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.