November 1, 1954: Toussaint Rouge, The Algerian War Begins

Sixty-three years ago today, a day remembered as Toussaint Rouge, "Red All Saints' Day," the Algerian National Liberation Front (FLN) staged 30 or more raids against French military and police posts throughout Algeria. It heralded the beginning of the eight year war for Algerian independence, a war which would bring down the Fourth French Republic and inaugurate the Fifth with the return of Charles de Gaulle, finally leading to Algerian independence in 1962.

The war, which saw hundreds of thousands of casualties, remains an enormous event in Algerian national consciousness. Though ailing and rarely appearing in public, President Abdelaziz Bouteflika is a living reminder of those days when most of the other historic leaders have passed on. Today the median age in Algeria is in the 20s; few Algerians today witnessed the War of Independence.

Bouteflika's 80th Birthday Passed, With No Sign of Bouteflika

On March 3, Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika turned 80 years old. He made no public appearances. Recall that a few weeks ago, Bouteflika canceled a visit by Angela Merkel because he had bronchitis (or perhaps "bronchitis").

This time there was no mention of bronchitis to explain Bouteflika's nonappearance; appearances have been rare since his stroke in 2013 (despite election to another term after that), and when he is seen, he is wheelchair-bound.

The ruling FLN Party has announced that Bouteflika is fine. Any questions?

Bouteflika Cancels Merkel Meeting Due to "Bronchitis"

Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika has postponed a planned meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel due to "acute bronchitis." Bouteflika, who will turn 80 next week, has been confone to a wheelchair since a serious stroke in 2013, despite which he ran for and won a fourth term in 2014. He rarely appears in public, and then often with his much younger brother Said, 21 years his junior, who is seen as a power behind the throne and possible successor.

In recent years, the elder Bouteflika has frequently spent time in France for medical treatment, not always publicized. Since outmaneuvering and ousting his rivals in the security services, Algerians have tolerated his fragile health due to lack of a clear alternative. But there is a nervous uncertainty with every sign of worsening health, including the "acute  bronchitis."

Fidel Castro and the Middle East

With Nasser

Fidel Castro came to power in 1959, a critical juncture in the decolonization of the Third World, and had considerable success in portraying himself as a champion of decolonization efforts worldwide.

Castro was no romantic hero, but indeed a brutal dictator despite some beneficial reforms on the domestic front, and a man who committed Cuban troops to various adventures in Latin America and a bloody war in Angola. But he cultivated many admirers, and some emulators, in the Middle East.

Since 1959 is now nearly 60 years ago, it may be worthwhile to take a moment to recall the context. In 1955-56, Gamal Abdel Nasser had nationalized the Suez Canal, accepted the Soviet offer to build the Aswan High Dam, and resisted the British-French-Israeli intervention in the Suez War.

Four years before the Cuban Revolution, in 1955, the Afro-Asiatic Conference at Bandung had laid the groundwork for what would come to be called the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM). When the NAM was formed at Belgrade in 1961 Cuba, though increasingly aligned with the Soviet Bloc, was a charter member, as was Egypt.

In 1958, following US and British interventions in Lebanon and Jordan (to block unrestblamed by the West on Nasserist propaganda), Egypt and Syria united in the United Arab Republic, creating the alignments Malcolm Kerr branded "The Arab Cold War."

Also in 1958, four years into the Algerian War of Independence against France, French nationalist generals rebelled against the Fourth Republic; out of the crisis came the creation of the Fifth Republic under Charles de Gaulle.

It was in this context that Castro entered Havana on January 1, 1959. After he defeated the US-backed exile landings at the Bay of Pigs in 1961, he came to be seen as a Third World hero who had defied the United States, as Nasser had defied Britain and France.

With the rapid decolonization and independence of British, French, and Belgian colonies in Africa, in 1960-62, Castro and Che Guevara, like Nasser, saw Africa as a fertile ground for asserting influence, beginning with the Congo.

