Turkish PM Tayyip Erdo????an visited Algeria this past week. Meeting with Algerian National Assembly Speaker Amar Saadani on Monday, Erdo????an met with president Bouteflika on Tuesday. After their three hour meeting, the two leaders announced an accord of “friendship and cooperation.” Erdo????an visited a veterans cemetery and the Algerian military museum, surveying artefacts from Algeria’s Ottoman period and praising Algeria’s veterans. “…..The heroes of the struggle for independence in Algeria are the best examples for today’s generations,” Erdo????an said. Erdo????an also made statements in relation to his county’s desired assencion into the European Union, sating that ???????If the EU is to become a Christian club, it should announce this.???????

The picture above is interesting. Here we have the tiny Algerian president, Abdelaziz Bouteflika (right) recieving the Turkish Prime Minister in a rather traditional manner, usually seen among leaders of Islamic and Middle Eastern states. Erdo????an, the leader of the successor state to the Ottoman Empire, one of Algeria’s former colonial rulers, is greeted by Bouteflika as a member of the Haras Joumhouri, the Republican Cavalry looks on. We see the convergence of history here. On the one hand, we have the presidents of the Modern, Bouteflika and Erdo????an, as well as the Cavalryman. On the other we have a traditional greeting among men whose nations were at one time, at least ostensibly, one.

The Haras Joumhouri’s purpose is to provide the Republic with a fashionable display of Algerian traditions to foreign dignitaries and on official occasions. Like many other cavalry units today, it is symbolic in nature. Wearing baggy green trousers (“serwal”), red shirts (“kamisa”), long white capes (“bernous”) and tall white caps with the nation’s coat of arms, the Haras Joumhouri is entirely the invention of the modern Algerian state, though created with the traditions of the pre-Republican era in mind. Its equestrian nature makes a call out to the Numidian and Bedouin cavalry of antiquity and the early Islamic period. Its stately presence calls back to the time of Islamic pomp and procedure when Algeria was a part of the Ottoman Empire. The colors of the Haras Joumhouri’s uniform, like the Algerian flag it is modeled upon, shout back to the resistence of the Emir Abdel Qadir, that chivalrous Sufi who formed his own statelet in the aftermath of the French invasion until, or so the story goes, he was sold out by the Moroccan monarch, forced to surrender by the French, and exiled to Syria. Somewhat of a Muslim Jurgurtha, Abdel Qadir’s tale has become one of the corner stones of Algerian nationalism, and his statelet is often held to be the beginning of the Algerian state in Algerian historiographies.

A picture of the Haras Joumhouri, one with saber, the other on horseback.

The photograph shows two nations, both now out of the Ottoman bind, coming together and building their futures in the image of the Modern. Erdo????an’s nation is one of the few demoracies in this world that is populated by a vast majority of Muslims. Far from being perfect, Turkey has since the time of Ataturk associated itself strongly with Europe and made great progress in terms of modernization and secularization. Algeria is similar, yet quite different. While Algeria, like Turkey, has turned its back on its colonial past, it has not secularized the state in its entirety, as Turkey has, nor has it made the transition to a democracy. It has all the trappings of one, but without the substance that is carried by Turkey or any other (semi) democratic state. Turkey has tried to escape Islam. Algeria has, by and large, tried to rediscover it, relatively speaking. Though less Islamically inclined than the populations of many other Muslim countries, Algeria’s state has been legitimized in the name of a collective Muslim identity. Turkey’s has been formed on an ethnic one. The Algerian state does not make references to great “Algerian migrations” into what is now Algeria, like Turkey’s does to the migrations of Turks into Anatolia. Algeria is a nation created in the fires of the Independence War; Turkey is one whose national identity has been fabricated in some places, and in other legitimized by race. The Algerian state and the Turkish state differ quite a lot in their workings and nature.

Nevertheless, these two leaders can come together and sign agreements of friendship and share a common history in an amiable setting. Turkey is a nation to be admired, as is Algeria. Both have made great achievements since they became independent. Algeria has overcome, for the most part, an Islamist scourge, and has gone from a mostly illiterate nation in 1962 to one of the most literate countries in Africa. From a collection of paupers to a nation of some of the most well off men and women on their continent. Turkey has gone from a semi-feudal medival empire to a modern, economically significant, secular, capitalist nation-state. Yet both nations must move out of backwardness in key areas: their own history and their dealings with minorities.

Algeria and Turkey both seem to have trouble in being honest with their youths about the history of their nations. Algeria’s government rarely acknowledges the fact that Islam arrived in the region by force. Many inhabitants of what would become Algeria did convert willingly to Islam, but many, if not most, did not. This is a problem found in many Islamic countries. Few Algerian historians would fathom investigating the possibility of positive things happening as a result of French rule. Still other historians of the Berberist persuasion seek to do the same with the time period following the arrival of Arabs into Algeria. Turkish historians seem to not be capable of relating the truth about the “Turkification” of Anatolia from a predominantly Hellenistic region. I have read more than a few essays giving a simple, ahistorical, explanation for this: “The Turks have always dwelled in Turkey.” On the issue of the Armenian genocide, it is hard to find a Turkish historian that deviates from the state line that it “never happened,” or was not a genocide despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

Both Algeria and Turkey have behaved abusively towards their national minorities, Berbers and Kurds, respectively and particularly. In Algeria, any time that Berbers have protested, peacefully or otherwise, for political and cultural equality they have been met with bitter and brutal force. In Turkey, as Kurds have agitated for autonomy, independence or any form of ethno-political representation they have been met with similar and often more hideous force, and quickly identified collectively with the extreme (nota bene: there are many Kurdish terrorist groups, but are certainly not representative of the mentality or nature of the entire Kurdish population).

Turkey and Algeria’s new accord has much, I believe, to do with Bouteflika’s recent anti-French rhetoric. Turkey has declared the French colonization of the country to have been a genocide, and France’s idea of criminalizing denial of the Armenian genocide in response. It does not hurt that Turkey is one of Algeria’s biggest trading partners either.

As strikes have forced the Algerian government to regroup, it will be interesting to see how the new Prime Minister of Algeria, Abdel-Aziz Belkhadem, will deal with Algeria’s history and minorities, as well as economic matters. Mr. Belkhadem, who has been described by El Watan as having “little experience” with economic affairs, is perhaps no better suited to deal with the Berber problem than was his predecessor. But let us hope for the best and that Mr. Belkhadem can start up the same amount of progress in the area of ethnic relations, housing and wages that Algeria has made in literacy and modernization and that Turkey has made in the economic field and secularization.