Overview
Country, North Africa.
Area: 919,595 sq mi (2,381,741 sq km). Population (2005
est.): 32,854,000. Capital: Algiers. Most of the population is
ethnically and linguistically Arab, with a large Berber (Amazigh)
minority. Languages: Arabic, Berber (both official), French.
Religion: Islam (official; predominantly Sunni). Currency:
Algerian dinar. Algeria has the second largest land area (after
The Sudan) on the continent. The coastline has numerous bays,
and the country’s rivers are small and generally seasonal.
Northern Algeria is mountainous and is crossed from east to west
by the Atlas Mountains; its highest point, elevation 7,638 ft
(2,328 m), is Mount Chélia. In central and southern Algeria is
much of the northern Sahara. Algeria has a developing economy
based primarily on the production and export of petroleum and
natural gas. After achieving independence, the country
nationalized much of its economy but since the 1980s has
privatized parts of the economy. Algeria is a republic with two
legislative bodies; its chief of state is the president, and its
head of government is the prime minister. Phoenician traders
settled there early in the 1st millennium bc; several centuries
later the Romans invaded, and by ad 40 they had control of the
Mediterranean coast. The fall of Rome in the 5th century led to
an invasion by the Vandals and later to a reoccupation by the
Byzantine (Eastern Roman) Empire. The Islamic invasion began in
the 7th century; by 711 all of northern Africa was under the
control of the caliphs of the Umayyad dynasty. Several Islamic
Berber empires followed, most prominently the Almoravid (c.
1054–1130), which extended its domain to Spain, and the Almohad
(c. 1130–1269). The Barbary Coast pirates menaced Mediterranean
trade for centuries; their raids served as a pretext for France
to enter Algeria in 1830. By 1847 France had established
military control over most of the region and by the late 19th
century had instituted civil rule. Popular protest against
French rule resulted in the bloody Algerian War (1954–61);
independence was achieved following a referendum in 1962.
Beginning in the early 1990s, Islamic fundamentalist opposition
to secular rule led to an outbreak in civil violence between the
army and various Islamic extremist groups.
Profile
Official name Al-Jumhūrīyah al-Jazāʾirīyah ad-Dīmuqrāṭīyah
ash-Shaʿbīyah (Arabic) (People’s Democratic Republic of Algeria)
Form of government multiparty republic with two legislative
bodies (Council of the Nation [144]1; National People’s Assembly
[389])
Chief of state President
Head of government Prime Minister
Capital Algiers
Official language Arabic2
Official religion Islam
Monetary unit Algerian dinar (DA)
Population estimate (2008) 34,574,000
Total area (sq mi) 919,595
Total area (sq km) 2,381,741
1Includes 48 nonelected seats.
2The Berber language, Tamazight, became a national language
in April 2002.
Main
large, predominantly Muslim country of North Africa. From the
Mediterranean coast, along which most of its people live,
Algeria extends southward deep into the heart of the Sahara, a
forbidding desert where the Earth’s hottest surface temperatures
have been recorded and which constitutes more than four-fifths
of the country’s area. The Sahara and its extreme climate
dominate the country. The contemporary Algerian novelist Assia
Djebar has highlighted the environs, calling her country “a
dream of sand.”
History, language, customs, and an Islamic heritage make
Algeria an integral part of the Maghrib and the larger Arab
world, but the country also has a sizable Amazigh (Berber)
population, with links to that cultural tradition. Once the
breadbasket of the Roman Empire, the territory now comprising
Algeria was ruled by various Arab-Amazigh dynasties from the 8th
through the 16th century, when it became part of the Ottoman
Empire. The decline of the Ottomans was followed by a brief
period of independence that ended when France launched a war of
conquest in 1830. By 1847 the French had largely suppressed
Algerian resistance to the invasion and the following year made
Algeria a département of France. French colonists modernized
Algeria’s agricultural and commercial economy but lived apart
from the Algerian majority, enjoying social and economic
privileges extended to few non-Europeans. Ethnic resentment,
fueled by revolutionary politics introduced by Algerians who had
lived and studied in France, led to a widespread nationalist
movement in the mid-20th century. After a civil war (1954–62)—so
fierce that the revolutionary Frantz Fanon noted, “Terror,
counter-terror, violence, counter-violence: that is what
observers bitterly record when they describe the circle of hate,
which is so tenacious and so evident in Algeria”—France granted
Algeria independence, and most Europeans left the country.
Although the influence of the French language and culture in
Algeria has remained strong, since independence the country
consistently has sought to regain its Arab and Islamic heritage.
At the same time, the development of oil and natural gas and
other mineral deposits in the Algerian interior has brought new
wealth to the country and prompted a modest rise in the standard
of living; in the early 21st century its economy was among the
largest in Africa.
The capital is Algiers, a crowded, bustling seaside
metropolis whose historic core, or medina, is ringed by tall
skyscrapers and apartment blocks. Algeria’s second city is Oran,
a port on the Mediterranean Sea near the border with Morocco;
less hectic than Algiers, Oran has emerged as an important
centre of music, art, and education.
Land
Algeria is bounded to the east by Tunisia and Libya; to the
south by Niger, Mali, and Mauritania; to the west by Morocco and
Western Sahara (which has been virtually incorporated by the
former); and to the north by the Mediterranean Sea. It is a vast
country—the second largest in Africa and the 11th largest in the
world—that may be divided into two distinct geographic regions.
The northernmost, generally known as the Tell, is subject to the
moderating influences of the Mediterranean and consists largely
of the Atlas Mountains, which separate the coastal plains from
the second region in the south. This southern region, almost
entirely desert, forms the majority of the country’s territory
and is situated in the western portion of the Sahara, which
stretches across North Africa.
Relief
The main structural relief features in Algeria were produced
by the collision of the African and Eurasian tectonic plates
along the Mediterranean margin, giving the country its two
geographic regions. The Tell, home to most of the country’s
population, contains two geologically young massifs, the Tell
Atlas (Atlas Tellien) and the Saharan Atlas (Atlas Saharien),
that run generally parallel from east to west and are separated
by the High Plateau (Hauts Plateaux). The south, consisting of
the Sahara, is a solid and ancient platform of basement rock,
horizontal and uniform. This region is uninhabited desert with
the exception of several oases, but it conceals rich mineral
resources, most significantly petroleum and natural gas.
The Tell
In succession from north to south are intermittent coastal
folded massifs and coastal plains. Along with the Tell Atlas,
High Plateau, and Saharan Atlas, they form a sequence of five
geographically variegated zones that roughly parallel the coast.
The coastal ridges and massifs are indented with numerous
bays and are often separated from each other by plains—such as
the plains of Oran and Annaba—that extend inland. In the same
way, the Tell Atlas is not continuous; in the west it forms two
distinct ranges separated by interior plains. Thus, the Maghnia
Plain separates the Tlemcen Mountains to the south from the
Traras Mountains to the northwest. Similarly, the plains of Sidi
Bel Abbès and Mascara are nestled between hill ranges to the
north and south. The Dahra Massif forms a long range extending
from the mouth of the Chelif River in the west to Mount Chenoua
in the east; it is separated from the Ouarsenis Massif to the
south by plains of the Chelif valley.
The relief as a whole, therefore, does not constitute a
barrier to communications in the western Tell. However, this is
not the case in the central Tell, where the Blida Atlas merges
with the Titteri Mountains and the mountainous block of Great
Kabylia (Grande Kabylie) joins with the Bibans and Hodna
mountains to make north-south communications more difficult.
Only the valley of the Wadi Soummam permits communication with
the port of Bejaïa.
Farther east, from Bejaïa to Annaba, one mountain barrier
follows another to separate the plains of Constantine from the
sea. The lands south of the plains are dominated by the Hodna,
Aurès, and Nemencha ranges. The plains themselves, which have
long been used for growing cereal grains, have a distinct local
topography and do not present the same features as the High
Plateau, which extends westward from the Hodna Mountains into
Morocco. The latter is broken by sabkhahs (lake beds encrusted
with salt) and is much less favourable to agriculture because it
receives less precipitation.
To the south of the High Plateau and the plains of
Constantine runs the Saharan Atlas, which is formed from a
series of ranges oriented southwest to northeast. These decline
in elevation from the west, where Mount Aïssa reaches 7,336 feet
(2,236 metres) in the Ksour Mountains, to lower summits in the
Amour and Oulad Naïl mountains. Higher summits are again found
in the Aurès Mountains, where the highest peak in northern
Algeria, Mount Chelia, which reaches 7,638 feet (2,328 metres),
is located.
Only the northern Tell ranges, lying along the tectonic plate
boundary, experience much seismic activity. Severe earthquakes
there have twice destroyed the town of Chlef (El-Asnam), in 1954
and 1980. An earthquake in 1989 caused severe damage in the zone
between the Chenoua massif and Algiers, as did another in 2003
just east of Algiers.
The Sahara
The Algerian Sahara may be divided roughly into two
depressions of different elevation, separated from one another
by a central north-south rise called the Mʾzab (Mzab). Each zone
is covered by a vast sheet of sand dunes called an erg. The
Great Eastern Erg (Grand Erg Oriental) and the Great Western Erg
(Grand Erg Occidental), which average 1,300 to 2,000 feet (400
to 600 metres) in height, decline in elevation northward from
the foot of the Ahaggar (Hoggar) Mountains to below sea level in
places south of the Aurès Mountains. The Ahaggar Mountains in
the southern Sahara rise to majestic summits; the tallest, Mount
Tahat, reaches an elevation of 9,573 feet (2,918 metres) and is
the highest peak in the country.
Drainage
Most of the rivers of the Tell Atlas are short and undergo
large variations in flow. The largest river is the Chelif, which
rises in the High Plateau, crosses the Tell Atlas, and flows
through an east-west trough to reach the sea east of Mostaganem.
The Chelif has been so intensively exploited for irrigation and
drinking water that it has ceased to flow in its lower reaches
during the summer months. South of the Tell Atlas there are only
ephemeral rivers (wadis), and much surface runoff ends in chotts
(salt marshes) within inland depressions. Several Saharan
watercourses, in particular those flowing off the Ahaggar
uplands, occupy valleys formed largely during pluvial periods in
the Pleistocene Epoch (2,600,000 to 11,700 years ago). Some
southward-flowing wadis feed the water tables beneath the
Saharan surface, and desert oases appear in locations where the
water, under hydrostatic pressure, rises to the surface in
artesian wells or springs.
Soils
Continued vegetation clearance and erosion have limited the
area of fertile brown soils to those uplands where evergreen oak
forests are still found. Mediterranean red soils occupy the
lower elevations in much of the northern Tell. Farther south the
soils become progressively immature as aridity increases; they
are characterized by little chemical weathering or accumulation
of organic matter. In the desert areas soil development is
further impeded by strong and nearly constant wind erosion. An
ambitious project was initiated in the mid-1970s to create a
“green barrier” against Saharan encroachment northward,
reforesting a narrow strip up to 12 miles (19 km) in width and
some 1,000 miles (1,600 km) in length; it proved only somewhat
successful. Another plan, however, was introduced in the
mid-1980s to reforest an additional 1,400 square miles (3,600
square km).
Climate
Climate, more than relief, is the country’s major geographic
factor. The amount of precipitation and, above all, its
distribution throughout the year, as well as the timing and
magnitude of the sirocco—a dry, desiccating wind that emanates
seasonally from the Sahara (often with gale force)—constitute
the principal elements on which agriculture and many other
activities depend.
