Despite the al-Qaeda-backed attacks which have killed more than 50 people in Algeria, it is reassuring that President Abdel-Aziz Bouteflika insists that terrorism in his country is in retreat. But the scale and sheer brutality of the two days of violence is so reminiscent of what Algerians endured in the 1990s that one cannot but help think Bouteflika is just as concerned as the war-weary citizens themselves. …
The war [of the 1990s] left the country at the crossroads and coincided with a resurgence of popular calls for democratic transformation in Algeria and neighboring countries.
However, such change has been slow and halting. The country is in a dual crisis of confidence that concerns its essence as well as its performance as an emerging nation bent on political reform. It is a crisis that is part of — but goes beyond — the crisis of the Maghreb of northwest Africa. Resource-rich Algeria is a potentially wealthy country but it desperately needs long-term peace and stability. It understands that peace and prosperity are interrelated. Algeria is also a nation with great moral and political weight due to the Pan-Arab aspirations of Hawari Boumedienne, the diplomatic acumen of Bouteflika and its long and unique legacy of struggle for national liberation.
This land of a million martyrs lost during the war of liberation is no stranger to violence. However, fighting a colonizer is one battle; warring against fellow citizens and fellow Muslims is an entirely different matter. Movements that politicize Islam using violence as the preferred method have no place in Algeria or anywhere else. Access the full article>>