{"id":6271,"date":"2019-08-27T16:03:26","date_gmt":"2019-08-27T14:03:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sinedjib.com\/?p=6271"},"modified":"2019-08-27T16:04:06","modified_gmt":"2019-08-27T14:04:06","slug":"david-porter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sinedjib.com\/index.php\/2019\/08\/27\/david-porter\/","title":{"rendered":"David Porter : Eyes to the South. French Anarchists and Algeria"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Extrait du livre de David Porter, <\/strong>Eyes to the South<\/a><\/strong><\/em>: <\/a><\/strong>French Anarchists and Algeria<\/a><\/strong><\/em>, Oakland, AK Press, 2011, p. 476-484.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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ANARCHISM IN ALGERIA<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I FOUND NO SPECIFIC EVIDENCE OF NON-EUROPEAN PARTICIPATION in anarchist membership groups (the MLNA or Spanish emigre organizations) in Algeria at the time of the outbreak of the national liberation revolution. As well, given the FLN’s internal purges and hostility toward the rival MNA and Algerian Communists during the war, it is difficult to imagine any Algerian with proclaimed anarchist views surviving determined FLN hegemonic control. Survival would depend on suppressing one’s political identity, as in the example of Frenchman Serge Michel, and demonstrating overall loyalty and dedication to the dictates of the national leadership – as well as avoiding the heavy hand of French repression. The only mention I’ve seen of a non-European Algerian anarchist militant in Algeria for this period is the vague reference by MLNA leader L\u00e9andre Val\u00e9ro to comrade Derbal Salah of the Constantine area in Valero’s brief retrospective account about forty-five years later. (1)<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

It is of course true that the FLN considered France itself to be the seventh wilaya <\/em>battlefield of the war. It seems clear that at least several Algerian emigres in France participated alongside FCL militants and in the Federation Anarchiste during that period. (2) But here again, considering the intense battles between FLN and MNA forces within France, as well as the reality of French government repression, it would seem that open allegiance to anarchism would make one especially vulnerable. The example of young FLN student militant (and future historian) Mohammed Harbi in France exploring the works of Voline and other anarchist writers during this period (3) must have been quite exceptional. Nevertheless, the absence of more published data about anarchist participants does not preclude their existence. Likewise, it’s important to acknowledge that quasi-anarchist behavior and values no doubt flourished in many local Algerian wartime contexts. (4)
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From 1962 to the present, to my knowledge, no Western-type organized anarchist group has existed, unless ephemerally, in Algeria. Nevertheless, other evidence can be found. In 1999, Algerian writer Djilali Bencheikh recalled his student days at the University of Algiers in the post-independence 1960s. He remembered defending his \u00ab\u00a0anti-authoritarian convictions\u00a0\u00bb in the official student organization UNEA and helping to organize numerous campus strikes\u00a0\u00bb to defend freedom of expression and the inviolability of the university, \u00a0\u00bb agitation that culminated in February 1968 when the FLN closed the campus for four weeks and arrested some 600 students. It seems, however, that Bencheikh gradually abandoned his militancy and, in the following year, pursued his studies in Paris. (5)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Within two months of the regime’s suppression of the Berber Spring insurrection in 1980, \u00ab\u00a0a group of Algerian autonomists\u00a0\u00bb produced a short book, L’Alg\u00e9rie br\u00fble! (Algeria Burning!)<\/em>, as \u00ab\u00a0homage \u00a0\u00bb to the insurgents of Tizi-Ouzou for \u00ab\u00a0all of the radical anti-state actions that they so courageously took on.\u00a0\u00bb In describing the origin and evolution of events, they enthusiastically noted the absence of leaders, manipulation, and \u00ab\u00a0bureaucratic contamination.\u00a0\u00bb Though local in scale, the revolt was \u00ab\u00a0a radical protest against the totality of the world of market and spectacle alienation\u00a0\u00bb and, in the course of its development, \u00ab\u00a0discovered the forms of struggle that, oddly enough, recalled those of the Communards of 1871 , the Spanish revolutionaries of 1936, or, closer to us, the wildcat strikes and occupations of May 1968.\u00a0\u00bb<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They regarded the nature of these events as \u00ab\u00a0the point of departure for the coming generalized <\/em>insurrection. \u00ab\u00a0In this sort of context, the working class throughout Algeria should organize itself to throw off the state and manage a society without wages, private property, hierarchy, and exploitation, one self-managed through workers’ councils and working toward eradication of the mental and behavioral roots of Islam and all religions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the same time, they were critical of all leftists, far leftists, and \u00ab\u00a0certified anarchists\u00a0\u00bb for their more limited aims, and included three substantial situationist quotations. (6)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Online Web research offered discoveries at the individual level that would never have surfaced for an outsider before this decade. Thus, among the endless articles that referred to the \u00a0\u00bb anarchy \u00a0\u00bb of traffic , housing, the economy, the government itself, and other realms in present-day Algeria, I discovered several blogs and letters to editors that appeared to be written by Algerian anarchists in <\/em>Algeria. (7)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A certain Algerian, \u00ab\u00a0tiplouf79,\u00a0\u00bb established a blog with his friends in 2007 that was dedicated to \u00a0\u00bb the Kabyle martyr of 4\/20\/2001 , and titled \u00ab\u00a0Anarchists of Algeria. \u00a0\u00bb A full-page \u00ab\u00a0presentation of the movement\u00a0\u00bb offers an \u00ab\u00a0internationalist anarcho-communist\u00a0\u00bb denunciation of religion, capitalism, the state, nationalism, all-imposed morality, and every injustice. The land with all its riches will become collective property of the society and will be managed for the benefit of all. The future will be determined by \u00ab\u00a0the spontaneous action of all free men whose task it will be to create it and give it form, while incessantly changing like all life phenomena.\u00a0\u00bb (8) There appeared to be no Web responses to this proclamation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A 2009 exchange on an \u00ab\u00a0Anarchisme\u00a0\u00bb Facebook discussion concerning \u00ab\u00a0Algeria, the country of anarchy,\u00a0\u00bb included several participants. One, \u00ab\u00a0Caffado,\u00a0\u00bb seems reasonably acquainted with at least the basics of anarchism and attempts to explain these to others. In the end, \u00a0\u00bb Yacine\u00a0\u00bb interestingly states that he’s perhaps not yet anarchist, since, though he agrees with freedom and equality for all as well as abolishing the s tate, he finds it impossible to eliminate God and the family. He adds that he’s especially interested in the Temporary Autonomous Zone concept of Hakim Bey (9) who assures that even \u00ab\u00a0a good dinner is a T.A.Z.\u00a0\u00bb (10)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As for apparent anarchist letter-writers to newspapers, two examples appeared through Web research. \u00a0\u00bb Baba,\u00a0\u00bb in April 2009, responded to a Le Matin<\/em> article for democratic change by the national coordinator of the El Badil (MDA) party. Baba’s comment was a detailed explanation of the nature, perspective, and program of the \u00ab\u00a0Federation Anarchiste.\u00a0\u00bb (11) Most likely, though not explicitly identified, this was a reference to the French anarchist organization, since no such group apparently exists in Algeria.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A second newspaper respondent, \u00ab\u00a0A.M.E.,\u00a0\u00bb this time to Le Soir d’Algerie<\/em> in January 2010, denied that Algerians \u00ab\u00a0were violent by nature, as everyone says.\u00a0\u00bb It is simply, the writer states, the fact of social marginalization and the need to assure respect and to defend one’s convictions that make violence inevitable. Searching one’s whole life for \u00ab\u00a0social order… should lead one to embrace anarchism.\u00a0\u00bb The latter is not \u00ab\u00a0destruction and disorganization,\u00a0\u00bb as popular belief suggests, but, as Emma Goldman suggested, \u00ab\u00a0a social order based on free association between individuals,\u00a0\u00bb including \u00ab\u00a0the liberation of the human spirit from alienation, as well as liberation from domination and property.\u00a0\u00bb (12)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Among the most direct statements by an apparent Algerian anarchist are two 1997 and 2001 articles by Tarik Ben Hallaj. (13) The first, a lengthy address to his Algerian sisters and brothers, and prefiguring in some respects the 2001 Kabyle insurrection, calls for hatred of \u00ab\u00a0all the assassins of our country, all who cover for them, and further, if possible, all who command them. For it is our people, transformed into throat-slitted sheep for the celebration of Aid el Kebir, and not the Islamists, that they want to ‘eradicate,’ deny, suppress, like those Bosnian women the criminal Serbs forced to have Serbian children so that they would carry and give birth to the negation of their own people…\u00a0\u00bb With each death, the bureaucratic and military rulers destroy that much more of remaining Algerian identity. Not even bothering to lead us to concentration camps,\u00a0\u00bb they kill us on the premises of our own homes, amidst our families, like one cuts down wheat under foot.\u00a0\u00bb<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The assassins take no risks, he said, they show no courage in massacring defenseless elders, women, and children. This is not war, but carnage, \u00ab\u00a0the highest stage of inequality.\u00a0\u00bb This is not civil war, but butchery. We need to transform this into \u00ab\u00a0true civil war, that of the people versus the executioners.\u00a0\u00bb We should pardon none of them nor let any survive. \u00ab\u00a0The extermination of such brutes and cowards should be total.\u00a0\u00bb<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Such massacres are accompanied by lies, he asserted, but not simply those that declare that only the residues of terrorism are still at play. The deeper lie concerns the label of \u00a0\u00bb terrorism \u00a0\u00bb itself. The time will come when it will become clear that groups like the Red Brigade and Red Army Fraction carried out their actions on behalf of hidden elite or regime forces just as the \u00ab\u00a0Islamist assassins\u00a0\u00bb now do in collaboration with the Algerian regime. \u00ab\u00a0Always too late, in twenty years for example, it will be publicly acknowledged that the Algerian people were massacred by the unified club of its enemies and that, in effect, there were only enemies, false friends , on the political chessboard: the neo-FLN state and the Islamic counter-state at the two extremes.