Algeria’s coastal zone and northern mountains have a typical
Mediterranean climate, with warm, dry summers and mild, rainy
winters. Algiers, for example, has afternoon temperatures in
July of 83 °F (28 °C), which drop to about 70 °F (21 °C) at
night, while in January daily temperatures range between 59 and
49 °F (15 and 9 °C). Four-fifths of the city’s 30 inches (760
mm) of annual precipitation falls between October and March, and
July and August are usually dry. Total annual precipitation
increases along the coast from west to east but diminishes
rapidly from the coast southward into the interior. The greatest
amount of precipitation occurs in the mountainous regions of the
eastern littoral, which are directly exposed to the humid winds
that blow inland from the Mediterranean. From a point about 50
miles (80 km) west of Algiers to the Tunisian frontier, annual
precipitation exceeds 24 inches (600 mm), and in certain
places—for example, in the Great Kabylia, Little Kabylia (Petite
Kabylie), and Edough regions—it reaches about 40 inches (1,000
mm). West of this location a considerable part of the Chelif
Plain and the plains of the littoral and the region immediately
to the south of it in the vicinity of Oran are insufficiently
watered, receiving less than 23 inches (580 mm). Precipitation
also diminishes after crossing the Atlas ranges to the south,
except in the Aurès and in a section of the Amour Mountains,
which still receive about 16 inches (400 mm).
This east-west boundary roughly separates the two principal
agricultural zones of the country. Dry farming is generally
possible and commercially profitable in the eastern zone, where
fine forests and abundant vegetation also exist. In the western
zone cereal crops can be cultivated only with irrigation;
pastoral activities dominate, and the forests disappear.
Northern Algeria’s relief, parallel to the coastline, limits
the southward penetration of the Mediterranean climate. The
plains and hills in the region immediately to the south of the
coastal mountains still receive sufficient precipitation but
have a much drier atmosphere, and temperature ranges are more
varied. The High Plateau, on the other hand, is characterized by
daily and annual extremes of temperature, hot summers and cold
winters, and insufficient precipitation. Summer temperatures are
typically above 100 °F (38 °C) in the afternoon and drop to
about 50 °F (10 °C) at night, while in winter they range from
about 60 °F (16 °C) during the day to about 28 °F (−2 °C) at
night. Annual precipitation varies from 4 to 16 inches (100 to
400 mm).
The Sahara proper begins on the southern border of the
Saharan Atlas. The demarcation coincides with a diminution of
the precipitation to less than 4 inches (100 mm) per year. The
landscape and vegetation differ greatly from those in the north,
with life and activity limited to a few privileged locations.
Daily and annual temperature ranges are even more extreme than
on the High Plateau, and precipitation is marked by greater
irregularity. Three years may pass without precipitation in the
Tademaït region, as many as five years on the Ahaggar plateau.
Plant and animal life
Natural vegetation patterns generally follow the country’s
north-south climatic gradient, and elevation produces additional
variations. All vegetation in Algeria, where all areas are
subject to some seasonal aridity, is characteristically
drought-resistant. Forests cover only about 2 percent of the
entire land area and are found primarily in the less-accessible
mountain regions, where remnants of evergreen forests remain on
the moister slopes. Dominated by holm oak, cork oak, and
conifers such as juniper, the forests today contain only limited
patches of economically valuable cedar. Much of the entire Tell
region in the north was once covered with woodland, but most of
this has been replaced by a poor maquis scrubland consisting of
evergreen, often aromatic, hard-leaved shrubs and low trees that
include laurel, rosemary, and thyme. On limestone and poorer
soils, however, maquis degenerates into garigue (or garrigue), a
low-growing shrub association of gorse, lavender, and sage.
Farther south, increasing aridity reduces the vegetation to a
discontinuous type of steppe (treeless plain) dominated by
esparto grass. A richer association containing Barbary fig and
date palm, however, is still found along the wadis. In the
desert proper, plant life is highly dispersed and consists of
tufts of several kinds of robust grass species that need almost
no water, such as drinn (Aristida pungens) and cram-cram
(Cenchrus biflorus); several types of shrubs, which are always
stunted and sometimes spiny; tamarisk, acacia, and jujube trees;
and some more varied species that are found in the beds of wadis
with underground water or in mountainous regions.
The animal life of the northern mountains includes wild
mouflons, Barbary deer, wild boars, and Barbary macaques. A
multitude of migratory birds pass through the country, including
storks and flamingos. In the Sahara, gazelles, fennecs, hyenas,
and jackals can be found, together with many smaller mammals
such as gerbils and desert hare. Insect life is abundant and is
most spectacularly manifested in the region’s periodic massive
swarms of locusts. Scorpions are common in the arid and semiarid
regions.
People
Ethnic groups
More than four-fifths of the country is ethnically Arab,
though most Algerians are descendents of ancient Amazigh groups
who mixed with various invading peoples from the Arab Middle
East, southern Europe, and sub-Saharan Africa. Arab invasions in
the 8th and 11th centuries brought only limited numbers of new
people to the region but resulted in the extensive Arabization
and Islamization of the indigenous Amazigh population. Some
one-fifth of the Algerians now consider themselves Amazigh, of
whom the Kabyle Imazighen (plural of Amazigh), occupying the
mountainous area east of Algiers, form the largest group. Other
Amazigh groups are the Shawia (Chaouïa), who live primarily in
the Aurès Mountains; the Mʾzabites, a sedentary group descended
from the 9th-century Ibāḍī followers of ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn
Rustam, who inhabit the northern edge of the desert; and the
Tuareg nomads of the Saharan Ahaggar region. Nearly all the
European settlers—mainly French, Italian, and Maltese nationals,
who formed a sizable minority in the colonial period—have left
the country.
Languages
Arabic became the official national language of Algeria in
1990, and most Algerians speak one of several dialects of
vernacular Arabic. These are generally similar to dialects
spoken in adjacent areas of Morocco and Tunisia. Modern Standard
Arabic is taught in schools. The Amazigh language (Tamazight)—in
several geographic dialects—is spoken by Algeria’s ethnic
Imazighen, though most are also bilingual in Arabic.
Algeria’s official policy of “Arabization” since
independence, which aims to promote indigenous Arabic and
Islamic cultural values throughout society, has resulted in the
replacement of French by Arabic as the national medium and, in
particular, as the primary language of instruction in primary
and secondary schools. Some Amazigh groups have strongly
resisted this policy, fearing domination by the Arabic-speaking
majority. The Amazigh language was adopted as an official
language in 2002.
Religion
Most Algerians, both Arab and Amazigh, are Sunni Muslims
of the Mālikī rite. A source of unity and cultural identity,
Islam provides valuable links with the wider Islamic world as
well. In the struggle against French rule, Islam became an
integral part of Algerian nationalism. Alongside the more
traditional institutions of the mosques and madrasahs (religious
schools), Islam has possessed from its outset a deep mysticism,
which has manifested itself in various, often culturally unique,
forms. A distinctive North African facet of this tradition,
stemming from Islamic folk practices and Sufi teaching, is the
important role played by marabouts. These saintly individuals
were widely held to possess special powers and were venerated
locally as teachers, healers, and spiritual leaders. Marabouts
frequently formed extensive brotherhoods and at various times
would take up the sword in defense of their religion and country
(as did their namesakes, the al-Murābiṭūn; see Almoravids). In
more peaceful times these local religious icons would practice a
type of Islam that stressed local custom and direct spiritual
insight as much as Qurʾānic teachings. Their independence was
often perceived as a threat to established authority, and
Islamic reformers and state bodies have historically sought to
restrict the growth of marabout influence.
While Algeria’s postindependence governments have confirmed
the country’s Islamic heritage, their policies have often
encouraged secular developments. Islamic fundamentalism has been
increasing in strength since the late 1970s in reaction to this.
Muslim extremist groups periodically have clashed with both
left-wing students and emancipated women’s groups, while
fundamentalist imams (prayer leaders) have gained influence in
many of the country’s major mosques.
Settlement patterns
Algeria’s population density is highest in the plains and
coastal mountains of the northern Tell—the areas of higher, more
reliable precipitation. Density declines southward, so that much
of the southern High Plateau and Saharan Atlas are very sparsely
populated and, farther south, large stretches of the Sahara are
virtually uninhabited. Traditionally, rural settlement in
Algeria consisted of widely scattered hamlets and isolated
dwellings, with nomads in parts of the Sahara and its fringes.
Concentrated village settlements were sometimes found at oases
and in certain upland regions, such as the Aurès Mountains and
the Great Kabylia, the latter being an Amazigh stronghold
renowned for its hilltop villages and traditional way of life.
French settlers who arrived in Algeria in the latter half of
the 19th century built several hundred “villages of
colonization” in the countryside. Often geometric in layout,
these settlements replicated French villages and house designs
and often provided important service centres in areas of
dispersed rural population. The Algerian War of Independence
(1954–62) destroyed nearly 8,000 villages and hamlets and
displaced some three million people. Many of the displaced were
relocated to several thousand new resettlement centres, while
others were moved to towns. Most of the resettlement centres
continued to exist after the war and became regular villages as
they acquired service functions. Another wave of rural
settlement occurred in the 1970s through a government-sponsored
agrarian reform program that constructed some 400 “socialist
villages.” This program was abandoned by the 1980s, however, in
favour of privately funded settlement efforts.
Urbanization had increased greatly under French rule. As
service centres were created in rural areas, European suburbs
and new public buildings were added to the larger cities. Port
and industrial activities also accelerated the development of
certain coastal towns, such as Annaba (Bône), Skikda
(Philippeville), and Mostaganem. During and after the War of
Independence, the rural exodus to many towns changed them from
mainly European settlements to overcrowded cities with a mixed
population. The urban growth rate was so rapid that even the
departure of some one million Europeans after the war, which
made many dwellings available, and considerable new construction
did little to alleviate overcrowding in the cities. Roughly half
of the population live in urban areas, the largest concentration
being along the coast. Algiers is by far the largest city.
Demographic trends
Algeria’s annual rate of population growth was high
throughout much of the latter half of the 20th century, but by
the late 1980s overall growth—birth rates in particular—had
begun to decline. The population is youthful, about half being
age 19 or younger. A drop in infant mortality rates has
contributed to a decline in overall death rates, but these have
been partly offset by the lower birth rates. The decline in
fertility has occurred in the cities, where the government has
focused some efforts at family planning. Life expectancy is
about 70 years.
Algerian emigration to Europe, once a viable alternative for
the country’s unemployed, declined in the late 20th century as
France restricted further immigration, but decades of such
migration have left a large Algerian diaspora in France,
Belgium, and other western European countries. In addition,
Saharan nomadism was sharply reduced in the 20th century,
stemming from the effects of drought in the desert region and
because of government policies promoting settlement. A number of
the country’s Tuareg nomads, for example, now lead sedentary
lives around oases such as Djanet and Tamanghasset
(Tamanrasset), while others cling to a precarious and
ever-declining way of life.
Economy
Algeria’s economy is dominated by its export trade in
petroleum and natural gas, commodities that, despite
fluctuations in world prices, annually contribute roughly
one-third of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP). Until
1962 the economy was based largely on agriculture and
complemented France’s economy. Since then the extraction and
production of hydrocarbons have been the most important activity
and have facilitated rapid industrialization. The Algerian
government instituted a centrally planned economy within a state
socialist system in the first two decades after independence,
nationalizing major industries and implementing multiyear
economic plans. However, since the early 1980s the focus has
shifted toward privatization, and Algeria’s socialist direction
has been modified somewhat. Standards of living have risen to
those of an intermediately developed country, but food
production has fallen well below the level of self-sufficiency,
and an increase in international debt poses a major obstacle to
continued rapid development.
