Political Islam Failed In Algeria Essay

While the free essays can give you inspiration for writing, they cannot be used 'as is' because they will not meet your assignment's requirements. If you are in a time crunch, then you need a custom written term paper on your subject (political islam failed in algeria)
Here you can hire an independent writer/researcher to custom write you an authentic essay to your specifications that will pass any plagiarism test (e.g. Turnitin). Waste no more time!

Has Political Islam Failed in Algeria?

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...

You should cite this paper as follows:

MLA Style
. EssayMania.com. Retrieved on 26 May, 2012 from
    <http://essaymania.com/3758/political-islam-failed-in-algeria>

More College Papers

Censorship: Unconstitutional essay
Against Censoring Harmless Obscene Language Why the !@#$ would any &*$% head want to censor @#$ &*$% offensive language? I mean what the !@#$?? Did any of that offend anyone? Would it if I had used the actual words? I hope it wouldn't because I sure didn't intend for it to. But then ag

Gun Control: Why Do We Need Licenses To Own Guns? essay
Gun Control: Why Do We Need Licenses To Own Guns? Automobiles must only be licensed for use upon public roads, and licenses are not required for the purchase of cars. There are no waiting periods or background checks on the purchase of cars. People who misuse their cars are punished for t

Gun Control: It Is Needed essay
Gun Control Is Needed Regulation of guns is a necessary action that needs to be taken in order to save lives. A good definition of gun control is needed to understand the sides and issues. Gun control is an effort to stop the rise in violent crime by strengthening laws on the ownershi