On the Peaceful Manifestations of the Algerian People, the Revolutionary Demonstrations in Algeria Today. (manifestations pacifiques)

#Algérie #الجزائر #Algeria These are my thoughts on the massive peaceful demonstrations in Algeria. The ground swells of revolution are always ignored at first by the official sources of information, those which serve official power. Not only in the country in which the revolution is stirring, then those around it. For no tyrants wish their own oppressed citizens to see the examples of people uprising. So it is with the recent and on-going demonstrations in Algeria. We are witnessing history in the making.

For the last few weeks there have been massive and peaceful demonstrations in Algeria, in every city, town, and village. In every commune and province. From early in Feburary these increasingly larger mass manifestations in Algeria’s streets have seen its citizens peacefully demanding real political change. Their demands are not limited to just the gentle retirement of their aged president Bouteflika, who as an often barely conscious invalid has been involuntarily strapped to chairs and propped on TV as a puppet in front of the Algerian people for quite some time.

What it comes down to is this: The Algerians are for the first time in a generation demanding real and substantive change in how their country is run on many levels. Secularists, Christians, non-Islamist Muslims, and Islamists all alike are peacefully demanding free and open changes. A generation before, when the Algerians freely and peacefully elected a few Islamist candidates their government overturned the elections, instituted police actions, and as one former general in Algeria’s military pointed out, paid agent provocateurs triggered a horrific wave of violence and terrorism that traumatized a nation.

Their president Bouteflika became a symbol of compromise and reconciliation, and a people who suffered a horrific and needless civil war healed as best as they could.

This time they will not make the same mistake. Now, of course with all things of this nature it takes time for people to start to catch on, and then they catch on more and more until things become a groundswell. But what is remarkable is that barely within the span of a month the entire population has manifested their political will. Even some National Banks, State-run entities, have closed and their workers taken to the streets. Even in Oran a Million People are marching.

We must hope against hope that their movement remains independent, and does not end up co-opted or re-directed by foreign elements into a ‘colour revolution’ dynamic. And that the fiasco in Lybia does not happen in Algeria.

The thing is, there comes a time at which a people begin to ask questions, and their questions go unanswered. They are ignored. And then they must mobilize. And here they have. And even then they were ignored.

The world media at first ignored this. The French government, who quite obviously still continues to dictate many policies behind the scenes to the small Cabel of individuals, Mafia as some Algerian see them, who control the country of course ignored it. The news spread like wildfire throughout France’s Algerian and Maghrebi expect communities. But here the United States of America we saw very little of this. However all throughout social media, and Facebook and Twitter, videos of these peaceful demonstrations spread like wildfire.

The role of elements in the French government in causing dissension and disunity among the Algerian people cannot be denied or ignored.

Elements among the French who continue to exercise very real influence amongst Algeria’s elite strata and establishment long after Algeria’s independence. The people will still call the shots in Algeria after the massive sacrifices of their country in a War of Independence whose true sacrifices was incalculable. Not only by the Algerian people, but indeed also by their Moroccan cousins across the border, for Moroccans fought, bled, and died to help liberate the Algerians. Especially the Riffian Berbers in Morocco who joined the Algerians’ battles. Their sacrifices are also incalculable.

This was a struggle which cost the region well over a million martyrs. And this was a struggle whose martyrs and freedom fighters were and continue to be unfairly and unjustly slighted and called terrorists not only in the French media, but also in the English-speaking media. Those against whom the Algerians are protesting are those who are complicit in betraying Algeria’s very independence and nation, for personal gain. Those who built a multi-billion dollar mosque just to compete against Morocco’s, but who have not built new modern hospitals in two decades, and who condemn so many of Algeria’s sick to languish in sub-third world medical facilities. Those whose corruption lead to street potholes half the size of cars remaining un-repaired in major streets, while government officials take vacations in Ibiza and the French Riviera. Corruption can destroy a country. The Algerians are finally moving to save theirs.

