The Long Revolution of the Global South. Samir Amin

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СКАЧАТЬ of me as a gesture of trust, recognizing that I was no chauvinist and that I placed a united front of Third World countries confronting imperialism above their internal conflicts. I therefore accepted. I listened to each Secretary-General make his case on Eritrea, Sudan, Chad, and Saharan Niger. I presented my personal analyses of these questions in the most neutral language possible, emphasizing the common interests of the peoples concerned and principles for solutions that could strengthen their united front. What I proposed, in short, was: formal respect for borders, democratization of all the countries concerned, complete respect for the rights of minorities, and rejection of any call for outside help in settling these problems. I would like to point out that neither one of the two Secretaries-General had thought of the question of democratization. I stressed the point by saying that, in my humble opinion, none of these conflicts would find a solution without democracy. I am not sure whether I was convincing or that I had any influence, even in the smallest amount, on their future behavior.

       Algeria

      I visited Algeria several times during the 1960s at the invitation either of the Ministry of Planning (notably by Minister Abdallah Khoja and his assistant Remili, later by Minister Hidouci) or universities (by the rector Ahmad Mahiou). Always the same topic: they wanted my opinion on the Plan. I must say that I saw nothing there that went beyond nationalist populism. That was not always easy to explain. The Algerian leadership—many friends among them—was justifiably proud of the glorious struggle led by the FLN. But this pride diminished their critical sense, above all when—this was the case for many—they had only participated in this struggle from afar.

      Three major problems worried me. First problem: the attraction of the poorly studied Soviet model of industrialization—with few connections to agricultural development, the primary priority—financed by petroleum revenues, designed by pure technocrats indifferent to the political and social dimensions of choices, poorly justified, among other things, by the theory of “industrializing industries” (a rationalization of the Soviet model that Mao’s work “On the Ten Major Relationships” had, in my opinion, destroyed from top to bottom). Second problem: the rapid erosion of vague democratic impulses and the growing rhetoric against the “utopia of self-management,” etc. The 1965 Charter appeared to everyone—including the left of the old Communist Party—to be perfect. For me it only reproduced, often to the letter, the Nasserism of 1961. But to say too much would be mistaken for “Egyptian arrogance.” Third problem: the fragility of the Algerian nation. For me, that was obvious. Compared to Morocco and Tunisia, which were states before colonization, the Algerian nation was produced by the war of liberation. There is no shame in that. But its legitimacy was consequently fragile and linked to the legitimacy of the FLN government, the populist limitations of which I could clearly see. Subsequent events, with the war unleashed by the Islamists, have unfortunately proved me right. With the collapse of the FLN, basic national solidarity is now called into question. But there again, to say too much might be taken as a reminder of French colonialist rhetoric in which the Algerian nation did not exist. The language question, often cited, is only the tip of the iceberg. In this area, the Algerian government’s choice was disastrous: French for the elites, open to modernity and technology, and Arabic for the people, with education handed to the masters of old Koranic schools and supervised by no-less-backward graduates of al-Azhar. (It is a myth that the French wanted to extirpate Islam and thus fought against the Koranic schools. The French maintained the sharia for the native inhabitants; the FLN had attempted to attenuate its scope. By demanding complete respect for the sharia, the Islamists quite simply want everyone to return to the colonial-era practice!) The result is well known. It happened that I was able to assess the extent of the disaster when, invited to make a lecture at a university, I noted that the “Arabic speakers” did not know how to express anything that even remotely made any sense. Words followed one another without any concern for the meaning they carried.

      In 1972, IDEP organized one of its large seminars in Algiers. The authorities, both state and university, welcomed us with great pomp by allowing us to use the National Assembly building, whereupon I commented that, for once, it would act as a forum for real debates!

      Following this seminar, President Houari Boumedienne received me. It was a long meeting; two hours, I believe. He wanted to talk above all about international and Arab politics, criticizing the Rogers Plan for the Middle East, outlining his view of a “new international economic order” (to which the Non-Aligned Movement gave concrete expression in the declaration of 1974). I was convinced on these areas and attempted to move the discussion toward Algeria’s internal problems and my three reasons for worry. This visibly bothered the president, despite my diplomacy—I accused no one, cited no name, took the precaution of first speaking of the “positive aspects” and the “objective difficulties” before broaching the sensitive points. There was nothing in what he told me that was not already known from public speeches. I left convinced that the Algerian government would not find a way out of the foreseeable impasses and would end up falling to the right.

      I followed with much sorrow the deterioration of the Algerian system after Boumedienne’s death, which had maintained the appearances of a solid construction, but was in fact rotten to the core. Chadli Bendjedid and his senseless opportunist opening to compradors and vulgar excesses prepared the worst: the illusory riposte of the FIS’s electoral victory and the criminal excesses of the 1990s. This is a suspect confrontation between two partners who are only competing for comprador government and to be alone in benefiting from it: the old FLN without legitimacy and its generals on one side, and the FIS on the other. The latter was initially able to capitalize on the anger of the working classes and mobilize its minions recruited from among the young hittistes (the name given in Algeria to unemployed youth without any prospects). Favored by depoliticization—the usual crime of populist regimes—and supervised by the “Afghans” (the criminals trained in Pakistan and Afghanistan in CIA camps financed by Saudi Arabia), the “Islamists” wreaked the havoc with which we are all familiar. Yasmina Khadra’s crime novels are, from this point of view, the best analysis of Algeria’s tragedy. Are the Islamists now worn down by the resistance to the former FLN system and the successive maneuvers of Liamine Zéroual (after the elimination of Mohamed Boudiaf—we are still not sure who assassinated him, undoubtedly with the complicity of unknown local and foreign intelligence services) and, today, Abdelaziz Bouteflika? Undoubtedly, putting an end to the killings has become the first priority. But what should be done after that? Here again the historical Algerian left and its intellectuals have a large responsibility. An objective terrain existed, and still exists, to form a “third force” that rejects the Mafia-style management of the former FLN apparatus and the identical one of the Islamists. But this third force has never succeeded in forming. Leadership infighting has probably played a role in this miserable failure. I nevertheless believe that, behind this, there are more fundamental weaknesses, among others the absence of an approach that is able to incorporate the need for democratization of society into the requirements of a socialist renewal. Here again the ideological confusion of nationalist-populist circles, impressed with the Soviet model and their later absurd support for “liberal” solutions, are behind this powerlessness.

      I met President Ahmed Ben Bella and his spouse only after his release from prison, rejuvenated by his active participation in the movement to revive worldwide struggle for “another world” freed from globalized imperialist capitalism.

      Algeria, Tunisia, and Morocco are quite different in all kinds of ways. And yet, the three systems do converge in a certain way. At least, that was the conclusion of the book I wrote based on my Maghrebi experiences.¹⁶

       Mauritania

      I particularly like the Sahara—its expanses are more varied than those who do not know it imagine it to be; the aridity of its climate; and the elegance, pride, and hospitality of its peoples. I am lucky that my wife, Isabelle, shares these tastes. We thus never passed up the opportunity to travel through these spaces in Mauritania, Algeria, Niger, and Egypt.

      Our first travels through the great desert led us from Saint Louis in Senegal СКАЧАТЬ