The struggle for democracy in Algeria a study in civil-ideological war
DEPARTMENT OF POLITICAL SCIENCE BANISALAMEH, MOHAMMED B.A, Yarmouk University, 1994 THE STRUGGLE FOR DEMOCRACY TN ALGERIA: A STTTDY IN A CTVTLIDEOLOGICAL WAR Advisor: Fatemeh Shafiei Thesis dated: May, 1998 This study examines the rise ofthe Islamic movement in Algeria, the failure ofthe democratization process and the bloody civil war. The writer was able to establish that both the military leaders and the Islamic fundamentalists are responsible for the turmoil and the bloodshed in Algeria. This study is significant because with the rise ofthe Islamic movement in the Arab world, Algeria became the primary test case for the compatibility ofIslam with democracy and the prospects for democracy in the Arab world. The study was done through the use ofprimary and secondary sources. The study examines Algeria's current crisis, its political, economic and social challenges. The study suggests that the feasible alternative to end the crisis exists only in Algeria and only the Algerian people have the key to their problem. The external involvement is not accepted by the Algerian people and will have a negative impact on the crisis. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS IN THE NAME OF ALLAH, THE BENEFICIENT, THE MERCIFUL I would like to convey my sincerest gratitude to the chair ofmy thesis, Dr. Fatemeh Shafiei for her instructions, guidance and assistance. Dr. Hamid Taqi, for his encouragement, patience and assistance. Without your help and advice, I would not have been able to achieve this goal. I wish to thank The Fulbright Program for awarding me a scholarship. I am highly indebted to Sabrina Fuller whose support, advice, patience and encouragement have been very valuable to me. Thanks as well to Yarmouk University in Jordan for paying my monthly allowance. Although space does not permit me to mention many names for their support, I am highly indebted to all the employees in the Robert W. WoodruffLibrary for their help. I give special thanks to Robert E.M.Quarles for his assistance and patience. Also, a word ofthanks to Lisa Beal for typing this manuscript. Finally, I dedicate this thesis to my parents, for their prayers, love and blessings.
Quest for a Post-Cold War Foreign Policy
WITH THE END of the Cold War, the disintegra tion of the Soviet Union and the shrinkage and transmutation of the Soviet threat, the United States has lost the magnetic north for calibrating its foreign policy. Major decisions taken in recent years, seeming ly firm in execution, rest upon an uncertain direction in underlying policy. The United States has strength to spare in responding to individual challenges, yet it clearly lacks the overall strength to respond to all challenges. It should avoid that heady feeling, induced by its triumph in the Cold War, that all things are now possible. It must learn, in this altered context in which there are no major rivals, to husband its strength and to choose with care those policy objectives that reflect interests sufficiently weighty that they can garner the public support to sustain them in the long run. To this point the record is, at best, mixed. A plethora of for eign policy objectives has been put forward, as if all could be successfully and simultaneously pursued. We are urged to advance democracy and all its procedures, human rights, civil liberties, equality before the law, protection of minorities, self determination, an orderly world, international law, economic growth, free markets, privatization, free trade, limits on envi ronmental degradation, curtailment of the arms trade, preven tion of the spread of advanced weapons, etc., etc. The list is almost endless. What is ignored is that some of these objec tives are flatly in conflict and that all require the careful exam ination of trade-offs. Moreover, striking littie attention has been paid to the relation between means and ends. Individual tools are assumed to achieve multiple objectives?with little heed
The Unforeseen Development of the Kabyle Question in Contemporary Algeria
THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE INHABITANTS OF GREATER Kabylia and their Arabic-speaking compatriots constitutes one of the fundamental issues of contemporary Algerian politics. This relationship has been neither accurately conceived nor adequately taken into account in the existing literature on modern Algeria. The growth of popular Berberism in Kabylia, articulating widespread opposition to the government's Arabization policy and the demand for official recognition of the Berber language, went unnoticed by outside observers until 1980. It had been visible since at least 1974, but could not be accommodated by prevailing conceptions either of Berber society in general or of Kabyle history in particular.