\u00a0\u00bb Despite their proclaimed hostility, they collaborate together to oppress the people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00ab\u00a0With the forces of order disguised as terrorists, and the terrorists as forces of order, confusion could not be greater, the dance of identities has no more limits…. The state maintains itself by having commandos, pretending to be Islamists, massacre the electoral base of the Islamists, while the extreme Islamists, tolerating the state’s attribution to it of every massacre the state itself commits (as through phony communiques signed by ’emirs ‘ no longer alive), prevent any political alliance between moderate Islamists and all other political currents.\u00a0\u00bb The lie completely surfaces when terrorists present themselves to their victims as police \u00ab\u00a0with ease, since often in fact they are really police disguised as terrorists, as at Haouch Rals or Beni Messous.\u00a0\u00bb (14)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is called Algerian disorder, he clarified, is actually the desired \u00ab\u00a0order\u00a0\u00bb of the regime and the Islamists. It has never b een so absolute as it is when people are led to support their own deaths and the enrichment of those in power. We must \u00ab\u00a0remain irreconcilable enemies of that ‘ order’ and learn, even through grief, that there can be no democracy other than the taking of power by the armed people, on condition that it stays in their hands forever and is delegated to no one.\u00a0\u00bb<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We must combat, he said, both the state and the Islamist counter-state with equal force, not fall into the trap of thinking we must support one against the other. We must oppose at the same time \u00ab\u00a0the madmen of God… the special units of military police,\u00a0\u00bb and all foreign powers. Our only resource is \u00ab\u00a0to impose by ourselves, collectively, our law<\/em>, with the strength of guns. The population should now arm itself and engage in a generalized insurrection<\/em>. This process has already begun. Self-defense groups have formed since 1994.\u00a0\u00bb If the army gives us arms to fight the GIA, take them and fight both \u00ab\u00a0forces of order.\u00a0\u00bb We need arms to accomplish what we thought we did in fighting the colons<\/em>: independence. \u00ab\u00a0We want no longer to be subject to colonization at the pleasure of the regime, the GlA, or by other vomiters of the prehistory of humanity: generals, mullahs, presidents, and swindlers of all kinds. No people can be free without ridding themselves of their own tyrants<\/em>. No people can be free if half of its members, women, are subjected to an order that tries to render them dispirited, ugly and servile.\u00a0\u00bb A people only rise up when enough grievances have accumulated to force them to do so. We must be conscious that we are now at that point of rupture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Public salvation committees should be formed everywhere, he argues, in each neighborhood and village and open to all except enemies of the Algerian people, \u00ab\u00a0starting with terrorists of every kind and those who assist or approve of them.\u00a0\u00bb These committees should have no connection to political parties, the army, or the police. The self-defense groups should emanate from these popular assemblies. The committees themselves should federate for mutual coordination and aid . They should then \u00ab\u00a0name delegates to come together at the national l evel progressively to take in hand every political aspect of the country.\u00a0\u00bb We should simply ignore our enemies, dealing with our own affairs, until forced to fight against them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Said the writer, Algerian men will not gain dignity by veiling Algerian women. \u00ab\u00a0Down with the infamous Family Code! No more veil, no more head scarf, no more patriarchy…. Equality of the sexes cannot be separated from political freedom.\u00a0\u00bb We should rid ourselves of that miserable hatred and fear of women that mutilates every Muslim country. \u00ab\u00a0Let us leave our military prison cells and our spiritual shit, breathe the great outdoors, and be done with those who oppose us.\u00a0\u00bb (15)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The second text by this author addressed Islamic terrorism more generally after 9\/11 and suggested twelve measures that, if adopted, could demonstrate on the part of Arab countries a genuine \u00ab\u00a0anti-terrorist\u00a0\u00bb commitment, a stance that also requires opposition to worldwide American domination. Without replicating his longer explanation of each measure, they consisted of an immediate increase of oil prices, the return of oil revenues for the benefit of the people, and an end to contact with the multinational oil companies; cancelation of the full debt of Arab countries and use of such monies for the use of the populations and under their control; replacement of existing Arab states by direct democracies; and unification of the Arab world at its base and abolition of its borders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Additionally the author argues for, creation of secular societies and the return of Islam to the private realm; immediate and full application of UN resolutions concerning Israel; total emancipation of women and the abolition of all traits of patriarchal society; renewal and enlargement of the tradition of hospitality toward all; reconstruction of the Arab world’s economy on a communitarian production basis and environmental preservation; replacement of the concept of material wealth with that of wealth in freedom; new forms of street spectacle to ridicule fundamentalist ascetics and extravagant royal displays in the palaces of Riyad and elsewhere; and, to accomplish all of this, a vast revolutionary movement committed to abolishing the state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once such measures are adopted, he argues, the terrorism supported by material and moral misery will have disappeared and the Arab world will become the model for admiring Western peoples \u00ab\u00a0This is the true and great card that the oumma<\/em> possesses and should be played: it should avoid all the traps of contemporary Western mediocrity while not falling b ack into the misery of its own alienated past.