While 2019 will likely be remembered as the year of protests, few have been as surprising or as peaceful as Algeria’s “revolution of smiles” [even after the swearing in of a new president from an election earlier this month] that some called “illegitimate”.
<big><big>... while hundreds have been killed and many more wounded in the months-long demonstrations that have raged in Iraq, Lebanon, Bolivia, Hong Kong and Sudan, among others, Algeria’s protests have stayed remarkably calm by comparison. So calm that they have often disappeared from the news agenda entirely.
That is, Algerians say, because they are committed to achieving the change they desire through the unusual means of radical non-violence.
“Violence, we think, does not lead to democracy,”</big></big> Mustapha Bouchachi, the unofficial figurehead of the protests [called Hirak, a reference to the Arabic word for movement]— and a human rights lawyer and activist, told The National at his office in Algiers.“When there is internal instability, when the people want to fight for democracy, they must do it peacefully because the dictators have more arms, they have more means and they have more support from western countries,"...
<big><big>“If you use violence, you legitimise their violence.”
…Some say it is the inclusive nature of the movement that has helped ensure that the protests remain peaceful.
“On a sociological level, it is a very diverse uprising,” Louisa Dris-Ait-Hamadouche, a political scientist at the University of Algiers, said.
“The presence of women has remained constant and there is an extremely visible trans-generational aspect, which means that the presence of children and the elderly contributes to maintaining the peaceful nature of the demonstrations.”</big></big>...
...The death this week of de facto interim ruler, army chief Ahmed Gaid Salah who was also the face of the political elite the protesters oppose, had little impact on support for the movement, with protesters vowing to carry on until they get full and transparent democracy….
...Police have targeted protesters with waves of arrests, often against those carrying minority Amazigh (or Berber) flags, as well as dissenting voices such as artists and journalists….
[Yet pushback could have been far more violent, and there is another reason in addition to the diversity of the Hirak protesters.]
Ask anyone on the street... and they will have a very straight answer – “le decade noir”.
Having fought and won a bloody independence war against France that ended in 1962, the country was seen as a centre for revolutionary resistance. But a brutal civil war [over reform] between 1992 and 2002, referred to as the black decade, killed 200,000 people... and the memory of it now looms large in the psyche of Algerians.
“[it] remains in the collective memory as a trauma that we have never tried to cure,[even among Algeria’s armed forces ... The worst thing for them would be to find themselves once again violently face to face with the population.]” said Ms Dris-Ait-Hamadouche.
While many believe [no one is willing] to risk a return to the fear and tragedy of war, Ms Dris-Ait-Hamadouche said the government [does capitalise] on this sentiment ...“to try to dissuade Hirakists, frighten a part of the population and therefore create horizontal divisions...”
She said the “discourse of fear” [still has] not been entirely successful in [weakening protest] this time around because “it was too predictable and too often used”...
<big><big>Lessons have also been learnt from the Arab uprisings that took place in 2011, particularly Libya, where the overthrow of Muammar Qaddafi made life worse life for many.</big></big>
The Hirak have decided to play the long game to achieve their means because, as one Canadian who lives in Algiers put it, “they want change, but they are not willing to die for it”.
Mr Bouchachi echoes that sentiment.
“We, since the beginning, said we are going to stay peaceful until we realise our goals,” he said. “It takes more time, but we will succeed in the end.”
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