Algerians protesting elections want real reform, not a military junta, analyst says

Zine Labidine Ghebouli: What’s important right now for Algerians is real reforms, rather than basically superficial elections, just to renew the civilian facade of the military junta that has been running the country since 1962, since our independence. When Bouteflika resigned on April 2, Algerians also understood that Bouteflika was only the facade of the actual regime, which is the military junta. And since then, we’ve started seeing new slogans. Algerians chanted, “We want a civilian government, civilian rule, rather than a military rule.” “We want our country to become independent.” I think that’s why today we’re not seeing significant voting turnout because Algerians basically don’t trust the system. They want more reforms. They want a dialogue. They want real changes before they go to the voting stations. So, the military is exposed today as the true power holders of the Algerian system. Basically, they wanted to impose an election to renew their legitimacy or to renew their civilian facade. However, Algerians don’t want that. They want change.

Despite our ideological differences, Algerians today are in the streets together, regardless of their ethnicity, regardless of their ideology, regardless even of their religion. They’re in the streets having a common goal against the system. Algerians from all sectors of the society. You have those educated with masters and PhDs, and you have those, basically, who dropped out of school, out of high school. You have those who have kind of a stable situation economically, and you have those who are unemployed. You have those secular and you have also those conservatives. You have the Berbers and you have the Arabs. They understood that basically, what has been happening since the Algerian independence in 1962, is that every single time Algerians want to change the system, the system divides them. It’s basically a strategy of divide to rule. They divided them along ethnic lines. They divided them along ideological lines. But today, it just didn’t happen. Algerians are still in this together.

I think that’s the question that the Hirak has to answer because the one thing that the Hirak has been unable to do, so far, is to organize itself and provide an alternative. So, for Algerians, there isn’t really a clear answer. They think it’s about time, and even many factions of the movement started to understand this; there needs to be an organization, a structure of the movement, so that it could eventually provide an alternative road map to the political system.

Actually, it helps the movement, especially during the first few months. Just to put you in context, what has been happening — every time there is a political movement, sociopolitical movements or even an economic movement, the system has two ways to respond to it if it has leaders. Either it co-opts the leaders to make deals with them, or it simply imprisons the people, these leaders. So, if the Hirak chose to have leadership during the first few weeks, we most probably would have seen this leadership in jail by now. And that’s why it has stayed leaderless. I think we may be seeing in the upcoming months structure of the movement and organization of the movement to basically transform the slogans of “all out” to the real political mechanism.

Yeah, definitely. I mean, personally, I feel that this movement has given me back my dignity as an Algerian. Now, I could see that the Algerians are capable of actually making a change. And I’m no longer ashamed of being represented by a man who doesn’t speak and who doesn’t move. I definitely support them. And think it’s time that my generation leads the country.

I’m 23 years old. I left Algeria just like many Algerians because I felt that system is not going to give me anything in life and that they had to move myself abroad so that I could serve my country when time comes. And I would definitely go back to Algeria. I mean, my generation that has left Algeria, especially the youth who are abroad right now, we went abroad only for our country and we will definitely go back to our country once needed. If the movement succeeds, and I’m hopeful about that, I’ll most probably be be back to Algeria to help build my country, [and] hope to contribute in the prosperity of my country.

Because, as I told you, throughout the past four to five months, the system has been so intimidated — the system used to intimidate Algerians and now it feels intimidated, so it wants to regain its power of intimidation. And Nime is another case of multiple several political activists. He was an artist and he made some cartoons, some pictures, some portrayals of the military junta. Portraying basically, the chief of staff, the army Chief of Staff Ahmed Gaid Salah, choosing the president, which deconstructs the system narrative that this this election would be fair and free, basically.

And it’s a shame, really, that an artist is in jail for something he did. That’s the sign of a military dictatorship in place for me.

Yeah. Basically, the public media, even the private media in Algeria, is not having any real activists, any real opponents to the system. You’re only having the system narrative in the media. Newspapers have been repressed. Journalists have been oppressed, and even we have three or four in jail right now. So whenever you say something against the system, even as a Facebook post, as a tweet — you may probably end up in jail for that. But Algerians have been very creative about their ways of expression. So, they go to the streets with very sarcastic, but also very meaningful slogans against the system. And they think all the intimidation attempts of the regime have only strengthened the movement. Every single time that the movement starts fading away, starts losing its strength, any new statements from the army chief of staff or from other symbols of the system just gives the momentum back to the movement. And I think after 10 months, there is no way that this movement is going to be intimidated, even through violence.

Actually, there are several. But the one I really liked was in July. It was basically the beginning of summer vacation and somebody just came in shorts, swimming shorts and everything. He basically sat on the street, holding a sign. And he said, “The beach is the street and I’m staying here.” So, that was hilarious for me because he basically preferred to work for his country rather than enjoy his time.