Agriculture, forestry, and fishing
Cultivated land is largely restricted to the coastal plains
and valleys. These areas were colonized by French settlers, who
established vineyards, orchards, citrus groves, and market
gardens. The best farms were located in the well-watered fertile
plains around Bejaïa and Annaba in the east, in the Mitidja
Plain south of Algiers, and beyond Oran from Sidi Bel Abbès to
Tlemcen. Rich vineyard areas were also maintained on the Médéa
and Mascara plateaus.
The country’s aridity, however, renders more than four-fifths
of the land uncultivable, and most of the remaining agricultural
land is suitable only for pasture. The rest is tilled or devoted
to vineyards and orchards. Winter grains—wheat, barley, and
oats—are grown on the largest area of arable land in the drier
High Plateau, notably around Constantine, and in the Sersou
Plateau to the west. Also in the west, esparto grass grows
naturally on the region’s steppe plains. Tobacco, olives, and
dates are important crops, as are sorghum, millet, corn (maize),
rye, and rice. The climate is not well suited to extensive stock
raising, but there are many scattered herds of cattle, goats,
and sheep, and stock raising contributes significantly to the
traditional sector of agriculture.
Irregular precipitation has long been a threat to
agriculture, but dam construction and irrigation projects have
added some stability to crop production. At independence Algeria
possessed some 20 sizable dams. An active and ongoing
construction program nearly doubled that number by the late
1980s, adding substantially to the country’s total irrigated
acreage. Despite such efforts, the nation’s meagre water
resources are under increasing pressure to meet its
urban-industrial demands as well.
Since independence agriculture has been the neglected sector
of Algeria’s economy, suffering from underinvestment, poor
organization, and successive restructuring; it now contributes
less than one-eighth of GDP annually. As a result, cereal
production has undergone large annual fluctuations, orchard and
industrial crops have largely stagnated, and viticulture has
declined markedly. Wine production, once the mainstay of
colonial agriculture and exports, is now at only about one-tenth
of its 1950s levels; because of Islam’s ban on alcohol
consumption, viticulture is increasingly deemed culturally
inappropriate. Wine exports to France have substantially
declined, and most vineyards have been uprooted, with
considerable loss of employment. Only market gardening and
livestock production have shown significant growth. As a result,
Algeria changed from a food-exporting nation in the 1950s to one
that by the late 20th century had to import about three-fourths
of its food needs.
In addition, the program to privatize former state farms
since the 1980s caused legal wrangling over landownership. A
substantial area of fertile agricultural land in and around
Algiers and Oran has gone out of production because of the civil
strife in the country that began in the early 1990s.
Algeria’s scant forests have relegated only minor importance
to timber production in the country’s economy, although some
cork from the cork oak forests in the higher elevations of the
Tell Atlas is processed domestically. Forest area has decreased
rapidly since the 1950s through logging operations, forest
fires, and urban encroachment, adding to the country’s serious
problem of soil erosion. However, the Algerian government aims
at preserving and expanding the remaining woodlands.
Even with the country’s long coastline, the fishing industry
is underdeveloped and lands only a portion of its estimated
potential catch. Refrigeration and canning facilities, necessary
for transporting the catch inland, are limited. The government,
however, has taken steps to develop the industry by constructing
additional fishing ports.
Resources and power
Hydrocarbons
Extensive deposits of sulfur-free light crude oil were
discovered in the Algerian Sahara in the mid-1950s. Production
began in 1958, concentrated in three main fields: Hassi
Messaoud, in the northeastern part of the Sahara;
Zarzaïtine-Edjeleh, along the Libyan border; and El-Borma, on
the Tunisian border. Deposits of natural gas were first
discovered at Hassi R’Mel in 1956, and since then discoveries
have also been made at several other fields. Algeria ranks fifth
in the world in terms of total gas reserves and second in gas
exports. The gas has a methane content of more than 80 percent
and also contains ethane, propane, and helium.
The main petroleum prospectors and producers following the
discovery of oil were two French groups, Compagnie Française des
Pétroles-Algérie and Entreprise de Recherches et d’Activités
Pétrolières. Other international oil companies soon followed.
Algeria nationalized all international oil companies operating
in the country in 1971 and gave control of their assets to the
state-owned Algerian oil concern, Société Nationale de Transport
et de Commercialisation des Hydrocarbures (Sonatrach), which had
been set up in 1963–64. Sonatrach undertook its own exploitation
and production activities, with some success, although much of
this was made possible by Soviet assistance and, more recently,
by the establishment of joint service companies with help from
American specialists. State liberalization during the 1990s
permitted North American and European petroleum companies to
enter into joint ventures to explore and exploit Algerian
reserves. More than a dozen foreign companies were involved in
joint ventures in Algeria by the late 1990s, reversing the
earlier state monopoly of Sonatrach.
Four pipelines transport petroleum from Algeria’s oil fields
to the Mediterranean for export overseas. The
Trans-Mediterranean natural gas pipeline from Tunisia to Sicily
and on to Naples, Italy, was completed in 1981, substantially
boosting the sales of Algerian natural gas to Europe. In 1996 a
second Maghrib-Europe gas pipeline began to supply Spain with
Algerian gas, and Portugal was linked to the system in 1997.
With petroleum reserves expected to run out in the first decades
of the 21st century, exports of natural gas hold the promise of
being more important for the economy than sales of oil.
Mining
The main mining centres are at Ouenza and Djebel Onk near
the eastern border with Tunisia and at El-Abed in the west.
Extensive deposits of high-grade iron ore are worked at Ouenza,
and major deposits of medium-grade ore exist at Gara Djebilet
near Tindouf. Nearly all the high-grade iron ore from the
open-cut works at Ouenza is used to supply the domestic steel
industry.
Reserves of nonferrous metal ores are smaller and more
scattered. These include sizable quantities of zinc and lead at
El-Abed near Tlemcen—the source of most of the country’s
production—and of mercury ore at Azzaba. However, it is
estimated that the zinc will be depleted in the early 21st
century.
Phosphate deposits of relatively inferior grade are mined
south of Tébessa at Djebel Onk. About one-third of this supplies
the Annaba fertilizer complex, but the remainder is exported as
raw material. Overall phosphate production declined by the
mid-1990s.
Intensive prospecting for minerals in the Ahaggar Mountains
has been carried out, and traces of tin, nickel, cobalt, chrome,
and uranium have been found. Development of the Ahaggar uranium
deposits began in the early 1980s. There are also sizable kaolin
deposits at Djebel Debar and large reserves of marble at Djebel
Filfila near Skikda.
Manufacturing
The manufacturing sector was mainly confined to food
processing, textiles, cigarettes, and clothing before
independence. Since 1967, however, the main emphasis has shifted
toward heavy industry. The state steel corporation, for example,
completed its large El-Hadjar steelworks complex at Annaba in
the early 1970s and has constructed a zinc electrolysis plant
near the El-Abed mine, at Ghazaouet. Much of the steel produced
for domestic consumption is allocated for machine tools,
tractors, agricultural equipment, buses, trucks, and
automobiles. Paralleling the Annaba steel complex is the vast
Skikda petrochemical works, which includes a gas liquefaction
plant, an ethylene factory, liquid petroleum gas separation
facilities, a plastics factory, and a benzene refinery. Other
gas liquefaction plants are located at Bejaïa and Arzew; the
latter is also the site of a nitrogenous fertilizer factory, an
oil refinery, and a liquid petroleum gas separation plant. A
complex at Sétif houses methanol and plastics factories. The
phosphate fertilizer factory at Annaba is a major component of
Algeria’s heavy industrial development.
A large proportion of the country’s industries were state-run
until the 1980s, when the government restructured these large
operations into smaller state-run units and encouraged these to
pursue joint ventures with private concerns. Algeria was unable
to use its full industrial capacity at that time, however,
because its financial situation had deteriorated and the economy
remained poorly managed. Nonetheless, the state continued to
encourage private industry, and in the early 1990s a privately
owned steel mill began operation. Joint ventures between
Algerian and foreign companies have been promoted at a growing
rate, especially in the field of petrochemicals. Agreements were
also made with European countries to set up automobile assembly
and engine production industries, and South Korean firms have
become more involved in various endeavours, notably the
manufacture of electrical goods, fertilizers, and automobiles.
Within Algerian-owned industries, continued restructuring during
the 1990s resulted in many factory shutdowns and job losses, and
production levels varied from year to year.
Finance
The Banque d’Algérie, an independent central bank
established in 1963, issues the Algerian dinar, the national
currency. The government restructured the commercial banking
system in the mid-1980s, increasing the number of state-owned
commercial banks in the country. The state also opened the
financial market to private banks, including some foreign ones,
in the 1990s. A law enacted in 1995 lifted government price
controls on a variety of commodities. Price subsidies on various
basic products have been gradually phased out, in line with
Algeria’s restructuring agreements with the International
Monetary Fund. These agreements also resulted in the floating
and subsequent devaluation of the dinar, which had formerly been
artificially tied to the French franc.
Trade
Virtually all of Algeria’s foreign-exchange earnings are
derived from the export of petroleum and natural gas products,
both of which are refined domestically at an increasing rate.
Other exports include phosphates, vegetables, dates, tobacco,
and leather goods. The major imports are capital goods and
semifinished products, consisting mostly of industrial equipment
and consumer goods, followed closely by foodstuffs. About
two-thirds of all trade is with countries of the European Union,
and the United States is next in importance.
Algerian trade with France dropped from four-fifths of the
total trade in 1961 to about one-fifth in the late 20th century.
French imports of Algerian agricultural products, especially
wine, were severely restricted after independence. Algerians in
France formerly remitted substantial sums of money annually to
relatives in Algeria; this was partly responsible for Algeria’s
healthy balance-of-payments position. By the mid-1990s, however,
the annual balance of payments was often negative, and Algeria
had a high level of external debt.
Services
The service sector contributes a relatively small amount to
the country’s GDP and employs only a small proportion of the
labour force. Tourist-related activities have traditionally made
up only a minute part of the service sector—this, despite
Algeria’s many striking natural features and significant
historical wealth—and even this share declined beginning in the
1990s because of civil unrest.
Labour and taxation
The right for labour to organize is guaranteed by Algerian
law, although there is only one nationwide trade union, Union
Générale de Travailleurs Algériens, which is also the country’s
largest labour organization. The government guarantees a minimum
wage, and the workweek is set at 40 hours and—as in many Muslim
countries—extends from Saturday to Wednesday. The largest
employment sectors in Algeria are public administration,
agriculture, and transportation. Unemployment, however, is high
by any standard, with nearly one-third of the eligible labour
force out of work.
Proceeds from the sale of petroleum and natural gas are far
and away the government’s largest source of revenue. Despite
fluctuations in the world oil market, this sector provides more
than half the government’s annual receipts, with other
sources—such as tax revenue, customs duties, and fees—generating
the balance. Of these latter sources, taxes, both income and
value-added, constitute the largest proportion.
Transportation and telecommunications
At independence Algeria inherited a transportation network
geared toward serving French colonial interests. The network did
not integrate the country nationally or regionally, and few
north-south routes existed. However, a good road network was in
place in the densely populated Tell region, complete with
express highways around the city of Algiers. Fast and frequent
rail service was established between Oran, Algiers, and
Constantine by the late 20th century.
The main rail line parallels the coast and extends from the
Moroccan to the Tunisian border. Several standard-gauge lines
branch from the main line to port cities and to some interior
towns, and a few narrow-gauge lines cross the High Plateau to
the Algerian Sahara. Two trans-Saharan roads have been built:
one paved route from El-Goléa to Tamanghasset and then south to
Niger, the other from El-Goléa to Adrar and then on to Mali. A
state bus company and several private companies provide reliable
intercity bus services.