\u00a0\u00bb (16)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another Algerian anarchist, Achour Idir, is publicly involved in ongoing organizing with the CLA autonomous high school teachers union. As mentioned above, when interviewed by a CNT-F journal in 2009, he was described as identifying with the red and black ideals of disobedience and resistance. He also stated that there were many Algerian anarcho-syndicalist militants involved in various unions. (17) The course of his political work in the future can no doubt be followed since this union is at various times covered in the local Algerian press, as well as that of the two French CNTs. (18) In addition, as mentioned above, dc!egates from the SNAPAP autonomous union participated in the early 2007 Paris international conference of revolutionary trade unionists, organized by the CNT-F. (19)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anarchism is naturally attractive to many in the creative arts, though some are more explicit than others in their embrace of the political ideology dimension or a particular anarchist organization. A review of Algerian writers, musicians, painters, and other artists who demonstrate themes or practice in their creative work suggestive of anarchist tendencies is beyond the limited scope of this section, but there is no reason to think that such ideas do not have strong influence among Algerians as they do among others elsewhere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition to singer Loun\u00e8s Matoub mentioned earlier, four Algerians come to mind as ready examples. Both Mohamed Kacimi (El Hassani) (20) and Mezioud Ouldamer (21) had writings appearing or discussed in the French anarchist periodical Iztok <\/em>in the 1980s. The March 1986 issue ran a series of Kacimi’s cutting and ironic aphorisms on political and other subjects. Concerning \u00ab\u00a0President,\u00a0\u00bb for example, he stated, \u00ab\u00a0It was a president who gathered all functions. Having achieved this, his death was thought to commit a genocide.\u00a0\u00bb On \u00ab\u00a0Suicide,\u00a0\u00bb \u00ab\u00a0Weary, he seriously considered suicide. On the fateful day, the socialist state saved his life. There was a shortage of bullets, ropes, water, barbiturates, and altitude.\u00a0\u00bb (22)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The September 1987 issue included a selection of several pages from his novel, Le Mouchoir<\/em>. In these passages, the same sharp irony effectively undermines the pretentious and repressive behavior of state and party officials in an \u00ab\u00a0Islamo-socialist\u00a0\u00bb country, no doubt with Algeria as at least one of his targets. The final passage in this narrative of a party member\/police intelligence functionary stated directly the nature of such a regime’s relations with its subjects. Concerning a chance encounter in the city with one of those \u00ab\u00a0guilty\u00a0\u00bb ones being monitored by his office, the narrator stated that he merely regards him transparently since he’s not an individual, but \u00ab\u00a0a long chronological list of reprehensible acts.\u00a0\u00bb He saw his own role as that of a doctor when he examines their records. \u00ab\u00a0Leafing through his dossier, I am a surgeon who uses an infallible scalpel on the minds of men. Isn’t the Party in fact the discreet stethoscope that breaks through the walls of underground activity and camouflage in order to seize the most imperceptible flutterings and heartbeats of the body it dominates? We don’t prevent failures of the organism, that would be too simple, but those of thought.\u00a0\u00bb Our intelligence operation is a more effective therapy than psychoanalysis since \u00ab\u00a0it reveals nothing to the individual himself, but to the institution more responsible than himself, the State!\u00a0\u00bb (23)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The introduction to the September 1985 lztok <\/em>article on Mezioud Ouldamer cited Article 144 of the Algerian penal code, which demands major punishments for essentially any supposed critique of public officials by words, gestures, and other means, including all private writings or drawings. Under this law, Ouldamer was given a two-year prison term for \u00ab\u00a0thought crimes.\u00a0\u00bb Among other items found in his office and home, after he dared to support a workers’ strike in the construction company he worked for, were a Spanish-language anarchist circular; notes, reflections, and citations demonstrating a \u00ab\u00a0negative mind\u00a0\u00bb; and a supposed phallic drawing of a mosque.