Hugh Roberts - The Battlefield: Algeria 1988-2002, Studies in a Broken Polity

The articles collected in this book were written between November 1987 and July 2002, and thus span the period of the terrible drama in which Algeria has been embroiled from the riots of October 1988 until the legislative elections on 30 May 2002, which saw the FLN recover pride of place in the party-political sphere for the first time since the crisis began. But, while they offer elements of a perspective on this period, they do not pretend to provide a proper history of it. They were written at successive moments in the often astonishing and sometimes appalling flow of events in Algeria, from analytical standpoints which were necessarily provisional. Above all, the principal purpose which informed them was not to sum up and explain what had happened. Rather, my objective was primarily to clarify what was at stake, in order to identify which lines of development, offering ways of transcending the situation, were possibilities of practical politics in each successive conjuncture as I understood it.

Since my understanding was sometimes at variance with the conventional wisdom of Western commentary, this purpose had its pedagogical side, which in part accounts for the element of repetition in this work, impossible to eliminate without recasting the material completely. But it is not only Western understanding which I have tried to inform; I have also written with Algerian readers in mind. I have accordingly sought to describe and assess what has been happening in terms which make this both intelligible to Western readers and recognisable to Algerian ones, whatever their political allegiances. The resulting studies have generally taken an unusual line, and some words about the point of view from which they have been written are in order.

I first went to Algeria in 1972, and carried out doctoral research on the country between 1973 and 1978. I lived there in 197374 as an English teacher at the lyce in Boura, a provincial town on the edge of Kabylia 80 miles south-east of Algiers, and spent the long vacations of 1975 and 1976 doing fieldwork on local politics in Kabylia for the thesis I eventually submitted to Oxford University in 1980. I visited the country again in NovemberDecember 1983, and more briefly in January 1985. Between 1972 and 1985 I was able to visit most parts of Algeria, from Algiers to Hassi Messaoud and from Maghnia to Souk Ahras, and to acquire a general understanding of its political history. Between 1973 and 1976 most of this travelling was by public transport and hitch-hiking (when not on foot), and brought me into contact with Algerians from most walks of life, as did the year I lived in Boura. I thus acquired some experience of life in Algeria during the later Boumedine period, and had a briefer but instructive exposure to the changes taking place in the Chadli era. This experience equipped me with a reading of Algerian political realities before the crisis broke in 1988, and inoculated me against the various propaganda lines which began to be touted the moment the country became headline news. And I have refreshed my understanding of these realities by returning to Algeria on six occasions since 1992.

The other main element of my point of view has been political, and the reader is entitled to know what it is. Politically, I am a product of a particular democratic and internationalist tradition which for most of the twentieth century had its home in the British Labour Party. One of the values affirmed by that tradition was the principle of respect for and defence of the right of nations to self-determination. I have been disposed to respect Algerias independence since long before I first went there, and have been opposed to the presumptions of external actors to interfere in the current drama, considering that such intervention was bound to complicate it and render it more intractable. Since it has indeed proved very intractable and a great deal of interference has taken place, my fundamental view of this matter has not changed.

This attitude has inhibited me from taking sides in the ideological and party-political conflicts which have erupted in the country since 1988. I have taken the view that it is for the Algerians to resolve their differences and I have personally been inclined to envisage with equanimity any outcome to the conflict that is consistent with the survival of Algeria as a sovereign nation-state and conducive to the good government of this state, and thus consistent with the purpose of the revolution which constituted it. This outlook has not precluded my feeling more sympathy for certain points of view in Algerian politics than others, any more than it has inhibited me from criticising certain positions and policy choices for tending to exacerbate the conflict rather than resolve it, but it has precluded me from deriving my arguments from partisan allegiances. Apart from a particular prejudice in favour of Algerias continued existence as a nation-state and a general prejudice in favour of civilian and constitutional government and non-violent forms of political action, I have endeavoured throughout to base my judgements on evidence and reasoning alone.

A corollary of this standpoint has been my willingness to countenance different outcomes at different moments, a willingness which accounts for some of the variation which the reader may notice in the positions I have argued in different essays. But this variation, while mainly a consequence of changed circumstances, has also been a function of the flow of information: Algerian politics are exceptionally secretive and at every stage the information on which my readings have been based has been incomplete. While I can reread these essays today without blushing very often, my interpretation of certain secondary matters has proved deficient in retrospect, and I have been obliged to corriger le tir, as the Algerians would say, as I have gone along.

I have accumulated many debts since I first began work on Algeria thirty years ago, and the publication of this book affords me an opportunity to honour some of them. It is impossible to mention all those scholars inside and outside Algeria from whom I have learned and with whom I have been able to discuss my work, but they include Anouar Abdel-Malek, Noureddine Abdi, Kay Adamson, Lahouari Addi, Ali Assaoui, Henri Alleg, Slimane Bedrani, Mahfoud Bennoune, Khelifa Bouzebra, Michael Brett, Terry Burke, Boutheina Cheriet, Fanny Colonna, the late Jean Djeux, Bettina Dennerlein, Abderrazak Dourari, Ali El Kenz, Bruno Etienne, the late Ernest Gellner, Michael Gilsenan, Mohammed Harbi, the late Thomas Hodgkin, Bill Johnson, Acha Kassoul, Jeremy Keenan, Wilfred Knapp, Omar Lardjane, Azzeddine Layachi, Jean Leca, Robert Malley, Lakhdar Maougal, Mustapha Mekideche, Thierry Michalon, John Nash, Roger Owen, William Quandt, John Ruedy, Mohamed Brahim Salhi, David Seddon, Moussa Selmane, Keith Sutton, Mohand Tahi, Khaoula Taleb Ibrahimi, Dirk Vandewalle, Peter Von Sivers, Raoul Weexsten, Tom Wengraf, Abdelkader Yefsah, Ahsne Zehraoui and Sami Zubaida. More generally, should members of the Ernest Bevin Society of North London and the Aubane Historical Society of North Cork read this book, they will find that it bears witness to our old acquaintance.