The principal ports are Algiers, Oran, Annaba, Bejaïa,
Bettioua, Mostaganem, and Ténès, in addition to the primarily
petroleum and natural gas ports at Arzew and Skikda. Algeria’s
merchant fleet has grown into a major world shipping line.
Administered by the Algerian National Navigation Company, the
fleet includes more than 150 vessels, including oil tankers and
specialized liquefied natural gas tankers.
Air Algérie, the state airline, operates flights to many
foreign countries and provides daily domestic flights between
the country’s major cities and towns. There are international
airports at Algiers, Annaba, Constantine, Oran, Tlemcen, and
Ghardaïa.
The Algerian government began investing heavily in the
country’s telecommunications infrastructure in the 1970s and
’80s, and, beginning in the early 1990s, the Ministry of Posts
and Telecommunications (MPT), the sector’s controlling body,
began to slowly deregulate what had been a complete government
monopoly. In 2000 a series of laws opened up the market even
further—including allowing foreign companies to tender bids—and
Algérie Telecom, a state-owned telecommunications company
distinct from MPT, was founded. A separate regulatory body was
formed to organize the free-market system.
Despite intensive investment in Algeria’s telecommunications
infrastructure, telephone, mobile telephone, and Internet access
is still limited. Few Algerians can afford the luxury of a home
computer, and cable and telephone access has limited the number
of Internet subscribers to a few thousand. Consequently,
cybercafes are popular among those seeking Internet access.
Government and society
Constitutional framework
Algeria was dominated for the first three decades following
independence by the National Liberation Front (Front de
Libération Nationale; FLN), until 1989 the sole legal political
party. New electoral laws passed in that year made the country a
multiparty state. The constitution adopted in 1996 provides for
a strong executive branch headed by a president, who was to be
elected by universal suffrage for a maximum of two five-year
terms; in late 2008, however, the legislature approved a
constitutional amendment that abolished the two-term limit. The
president, who is chief of state, appoints numerous state
officials, including a wide range of civilian and military
leaders, provincial governors, and the prime minister, who acts
as head of the government. The prime minister nominates a
government for the president’s approval, thus completing the
executive, and presents a program to the lower house of the
nation’s bicameral legislature for ratification.
Once the government is in place, the head of government
presents draft legislation, which is debated first in the
country’s lower house, the National People’s Assembly (Majlis
al-Shaʿbī al-Waṭanī), deputies of which are elected for
five-year terms by universal adult suffrage. Debate then passes
to the upper house, the Council of the Nation (Majlis al-Ummah),
members of which serve six-year terms. One-third of council
members are appointed by the president, and the remaining
two-thirds are elected indirectly by a secret ballot of local
and district legislatures. In addition, the constitution
requires that one-half of the council’s members be replaced
every three years. Both houses are able to debate any draft law
put before them, but only the lower house may alter draft
documents. The upper house is required to vote on material
presented to its members by the lower house and must achieve a
three-fourths majority to pass any legislation. The legislature
meets twice per year, each session lasting no less than four
months. It is empowered to draft and ratify legislation on a
wide variety of issues, including matters of civil and criminal
law, personal status, state finance, and the exploitation of
natural resources.
The constitution of 1996 also established a Constitutional
Council (Majlis Dustūrī) to oversee elections and referenda,
rule on issues of the constitutionality of treaties,
negotiations, and amendments, and, when called on by the
president, issue opinions on the constitutionality of laws. The
Council is appointed jointly by the executive, legislative, and
judicial branches.
Local government
Below the national level, the country is divided into
wilāyāt (provinces), each with its own elected assembly
(Assemblée Populaire de Wilaya; APW), executive council, and
governor. The provinces are in turn divided into dawāʾir
(administrative districts) and then into baladīyāt (communes),
each one having its own assembly (Assemblée Populaire Communale)
to run local affairs.
The executive council of the province is the chief regional
authority. It is composed of the regional directors of the state
agencies that are located in the province. The council is thus
responsive to both regional and national concerns. Through the
provincial governor, the province exercises trusteeship and
administrative control of local collectives, public
establishments, independent enterprises, and national societies.
As an organ of the national government, the provincial
leadership participates in the planning and application of the
national development plan and helps coordinate matters related
to the province.
The governor is solely responsible for interaction between
the national government and the province. Appointed by the
president for an indeterminate term, the governor assumes any
necessary function in order to coordinate relations between the
national government and its local constituency. As the
representative of the province, the governor presides over the
implementation of the decisions of the APW, and, as a senior
state functionary, the governor is the direct representative in
the province of each national ministry.
Justice
At independence Algeria inherited colonial judicial
institutions that were widely held by Muslim Algerians to have
been established to maintain colonial authority. Judicial
organization was based on two separate foundations: Muslim
jurisdiction—practicing Sharīʿah (Islamic law)—and French civil
courts; the latter were primarily located in the larger towns
where the Europeans were concentrated. Sharīʿah courts were the
first—and all too frequently the final—recourse for Muslims
seeking judicial redress.
Postindependence governments were quick to take steps to
eliminate the French colonial judicial legacy. In 1965 the
entire system was reformed by a decree that instituted a new
judicial organization. This decree was followed a year later by
the promulgation of new legal codes—the penal code, the code of
penal procedure, and the code of civil procedure. A provincial
court in each province and nearly 200 widely distributed
tribunals were eventually created.
The judiciary now consists of three levels. At the first
level is the tribunal, to which civil and commercial litigation
is submitted and which takes action in penal cases of the first
instance. At the second level is the provincial court, which
consists of a three-judge panel that hears all cases and that
functions as a court of appeal for the tribunals and for the
administrative jurisdictions of the first instance. At the third
and highest level is the Supreme Court, which is the final court
of appeal and of appeals against the decisions of the lower
courts. In 1975 the Court of State Security, composed of
magistrates and high-ranking army officers, was created to
handle cases involving state security. The constitution of 1996
instituted two new high courts to complement the Supreme Court.
The Council of State acts as an administrative equivalent to the
Supreme Court, hearing cases not ordinarily reviewed by that
body; and the Tribunal of Conflicts was instituted to regulate
any jurisdictional disputes that might arise between the other
two high courts.
Political process
Until 1989 all candidates for the National People’s Assembly
were chosen by the FLN. Following reforms, the scope of
political participation widened with the birth of new
independent political parties. In local and national elections
in 1990 and 1991, the Islamist parties, especially the Islamic
Salvation Front (Front Islamique du Salut; FIS), made the
largest gains of any new parties, while in Kabylia local Amazigh
parties gained control of local assemblies. With this
democratization hundreds of new cultural, environmental,
charitable, and athletic associations were formed, independent
of the stringent control formerly exercised by the FLN in those
areas. A coup in 1992 slowed democratization but did not totally
suppress the process. Corruption among government officials and
violent outbreaks by Islamic extremists against democratic
reforms continued in the late 1990s. Conditions had improved
sufficiently by 2003 to permit the release from detention of two
main FIS leaders.
Security
Although its yearly military expenditures are well above the
world average, Algeria maintains a relatively small active
military. More than half of its troop strength consists of
conscripts who serve for six months (with an additional year of
civic service). Most conscripts serve in the army. Algeria has
only a small air force and navy. The former has relatively few
high-performance aircraft, and the navy consists largely of
coastal patrol craft.
Paramilitary and police forces outnumber the active-duty
military by a substantial margin, and years of civil unrest have
forced the government to rely on such forces—divided among
several ministries and directorates—both for internal security
and, often, for quelling internal dissent.
Health and welfare
Because of the country’s relatively young population and
pressing medical needs, the health care system is oriented
toward preventive medicine rather than treatment. Instead of
building expensive hospitals, Algeria emphasizes smaller clinics
and health centres and maintains a comprehensive vaccination
program. Medical care, including medication, is provided by the
state without charge, although those earning middle and higher
incomes pay a part of their medical fees on a proportional
scale. There is an increasing trend toward private health care.
In an effort to extend health care to everyone, the government
requires all newly qualified physicians, dentists, and
pharmacists to work in public health for at least five years.
Most medical personnel and facilities, however, remain
concentrated in the north, especially in the large cities.
Remote mountain locations and much of the Sahara are nearly
devoid of modern facilities. Tuberculosis, hepatitis, measles,
typhoid fever, cholera, and dysentery are the principal health
problems, often brought about by inadequate sanitation
facilities and a lack of safe drinking water.
Housing
Algeria’s chronic housing shortage contributed to health
problems throughout much of the latter half of the 20th century.
Continuous rural-urban migration and unchecked population growth
allowed urban shantytowns to proliferate. The government, whose
spending priorities had been focused largely on heavy industry
since independence, did little to relieve the housing shortage
until the mid-1980s. At that time, however, development plans
began emphasizing investment in social infrastructure and
services. More construction of affordable government-subsidized
housing units has since taken place, including a large
prefabricated housing construction program to tackle the most
urgent housing needs.
The growth of more than 100,000 new households each year
placed a considerable strain on existing housing conditions. A
sharp drop in oil prices in 1986 and the inability to meet the
mounting needs for new housing led the Algerian government to
withdraw from some of its commitments and encourage local and
private housing initiatives. Foreign companies—including some
from the now defunct Yugoslavia—were increasingly granted large
construction contracts. Algeria also benefited from soft loans
throughout the 1990s from the World Bank, the European Union,
and other Arab countries to promote its construction sector.
State companies were privatized, and joint ventures with
European and American companies finally began to address some of
the country’s housing needs.
Education
Since independence Algerian authorities have worked on
redesigning the national educational system. Particular
attention has been given to replacing French with Arabic as the
language of instruction and to emphasizing scientific and
technical studies. Education in Arabic is officially compulsory
for all children between 6 and 15 years of age, and roughly
nine-tenths of boys of that age are in school; enrollment for
girls is slightly lower. Children residing in rural areas have
remained underrepresented in the classroom, although much
progress for both groups has been made since independence. The
literacy rate is about three-fourths for men but less than half
for women. The educational system has experienced extreme
difficulty in trying to accommodate the increasing number of
school-age children. The scarcity of qualified Arabic teachers
has been ameliorated by the recruitment of teachers from other
Arab countries. Arabic replaced French as the language of
instruction at all institutes of higher learning in 2000.
Amazigh discontent over the policy of Arabization, however, has
prompted the government to restore Amazigh language and
literature studies at a number of universities. The major
institutions include Islamic universities in Algiers and
Constantine, several regional university centres, and a number
of technical colleges. Each year a few thousand Algerian
students go abroad to study, mainly in France, other European
countries, or the United States.
Cultural life
Cultural milieu
Algerian culture and society were profoundly affected by 130
years of colonial rule, by the bitter independence struggle, and
by the subsequent broad mobilization policies of
postindependence regimes. A transient, nearly rootless society
has emerged, whose cultural continuity has been deeply
undermined. Seemingly, only deep religious faith and belief in
the nation’s populist ideology have prevented complete social
disintegration. There has been a contradiction, however, between
the government’s various populist policies—which have called for
the radical modernization of society as well as the cultivation
of the country’s Arab Islamic heritage—and traditional family
structure. Although Algeria’s cities have become centres for
this cultural confrontation, even remote areas of the
countryside have seen the state take on roles traditionally
filled by the extended family or clan. Algerians have thus been
caught between a tradition that no longer commands their total
loyalty and a modernism that is attractive yet fails to satisfy
their psychological and spiritual needs. Only the more isolated
Amazigh groups, such as the Saharan Mʾzabites and Tuareg, have
managed to some degree to escape these conflicting pressures.