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ouldamer’s subsequent prison experience and reflections on prison life, generally, were the subj ects of his 1985 book, Offense \u00e0 pr\u00e9sident<\/em>. Beyond discussing prisoners of all kinds, Ouldamer focused on army deserters (many of whom lived abroad as \u00e9migr\u00e9 children but returned voluntarily to Algeria for military service) and those involved in economic crimes. The second group was very large, he said, and for the most part consisted of those at the lower and most vulnerable levels of typical corruption schemes, widespread throughout Algeria, scapegoats in what he described as an Algerian state essentially \u00ab\u00a0a vast association of crooks. What it took mercantilism elsewhere twenty centuries to conquer, it has conquered in twenty years in Algeria: if you remove from your vocabulary the words ‘bizness’ and ‘percentage,’ we will have nothing more to say.\u00a0\u00bb<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Said Ouldamer, when he assisted another prisoner (arrested for \u00ab\u00a0bad management\u00a0\u00bb) in preparing a statement about his \u00ab\u00a0good conduct,\u00a0\u00bb the latter stated that he had always \u00ab\u00a0satisfied the environment\u00a0\u00bb before sales to the public. By this, he explained, he meant that he had always taken care of \u00ab\u00a0the police chiefs, officials, directors of the different agencies, the mayor, the Party chief, the UGTA chief…\u00a0\u00bb According to the lztok <\/em>reviewer, Ouldamer’s account makes clear that \u00ab\u00a0Algeria is one immense prison.\u00a0\u00bb (24)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A third example of an Algerian creative artist identified with anarchism is underground Kabyle musician, poet, and political commentator Lvachir Vouchlaghem. Politicized especially by the liberating Berber Spring events and the accompanying state repression, Lvachir described himself openly as an anarchist while explicitly denouncing capitalism, the state, the nationalist dimension of the Algerian revolution as a recuperation, Communism, religion, those (like the MAK) who advocate Kabyle autonomy, and conventional morality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00ab\u00a0Countries are fabrications by elites,\u00a0\u00bb he said. \u00ab\u00a0I find life in Algeria more obscene than my texts. Algerians have witnessed terrifying massacres and they don’t seem shocked about it.\u00a0\u00bb \u00ab\u00a0I have the impression that people find in religion what I find in cannabis. That said, I think my choice is better.\u00a0\u00bb \u00ab\u00a0[In Algeria,] people took up arms against the French colonizers, that is, against injustice. Today one says that they died for Algeria. That’s a lie ! They died while fighting against the injustice of the occupation, the nuance is large…. The sole worthy reason for taking up arms is freedom. That’s all !\u00a0\u00bb Lvachir referred to anonymous anarchists in Algeria in the 1980s, as well as the strong \u00ab\u00a0anarchist zest\u00a0\u00bb in the Berber cultural movement at that time. He insisted also that the esteemed Algerian writer Kateb Yacine, in reality, is well accepted as an anti-authoritarian communist and had great influence on others in that direction. In fact, he said, in Kabylia, \u00ab\u00a0there’s a very interesting tradition of struggle. Many people are bloody anarchists without knowing it. There is hope in that.\u00a0\u00bb (25)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A fourth example was Algerian painter Abdelkader Guermaz ( 1919-1996), about whom Le Monde Libertaire<\/em> ran a glowing review in 2003. Though he might have rejected the label, it said, Guermaz’s life and work suggested \u00ab\u00a0an anarchist attitude and stance rarely encountered. Leaving for Paris in 1961 , he lived simply, having \u00ab\u00a0nothing in common with a comfortable bourgeois and intellectual self, based on material goods and cultural cliches.\u00a0\u00bb Not belonging to any school or network, nor bowing to any authority, he exemplified \u00ab\u00a0anarchist individualism, with its risks and perils…\u00a0\u00bb Said the reviewer, compared to today’s lifeless, aggressive, and disparaging conformisms that pose as \u00ab\u00a0individualism,\u00a0\u00bb \u00ab\u00a0the example of Guermaz, a passionate lover of the cultivation of oneself, comes just at the right moment to give the notion of individualism its correct, deep, and fierce dimension-anarchist in fact.\u00a0\u00bb (26)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a broader sense, beyond generalized political culture traditions of anti-statism and grassroots participation, especially in Kabylia, it can surely be understood that various of the emancipatory and\/or insurrectional engagements of Algerians over the decades covered in this book had strong anarchist content even if those involved made no explicit claim to a Western-type anarchist identity. Beginning with aspects of the national liberation revolution itself, then moving especially through at least the earlier stages of autogestion<\/em>, the Berber Spring, the urban upheavals of the 1980s, the Kabyle insurrection of 2001 , the efforts of defiant women’s organizations and autonomous trade unions, and the continuing local riots and confrontations with state authorities throughout the country, surely large numbers of Algerians have articulated and acted upon anarchist-type impulses, desires, and critiques. In turn, many no doubt have been moved further in an anarchist direction by the liberating experience of asserting freedom, as well as by the heavy reality of French and Algerian state repression.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As French anarchist Georges Riviere observed with admiration, \u00ab\u00a0There are deep anti-authoritarian dynamics in this population in which anarchists are not involved. An unspoken sense of justice, equality, honor or dignity, and independence and a quick readiness to rebel.