Building an alternative to fundamentalism LONG awaited by the partisans of Ait Ahmed, leader of the Front of Socialist Forces (FFS), the demonstration of December 27, 1990, in Algiers, attracted some tens of thousands of people.
The day before, the Algerian parliament had adopted a law on Arabization, making the use of any language other than Arabic punishable by a fine. In its majority Kabylia [Berber], the FFS was able to profit from this show of strength and to channel popular discontent as much against the rise of religious fundamentalism as against the regime.
For the latter, the law is above all about outbidding the fundamentalists. It appears more as an error on the part of the regime than a deliberate manoeuvre. Indeed, it seems rather misjudged in the light of its tactic, followed until now, of seeking to draw all bourgeois opposition to the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) into a common front at the second round by the Gulf crisis. Whereas it has given the impression of condemning the foreign presence, President Chadli, in the course of a television broadcast, pronounced himself very energetically against the invasion of Kuwait.
In fact, the government is in a contradictory situation - it must condemn the foreign presence in the Gulf, so as not to go against the general sentiment of the country, and, at the same time, placate its western "partners".
The attitude of the regime, like that of the FIS or the other parties, is largely determined by the domestic situation and the next legislative elections, for which the date has still not been set by the National Assembly.
The FIS was the first to take the initiative on the Gulf question, but in very particular conditions. Very quickly, it called for demonstrations. Although they did not attract very many people, they allowed the fundamentalists to take the initiative. What was remarkable was the contradiction between the FIS' denunciation of both Iraq and the foreign presence — not as a military intervention, but as an intervention of infidels and unbelievers — whereas the people who demonstrated were in their totality hostile to the US presence.
The FIS had great difficulty in handling of the next legislative elections. CHAWKI SALHI G OING by the foreign reaction, this is a serious business. French imperialism is worried about the future of its Francophone zone. For the Algerian regime, the mobilizations of the Berber Cultural Movement (MCB) in Kabylia are much more worrying. The demand for recognition of the Berber language, Tamazight, with equivalent status to Arabic is at the heart of these mobilizations.
This polarization on the question of Arabization has diverted attention from the vote on the 1991 law of finances, and the measures which have been passed opening up the economy to imperialism. These latter questions seem to us more serious for the Algerian people.
The Gulf crisis has had some unexpected effects for Algeria. The Algerian regime was economically on its last legs - its entire policy rested on borrowings and a phenomenal debt. The electoral breakthrough of the FIS greatly worried its imperialist backers.
With the Gulf crisis and the increase in the price of petrol, it is estimated that the Algerian regime has benefited from a windfall of $2.5 billion. The price of a barrel of oil could stabilize itself at a higher level. This has allowed the regime to breathe again, when it had been in a difficult situation.
To satisfy its western backers, the Algerian regime has had to accelerate the economic opening up of the country and give some concrete pledges, authorizing the installation of branches for the multinationals.
This concession is of exceptional gravity, meaning that a non-competitive economy will be put in a situation of competition with the imperialist giants. Certainly, the regime has some safeguards — the measures do not concern all sectors, nor all products — but it is a heavy blow for the Algerian economy.
The regime has also had to make concessions on support to the state enterprises, which are unprofitable. These enterprises have been accorded autonomy - which means in the more or less short term their liquidation.
But for the legislative elections, promised soon by the regime, numerous bankruptcies would already have been announced, notably of almost all local enterprises.
The manna coming from the Gulf crisis has to some extent allowed the regime to postpone this reckoning.
Regime equivocates on Gulf
The regime has remained relatively discreet on the political questions raised this situation - whereas its newspaper took a very anti-imperialist position, during public initiatives, they adopted a position of conciliation between the belligerents, for the unity of all Muslims.
General sympathy for Saddam
This party was then fairly quiet on this question, an attitude without doubt linked a little to lack of massive popular reaction. Starting from the moment when the Americans took up position against Saddam Hussein, a general sympathy for the latter emerged among the population.
But one could not at first speak of mass mobilizations, nor of particular enthusiasm - the demonstrations did not draw many people. One, supported by 17 parties, attracted only a little more than a thousand people. This undoubtedly indi cated a certain reserve on the part of the population. So far, it is more an anti-imperialist reminiscence than a new radicalization.