As is true elsewhere in North Africa, Algeria has experienced
a dislocating clash between traditional and mass global culture,
with Hollywood films and Western popular music commanding the
attention of the young at the expense of indigenous forms of
artistic and cultural expression. This clash is the subject of
much fiery commentary from conservative Muslim clergymen, whose
influence has grown with the rise of Islamic extremism.
Extremists have opposed secular values in art and culture and
have targeted prominent Algerian authors, playwrights,
musicians, and artists—including the director of the National
Museum, who was assassinated in 1995; novelist Tahar Djaout, who
was murdered in 1993; and the well-known Amazigh musician Lounès
Matoub, who was assassinated in 1998. As a result, much of the
country’s cultural elite has left the country to work abroad,
mostly in France.
Daily life and social customs
Despite efforts to modernize Algerian society, the pull of
traditional values remains strong. Whether in the city or
countryside, the daily life of the average Algerian is permeated
with the atmosphere of Islam, which has become identified with
the concept of an autonomous Algerian people and of resistance
to what many Algerians perceive as a continued Western
imperialism. Practiced largely as a set of social prescriptions
and ethical attitudes, Islam in Algeria has more
characteristically been identified with supporting traditional
values than serving a revolutionary ideology.
In particular, the influential Muslim clergy has opposed the
emancipation of women. Algerians traditionally consider the
family—headed by the husband—to be the basic unit of society,
and women are expected to be obedient and provide support to
their husbands. As in most parts of the Arab world, men and
women in Algeria generally have constituted two separate
societies, each with its own attitudes and values. Daily
activities and social interaction normally take place only
between members of the same gender. Marriage in this milieu is
generally considered a family affair rather than a matter of
personal preference, and parents typically arrange marriages for
their children, although this custom is declining as Algerian
women take on a greater role in political and economic life.
Some women continue to wear veils in public because
traditionally minded Algerian Muslims consider it improper for a
woman to be seen by men to whom she is not related. The practice
of veiling, in fact, has increased since independence,
especially in urban areas, where there is a greater chance of
contact with nonrelatives.
Algerian cuisine, like that of most North African countries,
is heavily influenced by Arab, Amazigh, Turkish, and French
culinary traditions. Couscous, a semolina-based pasta
customarily served with a meat and vegetable stew, is the
traditional staple. Although Western-style dishes, such as pizza
and other fast foods, are popular and Algeria imports large
quantities of foodstuffs, traditional products of Algerian
agriculture remain the country’s best-liked. Mutton, lamb, and
poultry are still the meat dishes of choice; favourite desserts
rely heavily on native-grown figs, dates, and almonds and
locally produced honey; and couscous and unleavened breads
accompany virtually every meal. Brik (a meat pastry), merguez
(beef sausage), and lamb or chicken stew are among the many
local dishes served in homes and restaurants. As is the case in
the Middle East, strong, sweet Turkish-style coffee is the
beverage of choice at social gatherings, and mint tea is a
favourite.
Algeria observes several religious and secular holidays,
including the important Islamic festivals and commemorations
such as Ramadan, the two ʿīds (festivals), ʿĪd al-Fiṭr and ʿĪd
al-Aḍḥā, and mawlid (the Prophet’s birthday), as well as
national holidays such as Independence Day (July 5).
The arts
Various types of music are native to Algeria. One of the
most popular, originating in the western part of the country, is
raï (from Arabic raʾy, meaning “opinion” or “view”), which
combines varying instrumentation with simple poetic lyrics. Both
men and women are free to express themselves in this style. One
especially popular Algerian singer of raï, Khaled, has exported
this music to Europe and the United States, but he and other
popular musicians such as Cheb Mami have been targets of Islamic
extremists. Wahrani (the music of Oran), another style, blends
raï with classical Algerian music of the Arab-Andalusian
tradition.
Algeria has produced many important writers. Some, such as
the Noble Prize winner Albert Camus and his contemporary Jean
Sénac, were French, although their work was influenced by the
many years they spent in Algeria. The writing of Henri Kréa
reflects the two worlds he inhabited as the son of a French
father and an Algerian mother. ʿAbd al-Hamid Benhadugah is the
father of modern Arabic literature in Algeria, while Jean
Amrouche is considered the foremost poet of the first generation
of North African writers who wrote in French; his younger sister
Marguerite Taos Amrouche was a noted singer and writer. The work
of Mouloud Feraoun reflects Amazigh life. Mohammed Dib, Malek
Haddad, Tahar Djaout, Mourad Bourboune, Rachid Boudjedra, and
Assia Djebar have all written about contemporary life in
Algeria, with Djebar reflecting on this from a woman’s
perspective.
Algeria has maintained a lively film industry, although
filmmakers frequently have endured bouts with government
pressure and, more recently, have been subjected to intimidation
by Islamic extremists. The first major postcolonial production
was the celebrated film La battaglia di Algeri (1965; The Battle
of Algiers). Though written and directed by an Italian, Gillo
Pontecorvo, the work—a stark, factual retelling of urban warfare
during the revolution—was supported by the Algerian government
and was cast with numerous nonactors, including many residents
of Algiers who participated in the actual events. The following
year Mohammed Lakhdar-Hamina directed Rīḥ al-Awras (1966; The
Winds of the Aures), the first work by an Algerian to win
international acclaim. His Chronique des annees de braise (1975;
Chronicle of the Year of Embers), another gritty tale of the
revolution, was awarded the Palme d’Or at the Cannes film
festival nearly a decade later. Several films by the celebrated
director Merzak Allouache, including Omar Gatlato (1976) and Bāb
al-wād al-ḥawmah (1994; Bab El-Oued City), which deal with the
complexity of daily life in urban Algeria, have received
international recognition. More recently, director Bourlem
Guerdjou examined the difficulties of the Algerian diaspora in
France in his award-winning Vivre au paradis (1997; Living in
Paradise).
Cultural institutions
Algeria has a number of fine museums, most of which are
located in the capital and are administered by the Office of
Cultural Heritage (1901). The National Museum of Antiquities
(1897) displays artifacts dating from the Roman and Islamic
periods. The National Fine Arts Museum of Algiers (1930) houses
statues and paintings, including some lesser works of well-known
European masters, and the Bardo Museum (1930) specializes in
history and ethnography. Most other cultural institutions also
are found in Algiers, including the National Archives of Algeria
(1971), the National Library (1835), and the Algerian Historical
Society (1963).
Sports and recreation
Algerians enjoy football (soccer), handball, volleyball, and
athletics. Algerian athletes have participated in the Olympic
Games since 1964. They have won medals in boxing, but their
major success has been in the area of long-distance running.
Noureddine Morceli won the men’s 1,500-metre event at the 1996
Summer Games and has held numerous world running records.
Another runner, Hassiba Boulmerka, won several world
championships and a gold medal in the women’s 1,500-metre run at
the 1992 Barcelona Games, becoming the first African or Arab
woman to win an Olympic track-and-field event.
Media and publishing
Despite pressure from the government and threats and
intimidation by Islamic militants, Algeria has one of the most
vigorous presses in the Arab world. Daily newspapers are
published in both Arabic and French in Algiers, Oran, and
Constantine. Several weeklies and a host of magazines are also
published in the country. The number and range of newspapers
increased during the 1990s, despite frequent violent attacks
directed against journalists by Islamic extremists.
Radiodiffusion Télévision Algérienne operates as a broadcasting
institution under the Ministry of Information and Culture. Its
three radio channels offer programming in Arabic, Kabyle, and,
on its international channel, a mixture of French, English, and
Spanish. The television network—with two channels—transmits to
most of the country. The number of satellite dishes has
increased, and many Algerians are now able to receive European
stations.
Abdel Kader Chanderli
Keith Sutton
History
This discussion focuses on Algeria from the 19th century
onward. For a treatment of earlier periods and of the country in
its regional context, see North Africa.
From a geographic standpoint, Algeria has been a difficult
country to rule. The Tell and Saharan Atlas mountain chains
impede easy north-south communication, and the few good natural
harbours provide only limited access to the hinterlands. This
has meant that, before Ottoman rule, the western part of the
country was associated more closely with Morocco while the
eastern part had closer ties with Tunisia. A further impediment
to unifying the country was that a significant minority of the
population were native Tamazight speakers and were thus more
resistant to Arabization as compared with North African
countries to the east. Therefore, Ottoman Algeria, which
contained few extensive, original, or long-lived Muslim
dynasties, was not nearly as predisposed to developing political
nationalism as was Tunisia during the first decades of the 19th
century.
French Algeria
The conquest of Algeria
Modern Algeria can be understood only by examining the
period—nearly a century and a half—that the country was under
French colonial rule. The customary beginning date is in April
1827, when Ḥusayn, the last Ottoman provincial ruler, or dey, of
Algiers, angrily struck the French consul with a fly whisk. This
incident was a manifest sign of the dey’s anger toward the
French consul, a culmination of what had soured Franco-Algerian
relations in the preceding years: France’s large and unpaid
debt. That same year the French minister of war had written that
the conquest of Algeria would be an effective and useful means
of providing employment for veterans of the Napoleonic wars.
The conquest of Algeria began three years later. The
government of the dey proved no match for the French army that
landed on July 5, 1830, near Algiers. Ḥusayn accepted the French
offer of exile after a brief military encounter. After his
departure, and in violation of agreements that had been made,
the French seized private and religious buildings, looted
possessions mainly in and around Algiers, and seized a vast
portion of the country’s arable land. The three-century-long
period of Algerian history as an autonomous province of the
Ottoman Empire had ended.
The French government thought that a quick victory abroad
might create enough popularity at home to enable it to win the
upcoming elections. Instead, only days after the French victory
in Algeria, the July Revolution forced King Charles X from the
throne in favour of Louis-Philippe. Although those who led the
July Revolution in France had cynically dismissed the campaign
in Algeria as foreign adventurism to cover up oppression at
home, they were reluctant to simply withdraw. Various
alternatives were considered, including an early ill-fated plan
to establish Tunisian princes in parts of Algeria as rulers
under French patronage. The French general, Bertrand Clauzel,
signed two treaties with the bey of Tunis, one of which offered
him the right to keep territories conceded to him in exchange
for annual payments. Because the treaty was not communicated
officially to the government in Paris, however, the bey
considered this proof of French duplicity and refused the offer.
The first few years of colonial rule were characterized by
numerous changes in the French command, and the military
campaign began to prove extremely arduous and costly. The towns
of the Mitidja Plain—just outside Algiers—and neighbouring
cities fell first to the French. General Camille Trézel captured
Bejaïa in the east in 1833 after a naval bombardment. The French
took Mers el-Kebir in 1830 and entered Oran in 1831, but they
faced stiffer opposition from the Sufi brotherhood leader, Emir
Abdelkader (ʿAbd al-Qādir ibn Muḥyī al-Dīn), in the west.
Because towns and cities were plundered and massacres of
civilian populations were widespread, the French government sent
a royal commission to the colony to examine the situation.
During their campaign against Abdelkader, the French agreed
to a truce and signed two agreements with him. The treaty signed
between General Louis-Alexis Desmichels and Abdelkader in 1834
included two versions, one of which made major concessions to
Abdelkader again without the consent or knowledge of the French
government. This miscommunication led to a breach of the
agreement when the French moved through territory belonging to
the emir. Abdelkader responded with a counterattack in 1839 and
drove the French back to Algiers and the coast.
France decided at that point to wage an all-out war. Led by
General (later Marshal) Thomas-Robert Bugeaud, the campaign of
conquest eventually brought one-third of the total French army
strength (more than 100,000 troops) to Algeria. The new military
campaign and the initial onslaught caused widespread devastation
to the Algerians and to their crops and livestock. Abdelkader’s
hit-and-run tactics failed, and he was forced to surrender in
1847. He was exiled to France but later was permitted to settle
with his family in Damascus, Syria, where he and his followers
saved the lives of many Christians during the 1860 massacres.