\u00a0\u00bb (27) Interlocked with these traits also is the importance in Algerian culture of strong social solidarity rooted in pre-capitalist traditions, beginning with mutual aid and defense of one’s family and friends, and extending outward to larger and larger social networks in the face of threats to these from the outside.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I close this section with a most interesting recent editorial from one of the relatively more independent Algerian dailies, EI Watan<\/em>. The writer played with opposite connotations of anarchy in referring to Algeria’s long history and present-day condition of constant social convulsions. \u00ab\u00a0Ungovernable land for centuries,\u00a0\u00bb he said, Algeria tempts each invader to think that it will impose order through force, but in the end it is unable to do so because of popular resistance. \u00ab\u00a0We should recognize Bouteflika for at least one thing. He has never pretended to govern this country…. In theorizing his model of anarchism as an intelligent system built against the State, Bakunin surely did not have Algeria in mind. Today, Algerians should think like Bakunin by inventing a system of autogestion without capital, a sphere without a center, turning only around itself. Let’s not be confused, anarchism is not chaos, it is a model that naturally resembles Algerians. As for chaos, that’s the situation in which we live.\u00a0\u00bb (28)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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(1) L\u00e9andre Val\u00e9ro, \u00ab\u00a0Le MLNA.\u00a0\u00bb<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(2) 1954-1962: l’insurrection alg\u00e9rienne<\/em>; brief biography of Slimane Kiouane in the on-line Dictionnaire international des militants anarchistes<\/em>. The Noir et Rouge<\/em> group also was closely followed by two members of the FLN Federation de France (Letter from Frank Mintz, July 1 2, 2010).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(3) Mohammed Harbi, Une vie debout<\/em>, 111 . French historian Gilbert Meynier, a close collaborator with Harbi in recent years, referred to Harbi in that earlier context as \u00ab\u00a0an unrepentant libertarian\u00a0\u00bb (June 2006 review of Harbi\u00b7s autobiography at: <http:\/\/coloque-algerie.ens-lsh.fr\/article.php3?id-article-127> [2\/9\/10]). More specifically, then as now, Harbi should be viewed as an anti-authoritarian Marxist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

4 For example, Ali Zamoum recalled egalitarian practice among wartime Algerian prisoners who shared everything of their meager prison resources and mutually taught languages and other subjects to their peers (Zamoum, Le pays des hommes libres<\/em>, 183, 191, 215-216, 270-271).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(5) Djilali Bencheikh, \u00ab\u00a0Entretien: Djilali Bencheikh: comme Feraoun, \u00e9crire pour t\u00e9moigner,\u00a0\u00bb L’actualite litt\u00e9raire<\/em>, n.d. (available on-line at: <www.revues-plurielles.org\/uploads\/pdf\/4_33_10.pdf [6\/10\/10]). Djilali Bencheikh (1944- ) was born in Algeria at the end of World War II. Since living in France, he has pursued journalistic and writing careers and is the author of four novels by 2010.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(6) \u00ab\u00a0Un groupe d’autonomes alg\u00e9riens,\u00a0\u00bb L’Alg\u00e9rie br\u00fble!<\/em> (Paris: Editions Champ Libre, 1981), 7, 17-18, 21, 49, 51, 53, 58, 62-65.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(7) Given the nature of such sources, of course, it is impossible to verify with satisfaction the country location of the writer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(9) Hakim Bey, T.A.Z , The Temporary Autonomous Zone, Ontological Anarchy, Poetic Terrorism<\/em> (Brooklyn: Autonomedia, 1991).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(10)This Facebook discussion is at: <http:\/\/facebook.com\/topic.php?uid=2464495189&topic=7697> (6\/6\/10).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(11) The original article by Haider Bendrihem, \u00ab\u00a0Opinion: Ie CRI de I’Alg\u00e9rie pour le changement,\u00a0\u00bb was posted on the Le Matin<\/em> web site on 2\/20\/2009; the comment by \u00ab\u00a0Baha\u00a0\u00bb was posted there on 4\/13\/2009.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(12) A.M.E., \u00ab\u00a0De I’anarchisme…,\u00a0\u00bb Le Soir d’Alg\u00e9rie<\/em>, January 28, 2010.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(13) I am unaware of further identification of this writer. Again, authors of items posted only on the web are sometimes very difficult to trace. These two texts were posted originally on the web site of \u00a0\u00bb Les Amis de N\u00e9m\u00e9sis \u00a0\u00bb but this site no longer exists. They now can be seen at: http:\/\/bibliolibertaire.org<\/a> (7\/29\/10).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(14) The sites of two large massacres in September 1997.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(15) Tarik Ben Hall\u00e2j, \u00ab\u00a0Adresse \u00e0 mes s\u0153urs et fr\u00e8res alg\u00e9riens\u00a0\u00bb (9\/28\/1997).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(16) Tarik Ben Hall\u00e2j, \u00ab\u00a0Rem\u00e8des au terrorisme islamique: comment le combattre et I’\u00e9liminer efficacement et durablement, en douze points\u00a0\u00bb (October 20, 200 1 ).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(17) See page 425 above.