Has Political Islam Failed in Algeria?
A Question One Can Ask.
The question whether Political Islam has failed or not due to the internal structure of
the Islamic political movement, in either Algeria or any other country in the Islamic
World, is an important question for the analysis of the politicized Islamic phenomena.
Olivier Roy sees the movement as a failure, not only in Algeria but also in the whole
area from Casablanca to Tashkent, the movement has resulted in failure due to many
reasons that are seen as common among all the divisions of the movement regardless of
their different socio-economic and political background that are more or less responsible
of the generation of such movements. The Algerian case is the best case one can see as a
direct application of Roy's theoretical analysis of the Failure of political Islam.
The Islamic movement started in Algeria by the end of the 1980's, after a long era of
the corrupt regime and it's economic in efficiency that led the country to live under
extremely harsh standards of living for the average individual. While most of the
Algerian citizens are under 30, namely 75%, which means a huge number of people in need
for a high rate of creation of jobs, especially with the growth rate of population that
is up to 3%, thirty percent of the Gross National Product used to go to service the
payment of the national debt . This, of course, resulted in the decline of the growth
rate of the GNP. What made it even worse is the fall of natural gas revenues during the
1980's. "In the days after the dual fall of the price of oil and the value of the
dollar, the demographic expansion had pushed the GNP's growth curve below the horizontal
for the first time in years. "
Such economic conditions were very much responsible for the instability and the
weakening of the legitimacy of the FLN government. "The plummeting of oil prices in the
1980's combined with the mismanagement of Algeria's highly centralized economy brought
about the nation's most serious economic and social since the early days of independence.
" Housing conditions were extremely bad and it was normal for the average citizen to live
in one room with six other people. The economic frustration was a general of the
Algerian citizen and still is. This economic frustration led to street riots that were
not characterized by an Islamic attitude but rather a normal frustration that any
population would feel towards an inefficient corrupt regime that seems to be directly
responsible for such economic status. "The masses that took the streets of Algerian
cities, in October 1988, were not only Islamists but workers, students, secularists,
leftists, feminists and Berberists, all demonstrating their disillusionment with the FLN
(National Liberation Front). " The FLN government responded by the Army intervention and
the arbitrary arresting of the protesters. They used torture against people which
ultimately created a high measure of resentment and destruction of the government
legitimacy. Moreover, the government doctrine to reform the Algerian economy was so
much supportive to those who had money already, which gave no benefit to the crushed
masses that were striving under poor standards of life, which is the case in most
countries that undergo transitional periods of economic reform where the desperate need
for investment forces the government to grant the investors more rights and less duties
to assure an attractive business environment. However, the corrupt regime seemed to do
that for its own benefit since most of the rich Algerians were practically either
government officials or having strong connections with the authority. Thus, the economic
reform fired back on the FLN.
Meanwhile, there was another severe problem that affected the countries domestic
politics; the problem of identity. As a French colony under the French authority, prior
independence, Algeria suffered what Arab writers and journalists call "farnasah" which
means Frenchization of Algeria. This is what is noticeably seen in most if not all
French colonies. Spencer mentions that "Largely -but not exclusively- because of the
colonial legacy of France, language has been politicized since independence and continues
to present problems for national unity. " The French suppressed any attempt to apply
Arabization of education and thus succeeded in creating an elite of French speakers.
After independence, Arabization of education in Algeria started to grow which gave the
rise to a frustrated Arabic speaking population that suffered from the lack of job
opportunities for them which was a sort of discrimination against those who cannot speak
or write French in a country that is a member of the Arab League with an official
religion that has Arabic as a necessity. In 1979 the so called Arabised demonstrated
their frustration through the use of mass mobs asking for equal rights with the French
educated. Chedli Benjadid, the Algerian president tried to rectify the bias against
Arabic educated but still they felt that discrimination. The Islamists, always
encouraged Arabization to create a national identity separated from France. The problem
of national identity and unity is basically drawn along linguistic lines, especially with
the existence of the Berbers who have their own language that has never been recognized
by the authority as an official language although the Berbers constitute 15-20% of the
Algerian population. In addition, being a French speaker has been stereotyped as being a
pro-France anti-Islamic . Thus, the Algerian society suffered from both cultural
divisions and economic frustration which gave rise to the FIS.