In fact, the situation in Algeria has been totally transformed from September 1990. Prices have skyrocketed, and although the country does not have reliable official statistics, inflation reached 40% during the autumn.
This has completely changed the atmosphere of the state of grace around the liberal reforms and the promises of economic opening. Very many Algerians have returned to socialist or populist positions. 13
This situation has led the workers to
ALGERIA
FRONT
ISLAM QUE I laws on the economic reforms. The only future for the regime lay in satisfying its imperialist backers, through privatization and the opening of the economic frontiers. For the Algerian working class, the barriers have very quickly been PLANTUL fixed. The right to strike has been terribly compromised by the recent restrictive legislation. All strikes are in practice illegal and the regime is in the process of drawing up lists of trade unionists who will be dismissed when the struggles decline.
The building of a trade union alternative is difficult. The UGTA is rejected by very many workers, but they have no other choice. Most strikes happen at the workplace, on the initiative of the rank and file, in a totally unorganized fashion. These struggles do not lead to the emergence of a conscious workers' vanguard.
Certainly, some seek to respond to the situation. A group of militants originating from the Party of the Socialist Vanguard (PAGS — the Communist Party) has built a small red trade union with some former trade union cadre from the UGTA apparatus. This alternative is obviously illusory, and has little credibility.
Islamic trade union created
An Islamic trade union now exists. It puts left trade union militants in the painful situation of remaining without a voice in the confrontation between the FLN and the fundamentalists, who enjoy a very significant support among the working class. Even if its platform appears completely ridiculous, the new law on trade unions permits it, with the support of a mere 20% of the workforce, to have as many delegates as other more important trade unions - this gives it a very important presence as a partner in negotiations.
There is a great temptation to call for the creation of another trade union. For the moment, this question is being debated.
But abandoning the UGTA can only be justified if something efficient and useful for the workers can be built in its place — which supposes a greater accumulation of forces than what exists today.
At the moment, we are calling for the creation of support committees for the strikes, which will constitute committees of action and of permanent struggle to regroup the more advanced militants and to make progress on the trade union question. But that cannot be envisaged as an overall alternative.
In fact, all the parties of opposition have polarize on the social problems, the democratic and political questions tending to recede in importance.
The General Union of Algerian Workers (UGTA, a trade union linked to the regime) mobilized to demand a minimum wage of 4000 dinars (it is currently hardly more than 1000 dinars) and wage increases. With the aim of renewing the credibility of the ruling National Liberation Front (FLN), the regime has conceded under pressure an increase of 500 dinars, which might appear derisory, given the current inflation rate, but which has allowed the UGTA to appear as a credible partner. This has not put an end to popular unrest.
In the face of this social protest, certain political parties, like the Front of Socialist Forces (FFS), for example, have taken positions which are to say the least contradictory - the FFS, which only a few months ago considered dropping the word "socialist" from its name, has decided to keep it.
Other parties, like that of Ben Bella, have made declarations in favour of the poor and deprived.
All this does not correspond to a concrete political channeling of the social unrest. The strikes and social struggles are going on regardless of the declarations and speeches of the political bigwigs.
Popular revolts and numerous strikes
There have been popular revolts amongst the victims of the earthquake of 1988, relodged in precarious conditions since then — certain villages have neither water, nor semolina, nor elementary products, nor transport. There have also been numerous strikes in several sectors, in the absence, unhappily, of a real popular organization capable of calling a general strike.
Unhappily, because we believe that only a general strike can resolve the problem.
All these social struggles are tolerated by the regime with total cynicism; the 14 strikes in the enterprises on the road to liquidation serve to diminish wage costs
FLNooc and the regime regards them with insouciance; the social combativity could exhaust itself. We support these mobilizations energetically, while maintaining that a general strike remains the only solution.
The Algerian economy is bankrupt, but does not prevent the postponing of its final liquidation. At the time of the municipal elections of June 1990 (see /V 189), the regime's margin of manoeuvre remained very limited.