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(18) In an April 2, 2011 article, for example, Achour Idir described the current quality of Algerian high school education, complained of new teachers having no advance pedagogical training and criticized the education ministry for planning curricular reforms without involving teachers (<http:\/\/newspublish.algerieauterfois.com\/02\/04\/2011\/dans-une-conference-de-presse-idir-achour-porte-parole-du-cla-a-declare-hier-a-alger-que-les-resultats-des-lyceens-sont-catastrophiques-au-deuxieme-trimestre\/> [4\/22\/1 1 ]). He also spoke out the week before at a March 25, 20 1 1 Algiers meeting demanding a change of Algeria’s political system, part of the larger wave of current meetings and demonstrations seeking major political transformation (Ghania Lassal, \u00a0\u00bb’Le changement viendra \u00e0 travers un combat pacifique et patient,'\u00a0\u00bb El Watan<\/em> , March 26, 2011).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(19) See p. 422 above.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(20) Mohamed Kacimi (1955- ) is a quite prolific writer of poetry, plays, novels and essays. Since 1 982, he has lived in Paris.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(21) Mezioud Ouldamer ( 1951- ) is an Algerian essayist, imprisoned in Algeria in 1980 for a year and later settling in France. Several of his books directly concern Algeria and the immigrant experience in France. He was apparently a co-author of the June 1980 manuscript for L’Alg\u00e9rie br\u00fble!<\/em>, and was close to situationist Guy Debord in the 1 980s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(22) Mohamed Kacimi El Hassani, \u00ab\u00a0Alg\u00e9rie: Incidences <\/em>(extraits),\u00a0\u00bb Iztok<\/em>, no. 12 (March 1986).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(23) Mohamed Kacimi EI Hassani, \u00ab\u00a0Une journ\u00e9e de la vie d’un militant sinc\u00e8re et int\u00e8gre d’une r\u00e9publique d\u00e9mocratique et populaire,\u00a0\u00bb Iztok<\/em>, no. 14 (September 1987). Le Mouchoir<\/em> was published in 1987 by Editions L’Harmattan (Paris).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(24) Nasdine Hobja, \u00ab\u00a0A propos du livre Offense \u00e0 pr\u00e9sident<\/em> de Mezioud Ouldamer, \u00a0\u00bb lztok<\/em>, no. 11 (September 1 985). The book was published by Editions Gerard Lebovici – Champ Libre (Paris, 1985).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

25 Lvachir’s writing, as quoted here, appears on his myspace blog at: <http:\/\/blogs.myspace.com\/lvachir> (6\/10\/10). Historian Mohammed Harbi also was quoted as saying that Kateb Yacine was an anti-authoritarian (N .B., \u00a0\u00bb Kateb, ‘un libertaire,'\u00a0\u00bb El Watan<\/em>, January 29, 2007).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(26) Roger Dadoun, \u00ab\u00a0Abdelkader Guermaz,\u00a0\u00bb Le Monde Libertaire<\/em>, no. 1321 (May 22-28, 2003).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(27) Letter from Georges Rivi\u00e8re, June 21, 2010.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(28) Chawki Amari, \u00ab\u00a0Cette terre ingouvernable,\u00a0\u00bb El Watan<\/em>, March 29, 2010 . For over 15 years, Amari has written editorial commentary, novels and non-fictional accounts on Algerian politics and society. In a 2007 interview, he said, \u00ab\u00a0To directly respond to the phrases and methods of those who govern, to show the absurdity of a castrating system is for me something fundamental\u00a0\u00bb (Yassin Temlali, \u00ab\u00a0Rencontre avec Chawki Amari, \u00e9crivain et dessinateur,\u00a0\u00bb at the BabelMed web site [July 1 3 , 2007]: <http:\/\/www.babelmed.net\/Pais\/M%C3%A9diterran%C3%A9e\/Litt%C3A9rature\/index.php?c=2490&m=319&k=4&1=fr> [6\/ ] ] II 0)). Three other Algerian journalists of apparently similar inclination are Yassir Benmiloud, Sid Ahmed Semiane and Ali Dilem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Extrait du livre de David Porter, Eyes to the South: French Anarchists and Algeria, Oakland, AK Press, 2011, p. 476-484. ANARCHISM IN ALGERIA I FOUND NO SPECIFIC EVIDENCE OF NON-EUROPEAN PARTICIPATION in anarchist membership groups (the MLNA or Spanish emigre organizations) in Algeria at the time of the outbreak of the national liberation revolution. As […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[1860,1434,3385,3379,117,3378,3381,3377,457,563,3382,3380,3384,783,2318,1008],"class_list":["post-6271","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-livres","tag-1860","tag-1434","tag-achour-idir","tag-ak-press","tag-algeria","tag-anarchism","tag-civil-war","tag-david-porter","tag-france","tag-insurrection","tag-islamism","tag-iztok","tag-kabylia","tag-mezioud-ouldamer","tag-oakland","tag-revolution"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9lTYU-1D9","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":11807,"url":"https:\/\/sinedjib.com\/index.php\/2021\/03\/14\/nicolas-walter-orwell-and-the-anarchists\/","url_meta":{"origin":6271,"position":0},"title":"Nicolas Walter : Orwell and the Anarchists","author":"SiNedjib","date":"14\/03\/2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Article de Nicolas Walter paru dans Freedom, Vol. 42, No. 2, 30th January 1981, p. 9-12 GEORGE ORWELL died in 1950. He had become famous with the publication of Animal Farm in 1945, and much more famous with the publication Nineteen Eighty-Four in 1949. But he was too ill to\u2026","rel":"","context":"Dans "presse"","block_context":{"text":"presse","link":"https:\/\/sinedjib.com\/index.php\/category\/presse\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sinedjib.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Freedom-30th-January-1981.