Respected even by his opponents as the founder of the modern
Algerian state, Abdelkader became, and has remained, the
personification of Algerian national resistance to foreign
domination.
Abdelkader’s defeat marked the end of what might be called
resistance on a national scale, but smaller French operations
continued, such as the occupation of the Saharan oases (Zaatcha
in 1849, Nara in 1850, and Ouargla in 1852). The eastern Kabylia
region was subdued only in 1857, while the final major Kabylia
uprising of Muḥammad al-Muqrānī was suppressed in 1871. The
Saharan regions of Touat and Gourara, which were at that time
Moroccan spheres of influence, were occupied in 1900; the
Tindouf area, previously regarded as Moroccan rather than
Algerian, became part of Algeria only after the French
occupation of the Anti-Atlas in 1934.
Colonial rule
The manner in which French rule was established in Algeria
during the years 1830–47 laid the groundwork for a pattern of
rule that French Algeria would maintain until independence. It
was characterized by a tradition of violence and mutual
incomprehension between the rulers and the ruled; the French
politician and historian Alexis de Tocqueville wrote that
colonization had made Muslim society more barbaric than it was
before the French arrived. There was a relative absence of
well-established native mediators between the French rulers and
the mass population, and an ever-growing French settler
population (the colons, also known as pieds noirs) demanded the
privileges of a ruling minority in the name of French democracy.
When Algeria eventually became a part of France juridically,
that only added to the power of the colons, who sent delegates
to the French parliament. They accounted for roughly one-tenth
of the total population from the late 19th century until the end
of French rule.
Settler domination of Algeria was not secured, however, until
the fall of Napoleon III in 1870 and the rise of the Third
Republic in France. Until then Algeria remained largely under
military administration, and the governor-general of Algeria was
almost invariably a military officer until the 1880s. Most
Algerians—excluding the colons—were subject to rule by military
officers organized into Arab Bureaus, whose members were
officers with an intimate knowledge of local affairs and of the
language of the people but with no direct financial interest in
the colony. The officers, therefore, often sympathized with the
outlook of the people they administered rather than with the
demands of the European colonists. The paradox of French Algeria
was that despotic and military rule offered the native Algerians
a better situation than did civilian and democratic government.
A large-scale program of confiscating cultivable land, after
resistance had been crushed, made colonization possible. Settler
colonization was of mixed European origin—mainly Spanish in and
around Oran and French, Italian, and Maltese in the centre and
east. The presence of the non-French settlers was officially
regarded with alarm for quite a while, but the influence of
French education, the Muslim environment, and the Algerian
climate eventually created in the non-French a European-Algerian
subnational sentiment. This would probably have resulted, in
time, in a movement to create an independent state if Algeria
had been situated farther away from Paris and if the settlers
had not feared the potential strength of the Muslim majority.
After the overthrow of Louis-Philippe’s regime in 1848, the
settlers succeeded in having the territory declared French; the
former Turkish provinces were converted into departments on the
French model, while colonization progressed with renewed energy.
With the establishment of the French Second Empire in 1852,
responsibility for Algeria was transferred from Algiers to a
minister in Paris, but the emperor, Napoleon III, soon reversed
this disposition. While expressing the hope that an increased
number of settlers would forever keep Algeria French, he also
declared that France’s first duty was to the three million
Arabs. He declared, with considerable accuracy, that Algeria was
“not a French province but an Arab country, a European colony,
and a French camp.” This attitude aroused certain hopes among
Algerians, but they were destroyed by the emperor’s downfall in
1870. After France’s defeat in the Franco-German War, settlers
felt they could finally gain more land. Spurred on by this and
by years of droughts and famines, Algerians united in 1871 under
Muḥammad al-Muqrānī in the last major Kabylia uprising. Its
brutal suppression by French forces was followed by the
appropriation of another large segment of territory, which
provided land for European refugees from Alsace. Much land was
also acquired by the French through loopholes in laws originally
designed to protect tribal property. Notable among these is the
sénatus-consulte of 1863, which broke up tribal lands and
allowed settlers to acquire vast areas formerly secured under
tribal law. Following the loss of this territory, Algerian
peasants moved to marginal lands and in the vicinity of forests;
their presence in these areas set in motion the widespread
environmental degradation that has affected Algeria since then.
It is difficult to gauge in human terms the losses suffered
by Algerians during the early years of the French occupation.
Estimates of the number of those dead from disease and
starvation and as a direct result of warfare during the early
years of colonization vary considerably, but the most reliable
ones indicate that the native population of Algeria fell by
nearly one-third in the years between the French invasion and
the end of fighting in the mid-1870s.
Gradually the European population established nearly total
political, economic, and social domination over the country and
its native inhabitants. At the same time, new lines of
communication, hospitals and medical services, and educational
facilities became more widely available to Europeans, though
they were dispensed to a limited extent—and in the French
language—to Algerians. Settlers owned most Western dwellings,
Western-style farms, businesses, and workshops. Only primary
education was available to Algerians, and only in towns and
cities, and there were limited prospects for higher education.
Because employment was concentrated mainly in urban settlements,
underemployment and chronic unemployment disproportionately
affected Muslims, who lived mostly in rural and semirural areas.
For the Algerians service in the French army and in French
factories during World War I was an eye-opening experience. Some
200,000 fought for France during the war, and more than
one-third of the male Algerians between the ages of 20 and 40
resided in France during that time. When peace returned, some
70,000 Algerians remained in France and, by living frugally,
were able to support many thousands of their relatives in
Algeria.
Nationalist movements
Algerian nationalism developed out of the efforts of three
different groups. The first consisted of Algerians who had
gained access to French education and earned their living in the
French sector. Often called assimilationists, they pursued
gradualist, reformist tactics, shunned illegal actions, and were
prepared to consider permanent union with France if the rights
of Frenchmen could be extended to native Algerians. This group,
originating from the period before World War I, was loosely
organized under the name Young Algerians and included (in the
1920s) Khaled Ben Hachemi (“Emir Khaled”), who was the grandson
of Abdelkader, and (in the 1930s) Ferhat Abbas, who later became
the first premier of the Provisional Government of the Algerian
Republic.
The second group consisted of Muslim reformers who were
inspired by the religious Salafī movement founded in the late
19th century in Egypt by Sheikh Muḥammad ʿAbduh. The Association
of Algerian Muslim ʿUlamāʾ (Association des Uléma Musulmans
Algériens; AUMA) was organized in 1931 under the leadership of
Sheikh ʿAbd al-Hamid Ben Badis. This group was not a political
party, but it fostered a strong sense of Muslim Algerian
nationality among the Algerian masses.
The third group was more proletarian and radical. It was
organized among Algerian workers in France in the 1920s under
the leadership of Ahmed Messali Hadj and later gained wide
support in Algeria. Preaching a nationalism without nuance,
Messali Hadj was bound to appeal to Algerians, who fully
recognized their deprivation. Messali Hadj’s strongly
nationalistic stance, or even the more muted position of Ben
Badis, could have been checked by such gradualist reformers as
Ferhat Abbas if only they had been able to show that
step-by-step decolonization was possible. Several efforts to
liberalize the treatment of native Algerians, promoted by French
reformist groups in collaboration with Algerian reformists in
the first half of the 20th century, came too late to stem the
radical tide.
One such effort, the Blum-Viollette proposal (named for the
French premier and the former governor-general of Algeria), was
introduced during the Popular Front government in France
(1936–37). It would have allowed a very small number of
Algerians to obtain full French citizenship without forcing them
to relinquish their right to be judged by Muslim law on matters
of personal status (e.g., marriage, inheritance, divorce, and
child custody). The proposal was, therefore, a potential
breakthrough because this issue had been shrewdly exploited by
the settler population, who understood that most Algerians did
not want to abandon this right. The small number of Algerians
who would have received full French citizenship—the educated,
veterans of French military service, and other narrowly defined
groups—could then have been gradually increased in later years.
Settler opposition to the measure was so fierce, however, that
the project was never even brought to a vote in the French
Chamber of Deputies. Many Algerians began to feel that organized
violence was the only option, since all peaceful means for
resolving the problems of colonial rule for the majority of the
population had been denied. The group that inherited this
mission, the National Liberation Front (Front de Libération
Nationale; FLN), grew out of Messali Hadj’s organization, later
absorbing many adherents of the other two nationalist groups.
World War II and the movement for independence
World War II brought with it the collapse of France and,
in 1942, the Anglo-American occupation of North Africa. The
occupation forces were to some extent automatically agents of
emancipation; both Allied and Axis radio stations began to
broadcast in Arabic, promising a new world for formerly subject
peoples. The effect was further heightened by the June 1941
promise of emancipation for both Syria and Lebanon, given by the
Free French and backed by the British authorities in the Middle
East.
Ferhat Abbas drafted an Algerian Manifesto in December 1942
for presentation to Allied as well as French authorities; it
sought recognition of political autonomy for Algeria. General
Charles de Gaulle declared a year later that France was under an
obligation to the Muslims of North Africa because of the loyalty
they had shown. French citizenship was extended to certain
categories of Muslims three months later, but this did not go
far enough to satisfy Algerian opinion. A display of Algerian
nationalist flags at Sétif in May 1945 prompted French
authorities to fire on demonstrators. An unorganized uprising
ensued, in which 84 European settlers were massacred. The
violence and suppression that followed resulted in the death of
about 8,000 Muslims (according to French sources) or as many as
45,000 (according to Algerian sources). The main outcome of the
massacres, however, went far beyond the human losses. They
became the foundation for the Algerian War of Independence,
which began nearly a decade later. The demonstrations were the
last peaceful attempts by Algerians to seek their independence.
The French National Assembly voted for a statute on Algeria
on September 20, 1947, in which the country was defined as “a
group of departments endowed with a civic personality, financial
autonomy, and a special organization.” The statute created an
Algerian assembly with two separate colleges of 60 members each,
one representing some 1.5 million Europeans and the other
Algeria’s 9 million Muslims. After lengthy debates the statute
was passed by a small majority. Muslims were finally considered
full French citizens with the right to keep their personal
Qurʾānic status and were granted the right to work in France
without further formalities. Military territories in the south
would be abolished, and Arabic would become the language of
educational instruction at all levels.
The law was poorly implemented, however, and the subsequent
elections were widely held to have been manipulated to favour
the French. Most of the reforms laid down by the statute were
never enforced. In spite of this, Algeria remained quiet. The
principal change had been the fact that some 350,000 Algerian
workers—five times as many as in the post-World War I
period—were able to establish themselves in France and remit
money to Algeria.
The Algerian War of Independence
Nationalist parties had existed for many years, but they
became increasingly radical as they realized that their goals
were not going to be achieved through peaceful means. Prior to
World War II the Party of the Algerian People (Parti du Peuple
Algérien) had been founded by Messali Hadj. The party was banned
in the late 1930s and replaced in the mid-1940s by the Movement
for the Triumph of Democratic Liberties (Mouvement pour le
Triomphe des Libertés Démocratiques; MTLD). A more radical
paramilitary group, the Special Organization (Organization
Spéciale; OS), was formed about the same time, but it was
discovered by the colonial police in 1950, and many of its
leaders were imprisoned. In 1954 a group of former OS members
split from the MTLD and formed the Revolutionary Committee of
Unity and Action (Comité Révolutionaire d’Unité et d’Action;
CRUA). This organization, later to become the FLN, prepared for
military action. The leading members of the CRUA became the
so-called chefs historiques (“historical leaders”) of the
Algerian War of Independence: Hocine Aït-Ahmed, Larbi Ben
M’Hidi, Moustapha Ben Boulaid, Mohamed Boudiaf, Mourad Didouche,
Belkacem Krim, Mohamed Khider, Rabah Bitat, and Ahmed Ben Bella.
