“Local democracy wasn’t always perfect: there were many examples of local bigwigs, mafia, and armed mujahideen doing side deals with emigrating European owners or seizing European property. However, in the latter cases, there were often ongoing struggles between the usurpers and local workers for control. The spontaneous reality of the summer of 1962 set the stage for the struggle that was to dominate the next three years: direct democracy versus bureaucratic and bourgeois control. To put it another way: the people against a nascent ruling class.”
Tag Archives: Algeria
“Hopes Fade for New Political Course in Algeria a Year After Popular Uprising”
“The revolt in the streets that began last year, known here as Hirak, initially appeared to signal a new dawn in a country that had been stifled for decades by its huge military. But when the movement’s failure to coalesce around leaders and agree on goals created a vacuum, the remnants of the repressive Algerian state, with its ample security services, stepped in.”
Posted in democracy, governance, In The News, power, revolt, rights, the common, tragic politics
Tagged Algeria
“A new Arab Spring?”
“East London rs21 held a meeting in May 2019 on the uprisings in Algeria, Sudan and Morocco. The speakers discussed the movements demanding change, the counter-revolutionary forces lining up against them, and the role of international solidarity.“
Posted in crisis, In The News, resistance, revolt, rights, tyranny
Tagged Algeria, Arab Spring, Morocco, Sudan
“In solidarity with the Sudan revolution”
“After months of protests, strikes, occupations, the Sudanese state has unleashed a wave of repression against the insurrection. Yet even in face of this terror, millions have now joined a general strike to bring down the regime. Rebellions are contagious, and with Algeria also in revolt, the region’s authoritarians sense fear; the moment when everything becomes possible.”
Posted in freedom, Nota Bene, revolution, tyranny
Tagged Algeria, Arab Spring, Sudan
David D. Kirkpatrick: “Hopes Raised during the Arab Spring are being Revived Across North Africa”
“The hopes inspired by the Arab Spring uprisings of 2011 soured long ago. But across North Africa, the reverberations are coursing through the region once again, shaking autocratic governments and posing new questions about the future. Veterans of the Arab Spring struggles say the scenes feel like flashbacks to chapters of a common story. … But the setbacks and disillusionment are familiar as well.”
Posted in freedom, governance, In The News, justice, power, resistance, rights, tragic politics, tyranny
Hamza Hamouchene: ‘Algeria in revolt: “We woke up and you will pay!”’
“What is happening in Algeria is truly historic. The people won the first battle in their struggle to radically overhaul the system. Abdelaziz Bouteflika, president for the past twenty years, was forced to abdicate after more than six weeks of street protests and a re-configuration of alliances within the ruling classes.“
Posted in emergency, In The News, resistance, rights
Tagged Algeria
lundi matin: “The street belongs to us. The street is us.”
“The Algerian protests have swelled into a mass rebellion against against an authoritarian, rentier capitalism that seemed to have been frozen in time.”
Posted in emergency, freedom, In The News, power, resistance
Tagged Algeria
The history of anticolonial internationalism
Jeffrey James Byrne: Mecca of Revolution: Algeria, Decolonization, and the Third World Order (Oxford 2016). “It argues that the Third World movement evolved from a subversive transnational phenomenon in the late-colonial era into a diplomatic collaboration among postcolonial elites to exalt state sovereignty and national authority.”
Posted in Blog, freedom, revolution, tragic politics
Tagged Algeria