As a way to gain the lost legitimacy the mono-party people's assembly approved a new
multi-party constitution under which the formation of the FIS ( Islamic Salvation Front)
took place. In one year time, FIS was very successfully able to spread its popularity
among the frustrated population by a doctrine to solve the national identity problem,
since practically all Algerians are Muslim despite the clear bias of the FIS to Arabic
because of its Islamic appeal.
The main success of FIS was that it could quickly unify the Islamic ideological fanatics
under its banner, getting over the differences of the streams between the groups forming
this organization. This is why it is seen that FIS is a revolutionary type organization
which is willing to take of power using all necessary means, as power is the major
objective because it is the tool with which change might be a possible act. The founders
of the FIS were able to permit ideological quarrels between its members and postpone them
till they assume power, which was the basic objective . Since the FLN was supported by
the most powerful institution in the country which is the army, violence was not to serve
the FIS and would not assure them the assumption of power. The democratization process
that was taking place in Algeria was a golden change to try to peacefully change the
current regime by stepping firstly in the local government level to increase their
popularity.
What shows that Olivier Roy was right to categorize the FIS as a neo-fundamentalist
group is their political attitude. The definition he sets for a neo-fundamentalists'
approach is the strive for power whatever it costs. Violence, compromise, mobilization
of masses and whatever it takes to get to power is possible as it serves the ultimate
goal which is establishing the Islamic state, since no virtuous population without the
establishment of an Islamic state.
This is what seemed to be a vicious circle for Roy "How can one escape the cycle: no
Islamic state without virtuous Muslims, no virtuous Muslims without Islamic state. "
This might seem Machivillian to a large extent. Yet, the FIS was able to do that in more
than one case to assure reaching the domination of the National Popular Assembly. "The
two most spectacular examples of this were the mobilization over the United Nations' war
against Iraq in January 1991, and the mobilization over unfair electoral laws in May-June
1991" . This happened despite the fact that Iraq is dominated by the infidel Ba'athists
who cannot be Islamic. Forming a party, in itself, is not something that Islamists
should do since they would have to compromise with the mass support by neglecting some of
their principles for the sake of mobilization of voters .
In June 1990, the municipal and provincial elections were held and they resulted in an
extensive defeat for the ruling FLN. Their loss was the FIS's gain since they were the
only main player on the political scene. Of course there were so many others since
Algeria opened up to the multi-party system to the extent that something like 50 parties
or even more appeared at once. Yet, there were only two main parties and the others were
real not political parties but they were mostly "debating societies around one or more
old politician" . The FIS was able to run the local provinces efficiently while
preparing for the elections for the National Popular Assembly (APN), that was supposed to
be held in the first quarter of 1991. The government, however, delayed the election to
the June 1991 and then it was held in December 1991.
The FIS was able to survive the elections victoriously at the first round of elections
when they won 188 seats, with about three million votes while the FLN got half of the
number of the votes but only 16 seats in the assembly. This was due to the system of
election individual election in which one votes for a person not for a party as it is in
the proportional representation system electoral system. This was seen as unfair since
the ruling FLN had gotten half of what the FIS had while the FLN won 188 seats the FLN
only gained 16 seats. This is why, Liamine Zeroual, supported by most of the political
figures in Algeria, has decided to change the electoral system to the proportional
representation instead of voting for individual candidates. Thus, a balanced parliament
would be conceivable given the nature of the political life in Algeria .
What made it possible for the FIS to achieve such a victory over the FLN although it
could not socialize its Islamic ideology as much as the results of the elections of 1991
may show, was the weak position of the FLN that had ruled the country for three decades
and resulted in ultimate failure. Most of the voters, according to Burgat and Dowell
statistics, 55 to 82 %, voted for the FIS although they had no Islamic ideological
orientation. They call these votes "rejection votes". The FIS had used the other weapon
the FLN used to use, which is nationalism.