They organized and led several hundred men in the first armed
confrontations.
The war began on the night of October 31, 1954. The movement,
led by the newly formed FLN, issued a leaflet stating that its
aim was to restore a sovereign Algerian state. It advocated
social democracy within an Islamic framework and equal
citizenship for any resident in Algeria. A preamble recognized
that Algeria had fallen behind other Arab states in social and
national emancipation but claimed this could be remedied by a
difficult and prolonged struggle. Two weapons would be used:
guerrilla warfare at home and diplomatic activity abroad,
particularly at the United Nations (UN).
Though the first armed assault—which occurred in the region
of Batna and the Aurès—was ineffective militarily, it led to the
arrest of some 2,000 members of the MTLD who had not been
supporters of the rebellion. The armed uprising soon intensified
and spread, gradually affecting larger parts of the country, and
some regions—notably the northeastern parts of Little Kabylia
and parts of the Aurès Mountains—became guerrilla strongholds
that were beyond French control. France became more involved in
the conflict, drafting some two million conscripts over the
course of the war. To counter the spread of the uprising, the
French National Assembly declared a state of emergency, first
over the affected provinces and later that year over the entire
country. Jacques Soustelle arrived in Algiers as the new
governor-general in February 1955, but the new plan he announced
four months later once again proved to be ineffective.
A decisive turn in the war took place in August 1955 when a
widespread armed outbreak in Skikda, north of the Constantine
region, led to the killing of nearly 100 Europeans and Muslim
officials. Countermeasures by both the French army and settlers
claimed the lives of somewhere between 1,200 (according to
French sources) and 12,000 (according to Algerian sources)
Algerians.
The electoral victory in January 1956 of the Republican Front
in France and the premiership of Guy Mollet led to the
appointment of the moderate and experienced General Georges
Catroux as governor-general. When Mollet personally visited
Algiers to prepare the way for the new governor-general,
Europeans bombarded him with tomatoes. Yielding to this
pressure, he allowed Catroux to withdraw and named in his place
the pugnacious socialist Robert Lacoste as resident minister.
Lacoste’s policy was to rule Algeria through decree, and he gave
the military exceptional powers. At the same time, he wanted to
give the country a decentralized administrative structure that
allowed some autonomy.
A French army of 500,000 troops was sent to Algeria to
counter the rebel strongholds in the more distant portions of
the country, while the rebels collected money for their cause
and took reprisals against fellow Muslims who would not
cooperate with them. By the spring of 1956 a majority of
previously noncommitted political leaders, such as Ferhat Abbas
and Tawfiq al-Madani of the AUMA, had joined FLN leaders in
Cairo, where the group had its headquarters.
The first FLN congress took place in August–September 1956 in
the Soummam valley between Great and Little Kabylia and brought
together the FLN leadership in an appraisal of the war and its
objectives. Algeria was divided into six autonomous zones
(wilāyāt), each led by guerrilla commanders who later played key
roles in the affairs of the country. The congress also produced
a written platform on the aims and objectives of the war and set
up the National Council for the Algerian Revolution (Conseil
National de la Révolution Algérienne) and the Committee of
Coordination and Enforcement (Comité de Coordination et
d’Exécution), the latter acting as the executive branch of the
FLN.
Externally, the major event of 1956 was the French decision
to grant full independence to Morocco and Tunisia and to
concentrate on retaining “French Algeria.” The Moroccan sultan
and Premier Habib Bourguiba of Tunisia, hoping to find an
acceptable solution to the Algerian problem, prepared to hold a
meeting in Tunis with some important Algerian leaders (including
Ben Bella, Boudiaf, Khider, and Aït-Ahmed) who had been guests
of the sultan in Rabat. French intelligence officers, however,
forced the plane that had been chartered by the Moroccan
government to land in Oran instead of Tunis. The Algerian
leaders were then arrested and confined in prison in France for
the rest of the war. This act hardened the resolve of the rest
of the Algerian leadership to keep fighting and provoked an
attack on Meknès, Morocco, that cost the lives of 40 French
settlers before the Moroccan government could restore order.
Beginning in 1956 and continuing until the summer of the
following year, the FLN attempted to paralyze the administration
of Algiers through what has come to be known as the Battle of
Algiers. Attacks by the FLN against both military and civilian
European targets were countered by paratroopers led by General
Jacques Massu. To stem the tide of FLN attacks, the French
military resorted to the torture and summary execution of
hundreds of suspects. The entire leadership of the FLN was
eventually eliminated or forced to flee.
The French also cut Algeria off from independent Tunisia and
Morocco by erecting barbed-wire fences that were illuminated at
night by searchlights. This separated the Algerian resistance
bands within the country from some 30,000 armed Algerians who
occupied positions between the fortified fences and the actual
frontiers of Tunisia and Morocco, from which they drew supplies.
These troops had the advantage, however, of a friendly people
and sympathetic government as a base; and, though they could not
penetrate into Algeria proper, they could harass the French
line.
Provoked by these assaults, in February 1958 the French air
force bombed the Tunisian frontier village of Sāqiyat Sīdī
Yūsuf; a number of civilians were killed, including children
from the local school. This led to an Anglo-American mediation
mission, which negotiated the withdrawal of French troops from
various districts of Tunisia and their sequestration at a naval
base in the Tunisian town of Bizerte.
The Maghrib Unity Congress was held at Tangier in April under
the auspices of the Moroccan and Tunisian nationalist parties
and the Algerian FLN, and it recommended the establishment of an
Algerian government-in-exile and a permanent secretariat to
promote Maghrib unity. Five months later the FLN formed the
Provisional Government of the Algerian Republic (Gouvernement
Provisionel de la République Algérienne; GPRA), initially headed
by Ferhat Abbas.
By then, however, conditions had been radically changed by
events in May 1958; these began as a typical settler
uprising—thousands of them attacked the offices of the
governor-general and, with the tacit approval of the army
officers, called for the integration of Algeria with France and
for the return of de Gaulle to power. The following month de
Gaulle, in his capacity as prime minister, visited Algiers amid
scenes of great enthusiasm. He granted all Muslims the full
rights of French citizenship, and on October 30, while in
Constantine, he announced a plan to provide adequate schools and
medical services for the Algerian population, to create
employment for them, and to introduce them into the higher ranks
of the public services.
He went even farther the following September when, in
anticipation of the opening of the UN General Assembly, he
publicly declared that the Algerians had the right to determine
their own future. The settler population responded by staging a
fresh uprising in January 1960, but it collapsed after nine days
from lack of military support. A year later, however, as the
prospect of negotiations with the GPRA became more probable,
there was another uprising, this time organized by four
generals, of whom two—Raoul Salan and Maurice Challe—had
previously been commanders in chief in Algeria. De Gaulle
remained unshaken, and the rising, lacking support from the
army, collapsed after only three days.
Negotiations were opened in France with representatives of
the GPRA in May 1961. This body had long been recognized by the
Arab and communist states, from which it received aid, though it
had never been able to establish itself on Algerian soil.
Negotiations were broken off in July, after which Abbas was
replaced as premier by the much younger Benyoussef Ben Khedda.
Settler opposition was meanwhile coalesced around a body calling
itself the Secret Army Organization (Organisation de l’Armée
Secrète; OAS), which began to employ random acts of terror in an
effort to disrupt peace negotiations.
Negotiations resumed the following March, and an agreement
was finally reached. Algeria would become independent, provided
only that a referendum, to be held in Algeria by a provisional
government, confirmed the desire for it. If approved, French aid
would continue, and Europeans could depart, remain as
foreigners, or take Algerian citizenship. This announcement
produced a violent outburst of terrorism, but in May it subsided
as it became obvious that such actions were futile. A referendum
held in Algeria in July 1962 recorded some 6,000,000 votes in
favour of independence and only 16,000 against. After three days
of continuous Algerian rejoicing, the GPRA entered Algiers in
triumph as many Europeans prepared to depart.
Independent Algeria
From Ben Bella to Boumedienne
The human cost of the war remains unknown, particularly on
the Algerian side. Some estimates put French military losses at
27,000 killed and civilian losses at 5,000 to 6,000. French
sources suggest that casualties among Algerians totaled between
300,000 and 500,000, while Algerian sources claim as many as
1,500,000.
Scores of villages were destroyed; forests were widely
damaged; and some 2,000,000 inhabitants were moved to new
settlements. The Europeans who left Algeria at the time of
independence constituted the great majority of senior
administrators and managerial and technical experts, yet many
public services remained functional; only some 10,000 French
teachers remained, often in isolated posts. With the loss of
management on farms and in factories, however, production fell,
while unemployment and underemployment reached extreme levels.
The mass exodus of the French left the new government with vast
abandoned lands. These and the remaining French estates (all
French land had been nationalized by 1963) were turned into
state farms run by worker committees, which began to produce
export crops, notably wine.
Political life was particularly contentious following
independence. The leadership of Ben Khedda, the president of the
GPRA, was upset by the release from French custody of five GPRA
leaders, including Ben Bella. Soon the heads of the provisional
government—and, more decisively, the army commanders—split.
Houari Boumedienne and his powerful frontier army sided with Ben
Bella, who had formed the Political Bureau to challenge the
power of the GPRA. Other dominant figures sided with Ben Khedda,
while the commanders of the internal guerrillas, who had led the
war, opposed all external factions, both military and civilian.
Mounting tension and localized military clashes threatened an
all-out civil war. The spontaneous demonstrations of a
population weary of nearly eight years of war with France
interceded between the military factions and saved the country
from sliding into more warfare. Through delicate political
maneuvering, Ben Bella and the Political Bureau were able to
draw up the list of candidates for the National People’s
Assembly, which was ratified in September 1962 by an
overwhelming majority of the electorate. The new assembly asked
Ben Bella to form the nation’s first government.
With the military support of Boumedienne, Ben Bella asserted
his power, fighting a localized armed rebellion led by fellow
rebel leader Aït-Ahmed and Colonel Mohand ou el-Hadj in Great
Kabylia. Because Ben Bella’s personal style of government and
his reckless promises of support for revolutionary movements
were not conducive to orderly administration, there were also
serious divisions within the ruling group. Following vicious
political infighting in April 1963, Political Bureau member and
FLN secretary-general Khider left the country, taking a large
amount of party funds with him. He was assassinated in Madrid
several years later. Other dissident leaders were also gradually
eliminated, and this left control securely in the hands of Ben
Bella and the army commander Boumedienne. Ben Bella’s apparent
plan to remove Boumedienne and his supporters was foiled in June
1965 when Boumedienne and the army moved first. Ben Bella’s
erratic political style and poor administrative record made his
removal acceptable to Algerians, but the Boumedienne regime
began with little popular support.
In the following years Boumedienne moved undramatically but
effectively to consolidate his power, with army loyalty
remaining the basic element. Efforts to reorganize the FLN met
with some success. Boumedienne’s cautious and deliberate
approach was apparent in constitutional developments as communal
elections were held in 1967 and provincial elections in 1969.
Elections for the National People’s Assembly, however, did not
first take place until 1977.
Socialism was pursued diligently under Boumedienne, who
launched an agrarian reform in 1971 aimed at breaking up large
privately owned farms and redistributing state-held lands to
landless peasants organized in cooperatives. The agrarian reform
also aimed at grouping peasants in “socialist villages,” where
they could benefit from modern amenities. The state also exerted
complete control over the economy and the country’s resources.