With Algeria's Bouteflika

With Algerian independence in 1962, Cuba offered training to the new Algerian Army, after supporting it in the independence struggle. Cuba also supported, via Egypt, the fight for independence for South Yemen, which would lead to the only Marxist-Leninist state in the Arab world. With the formation of the PLO, Cuba became an early supporter, providing training to Palestinian guerrillas.

With Qadhafi

With the Libyan Revolution in 1969, Cuba found a fellow apostle of Third World Revolution in Mu‘ammar Qadhafi, and he, like the Cubans, had a preoccupation with Sub-Saharan African movements.

Castro, with his long ties to Algeria, joined the Algerians in supporting the POLISARIO Front against Morocco in the Western Sahara.

With Saddam

With the death of Nasser, Egypt's tilt to the West, and the decline of leftist liberation movements and the rise of Islamist ones, not to mention Cuban military over-commitments in Central America and Angola, Cuban influence in the Middle East  was much reduced. Castro even criticized the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

With the fall of the Soviet Union, Cuba's foreign adventures were much reduced, and limited to supporting Latin American leftists like Venezuela's Hugo Chavez. Castro opposed Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait.

In the Middle East of today, with ISIS and similar movements long having replaced revolutionaries of the left, the 1960s seem a long time ago. But Algeria, one of Cuba's early allies and one still led by Abdelaziz Bouteflika, who had known Castro since the early sixties, has declared eight days of mourning for the Cuban leader.

As Yannayer Approaches, Algeria to Make Tamazight Official

You may think the holidays are over, but don't forget the traditional Berber agricultural New Year, Yannayer, usually celebrated January 14, the new year in the Julian Calendar, though some Algerian Amazigh celebrate today, January 12.

And this year, Algerian Imazighen have some good news for the new year; a proposed constitutional change that would make Tamazight "a national and official language" alongside Arabic. An Academy of Amazigh Language is also promised, perhaps to standardize various existing languages into a national language.

In 2004 a constitutional change made Tamazight a "national" language but not an "official" one. Arabic is still defined as "the national and official language of the state,"  while Tamazight is "also a national and official language." The addition of "official" is new.

See articles: in French here, Lameen Souag on the subject here and on party reactions here and an article on expanding Tamazight language teaching here, and the links to pdfs of the new constitution in Arabic and French.

Yes, Algeria changes constitutions frequently, and President Bouteflika is ailing and there are rumors his brother is calling the shots, but this is yet another example of the growing assertiveness and recognition of the Amazigh role in contemporary North Africa.

Hocine Aït-Ahmed (1926-2015), Last of Algeria's "neuf chefs historiques," Dies at 89

Veteran Algerian political figure Hocine Aït-Ahmed, founder of the opposition Socialist Forces Front (FFS) and the last of the nine "chefs historiques" who launched the Algerian Revolution, has died in Lausanne at age 89 after a long illness.

A Kabyle Berber by background, the erudite Aït-Ahmed helped launch the uprising against France in  1954, alongside Ahmed Ben Bella, Rabah Bitat, Mohamed Boudiaf, Belkacem Krim, Mostefa ben Boulaid, Mohamed Khidr, Larbi Ben M'Hidi, and Mourad Didouche.

He served as the chief diplomat of the Provisional Revolutionary Government (GPRA), based in Cairo, until he and other key leaders were intercepted by the French and imprisoned in 1956. He was released on independence in 1962, but he soon fell out with Ahmed Ben Bella, resigned from the ruling FLN, and founded the Socialist Forces Front (FFS) as an opposition party, though it remained illegal until 1990. Though the FFS is ostensibly a democratic socialist movement and a member of the Socialist International, it has always appealed primarily to the Berbers of his native Kabylie.

Arrested under Ben Bella and exiled to Switzerland, he periodically returned to Algeria once parties were legalized, even running as the FFS candidate for President. As his health began to fail in 2013, he retired as head of the FFS and returned to Switzerland.

With the passing of the last of the nine historic chiefs, one of the few remaining figures of the Revolution still active in politics is, of course, the ailing President Bouteflika.

