he sought sanctuary in the UN compound. A war for Kabul ensued, which brutalized the capital: "Kabul had survived the Soviet occupation without being bombed. Now the city was flattened as competing Islamist parties shelled the working class areas. Kabul looked like a German or Japanese city after the Second World War."

1996-2001: The Taliban won the war for Kabul in 1996, after having been patronized by the ISI beginning in 1994. "The soldiers were boys from the religious schools in the Afghan refugee camps in Pakistan. Taliban simply means “the students”. The boys had spent most of their lives not in traditional villages but in that very 20th century institution, the refugee camp." ("The Taliban were driven to emphasise their Islamic credentials partly because everyone knew they were in fact clients of the Pakistani and American governments. Their public executions in football stadiums were barbaric but also welcome to many Afghans. The Taliban enforced law and order, they were more honest than the commanders and people hoped for security. Their odd and un-Afghan Islam went too far for most people. So they had little passionate support but a good deal of toleration in Pushtun areas from people who felt they were better than the alternatives.") Furthermore, "the central ideology of the Taliban was Pushtun chauvinism. The Taliban were exclusively Pushtun. Since the 1920s Afghan politics had always been polarised on religious and class grounds. The Communists, for instance, had always included Pushtuns, Tajiks, Uzbeks and people from other groups, and so had the Islamists. The various factions, too, had been mixed. Ethnicity was not trivial, but it was not the main basis of politics. Now that Communist and Islamist politics had betrayed people, ethnicity was all that was left for political organising."

2001-2009: America invades and occupies Afghanistan in October 2001, with the assistance of NATO, deposing the Taliban. Karzai is installed in December 2001: "He was an American client but not simply a puppet. His government relied on three real sources of power. One was the US army. The other was the Northern Alliance, who were willing to put up with the Americans but expected them to leave eventually. The third was a certain degree of popular support in Pushtun areas... The explanation for the lack of resistance is simple. Afghans had endured 23 years of war. That meant death but also desperate insecurity, a life of all against all. There was little passionate support for the Taliban or the Islamists. People were willing to settle for almost anything not to live in perpetual fear." In 2002, a loya jirga affirms Karzai as interim president. In 2003, a constitutional loya jirga is convened, which ratifies a new constitution in January 2004. In elections held in October 2004, Karzai wins and becomes President ("The elections in 2004 were a clear demonstration of the willingness to give peace a chance. The Americans forbade any credible candidate from running against Karzai for president. But Afghans turned out in very large numbers to vote for him and for parliamentary representatives.") Legislative elections are held in September 2005. The national assembly sits in December 2005, for the first time in 32 years. Despite all this, of course, the same patchwork of warlords and criminals that prevailed earlier are reported to retain effective control over the country--via these democratic institutions. As of 2007, significant resistance is reported to have re-emerged (called the Taliban, though this is probably more provocative than accurate; at the very least, the resistance is indigenous and largely a result of the failures of the present administration)--with very recent reports suggesting they control wide swathes of the country. President Obama, of course, has promised to commit more troops in order to win the "good war." Perhaps the abiding lesson, though, is that "Afghanistan is one of the few places in the world where progressives and the left have consistently lined up with brutal imperial mass murder. That is why the right wing is strong in Afghanistan." (Again, the Parenti view: "One might agree with John Ryan who argued that if Washington had left the Marxist Taraki government alone back in 1979, “there would have been no army of mujahideen, no Soviet intervention, no war that destroyed Afghanistan, no Osama bin Laden, and no September 11 tragedy.” But it would be asking too much for Washington to leave unmolested a progressive leftist government that was organizing the social capital around collective public needs rather than private accumulation.")

With the current economic crisis we can now see what Thatcherism has wrought given its incubation period is over and the system is fully matured. Latvia and Lithuania are under great stress. Society and economy have been under a full spectrum assault. There has been no plan to develop Latvia’s economy, with Lithuania’s being somewhat better given they retained some industry. Regressive taxes have been increased, while areas of speculation remain relatively untaxed and undeterred. Credit has disappeared and will not return, and should not return in its old form. As people lose their jobs or fear losing them, the government has reduced the duration of unemployment benefits in Latvia and have displayed a callous disregard for labor. These events have combined to leave Latvia and Lithuania vulnerable to further societal disintegration. This week’s protests represented fear and anger over what has transpired since 1991, combined with an idealistic attempt to reconstitute society and recapture the goals of 1991. The protest in Latvia, which I attended, was well organized. Great attention was given to creating a positive, collective venue through which to voice their concerns and frustrations. From the start speakers spoke to Latvians tradition of measured, thoughtful, and disciplined protest. National choirs provided both a calming tone and reminder of the cultural equity stored among Latvians.

