Social crisis brews as
Algeria opens up
NEXT JUNE municipal elections will take place in
Algeria. President Chadli
Benjedid and his supporters are hoping to damp down discontent without endangering either their power or the liberal reforms currently underway. The recently legalized Socialist
Workers Party (SWP) plays an important role in the Algerian democratic movement, fighting against both the government's austerity plans and the islamic fundamentalists. Its spokesperson, Chawki Salhi describes the situation in the country. The interview was carried out on March 7, 1990, by Erdal Tan. W HAT is the situation in
Algeria after the October 1988 Intifada? What effect have the riots had?
The crucial fact is the catastrophic economic situation. The regime tried to smash the mass movement in order to be able to implement a policy of making the state sector and the whole economy profitable, by opening it to foreign investment.
The October 1988 events complicated this project. The youth revolt forced the regime to change tack. But Chadli has skillfully manipulated popular pressure on the regime's institutions: he has proposed a political opening up and at the same time created the conditions for the very rapid application of the programme of opening up to imperialism and of internal economic liberalization.
Initially, the process of political opening up was restricted to the idea of the organizing of tendencies inside the single party, the National Liberation Front (FLN). But multi-partyism has been forced on the regime, because the ruling bureaucrats were opposed to any change in the FLN and also because of the overall rejection of the institutions of the single party by Algerian society and the often radical, democratic aspirations of the popular masses. In this context, the opposition nuclei could not accept integration into the single party without discrediting themselves.
Algeria is an increasingly politicized country, but a workers movement has not formed on the same scale as the social struggles. Workers struggles are numerous, but scattered and localized, and put forward only timid demands.
Finally, it should be pointed out that while the regime makes more and
INDEPE more clearcut declarations of liberal intent, they are not carried through in reality. The state sector has not been sold, reforms are made, but the financial organizations have not given much of a response. • You have talked of the economic crisis and the regime's economic liberalization project. Can you say more about this crisis?
The first thing is the burden of foreign debt that eats up 70% of the income from exports. Algeria is still a totally dependent country. Basic food products and spare parts indispensable for production come from abroad. This creates an infernal circle of permanent indebtedness demanding payment of the interest.
Since the start of the 1980s, we have been suffering the aftermath of the disastrous industrialization effort of the Boumedienne government in the 1970s, which has resulted today in massive youth unemployment. It is the young people who rebelled in 1988.
The nationalized sector, too heavy and badly managed, has a permanent and inbuilt deficit.The present tendency is to shut down unprofitable firms, putting their workers on the dole. They are the victims of the incompetence of the bourgeois bureaucracy and the present regime. - In the future, the regime is planning to sell off the means of production to foreign and Algerian investors, hoping that
ALGERIA the profit motive would thereby get the economy moving again. But the fall in wages and the continuing wearing down of social benefits in such areas as education and health will provoke a reaction. The regime is envisaging ever more draconian measures to attract foreign investment. • Is the privatization effort directed mainly to foreign investors or is there a layer of the bourgeoisie or bureaucracy that has accumulated enough capital to take over the nationalized sector?
The Algerian private sector is signifi. cant and has capital. But it does not invest much in production because of the existing political institutions. In gencral the stolen billions are sent to Switzerland or towards speculative sectors of the Algerian economy, above all scrvices.
The Algerian capitalists are certainly contemplating taking over part of nationalized industry, but DANCE? they will be very calltious about using their own capital - they will prefer 1o use finance from the state banks. But none of these investors can open operate on the vast scale necded to get the strategic sectors, such as stecl, or the cnicrprise complexes creatcd in the 1970s back on the road. Imperialist capital is essential for the government's plans. But the ruling apparatus is showing a certain inertia over its plans. The National Assembly for example has turned down a plan for a mixed company controlled by the foreign partner. The embedded nationalism remains an obstacle to forcign investment. • What has been the opposition's reaction to the economic plans?
Most of the parties that have emerged with the regime's encouragement after October 1988 put forward a liberal programme, with the exception of the Parly of the Socialist Vanguard (PAGS, the Stalinist party, which qualifies its support for economic liberalization, and the Socialist Workers Party (PST) that opposes this national consensus contrary to the interests of the workers and the popular masses. 1. On October 5, 1988, rioting broke out in Algiers and the rest of the country, to protest against increases in the prices of basic necessities. The government declared a state of emergency for the first time in the history of the country since independence - the 17 repression cost more than 500 lives. Chadli restored calm by promising democratic reforms. April 9, 1990 • #182 International Viewpoint
ALGERIA • What has happened to the mass movement?