Army Responds to Renewed Ethno-Religious Violence in Ghardaïa, Mzab

The Algerian Army has deployed in the Mzab Oasis towns pf Ghardaïa, Guerara, and Berriane following renewed ethno-sectarian violence between the Arab Sunni and Amazigh Ibadi communities. At least 22 people died in violent clashes over the past week. President Bouteflika ordered the Army in and Prime Minister Sallal has visited the troubled region

Ironically, in my first week or two of writing this blog back in 2009, I was reporting on clashes in Berriane. (Kal at The Moor Next Door wrote a detailed response to that post, from which I learned much.) In late  2013, violence was renewed after desecration of a cemetery, and has broken out sporadically sense. What were once mostly Amazigh towns are now mixed, and the language split (which as Kal noted is not like in the Kabyle, where French was more entrenched in colonial times) is reinforced by the fact the Arabs are Sunni and the Berbers Ibadi. As Lemeen Souag pointed out in 2014, even the etymology and spelling of Ghardaïa are matters of dispute.

The government is apparently blaming the Socialist Forces Front (FFS), a Berber-based opposition party whose main strength is in the Kabyle, and has arrested a local FFS activist in the Mzab, Kameleddine Fekhar,

To the Surprise of No One, Bouteflika Wins

Everyone including his enemies expected Abdelaziz Bouteflika to win a fourth term, and he has done so, with 81.5% of the vote. It is perhaps telling that this is down from the 90% margin claimed in he 2009 elections.

Bouteflika Votes from Wheelchair; Algeria Claiming 51.70% Turnout, Much Down from 2009

Algerian television and media made no effort to conceal the fact that 77-year-old President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, still affected by last years's stroke, voted from a wheelchair today, even showing him being wheeled in to the polling place, casting his ballot, and being wheeled out again. Previous press photos usually showed him seated and did not usually show him entering or leaving. (Remember too that in the US during WWII. the media never showed FDR in his wheelchair.) Narrative is in Arabic:


Throughout the day, international media reported generally low turnout, suggesting boycott efforts by many smaller parties were having an effect.The authorities announced after the last polls closed that turnout had reached 51.70%, which is markedly less than the claimed turnout in 2009 (74.54%, but widely suspected to be inflated) and down even from 2004 (58.1%). So the claimed turnout, whether inflated or not, acknowledges a dropoff in participation.

Algeria on the Eve: Some Thoughts

Algerians go to the polls tomorrow. There will be six candidates on the ballot, five men and a woman, of varying ideological orientations and ages. Then they will elect an ailing 77-year-old man who made no public campaign speeches.

But you knew that already.

Some analyses seem to see the Algerian situation as a reminder of the worst features of Arab authoritarian republics: the lack of a mechanism for succession and the unwillingness of autocrats to give up power, despite increasing disabilities. Those are no doubt factors. Others see it as a symptom of the fact that Algeria did not go through the ferment of Arab Spring. That's true, too, no doubt, to some extent.

But I also think that whether or not tomorrow's polls are freely held and fairly counted, Bouteflika would win anyway. One reason is that the Algerian establishment, from the military and security service generals Algerians call le pouvoir to the two big parties, the government bureaucracy, and the business and energy sectors, don't have anywhere else to go. Lately profound fissures have been visible within the establishment, but there is no agreed alternative to Bouteflika.

That is one side of the "stability at all costs" argument. The other side is the risk aversion of Algerians who fear  repetition of the violence of the 1990s. Even the half of all Algerians in their 20s and younger bear some scars of the troubles of the 1990s, when some 200,000 died. Older generations remember the eight year war of independence from 1954 to 1962, when perhaps a million died.I suspect this, and the sobering memory of the civil war in Libya next door, are one reason why there has been  so little turbulence in Algeria.

Bouteflika did not end the troubles single-handedly, but he presided over reconciliation, and the absence of any obvious successor means the alternative to another term might be renewed carnage.

Bouteflika will win, though perhaps not by the 90% he got in 2009 or the 85% in 2004. But we can hope that he, or at least le pouvoir, can find a solution to the succession question before Bouteflika is even less able to govern than now: a Vice President with real power perhaps, and a clear succession mechanism.

