Fennecs’ performance in boiling Algeria

On October 11th, Algiers, as well as other cities across the country – large French cities such as Marseille too witnessed this event – were drowned with happy crowds celebrating their national team’s (the Fennecs or desert foxes) victory over Rwanda. Algeria is now one crucial match away from qualifying for the next summer World Cup hosted by South Africa. Algerians have been waiting for such a moment since 1986, year of their last participation in such an event, in Mexico. Yet, in order to have the privilege to travel to Nelson Mandela’s land, the Fennecs will have to make a final perilous journey to Cairo to obtain their ticket in a decisive match against the Pharaohs. And although a draw or even a small defeat would give them the right to visit the Springboks country, the November 14th match promises to be though.

However, this joy and seemingly national unity hides a real and profound malaise within the Algerian society. While the elite continues to enjoy all the privileges obtained from the oil and gas revenues, the majority of the population increasingly struggles to meet both ends.  Meanwhile, we can read here and there that Algeria’s macro-economy is performing rather well. A national debt near zero, huge projects conducted such as the long overdue metro of Algiers (its construction started in the early 1980’s!), the well publicized East-West motorway (1,400 kilometres long) constructed by both Japanese and Chinese companies and which will be managed by a French firm, to be fully operational in 2010 or the modernization of the railway system are examples of those mega-projects taking place in Algeria. Other projects constructed across the country include housing units, dams or airports. All these projects necessitate huge amount of money. But the enormous financial crunch hitting the world does not seem to have deeply affected the national economy although SONATRACH, the hydrocarbon national company, recorded a 50% drop of its revenue by October 2009 ($30bn against $61bn at the same period in 2008). In 2008, Algeria national reserve attained $150bn.

However, what we do not hear very much is the growing discontents among the majority of the population. And indeed, for the past three days, riots in the suburb (more of a Brazilian favela or shanty town) of Diar Echams (Houses of Sun) in Algiers have sparkled. These council flats (Algerians in their growing derision have transformed the French acronym of HLM – Habitation à Loyer Modéré or low renting flats, into Habitants des Logements Misérables or Inhabitants of Miserable Housings) where poverty is striking, are situated a throwing stone away from the governmental palace of El Mouradia, and the upper-class districts of Hydra and Le Golf. And although these riots are so far well contained and limited to this district, it nonetheless is an illustration of what could soon happen in Algeria, twenty years after the riots of October 1988. And indeed, since October 1988, Algerian’s living conditions have not only deteriorated but reached the abyss.

As a reminder in 1988, the population’s demonstration resulted in the killing of 500 people. It was also the turning point for a nascent democracy and the emergence of the FIS-Islamic Salvation Front. This dead-born democracy however, led, after the January 1992 cancelation of the Parliamentary elections which, the FIS was poised to win, to an estimated 200,000 victims during the ruinous 1990s years.

Since his election in 1999 and re-election in 2004 and again in 2009 (the third election required a tailor-made amendment of the Constitution), Bouteflika has managed to bring some respite to the population through his concorde nationale. However, this quiet façade is deeply dangerous and as the elders have thought us, ‘quiet river runs deep’.

Today, the population of Algiers demonstrates again and clashes with the police forces for the very same reasons as their elders did twenty years ago. They are protesting because they have no work, no housing and very importantly, no prospects for their future. In Algiers today, up to 15 people of the same family live squeezed in flats of no more than 25 square metres! In order to sleep, men, especially in the summer, but even in the mild winter, remain outside all night for their female counterparts to sleep, and return home at dawn, to sleep. Those who can technically do it have transformed their staircase into a bedroom. Some others sleep on the balcony. As a result, in these conditions, those in age of getting married have no other option but to postpone their marriage for years.

So far, the current riots are contained to Algiers. And if Algeria qualifies on November 14, Algerians will pour into the streets to celebrate their national team’s qualification. And no doubt that the government will [mis]use this qualification for its own end that is to divert the population from the real problems affecting the country and its population. As sociologists have argued for a long time now, football is another common denominator to cement a nation, albeit artificially.

But Algerian’s patience is not indefinite and once joy is over, discontent will entirely be uprooted. Let’s not forget that more than 70% of the Algerian population is under 20 years old, that an estimated 20% of the working population remains unemployed and that despite constructions mushrooming across the country, housing shortages prevail. Meanwhile, the population can see those in command of the country and their cronies openly enjoying the oil’s revenues. And unsurprisingly, those in despair take a small boat to cross the Mediterranean Sea rejoining the long list of haragas. 

Algerians need their national team’s qualification for the next World Cup. They have been waiting for so long and do not have many opportunities to cheer in their daily life. The government is well aware of this football cement and secretly hopes that this qualification would divert people’s mind from the real problems affecting Algerians in general. However, patience has, although a virtue, its limits. And a new October 1988 is slowly, yet surely, about to emerge. Football might indeed be the opium of the mass population. While Algerians are too busy analyzing Ziani’s footy skills, Boughera’s majestic tackles in defense and Meghrini’s goal, which would mean a trip to the Rainbow Nation, the Algerian government is temporally safe from a deep conflict. The Fennecs non- qualification would however not only be a psychological trauma for a large part of the population but would undoubtedly accelerate people’s demonstrations and riots all across Algeria. Then, Bouteflika and Co. would sense how deep the river water is.

Kel Tamashek
28 octobre 2009