The Gulf crisis and the unexpected supplementary resources it provided allowed it to give some crumbs to the workers. The regime is constrained to plunge into the logic of integration in the world market and thus immediate and generalized pauperization.
For a long time its avowed objective to reassure the bankers was of assuring the convertibility of the dinar against the dollar and the opening up to foreign capital. This corresponds to the positions of the whole of the opposition, from the FFS to the FIS, with the exception of some, like our Socialist Workers Party (PST). Attack on workers necessary
For this policy to be realized, a collapse of the purchasing power of the workers is necessary — the essential criteria for foreign capital, here as elsewhere, is profitability.
The Algerian labour market cannot compete on the level of technical aptitude, but only on labour costs, as well as on political stability and labour discipline; in other words, Algerian workers must be cheaper than the Moroccans, Senegalese or Koreans.
At all times, the regime has kept a grip on the social struggles. In the most grave moments of crisis, faced with the FIS for example, the regime has continued to fix as its principal enemy a general strike by the UGTA, and as its essential objective the economic reforms.
After the electoral defeat of June 1990, the FLN declared that "the economic reforms must continue as before".
The head of the government demanded of the deputies an emergency vote on the
International Viewpoint #199 • February 4, 1991
the same social and economic prooramme the same social and economic programme as the FLN. There are obviously nuances, between the Islamic fundamentalist FIS and the secular and Berber movement (FFS, RCD — Assembly for Culture and Democracy).
But the FIS remains the principal organization of opposition, with support from the workers, the oppressed, and all the popular layers.
The FLN wants the next elections to legitimate its power, without having to share with other parties. The regime is currently in the process of renewing the FLN, that is changing all the fulltimers to replace them with others.
The regime had initially envisaged the emergence of a myriad of indistinguishable parties, so as at once to render credible its new democratic course, and to abandon populism, through the emergence of another form of popular representation.
### Fundamentalists given favourable treatment
It is because the populism of the FLN has been seen as an obstacle to the liberal opening that the fundamentalists benefitted from a favourable treatment from the regime for a whole year. It did not envisage what was to follow.
The electoral law envisaged that the seats would be attributed to a relative majority — in fact, the regime counted on an opposition divided into 36 pieces, the largest part going to it.
The FIS succeeded in accumulating enough forces, notably in the suburbs of Algiers and Constantine, to lead the regime to review its strategy and to envisage a form of election which would permit an FLN presence, even where the FIS won.
The Islamic tidal wave was not expected by the regime - its objective from then on was to demolish any exterior alternative to the regime. For example, it gave publicity to the RCD, to stop the FFS from appearing in a credible role; it favoured several little Islamic groups to break up the bloc which had formed around the FIS.
The strategy of the FLN is to present itself as the only alternative to the FIS at the second round of the legislative elections, to avoid a fundamentalist dictatorship. It is a stupid game, even from its point of view. It is not the FIS which has invented traditionalism, or the oppression of women. It is only through struggle that these will be changed.
After the electoral defeat in the municipalities, the regime no longer had legitimacy — a national electoral timetable was
ALGERIA needed in the short term to make the status quo acceptable to everybody. In fact, both the FIS and the regime needed to postpone this schedule by some months to prepare.
The new electoral law is still not ready, and there is much debate on the form of voting. There is first the question of the system permitting men to vote for women. Given the difficulties of the regime, there are some chances that the system of proxy votes will be suppressed. A very broad front has been created around the movement of women to demand the suppression of this measure.
We think that proportional representation is the only democratic way. All the other methods are destined to give the majority to the biggest minority — in Algeria, this will be the FIS.
Proportional representation is the sole means of avoiding a fundamentalist dictatorship in the short term and also the sole means of avoiding a continuation in power of the FLN, in case its policy of presenting itself as the sole alternative to the FIS should succeed.
What might happen in the elections? There is a certain disenchantment with the FIS, which had promised the moon and crystallized the whole of the protest vote against 25 years of FLN rule.
It had pulled together a vote of hope of rapid change in social conditions, employment, housing, without explaining that a victory in the municipal elections would not be sufficient to realize all this. When the FIS won victories in some municipalities, it has obviously not changed the world. It had moreover absolutely no means of changing things.