Bouteflika Appears Again; Meets Kerry

It's certainly unusual when a candidate for the Presidency of a major country is rarely seen during the campaign, even on television, but today we did get another glimpse of Algerian President Bouteflika, this time receiving John Kerry on his North African tour. The opposition in Algeria had been warning that a visit so close to the Presidential election on April 17. Algerian TV showed Bouteflika speaking to Kerry through an interpreter about intelligence cooperation in counter-terrorism, and even showed him standing to greet Kerry; most photos of him sense his stroke have shown him seated.

Speaking of Bouteflika, you should check out this look at his career by kal at The Moor Next Door: "A Pillar of the Regime and among the Younger Ministers of His Generation." The quote in the title is not a recent one, but refers to the Boumedienne era in the 1960s.

The tendency of Arab leaders to cling to power even when they are physically impaired (and Bouteflika is far from the exception here). Bouteflika is much younger than some incumbent Arab leaders, but his stroke has clearly impaired him.

Charles de Gaulle once famously remarked that "La vieillesse est un naufrage": "Old age is a shipwreck." He was referring to Marshal Pétain, and blaming the fall of France on the onetime hero's age (84 in 1940) for the surrender. Ironically, by the 1960s some of de Gaulle's critics, though he was only in his 70s, would quote the same lines about de Gaulle.

Ironically, though, there is probably no other candidate that the Algerian establishment could agree to unite behind.

Be Careful Where You Put That Campaign Poster

I can see two possible explanations for the positioning of this Bouteflika poster in Algeria. Obviously, an opposition supporter may have got hold of a Bouteflika poster and posted it here as a comment. Or perhaps an oblivious and/or illiterate supporter posted it without noticing what he was posting it on.

Algerian TV Actually Shows Bouteflika Speaking in Clip of Registration

Not only did Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika appear in public when registering to run for a fourth term, but now Algerian television has shown him actually speaking to the official, declaring  his intention to run.

It is the first time his voice has been publicly heard since his stroke. He is shown seated and his voice is thin and low, barely a whisper, but he does speak. Twelve candidates have now registered for the April 17 elections. The field may be reduced in vetting.

Algeria's Benflis Says He'll Stay in the Race

After Abdelaziz Bouteflika registered himself for a fourth term yesterday,  it's being reported that "dozens" of Presidential candidates have dropped out of the race, charging that Bouteflika's election is foreordained and criticizing his decision to run despite his age and health.

One who hasn't dropped out is former Prime Minister Ali Benflis, who announced his own candidacy in January and who says he's staying in the race.

For as good an explanation as I've seen on why the ailing Bouteflika will win anyway, see this article by Thomas Serres at Jadaliyya, translated from the French: "Bouteflika's Fourth Mandate: The Cartel's Gamble." The cartel he speaks of is essentially the military, political, and party establishments which, despite highly visible disagreements at times, manage to come together to preserve their own control of  the state apparatus.

Bouteflika Makes it Official

Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika made his run for a fourth term official by signing electoral documents; he was shown arriving in a limo and also photographed seated at a table.

Bouteflika has not been shown standing or walking since his stroke last year.

Bouteflika Keeps Going, and Going, nd Going, and Will Run Again Says PM

Algeria's Prime Minister Sallal has announced that President Bouteflika will run again,for a fourth term in April despite his stroke last year.

Bouteflika in 1964

So it looks like he's really going to do it, one of the last figures from the independence era still clinging to power, along with some senior generals. (But they haven't had debilitating strokes.)

Not everyone in Algeria seems to agree (Hat Tip to Bill Lawrence for the link):

A Graphic Illustration of Why There is So Much Sexual Content on the Internet

February hasn't been a great blogging month. I lost a couple of days to a bug and much of the country was iced, snowed, or otherwise weathered out of the picture for a while. On the weekend I did a routine check of blog  traffic and found it was low on this site and others. I've talked about the situations in Egypt and Syria, a fair amount of cultural stuff, the Bouteflika-Mediene power struggle in Algeria, and other serious matter, though little has been exciting. Traffic on the blog has been a few hundred visits a day, the extremely low end of normal.