They seemed to be able to find a paradigm that can unify the country under one banner no
matter what it is and decrease the separationist trend in the country . The voters had
decided to bring the FLN down because of their frustration and despair of this ruling
party that brought all of these problems to the country. This seems to be the case in,
not only Algeria, but also in so many other Muslim societies where the population is very
frustrated because of the severe economic conditions and the repressive behavior of their
government. The Islamic solution attracts the attention of the crushed cynical
population that lost hope in the current regimes.
Nevertheless, no one can argue whether the FIS were successful at maximizing their
benefit out the frustrated masses and they could mobilize them in more than one incident.
This is a very strong point that shows how organized the FIS was and how it could lead
the government to do whatever the FIS wanted. On the 29th December 1989 they mobilized
the "one of the most important opposition demonstrations in the history of independent
Algeria." The mob was asking for the application of Sharia law and the abolition of
mixed education. They wanted different schools for the different genders.
The FIS did that again on 20th of April. Despite the fact that the government tried
its best to scatter the mob and used some other Islamists like Nahnah and Sahnoun to
counterattack the FIS, the popularity of the FIS and its massive support of its
followers, who are very politically articulate, managed to keep the struggle which led
the government to go for the election which was the beginning of the end of the FLN
control of the situation.
After the first round of the election and the overwhelming defeat of the FLN, Chdli
still thought that he could keep his position without the FLN in parliament. Yet, the
army stepped in and took power with a military coup d'etat against him on Jan 11, 1992.
This anti-democratic move of the army that was keeping an eye on the event and ready to
intervene was the worst move in Algerian history. This started the bloody story between
the military transitional government and the FIS, which is still going on up till now
with almost no significant government control over anything. The situation in Algeria is
a civil war that no one can win.
The dissolution of the FIS, although it seemed to be the only possible way to get rid of
their huge influence, was a very unsuitable thing to do. Both of Abbassi Madani and
Belhadj were put in prison. Democracy was killed and the FLN lost its credibility
forever because it committed itself to democratization and it then, after they lost
elections, are there with an iron fist to crush the civilians who have all the right to
choose whom to rule the country.
Now Algeria is in civil war, decline of GNP, foreign debt accumulation and all sorts of
problems that appear due to lack of governmental control over the society that turned
wild. Estimations of casualties and deaths among the fighting armed groups with the
state authority ranging from 30,000 to 50,000 deaths. The destruction of the
infrastructure of the country and the impossibility of development is such a situation
makes it seem like a nightmare.
Nevertheless, it is quiet obvious that political Islam has succeeded in Algeria in many
ways while it did not have the chance to be tested in others. The theory of Olivier Roy
is, therefore, subject to question. It is true that some of what Roy says about
political Islam in general has happened in reality in Algeria. It is also true that he
has done a very good analysis and characterization of the FIS as the main Islamic force
in Algeria. Yet, there is a sort of underestimation of the success of the political
movement. Such an organization that can force the government to get in elections that
was known to be lost from the very beginning deserves to be acknowledged for what it has
done in unifying the country under its banner. Whether they succeeded or not to get the
official control is another issue, since their victory was aborted illegitimately by the
force of the army.
Roy categorizes the types of Islamic groups into three main categories. Firstly, there
is the Islamists or the extremists who are trying to change the society from top down by
means of assuming political power. Their aim is to get the power using any means
possible to be able to impose the Shari'a Law so that they can make the people virtuous
by order as they will get habituated to what is imposed on them. Secondly, there is the
religious fundamentalists who are peaceful groups that are trying to change the society
by grass roots technique with no need to authoritarian powers. The basic aim is to
provide the population with a model of how to be a good Muslim rather than forcing them
to be so. Thus, they are not very much into conflict with the governments under which
they live. Thirdly, the most radical of all is the neo-fundamentalist groups, like the
FIS who are striving for power no matter what it takes to do so. He sees the FIS as the
clearest example of that kind of Islamic groups. I agree as I mentioned before on that
issue since the nature of their political behavior is typical of a neo-fundamentalist
group.