All parties lack credibility
At the electoral level, this disillusionment can only concretize itself if an alternative emerges. Indeed, the other parties, the FFS as much as the diverse so-called democratic parties, and also the radical groups like the PST or the OST (Socialist Workers Organization - affiliated to the international Lambertist/Trotskyist current) are all in the same situation of a loss of credibility and do not appear capable of changing things immediately.
It is probable that despite the attempts to build a bloc around Mahmoud Nahnah (an Islamic moderate), the fundamentalism of the FIS will remain an electoral pole of the first order.
If we have a ballot of two rounds, it is very possible that we will be confronted by a horrible choice between the FLN and the FIS - fundamentalism, first version, against fundamentalism, second version. What alternative is there to the FIS and the FLN? The PST calls for a workers and popular front, of the left, of the PST, the OST (called the Workers' Party since its last congress), of the PAGS, of trade union currents, of popular committees, and so on.
This appeal is for the moment an appeal for debate — it does not translate itself into precise relations, common platforms, but by a line of unitary action of our organization. The appeal of the PST to unity of the workers and popular left has met an echo among the militants of the PAGS.
The PAGS is a populist party, whose structures are anti-democratic. It has never had a congress in its history, not even a founding congress. The emergence from clandestinity has produced a terrible shock for its militants, discovering at the same time their diversity, and their weakness as a real force in society. The zigzags of their party in relation to the regime over the last years have made its members seasick. The members of the PAGS were the only militants tortured in October 1989 — but the party has continued to support the regime, justifying its image as a vassal party of the Algerian government.
How has the party not split in this situation? It has authorized a freedom of manoeuvre to its militants in terms of intervention .Apart from the diffusion of central propaganda by the leadership, members do as they please, which is obviously untenable and explosive.
Logic of sacred union
Initially, the PAGS was relatively hopeful of an eventual opening of the regime. Then, when multipartyism was introduced, the PAGS accepted it, even though it had never been one of its demands. Then, it followed the logic of a sacred union of all the parties, from the FLN to the FIS.
Taking account of the incessant attacks of the FIS against its militants, the PAGS has transformed this sort of national democratic front into an anti-fascist front. But the leadership has applied this position inconsistently.
It took the defeat at the elections and the terrible pressures which they suffered 15 at the polling stations from the fundamen-
ALGERIA/MOROCCO talists for the leadership to decide to adopt a combative anti-fascist attitude, proposing a front to the regime and to all the parties against the FIS.
For PAGS militants, who considered themselves as the party of the working class, in the image of the big mass parties of Western Europe, the disillusionment has been significant.
In reality, it was a party of one or two thousand militants. The leadership had put off a congress for a long time — after the electoral defeat, it could no longer d SO.
The leadership has published an "enormous" text explaining that the error had been to believe that the fundamental contradiction was between capitalism and socialism, whereas in reality it was between modern capitalism and archaic capitalism.
It would be necessary henceforth to unite with the modern capitalism of the regime, against the archaic capitalism of the FIS.
The least that one could say is that the text did not convince all of the militants, and numerous contributions have subsequently been written. The rank and file have successfully demanded that the date of the congress is fixed and that the texts of discussion are published.
Opposition argues for leading role of proletariat
Amongst this protest, there has been an important document, called the Text of the Ten, which has said that the proletariat
Kingdom of Repression ON DECEMBER 14,1990, the Democratic Labour Confederation and the General Union of Moroccan Workers issued an appeal for a general strike, which was widely followed, in pursuit of wage demands. In Fez, the eve of the general strike saw violent riots, with youth in the front line. They were repressed with at least 200 deaths and more than
1,000 arrests. Last autumn, at the same time as the French authorities were involved in plans to celebrate the Year of Morocco, the appearance of a book about Morocco by Gilles Perrault, entitled "Notre ami, le rol" ("Our friend the king"), which exposed the terrible regime of repression existing in that country, and the complicity of the French ruling class in that state of affairs, upset the steady course of Franco-Moroccan relations.