Then we learned that Lebanese Olympic skier Jackie Chamoun had once taken her top off for a ski calendar photoshoot. Though the photos I posted here were in the Sports Illustrated  Swimsuit issue level of peek-a-boo suggestiveness at best, the whole Chamoun issue went viral due to a "making of" video which she says was not to be made public,  I had one critical comment on the post, criticizing me for "bashing" Ms. Chamoun while I thought I was defending her. That post went up late on the night of February 10. The next day I got 1,242 visits and 1,504 pageviews; the following day 942 visits and 1,093 pageviews. Not my all-time high or even close, but pretty impressive for February. I later had a follow-up post on the surge of support for her. (And Sports Minister Faisal Karami, who called for an investigation, is not in the newly-named Cabinet.)

The graph above is Google Analytics'  trace of the first two weeks of February's blog traffic, showing the Chamoun surge. [Update: off blog I've had comments about the shape of the graph. Take a cold shower and get a girlfriend.]

 Lebanese traffic also increased, Lebanon rising to number 7 in my source countries. It may have risen that high in the past, but not for quite a while. The English-speaking countries (US, UK, Canada and Australia: where are you, New Zealanders?) plus Egypt, Israel, the UAE, Germany, and lately Turkey (which used to block all Blogger sites) usually dominate, but this propelled Lebanon up the ranks.

In the top 10 Google search words included all of the following:

Jackie Chamoun (the number one search)
Jackie Chamoun topless
Jacky Chamoun
Jacky Chamoun topless
Jackie Chamoun nudity

Five in the top ten; three in the top four. Most do not appear to relate to her Olympic ski performance; she didn't actually ski till the weekend. None said "Jackie Chamoun Olympic ski results."

Now, don't read this as meaning that my readers are basically all lecherous males looking for not-very-revealing pictures; it's more a function of lecherous males looking for not-very-revealing pictures who never heard of this blog before finding it through Google.

On the other hand, among my highest-ranking posts for all time are those dealing with Aliaa Elmahdy, though again her actual nudity never appeared on the blog. So talking about nudity works.

We all know sex sells. Apparently naked, or topless, Arab women draw traffic. (Who'd have thunk it?) In my original post I said that the still pics were mild and only the video showed much, and commented:

I still think it's rather mild: there are a few shots, at some distance, where you seem to see her breasts fully, but unless you're really good at stop-motion screen shots, if this is the only way you can find nudity (with nipples: see above) on the Internet, you're doing it wrong. I find it innocent enough to post here.

I underestimated the lechery of the Internet: of course there are now tons of screencaps showing blurry shots of Ms. Chamoun's breasts. You won't find them here, as I'm respecting her Facebook request not to circulate them further, and if blurred distant toplessness is the best you can do you don't understand the Internet; but I fear she's paying the price of being photographed in revealing ways, even if not for publication. Once a photo or a video is on the Internet, it will never entirely disappear. I still don't think she did anything wrong: actresses in Arab films and music videos sometimes appear seemingly topless, though only their back is shown; I assume the cameramen and director saw more. (And a few have survived "sex tape" scandals, though without the career boost that seems to create in the West). Ms. Chamoun did not think the "making of" video would ever appear, and the calendar, if coy, was unrevealing. The biggest "boobs" in this story are her critics.

Despite the huge surge last week, I am not taking from it the lesson that this should be a sex blog, or start running a Page Three Girl if we had pages.The Middle East Institute tolerates my rather broad "social and cultural" mission definition, but I'm not going to push it. (There aren't enough topless Arab women anyway.) But if you wonder why there's so much sexual content on the Internet, I think the graph above is revealing. It draws traffic.

Retired General Urges Bouteflika to Retire

The ongoing tug of war between President Bouteflika and the DRS Military Intelligence establishment continues. Hocine Benhadid, a senior retired general, has now publicly called on Bouteflika not to run for a fourth term, saying he should retire "with dignity and let Algeria catch its breath." 