Its best organized component is the student movement, that was born in the 1987 general strike of some 150,000 students in some 20 university centres. This gave rise to the National Union of Independent and Democratic Students (SNEAD). Last December and January there were important student struggles, notably against the autonomy plan for the universities. This reform went in the direction of making the universities pay, and threatened the right to an education of the poorer layers of the population. But this union is stagnating, partly because of the emergence of two fundamentalist student organizations with real influence.
There is also a womens' movement that has been formed in reaction to the violent attacks of the fundamentalists.
Movements have appeared in the villages and in the urban districts around the question of land distribution, housing problems and water supplies. In towns like Oran, the population is organized in committees that came out of the democratic movement against repression from 1988. But these committees are not permanent, except in the special case of the Kabylia area, where there is a considerable level of organization.
The Berber movement has been the backbone of other forms of social expression. It has been the only movement not to sink into the expectant passivity that has gripped the country. Since 1980, when the Berber movement arose, and the following repression, the regime has become more tolerant. There are hundreds of village associations. A pluralist structure has been organized after the start of the July 1989 school term which led to a march on Algiers on January 25 this year to demand the opening of a Berber language institute and the recognition of Amazigh, the Berber language, as an official language on a par with Arabic.
The situation in the trade union movement is not clear. The working class is only slowly organizing. Social struggles are multiplying, but the state trade union apparatus, the General Union of Algerian Workers (UGTA), blocks out the horizon. It has yet to be challenged by another union current that can either disrupt the bureaucracy from inside or propose a credible alternative from the outside. • What is the reason for this situation in the workers movement?
In my view the forces of the organized movement - revolutionaries or Stalinists - are very weak and the context is not one of a profound political radicalization that would allow a qualitative change. There has been a considerable rise in social struggles and a progressive politicization of the workers, but unemployment causes workers to be cautious. 18 of day here and there, between October Union coordinations have seen the light International Viewpoint #182 • April 9, 1990
1988 and June 1989, notably in Kabylia, Algiers, Oran and so on. To an extent they have been replaced by the initiatives of the bureaucratic left, that is tied to the regime for renovating the UGTA, even if these initiatives are doomed to failure given that they do not relate to social struggles. This bureaucratic manoeuvre, against a background of demands for free union elections and open conferences of the union opposition, has frozen the forces of the union elites and advanced militants, without having any great impact on the general consciousness of the workers.
Some of the struggles underway are coordinated. There exists, for example, an interesting structure in the teachers movement and local initiatives have arisen in sectors of industry. But there is no national alternative. The economic liberalization may change things and provoke violent reactions.
There was an important mass movement against the repression after October 1988. It has now retreated, as is shown by the fall off of organization in the urban localities that arose in Autumn 1988.
The fundamentalists take advantage of these weaknesses. They continue to have regular activity via the mosques and have become a pole of radical opposition to the regime on the social level and on the level of liberties. • How strong are the fundamentalists? What is their programme?
The fundamentalist current now plays a major role in Algerian politics. In October 1988, Islamic fundamentalism was a small group like the PST or the Stalinists. But on October 7, 1988, in the middle of the mobilizations, the fundamentalists called for a demonstration after Friday prayers. This got a big response and gave them valuable political credibility. After that the secular student and intellectual movements took charge of the organization of the democratic movement and pushed the fundamentalists into the background. But the failure of the democratic movement in the confrontation with the regime left the field open to the fundamentalists. • Is the regime deliberately using the fundamentalist movement to block the democratic movement?
There was a tactical alliance between the regime and traditionalist currents who are not opposed to the reforms or to privatization. Then the regime discovered that the fundamentalists are a real threat. They have picked up the rebellious youth, above all the declassed youth. Their audience threatens Chadli's power. • What is the explanation for the influence of the fundamentalists among the young?
The fundamentalists give social assistance to the unemployed, for example. During the 1989 earthquake, the mosques collected relief and the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS), the fundamentalist party took the credit, organizing recruitment campaigns in the disaster areas. But their central activity is their political campaign against women, more than on the social terrain.
