Can a civilized nation tolerate a crowd of people who let themselves be led by the nose by sheikhs, dervishes and the like . . . and who entrust their faith and their lives to fortunetellers, magicians, witch-doctors, and writers of amulets?

***

Countries may vary, but civilization is one and for a nation to progress, it must take part in this one civilization. The decline of the Ottomans began when, proud of their triumphs over the West, they cut their ties with the European nations. This was a mistake which we will not repeat.

I have previously provided to the reader two quotations from that infamous Turkish leader Mustafa Kemal Ataturk (Lewis, Bernard. A Middle East Mosaic: Fragments of Life, Letters and History. The Modern Library, New York, 2000. pp. 259, and pp. 260 respectively). Both of these present his views on religion and civilization, respectively. These have caused me to ponder the following question: Can there, could there, ever be an Algerian Ataturk? I do not believe so.

Firstly, I believe that the situation in Algeria today, as it always has been, is fundamentally different from that of Turkey. Turkey differ from Algeria mainly in that it can claim an ethnicity that is separate from Islam entirely. There would be Turks without Islam. However, it is debatable as to whether or not there would be Algerian Arabs with out Islam. Furthermore, much credit is usually given to the role of Islam in the formation of the Algerian national identity and culture. This is not to say that Algeria is exclusively Arab, however, the vast majority of Algerians identify themselves as ethnic Arabs rather than Berbers or other ethnicities. Ataturk????????s success in Turkey was his ability to separate the nation from religion and its burdens. Religion and nationalism were made two totally different concepts. Religion was made private, and excluded entirely from the public square. This approach would never hold water in Algeria. To many Algerians, Islam is nationalism and nationalism is Islam. It was a rebellious act, as the nation was forming under the French boot, for a woman to wear the veil, or to fervently shout Islamic phrases. It was never rebellious for Turkish women to wear the veil; it was always a conservative measure and a marker of backwardness, part of the grand superstition that was Islam. Though Turks were and remain very Muslim, being Muslim has never been a prerequisite for being Turkish. Algeria????????s religious and political experience are fundamentally different from Turkey????????s. The man who can separate Islam from the Algerian nation will be nothing short of a genius, for this task will be extremely difficult.

This may cause the reader to ask the question, “Has not the Civil War cause Algerians to become more secular?” The answer is yes. But Algerians, as Turks, remain Muslims, for the most part. Even among the most rational of Algerians one can find those who are able to quote the Qur????????an off the top of their heads or are at least somewhat practicing Muslims. Very few Algerian politicians have the gall to proclaim to their nation that they have no religion as Ataturk did to his. There are some Algerians who sympathize with Ataturk????????s social positions regarding women and the like, but very few adhere to his religious views. Islam has almost always been a unifying force in Algeria at the national level in some way or another, with a few exceptions (notably with ethnic relations between Arabs and Kabyles). Algerians would, for the most part, not accept the abolition of Islam as the state religion as an edict. This would cause conflict not only at the rhetorical level, but also at the armed level. The results of such measures were seen during the Civil War of 1992-1999.

An Algerian with the personage of Ataturk could not arise either. The Algerian context has yet to create such a man. True, many Algerians have been educated in Westernized schools, or abroad, but very few have been willing to entirely give up their religion, traditions, and antique culture for the Western variety. Indeed, Algerian nationalism was a Third World movement, forged in opposition to Western notions of the state, replacing it with an “authentic” “native” character. The Liberation War produced few outward secularists, and produced many more men of the “Islamic culture”. One would expect the Civil War to create a more secular political culture, but it instead created a culture in which terrorists and military officers seek to show their Islamic superiority to one another. Though the state has taken measures to limit the influence of religion on political life, these efforts have been unsuccessful, as popular television shows have been banned for “offending Islam” and foreigners and non-Muslims prohibited from spreading their faith. Both measures were undertaken under the pressure of Islamists in the senate and Islamist parties (though they may not be obviously religious) tend to do well in municipal elections. Thus, there are few grounds for a popular revolution in favor of secularism, and similar grounds exist at the state level. Few generals would enforce a laic policy in Algeria, for fears of repeating the years of the civil conflict. There is little foundation in the Algerian mentality, as of recently, for an Ataturk style revolution.

Algeria has had nationalist, forceful leaders in the past, but none of these followed an Ataturk sort of program. In fact, almost all of them have pursued a path that is opposite from that of Ataturk. While Ataturk????????s moves were generally pro-Western and non-Islamic in nature, Algerian cultural reforms have been aimed primarily at reviving Algerian Islam and the Arab culture of the country. Where Ataturk sought to establish in Turkey a Western mind set and culture, the Algerian authoritarians have sought to tear down the anti or un-Islamic components of Western culture in Algeria and put back in place traditions that Ataturk would certainly have found to be backward if not repulsive. While the Algerian authoritarians have spoke of revolution as if had no borders; the Algerian Revolution was specifically Algerian, but its message was universal for all the oppressed peoples of the world. Turkey????????s revolution was anything but. It was by Turks, for Turks, though part of a “universal” civilization. This civilization was universal not just for Europeans or Turks, but for all peoples, oppressed or not. There was no continuous struggle save that of the struggle for modernity. While Algerians would resist foreign influence, Turks and their universal civilization would put down the sword and pick up the plow, for “The arm that wields the sword grows weary and in the end puts it back in the scabbard, where perhaps it is doomed to rust and moulder; but the arm that holds the plough grows daily stronger, and in growing stronger becomes yet more the master and owner of the soil.” (Lewis, pp. 258-257) While the Algerian Revolution was clearly overtaken by socialists and pan-Arabists, yearning to categorize their nation in line with their “Arab brothers” in Palestine, Egypt and Iraq, the revolution of Ataturk fit into no category, at least in its own estimation.

. . . what can we do if we don????????t resemble democracy, we don????????t resemble socialism, we don????????t resemble anything? We should be proud of defying comparison! Because we resemble ourselves! (Lewis, pp. 258)

The greatest reformers of Algerian history will likely not be secularist atheists. They will be, whether they like it or not, men of Islam or men of Algeria, with all its mores and customs. It will be harder for Algerians to separate religion from politics because the legitimacy of the state has for so long been based off of religion and Arabism, but this end can perhaps be achieved through crafty political action, though certainly not a democratic one.

Nouri’s Note: The importance of religion to Algerian national identity and some recent examples of religious influence on Algerian politics are discussed on my blogs here, here, here, here, here, and here.