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":5512,"url":"https:\/\/sinedjib.com\/index.php\/2019\/05\/01\/algeria\/","url_meta":{"origin":6271,"position":1},"title":"Algeria: A Historic and Ambivalent Movement","author":"SiNedjib","date":"01\/05\/2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Mon dernier article, intitul\u00e9 \"Algeria: A Historic and Ambivalent Movement\", et traduit en anglais par Janet Koening, vient d'\u00eatre publi\u00e9 par The Brooklyn Rail (May 2019). En voici les premi\u00e8res lignes : \"The popular uprising in Algiers on Friday, February 22 surprised most observers, starting with those who had rhapsodized\u2026","rel":"","context":"Dans "publications"","block_context":{"text":"publications","link":"https:\/\/sinedjib.com\/index.php\/category\/publications\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sinedjib.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/The-Brooklyn-Rail-May-2019.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":190,"url":"https:\/\/sinedjib.com\/index.php\/2013\/04\/19\/algeria-revolution\/","url_meta":{"origin":6271,"position":2},"title":"Algeria: The Revolution to Come?","author":"Nedjib Sidi Moussa","date":"19\/04\/2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Ma recension de l'essai de Hocine Belalloufi, La D\u00e9mocratie en Alg\u00e9rie, R\u00e9forme ou r\u00e9volution\u00a0? (2012), mise en ligne le 18 avril 2013 sur Jadaliyya. En voici le premier paragraphe : On the shelves of bookstores in Algiers, a book appeared a few months ago whose cover immediately stood out.\u00a0 Under\u2026","rel":"","context":"Dans "publications"","block_context":{"text":"publications","link":"https:\/\/sinedjib.com\/index.php\/category\/publications\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sinedjib.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/Hocine-Bellaloufi-D%C3%A9mocratie-Alg%C3%A9rie-191x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":11575,"url":"https:\/\/sinedjib.com\/index.php\/2021\/02\/18\/algerie-une-autre-histoire-de-lindependance-recension-dans-the-journal-of-north-african-studies\/","url_meta":{"origin":6271,"position":3},"title":"Alg\u00e9rie, une autre histoire de l\u2019ind\u00e9pendance : recension dans \u201cThe Journal of North African Studies\u201d","author":"SiNedjib","date":"18\/02\/2021","format":false,"excerpt":"J'ai le plaisir d\u2019informer mes amis et lecteurs de la parution d\u2019une nouvelle recension de mon second livre\u00a0Alg\u00e9rie, une autre histoire de l\u2019ind\u00e9pendance\u00a0(PUF, 2019)\u00a0et parue cette semaine dans The Journal of North African Studies. Voici les premi\u00e8res lignes de ce\u00a0compte-rendu\u00a0r\u00e9dig\u00e9 par l'historien Andrea Brazzoduro et intitul\u00e9 \u201cReconsidering the history of\u2026","rel":"","context":"Dans "livres"","block_context":{"text":"livres","link":"https:\/\/sinedjib.com\/index.php\/category\/livres\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sinedjib.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/Alg%C3%A9rie-une-autre-histoire-de-lind%C3%A9pendance.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":6165,"url":"https:\/\/sinedjib.com\/index.php\/2019\/07\/30\/algeria-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":6271,"position":4},"title":"L\u2019Algeria in movimento","author":"SiNedjib","date":"30\/07\/2019","format":false,"excerpt":"J\u2019ai le plaisir d\u2019annoncer la publication de mon article intitul\u00e9 \u00ab\u00a0L'Algeria in movimento \u00bb dans Gli Asini (n\u00b0 65, luglio 2019), revue \u00e9dit\u00e9e \u00e0 Rome. Ce texte, \u00e9crit le 20 mai 2019, a \u00e9t\u00e9 traduit du fran\u00e7ais par Burna Filippi. Il porte sur l'origine du mouvement populaire en Alg\u00e9rie. En\u2026","rel":"","context":"Dans "publications"","block_context":{"text":"publications","link":"https:\/\/sinedjib.com\/index.php\/category\/publications\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/gliasinirivista.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/9788863572841-758x1024.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":928,"url":"https:\/\/sinedjib.com\/index.php\/2016\/06\/03\/messali-hadj-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":6271,"position":5},"title":"Messali Hadj","author":"Nedjib Sidi Moussa","date":"03\/06\/2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Article publi\u00e9 dans le quotidien britannique The Times, le 6 juin 1974. Messali Hadj, sometimes known as the Patriarch of Algerian Nationalism, died in France on Monday at the age of 76. It was calculated that he had spent over 30 years in prison, in internment, or under house arrest.\u2026","rel":"","context":"Dans "presse"","block_context":{"text":"presse","link":"https:\/\/sinedjib.com\/index.php\/category\/presse\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sinedjib.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/Times-6-juin-1974-208x300.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sinedjib.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6271","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sinedjib.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sinedjib.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sinedjib.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sinedjib.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6271"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sinedjib.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6271\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sinedjib.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6271"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sinedjib.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6271"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sinedjib.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6271"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}

(8) This blog is located on-line at: http:\/\/anarcho-club.tchatcheblog.com<\/a> (4\/15\/10).<\/p>\n\n\n\n