Benhadid also denounced FLN Secretary General Amar Saidani's recent call for the resignation of the DRS head as "treason." From the AFP report:

But for Benhadid, the country's stability cannot be guaranteed by someone who was "sick" and the "hostage of his entourage."

He singled out for criticism Bouteflika's brother Said, the "main actor" in the presidential clan, as well as army chief Ahmed Gaid Salah, one of the ailing leader's key allies.
"The chief of staff has no credibility, and no one is fond of him," Benhadid said.
He accused Bouteflika's entourage of "playing with Algeria's destiny" in order to "save its skin, because corruption has reached dangerous levels."

Benhadid, who retired in 1996 during Algeria's decade-long civil war, said Bouteflika's clan was guilty of "treason" for calling on Mohamed "Tewfik" Mediene, the veteran chief of the DRS military intelligence agency, to quit over alleged security failings.
Saidani, the leader of Bouteflika's National Liberation Front and a key supporter of the president standing for re-election, made the call last week in unprecedented public criticism of the secretive general who many consider the hidden force in Algerian politics.

Bouteflika himself, in the wake of the recent fatal military aircraft crash, denounced any who criticize the Army, perhaps seeking to distance himself from Saidani's remarks.

Bouteflika-"Toufik" Dispute Intensifies in Algeria

The increasingly open feud between Algerian President Bouteflika and the longtime head of the DRS Military Intelligence Service Gen. Mohamed Mediene (known as "Toufik") seems to be heating up and perhaps heading for  showdown. After FLN Party Secretary-General Amar Saadani recently said that Mediene had failed in multiple crises and should step down, the General's defenders  have been hitting back. One wing of the FLN Party now says it will no longer recognize Saadani, and parts of the press have been widely critical of Saadani's comments.

But nobody believes that Saadani was speaking for himself only; sine late last year, Bouteflika has sought to reduce he influence of the DRS, which is a key component of what Algerians refer to as le Pouvoir and Westerners often call "the Generals." "Toufik" is widely believed to oppose Boiuteflika's running for a fourth term, and the DRS has gone after some Bouteflika allies for alleged corruption; since last year there have been reports that Bouteflika has reshuffled the intelligence community to reduce the power of the DRS, which Mediene has headed since its founding in 1990 (and headed its predecessor before that)..

Appropriately for a figure who works in the shadows, even the exact looks of the General are disputed (link is in French) and many published photos are disputable at best.

Now there is growing speculation in the French media that Bouteflika may intend to retire not only "Toufik" but many other senior DRS officials (link in French); like the President the General is in his 70s and a law permits the President to retire officers over age 66 with 42 years of service; Mediene has been in the military since independence. Whether Bouteflika can succeed if he tries is not so clear; the fact that Mediene, or those he controls and influences, are fighting back does seem clear, though. Presumably the move would come soon, as Bouteflika must declare by early March if he is in fact running in the April Presidential elections. At least one report says the decision has already been made (link in French).

As More Endorse Bouteflika, New Attacks on "Toufik"

I'm over my virus and back to normal blogging, I hope. Algerian President Bouteflika still hasn't officially said if he's running agin in April, but he keeps piling up the endorsements; in additiion to the two major ruling parties, the FLN and the RND, he's also being endorsed by a raft of smaller allied parties.

Another sign that the Bouteflika forces are flexing their muscles: an apparent new round in the ongoing power struggle between the President's allies and the powerful military intelligence chief. You may recall that last year in a reshuffle of the security forces, Bouteflika reportedly reduced the power base of the powerful DRS military intelligence service and its chief, Lt. Gen. Mohamed Mediene, usually known by his nom de guerre Toufik, Now, FLN Secretary-General Amar Saadani is quoted as saying that Mediene should have resigned after a string of what he characterized as "intelligence failures." He also criticized the continuing influence of the DRS. Whether Bouteflika does run himself or is merely preparing the ground for a successor,t appears that the power struggle with Mediene may be coming to the fore again.