Israel's escalation of violence since the staged Annapolis "peace conference" in November has been consistent with its policy of illegal, often deadly collective punishment -- in violation of international conventions. Israeli military strikes on Gaza have killed hundreds of Palestinians since then with unwavering White House approval; in 2007 alone the ratio of Palestinians to Israelis killed was 40 to 1, up from 4 to 1 during the period from 2000 to 2005.

Well, many of them are in agreement with the goal of weakening Hamas, very simply. I mean, in Egypt, this is a domestic security issue. Hamas is connected to the Muslim Brotherhood. The Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt is the main opposition movement. It couldn’t be simpler. The same is true in Jordan: the Muslim Brotherhood is the main—or it is actually the main opposition movement in Jordan. And so forth. So, for these regimes, keeping their chairs, keeping their thrones, keeping their money, their power, is the only thing that’s really important. Their people? They don’t care about their people.

The US first became heavily involved in Sudan in the 1970s, forging an alliance with the rightward-turning dictatorship of Jafaar Nimeiri, who Washington came to see as a bulwark against the Soviet Union, Libya and the region’s moves towards pan-Arabism.
George H. W. Bush, then the US ambassador to the UN, shared satellite imagery with the Nimeiri regime indicating possible oil reserves in the country’s south, and obtained approval for the US-based energy giant Chevron to do the exploratory work.
The Sudanese government’s desire for the oil money to flow into the central government’s coffers, instead of to the country’s south, reignited a north-south civil war, which would last 22 years and take some 2 million lives, mostly civilians in the south.
(...) With Khartoum having demonstrated its acquiescence towards Washington’s dictates by being the only Arab country to support the Camp David peace agreement between Israel and Egypt in 1978, Sudan by the early 1980s was receiving more economic and military aid from the US than any other country in sub-Saharan Africa.
(...) As a series of famines beset Sudan in the ’80s, Washington demonstrated the depth of its purported humanitarian concern by using its influence to ensure, with few exceptions, that Western aid organisations did not operate in rebel-controlled zones — keeping food provisions from starving people who lived in the “wrong place”.
(...) In fact, though the US alliance with Sudan cooled after Nimeiri’s overthrow in 1985, and broke down entirely subsequent to Khartoum’s verbal backing of Iraq in the 1990-91 Gulf War, Washington’s disregard for Sudanese lives has continued unimpeded to the present.
(...) Soaring rhetoric aside, the US cannot even be bothered to fully fund humanitarian operations in Darfur. In June, the World Food Program had to cut its aid flights to the region due to a lack of funding from wealthy donor nations.

Since 1985, successive Bolivian governments turned it into a laboratory for neoliberal shock therapy. Privatisation of mines, labour casualisation and market deregulation led to a massive fragmentation and dispersal of the militant miner’s movement shattering any real resistance in the urban areas to the plundering of the country’s economy and resources. In the early 1990s, indigenous communities from the east — marching in defence of land and for a new constituent assembly to found a new, inclusive Bolivia — marked a revitalisation of indigenous movements. Many ex-miners and Aymara indigenous people, who in the ’80s sought out a livelihood growing coca following the mine privatisation and drought wave in the west of the country, found new political homes in the powerful cocalero unions.

In Gaza, the Jewish settlers numbered only 8,000 in 2005 compared with 1.4 million local residents. Yet the settlers controlled 25% of the territory, 40% of the arable land and the lion's share of the scarce water resources. Cheek by jowl with these foreign intruders, the majority of the local population lived in abject poverty and unimaginable misery. Eighty per cent of them still subsist on less than $2 a day. The living conditions in the strip remain an affront to civilised values, a powerful precipitant to resistance and a fertile breeding ground for political extremism.
(...) In August 2005 a Likud government headed by Ariel Sharon staged a unilateral Israeli pullout from Gaza, withdrawing all 8,000 settlers and destroying the houses and farms they had left behind. Hamas, the Islamic resistance movement, conducted an effective campaign to drive the Israelis out of Gaza. The withdrawal was a humiliation for the Israeli Defence Forces. To the world, Sharon presented the withdrawal from Gaza as a contribution to peace based on a two-state solution. But in the year after, another 12,000 Israelis settled on the West Bank, further reducing the scope for an independent Palestinian state. Land-grabbing and peace-making are simply incompatible. Israel had a choice and it chose land over peace.
(...) Yet Israel has never in its entire history done anything to promote democracy on the Arab side and has done a great deal to undermine it. Israel has a long history of secret collaboration with reactionary Arab regimes to suppress Palestinian nationalism. Despite all the handicaps, the Palestinian people succeeded in building the only genuine democracy in the Arab world with the possible exception of Lebanon. In January 2006, free and fair elections for the Legislative Council of the Palestinian Authority brought to power a Hamas-led government. Israel, however, refused to recognise the democratically elected government, claiming that Hamas is purely and simply a terrorist organisation.