Fundamentalism thrives on social disintegration. The source of fundamentalism is the population's perception of the failure of capitalism, along with the catastrophe of the so-called socialist countries, even before the spectacular events in Prague and Berlin. All this has led to a retreat into mysticism, and a certain religiosity, going beyond the organized fundamentalist milieu. On the other hand, the fundamentalist movement was to an extent isolated by the democratic response of the mass movement.
Fundamentalism is extremely dangerous. It challenges Chadli's dictatorship and demands the right of the people to speak. But then the Imams put themselves forward as the guardians of the people's interests, saying that, since the people are ignorant, an Islamic council must lead in their place. On the social level the fundamentalists denounce the corrupt Westernized regime, but only in a moderate fashion, since it has no alternative to propose. • What other political currents exist today in Algeria?
There is a social democratic party that is rather timidly liberal bourgeois, tainted by links with the FLN. There are a number of more or less liberal parties that call to one degree or another for a liberal opening up. Many of these parties have neither a history nor a social base. They are inventions of the president's services to give credibility to the democratic opening.
The parties based on the Berber movement are much more consistent and resolute in their democratic demands. They take up issues such as secularism, freedoms, womens rights and so on. The Berber parties are for a market economy, without central control.
Chadli's political dynamism surpasses the FLN. He want to be the president of all the parties, and of all Algerians. He wants to play the role of a Bonaparte, saviour of the nation, as when he succeeded in damping down the demonstrations in 1988 through making promises.
But then there is the problem of what is to become of the FLN's bureaucracy. There has been resistance to Chadli's plans even in the Central Committee, although the economic reforms have not been questioned.
In June there will be municipal elections in an unfair context where the parties do not have the same means and on the basis of a constitution drawn up by the FLN alone. It would have been fairer, more democratic to have had an open discussion with different proposals, but the regime did not want to take the risk. The
fundamentalists have the means to presen themselves at a national level. The PST is fighting for a constituent assembly. • What has been the impact of the East European events on the PAGS [the Communist Party]?
The Stalinists of the PAGS have come out of clandestinity in a weakened condition. After various tactical twists and turns they have supported all the regimes, all the governments that have succeeded one another in Algeria. In October 1988 many of them were thrown into prison and tortured. Their permanent battle for the formation of a "patriotic front" including both fundamentalists and military men devoted to the nation has considerably lessened their impact. The crisis in the so-called socialist countries has increased the confusion in this already weak party. For example, at a press conference, the PAGS leadership announced that it had sent a message of support to the East German message of support to the East German SED for its courage in entering upon reforms, just a few days before the fall of Krenz.
During clandestinity, the PAGS operated in a relatively decentralized manner, as a protection against repression. But legalization brought the contradictions out into the open. In practise the various sectors of the PAGS do not act in an homogeneous fashion. On various occasions local federations have put pressure on the historic leadership of PAGS to force changes of line. • What about the PST?
The PST was legalized in October 1989. It is a force that has an impact on Algerian politics for several reasons. This is because of its role in the democratic mass movement, in various social movements, where it sometimes plays the leading role, despite its limited resources, but also because of its political initiatives and positions.
For example, the PST opposes the cosy collaboration of all the parties, and has unmasked the perspective of an antipopular national union. The PST has played an important role in mobilizing against the fundamentalist danger. Today we are a small organization of several hundred organized activists, but at last our spokespeople have access to the media. We have some hundreds of organized sympathizers and thousands of requests for membership that have not yet been followed up. The PST exists in some 20 Algerian towns, above all in Algiers and Kabylia. It has organized meetings of more than a thousand pcople. This is a force, a precious capital, that needs to be tended, since unfortunately there is no mass workers party. This gives the PST a great responsibility.
The PST gets a hearing because it is the only party that takes up the demands of the workers and the popular masses. It is the only party that demands taxation of
ALGERIA Women against ; fundamentalism LAST MARCH 8, 30,000 women demonstrated in the main Algerian cities, responding to an appeal by many womens organizations. These Algerian women demanded the abolition of the Family Code, and women's rights to education, work and full citizenship. They also wanted to respond to the attacks of the fundamentalists of whom they are the main target. IV spoke to Samira Fellah, a member of the Algerian Socialist Workers Party and of the Association for the Emancipation of Women about the situation of women in Algeria and the perspectives of the Algerian women's movement. The interview was carried out on March 1, 1990 by Djamila Ben Said.