French petroleum and natural gas interests were nationalized in
1971, and the vast revenues derived from oil sales abroad,
especially after the rise in prices in 1973 and thereafter,
financed an ambitious industrialization program. Each branch of
industry was placed under the control of a state corporation;
Société Nationale de Transport et de Commercialisation des
Hydrocarbures (Sonatrach), the oil corporation, was the most
powerful. Boumedienne’s regime hid serious weaknesses, however,
notably a one-party system dominated by the FLN that tolerated
no dissent.
Bendjedid’s move toward democracy
Following Boumedienne’s death in December 1978, there was a
short period of indecisiveness about who should succeed him. The
army and the FLN both supported Colonel Chadli Bendjedid,
another former guerrilla officer, who was confirmed as his
replacement in a referendum in February 1979.
Government control of the economy loosened under Bendjedid.
State corporations were restructured into smaller companies, and
private enterprise was promoted through a series of new
regulations and financial incentives. Power was decentralized
and gradually passed to elected local assemblies. The press
received greater freedom, and restrictions on Algerians
traveling abroad were also relaxed. The main foundations of the
socialist ideology were increasingly challenged, and by the
mid-1980s the state-controlled press was even being encouraged
to refute the socialist line.
Bendjedid’s rule, however, was marked by serious setbacks.
The revolution in Iran in 1979 triggered a continued rise in
Islamic militancy, which sometimes broke out as rioting, and the
war in Afghanistan spurred greater militant mobilization and
direct action. In Algeria the breakdown of the socialist system
contributed even further to the rise of Islamists. A sharp fall
in petroleum prices in the mid-1980s seriously affected the
country’s financial capabilities and opened questions regarding
the petroleum-based industrialization program conducted under
Boumedienne. The regime found itself without the resources it
had relied on to pay the wages of its labour force. Basic foods
became difficult to find, and social needs—housing in
particular—could no longer be fulfilled.
Foreign debt rose tremendously in 1988, and riots continued.
Unemployment rates exceeded one-fifth; unofficial figures
reported much-higher numbers. Agriculture, already crippled by
heavy state interference and bureaucracy, was hit by one of the
worst droughts in the country’s history. Water shortages were
frequent and crippled urban life and industry. This was further
compounded by high rates of population growth, which created
more demand for social services and food. Public resentment
rose, as did awareness of the corruption that existed at all
levels in the government.
Late in the year, serious riots broke out in Algiers, Annaba,
and Oran. Bendjedid, taking advantage of the discontent, moved
to liberalize the system and challenge the FLN political
monopoly. A new constitution, approved in February 1989, dropped
all references to socialism, removed the one-party state, and
initiated political plurality. The emergence of a myriad of
parties mainly benefited the Islamic Salvation Front (Front
Islamique du Salut; FIS). The FIS built on the population’s
resentment of the incompetence and corruption of the regime and
captured clear majorities in the provincial and municipal
councils in 1990. Other less-radical Islamic parties never
matched the popularity of the FIS.
Civil war: the Islamists versus the army
Relations between the Islamists and the army remained
strained. The first round of balloting for the National People’s
Assembly, held in December 1991, produced a striking victory for
the FIS, which won 188 seats, just 28 short of a simple majority
and 99 short of the two-thirds majority needed to amend the
constitution. There seemed little doubt that the FIS would
achieve a majority in the second ballot round, scheduled for
January 1992. Instead Bendjedid resigned, and the next day the
army intervened to cancel the elections. Mohamed Boudiaf,
another former chef historique, was sworn in as president of a
ruling Supreme State Council. Boudiaf, who was assassinated in
June in Annaba, was succeeded by Ali Kafi. He presided over a
country descending into civil war, where murder had already
claimed some 1,000 lives, generally civilians but also
journalists and past figures of the regime.
Retired general Liamine Zeroual succeeded Kafi in January
1994, but few improvements occurred, and countless more
civilians were slaughtered. Those initially implicated in the
violence included illegal Islamic groups such as the Armed
Islamic Group (Groupe Islamique Armé; GIA) and the Islamic
Salvation Army (Armée Islamique du Salut; AIS), but subsequent
evidence indicated that much of the violence had been at the
hands of elements within the state’s security services. Zeroual
attempted to legitimize his position by holding presidential
elections in November 1995. The elections were to include
candidates from all legalized parties, but several of them
boycotted the proceedings. Because the FIS had been banned, the
results gave Zeroual more than three-fifths of the vote,
followed by Mahfoud Nahnah, the moderate Islamist leader of
Ḥamās (not connected with the Palestinian organization of the
same name), with about one-fourth. The new prime minister, Ahmed
Ouyahia, soon reaffirmed his government’s commitment to further
privatization and liberalization of the economy.
A referendum was held in November 1996 to amend the 1989
constitution. The new document was approved by a majority of the
voters, although claims of manipulation were made by the
opposition parties. The main change, however, took place in
early 1997 when a new government party, the National Democratic
Rally (Rassemblement National et Démocratique; RND), was formed.
Benefiting from unlimited government support, including the use
of official buildings and funds, the RND quickly gained power.
In the June elections for the National People’s Assembly, the
RND won 156 out of 380 seats, and it continued its success in
regional and municipal elections, where it won more than half
the seats. In December elections for seats in the Council of the
Nation, the new upper chamber, the RND again won the majority.
Abdelaziz Bouteflika, the former foreign minister under
Boumedienne, ran for president unopposed in the elections of
April 1999, as opposition candidates withdrew after hearing
rumours that the elections were rigged. Bouteflika assured the
international community that the elections were legitimate and
vowed to work with other political parties. Violence ensued,
however, and the number of killed, missing, and injured
continued to rise. From the mid-1990s several discussions were
held between the government and Ḥamās, the FIS, the GIA, and the
AIS, among other parties, in order to clear up differences
between the groups. In spite of a 1999 peace initiative, at the
outset of the 21st century the situation remained unresolved,
and violence continued. By that time the civil war, which had
begun in 1992, had claimed the lives of some 100,000 civilians
and numerous political figures.
In 2004 Bouteflika was reelected by an overwhelming margin;
the election was considered by international observers to be
generally free from manipulation. The following year Bouteflika
put forth the Charter for Peace and National Reconciliation,
which was endorsed by referendum in late September. In February
2006 a presidential decree concerning its implementation was
approved by the council of ministers. Among those measures were
compensation for the families of the “disappeared,” an amnesty
for state security forces and militias, and restraints on debate
and criticism of those forces’ conduct during the armed
conflict. Islamist groups that surrendered voluntarily would be
pardoned, along with those already held or sought—so long as
none were implicated in massacres, rapes, or bombings. The
measures were opposed not only by victims’ families but also by
a number of international human rights groups, which jointly
stated that the provisions denied justice to victims and their
families and violated international law. Although a number of
militants took the amnesty as an opportunity to resign their
weapons, it was estimated that some 800 militants remained in
operation following its expiration in late August. In spite of a
general decline in the level of conflict, periodic violence
continued.
In November 2008 the Algerian parliament approved a
constitutional amendment abolishing presidential term limits.
The arrangement permitted Bouteflika the opportunity to run for
his third consecutive term, which he easily won in April 2009.
Foreign relations
Since independence Algeria’s foreign policy has been
revolutionary in word but pragmatic in deed. The country was a
haven for Third World guerrilla and revolutionary movements in
its early years, and, while some militancy persists, Bendjedid
and subsequent leaders have moved away from that stance.
Throughout the 1960s and ’70s Algeria supported North Vietnam,
and from 1975 it supported Vietnam, decolonization in Africa,
and the abolition of apartheid in South Africa. The question of
Palestine remained a central preoccupation, equal after 1975
with the Western Sahara issue. Yet, while Algeria continued to
support the Palestine Liberation Organization, it also took a
decisive role in mediating the release of U.S. hostages in Iran
in 1981. Throughout the Cold War, Algeria sought to play the
leading role in establishing a Third World alternative that was
not aligned to the Eastern or Western bloc. The country also
tried to obtain high prices for its petroleum within the
Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, which it joined
in 1969, but more often found itself at odds with other members.
Relations with neighbouring Morocco have often been strained.
A short border war that broke out in the fall of 1963 (the area
in dispute being rich in deposits of iron ore) was resolved
through the intervention of the Organization of African Unity. A
rapprochement achieved in 1969–70 broke down over Morocco’s
efforts to absorb Western Sahara (formerly Spanish Sahara), as
Algeria supported the Popular Front for the Liberation of Saguia
el-Hamra and Río de Oro (Polisario) in resisting Morocco. The
strained relations, which kept the two countries on the brink of
an all-out war, were connected in part to the somewhat
revolutionary leanings of Boumedienne and his antipathy for the
Moroccan monarchy. Support for the Polisario continued under
Bendjedid, but problems between the two countries gradually
eased. Bendjedid and King Hassan II of Morocco met to discuss a
possible resolution for the Western Sahara issue in May 1987,
and diplomatic relations were restored the following year.
Friction reemerged, however, notably in 1993 when Hassan stated
that it would have been better if the FIS had been allowed to
gain power in Algeria. Tensions over the Western Sahara
intensified in the mid-1990s and remained an unresolved issue at
the start of the 21st century.
The Arab Maghrib Union (AMU), established in 1989, not only
improved relations between the Maghrib states—Algeria, Libya,
Mauritania, Morocco, and Tunisia—but also underscored the need
for concerted policies. The AMU sought to bring the countries
closer together by creating projects of shared interests.
Initially there was some sense of enthusiasm regarding a project
that included road and railway networks between these states.
Tensions between member states, however, have substantially
increased, and shared interest in carrying out joint projects
has faltered.
Relations with France have frequently been contentious.
Disputes developed soon after independence over the Algerian
expropriation of abandoned French property (1963) and its
nationalization of French petroleum interests (1971). There were
also problems with the Algerian migrants living and working in
France, who consistently remained at the bottom of the economic
scale and were subject to ethnic prejudice. After Algerian
independence France banned the importation of Algerian wine,
deeming it competitive with its own production. In response
Boumedienne uprooted and removed grapevines on large stretches
of land. Throughout the 1980s the renegotiation of natural gas
prices constituted another source of disagreement between the
two countries, although Algeria obtained some concessions. In
the 1990s the volatile political situation and violence in
Algeria greatly affected the French, who suffered more
casualties than any other nationality in the country. This
terror reached Paris in the mid-1990s when Algerians set off a
number of bombs in the city. Economic ties, however, have
remained basically intact and include reciprocal investment
agreements. Trade between Algeria and other Western and
Southeast Asian countries has grown substantially and has
reduced France’s importance as a trading partner.
As the role of the European Union (EU) widens, so does the
link between Algeria and the member states in that organization.
The Barcelona Conference initiative in November 1995 established
a Euro-Mediterranean partnership, bringing together the EU and
the countries bordering the Mediterranean in North Africa
(excluding Libya). The partnership sought to achieve political
stability in the region, create a zone of shared prosperity
through economic and financial cooperation, and establish a
free-trade zone early in the 21st century. There have also been
specific European financial efforts directed toward Algeria to
fund industrial restructuring and privatization.
Algeria initially was reluctant to accept the intervention of
the UN in 1997 to help deal with the civilian massacres. But
eventually a high-level UN delegation was sent to Algeria in
July 1998 to meet with various parties in an effort to put a
halt to the violence, which had declined enough by mid-2000 that
Algeria’s borders with Tunisia and Morocco could be reopened.
L. Carl Brown
Salah Zaimeche
Ed.