It is this elite strata against whom the Algerian people have manifested. Their demonstrations are not directed at Bouteflika personally, but rather at the criminals in power who have used his name and figure to continue to wield power.

Observe the spectre of Africa’s wealthiest country in poverty. One whose immense natural resources simply dwarf those of almost every other country in the continent, and yet even in major cities and towns they suffer regular rolling random blackouts. Imagine an oil and energy rich country whose major towns their regular blackouts multiple times a week. The realization that those whom the Algerian people trusted with their affairs in covering their country have simply been stealing from them on every level is a painful one. But add to that injury the insult in treating them like stupid children, and foisting the image of a crippled and invalid old man, who deserves rest and retirement, in front of them as the vibrant leader of their country.

For, how long have the Algerian people had to witness their beloved president being propped up half-conscious and tied into a chair on national TV, while criminal mafiosi call the shots behind the scenes?

The world community should stand up in supporting the Algerian people as they finally march out en masse, in cities all across their country, peacefully demanding change.

There is a lesson we can learn from the Algerians. In America, Britain, and the rest of the Western world, movements seeking justice and reform should pay heed to Algeria as an example. What a difference lies between the massive peaceful manifestation of the Algerian people on one hand, and the chaotic crime and vandalism filled demonstrations of the French yellow-vest movement on the other hand?

When the people march out in mass and enforce peacefully and without crime, chaos, and vandalism their will and nobility becomes manifested to the world. When the people come out and overturn cars and buses, set things on fire, and behave in an uncouth manner it actually discredits their movement. Which is why provocateurs in mass movements encourage actions that aim to shock the broader nation, not elicit their sympathy. Agent provocateurs in every age have always sought to redirect every mass demonstration. This is why the leaders of any movement for justice must assiduously watch their own ranks and make sure that troublemakers are not casting shame upon the name of their movement. All social justice movements would do well to check themselves and pay heed to the example of history.

In Algeria we see an entire population moving en masse to peacefully gather and demand change. We see the very will of the people manifested in the streets. Any social movement the actually wants to enact real change on a broad scale bases would do well to pay example to pay heed to the examples such as we currently see in Algeria. So too, look at the peaceful demonstrations in Egypt’s Tahrir Square during the Arab spring, in which the Egyptians temporarily at least arrested their countries continued descent into tyranny. Of course with the ascension of Sisi, fully backed by our American government and others, this progressive change was halted, and a draconian tyrannical and authoritarian rule was reasserted over Egypt. But the Tahrir square protests, in spite of very real and very human problems that occurred, yielded results.

The Egyptians, as often in history, were unable to secure the results of their revolution. But they had one by peaceful means, in defiances of a government supported by the superpowers of this age.

Contrast both with France’s recent riots. Or witness what we see in America on both the Right and the Left. Take the armed 2014 Bundy standoff. Or take 2017’s Charlottesville Unite the Right rally, which practically descended into riots, the fault of which depends on whose narrative you believe (the left’s or the right’s). Both represent obvious examples on the right. For the left a good example could lie in the escalating street violence or disruptive activity against fascists and racists by Antifa or similar radical activists using Black Bloc-like tactics, to de-platform racist or extremist right wingers.

The irony is that both sides are in a spiral of escalating physical, verbal, and symbolic violence that quite likely is being egged on and influenced by entities and parties that both the extreme right and left would decry. Such is the dialectic of controlled opposition; in which these two sides, in a political theatre, are blindly following scripts, whose terms are carefully circumscribed, to prevent radicals on either side from seeing a broader picture of the issues they both fight against…

Let us hope that our Algerian brothers and sisters are able to continue to demand peaceful change in their country, and that they are able to secure the removal of power of the small number of mafiosi who effectively run their country. And that their aged president Bouteflika, who is quite ill and has been treated in clinics in Switzerland, is allowed to retire in peace and remain a symbol of the country’s unity, and not be used by the small gang of criminals were actually run things behind the scenes.

We should congratulate the Algerian people for their finally unifying and demanding positive change after so many years, and we pray and hope for their people’s success.