W HAT is the situation of women in Algeria against the background of the rise in fundamentalism?
We must remember that backward traditions have never relaxed their grip, despite the participation of women in the war of liberation. Certain historians have spoken of the "instrumentalization" of women. During the war, even if they were given a subaltern role, women got out of the family ghetto and took on responsibilitics, some even joining the guerillas. However, their participation in the anti-colonial struggle did not put an the rich, to initiate a campaign for non-payment of the debt, to denounce the sale of the state sector to multinationals, and the opening of the Algerian market to the world market. These themes are very popular in Algeria but they have all but disappeared from every other political programme.
The PST has approached other small revolutionary organizations? in the hope of making its founding congress, that takes place this year, the occasion for a bringing together of all those who are for the socialist revolution.
We believe that the Chadli regime is unable to resolve the crisis in Algeria. The only solution is socialist revolution and we are today proposing a democratic transitional programme that will Icad, via the establishment of a broad workers and popular front, to the setting up of a workers' government, the only way out of the crisis. This strategic axis does not prevent us from making alliances on specific questions, very broad and democratic fronts, including with the libcrals, on democratic demands.
Our line in the elections will be the alliance of all those forces that base themend to the traditional vision of the woman and her secondary role in Algerian sociely.
At independence, when there was a question of constructing a new, supposedly socialist, sociely, no concrete measures were taken to struggle against this ancestral vision of the role of women, as some had hoped after their participation in the war. The question has never been discussed, nor even taken up by women themselves.
Islam was an important mark of identity in the face of French colonialism. It was used, behind the official "socialisı" discourse, to justify retaining traditional selves on the struggle of the popular massCS. • The PST came out of the Revolutionary Communist Group (GCR), a sympathizing group of the Fourth International. What is the relationship of the PST to the Fourth International?
The GCR gave birth to the PST which is not a member of the Fourth International and does not have organic links with it. It is prohibited by law for parties to have international affiliations. The PST will fight to change this law. Our fight alongside the workers, the popular masses, naturally creates an identity of aims with the Fourth International and other currents in the international workers movement on concrete solidarity tasks. On the other hand the regime finds its international partners in the imperialist forces. * 2. The other Algerian far left groups are the Workers Revolutionary Organization (the ORT, a split from the PST), the Socialist Workers Organization (OST, part 19 of the international Lambert current) and the Algerian Communist Movement (MCA). April 9, 1990 • #182 International Viewpoint
ALGERIA social relations and thus women's traditional role. In the 1970s, when Algeria needed labour, women were used as a "reserve army"
In the aftermath of the democratic opening that followed the October 1988 events and the first assemblies of women at the University of Algiers, attacks on women have multiplied. Mobilizations had already taken place in 1980, first of all against the decree that forbade women from travelling without a chapcrone and against the Family Code, under discussion since Independence but never applied because of the protests it aroused.
This family code makes women minors for life. It is necessary, for example, to get the agreement of the guardian for marriage and for any important individual decision. Divorce is made difficult. In cases of bigamy, for example, the woman has the "right" to leave, although there are few places to go outside her family, which will not always take her in, especially if she has children. Divorce can be obtained if the marriage is not consummated, but this is difficult. In any casc, divorce represents a lerrible moral humiliation and a hard matcrial test - especially since single women have difficulty gelling housing.
But women are increasingly in danger of physical auack. The flat of one woman was set on fire, another was burnt by her brother because she refused to give up work and so on. Women are often attacked in the street by men who order them to come home with them. The street is becoming forbidden to them. All this creales an atmosphere of terror for the majority of women. In such an atmosphere, it is difficult to organize and react, above all in the absence of any space for organized conviviality that would foster meeting and discussion between women. • Why do the fundamentalists have such a grip on Algerian society?
The fundamentalists have led a whole 20 series of campaigns. Against mixing of the sexes, against a teachers' strike in October International Viewpoint #182 • April 9, 1990
1989 in which they targeted the women (for whom they demanded early retirement), against women working and "stealing" the work of men and so on.
These women-hating campaigns are real incitements to murder. Young people, left without any ideals and with little hope of finding employment, are often responsive to the fundamentalist discourse. They add it onto the backward view of women that they have received from their education, including their school textbooks. • Have things got worse for women in recent years?