The main question is "Has political Islam failed in Algeria or not? And if the answer
is yes, did it fail for the reasons he mentioned in his book?" Roy, sees the failure of
political Islam as a result of many factors that are common among the different Islamic
movements from Casablanca to Tashkent. The case study of Algeria is a good example of
what Roy is mentioning in his book as reasons for the failure.
"The absence of an Islamic Alternative" is one of the main points behind the failure of
political Islam in the Muslim World. Roy argues that Islamist thinkers did not provide
the population with any other alternative to the existing situation that is the main
reason for their frustration. Saying that Islam is the solution would not help
decreasing the both internal and external debt, raising the rate of growth of the GNP,
develop up to date technical assistance to develop industrial infrastructure and high
value added products or solve the problem of repression and authoritarianism. In
addition, the Islamists do not have a clear political agenda to tell what they are going
to do with the banking system that is based on interest. Neither do they have a clear
view of how to keep the government budget and save it from deficit while canceling out
taxes according to the Shari'a Law, depending only on Zakat which is only 5-10 % of the
yearly income of the population .
For the Algerian case, Roy makes perfect sense. Hugh Roberts reports on that by saying,
"Yet, in fact Algerian Islamists had virtually nothing to say about economic policy. Not
only did not have positions of its own, it did not even bother to canvass the kind of
notion concerning properly Islamic banking and so forth that has been fashionable in
international Islamist circles since the Iranian revolution." In addition the FIS did
take the government side on the issue of economic reform and saw that privatization of
government's enterprises . This resulted in the decline of their popularity among the
workers in Algeria.
The notion of "Bleak Society" is mentioned by Roy to emphasize that the Islamic
movement have drawn an image of their ideal society which seems rather bleak and
depressing. All entertainment methods would be "Haram" banned because they are either
Western or they are helping the bad habits to spread away among people which makes them
not virtuous. The Islamists, he argues, want to live in the past while it is impossible
because people have gotten used to entertain themselves in many way that are not harmful.
Closing cinemas, theaters and night clubs and banning music would be very unacceptable
by the population. This is exactly what the FIS did when they controlled the local level
of the society after the local elections. They banned the Rai Music and they banned
serving alcohol.
This is a very valid point that Roy makes. Yet, the Algerians themselves participated
in mobs, as mentioned above in one of the greatest demonstrations ever seen in Algeria
since independence. A huge number of people have adopted the ideas of how the society
should be. The ideology of the FIS was well known by the Algerians and every one knew
what they would do if they assume power in the Parliament. Still, the first round of the
elections gave them 188 seats while the FLN got only 16. The movement has succeeded to
socialize and sell their ideas to the population. This results should not be considered
as a failure by all means.
The notion of "Islam of Resentment" was mentioned by Roy to illustrate why these
movements got established from the very beginning. For Algeria, with its history of
being a colony of France till the mid 1960s, and the FLN failure to find a paradigm to
solve the problems of the society with its socialist model, it is quiet probable that
resentment was a basic factor for the creation of the movement and its success among the
population. The socialization of the FIS was more than excellent, especially if one
takes in account the very short period it took to form a political party and defeat the
ruling regime.
In conclusion, the failure of political Islam is a theory, although seems to apply
successfully to the Algerian model, but it is rather a mistake to think that Islam has
failed in Algeria. Although the FIS did not have a real economic plan that could save
the Algerian economy, one cannot say that if they are to come back and elections are to
be held again democratically they would loose the elections because they have failed.
The FIS had been very successful in convincing the masses with their plans and what they
would do. Yet, the extremely undemocratic action that was carried out by the army to
cancel the elections was what prevented the movement from doing something to save
Algeria. In fact, no one can say whether or not Political Islam would have failed in
Algeria hadn't the army intervened to cancel the elections. Yet, it is very obvious that
the FIS would have had a really hard time to solve these problems and, at the same time,
keep their popularity among the crushed masses that were striving under very poor
conditions.
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