A few months ago 1 would have replied in the negative. For 15 years women's work has not improved. Women are fenced off in the same insecure sectors, as is often the case in the third world. If officially 8% of Algerian women are working, we suffer more and more open discrimination and are more and more disapproved of by public opinion. Women are badly accepted both in the strect and at work
The absence of representative and militant trade unions for all workers does nothing for the situation of working women. Faced with attacks on our elementary professional rights, women do not have a real trade union framework to put forward their problems. • How are women reacting to these attacks and the aggression?
Since the October 1988 movement women have begun to organize, to protest against torture, for the "victims of October" but also around their own problems. Several women's associations have been born on the basis of preceding work done by a varicty of political forces.
The Party of the Socialist Vanguard (PAGS) developed work towards women in the 1970s. But since the mobilizations against the Family Code, in the 1980s, the only activity that it continues is the production of a theoretical review bring-
Wing together intellectuals, which has at least enabled certain debates to take place. At the time, and during a period of repression, the Revolutionary Communist Group (GCK - a sympathizing organization of the Fourth International) organized women's cine-clubs, to bring women together. As soon as it became possible, these structures contributed to the creation of women's organizations. Since 1985, the Socialist Workers Organization (OST - from the Lambertist current) has maintained a women's association. But it did not try to mobilize women during the demonstrations against the Family Code and its activity has amounted to not much more than its formal existence.
After the October demonstrations, both the OST and the PAGS did not attempt to continue the fight around women's questions. They have sought above all to present themselves as political forces. They even banished our comrades who, in the associations, raised questions of the specific oppression of women and who refused to reduce the question to a purely legal level.
The PST, for its part, has always explained that there exist in Algcria unwritten laws that also have to be fought. Women must become aware of their specific situation and organize themselves to change the existing relations. Laws are not enough to change a concrete situation, and our work must go beyond juridical forms.
Today, the PAGS and the PST maintain several associations in different parts of the country. The PST takes part in the main associations, and is leading two equally important campaigns; the struggle against what has been ancestrally inscribed in people's thinking and social relations and the struggle against the laws that codify women's status, since these laws could not have existed if the society had not been predisposed to them.
Algerian women are perfectly aware of the double nature of their fight, which is why women not associated with the PST work with us in the associations. • Is any attempt being made to unify the women's movement in Algeria?
Steps have been taken to coordinate the different associations that exist. From November 30 to December 1 1989, the first meeting of Algrian women's associations was held to create a national coordination with the strength necessary to respond to the present attacks. This coordination has not however been able to respond to the essential problems that are posed because of the division into different associations. The women themselves refuse to choose between different programmes and associations. Political sec-
tarianism such as that of the OST and PAGS means the creation of quasi-cartels in the associations that they lead. This makes the situation difficult but we continue to hope and will go on fighting to build a unitary, and above all democratic, women's movement.
In our association we put forward the idea that, despite common problems, women do not experience repression in the same way regardless of their social position. Even if this aspect of our work appears rather propagandist, we are therefore trying to bring together working class women. The task for us today is to construct a democratic movement of women who know how to react to their concrete problems regarding political, social and cultural equality, which is not just a juridical matter.
At a time when the fundamentalists threaten the few gains that women have, the women's movement that we need to create is one that knows how to reach women who are often illiterate or do not know the content of the laws and most of their rights.
After the different women's mobilizations, the fundamentalists have been compelled to recognize that women do have problems. They responded by an assembly of more than 50,000 people, many fewer than they announced or hoped for. Some women participated voluntarily, but many were taken there by force by their male "guardians". The women's coordination has also obliged some democratic structures to react and defend women.
It is necessary to explain to people that the fundamentalists' aim is above all political, for confusion reigns both among women and the masses as a whole. There is a confusion between a cultural element and fanaticism in the service of political goals. Women must not be alone in this fight, as they have been for the past months. A more profound response is needed today, drawing in other forces.
This is what is taking place with the Forum for Democratic Liberties, which brings together trade unions, including the National Union of Autonomous and Democratic Students (SNEAD), women's organizations, the Assembly of Intellectuals and Scientists (RAIS — organized by the PAGS) and certain parties including the Front of Socialist Forces (FFS — liberal organization, mainly Berber) the PST and the PAGS. The Forum is trying to equip itself with a democratic platform, but this is not enough for women. They need much more precise answers.