The Memory of the Civil War in Algeria: Lessons from the Past with Reference to the Algerian Hirak

Abstract

The Algerian Civil War during the 1990s is considered to be one of the violent wars in the Arab world. For one decade, isolated from the international community, the country and its civilians suffered from extremism, radicalism, torture, and assassinations. Today, it is arguable that the memory of the Algerian Civil War played a pivotal role in producing the legitimacy of the political system and framing the citizens’ perceptions of the postwar regime before the current manifestations. Nevertheless, no field research has explored how that memory is represented and recalled by the people. Through analyzing the public narrative, surveying and examining the public platforms, and conversations dealing with the past civil war in Algeria, this article seeks to demonstrate how that violent past is remembered in the public arena, the emotions that have been accumulated from such experience and the lessons that have been learned by the people. In doing so, we use many examples from the Algerian manifestations after 22 February 2019, or what is called “the Algerian Hirak.”

Ghosts of the Black Decade: How legacies of violence shaped Algeria’s Hirak protests

“…Although the massacres were a taboo topic not discussed publicly or in schools (Ghanem, 2021), their memories were passed down within families. As Algerian scholar Faouzia Zeraoulia (2020: 4, 10–11) observes:The new generation does not remember the details of the civil war, but every family has a victim to tell the story of the civil war. Among the younger generation, people lost their fathers, mothers, neighbors, and cousins, and hence, the civil war is not a part of their country’s history, rather a part of their family reality.…”

“…I read today that there is a call to strike, I remember the strike of 1991.’ 1 This fear seemed to scare some Algerians away from the protests. One woman said ‘for us, [the war] was real life and I do not wish the same life for my children.’ 2 Zeraoulia (2020: 10) observes that ‘today, the effect of trauma manifests in a collective fear from losing one’s life, stability, relatives and friends […] Algerians learned […] lessons from these traumatic events, namely: Dominant factions, either political or military, try hard to keep their grip on power and natural resources for a long time’.…”

“…Even those who did choose to protest were still shaped by this fear, remaining peaceful to avoid any potential trigger for repression. As Zeraoulia (2020: 18) continues: ‘the fear of violence still exists but it is expressed differently. […] The slogans of the protesters also are a powerful indicator that the trauma memory is still present and that people are trying to avoid another violent turning point in their history.…”

The National Reconciliation Process in Algeria During the Bouteflika’s Era: The Official Narrative

“…Various scholars started to work on the memory of the civil war and the main atrocities. A remarkable tendency toward examining the past critical subjects, such as enforced disappearance and trauma of massacres victims, has been noticed (Bouatta, 2003; Saadouni, 2015, 2018a, 2018b; Zeraoulia, 2020, 2021). The past surfaced in the academic arena to be a subject of discussion in the classroom and a subject of research for many doctoral students within the country.…”

“…Some focused on the victims’ narratives and studied how the reconciliation process failed to address victims’ rights. It is largely presumed that the reconciliation process in Algeria was framed on the culture of denial and forgetfulness (Dutour, 2008; Gèze & Mellah, 2008; Kedidir, 2022; Zeraoulia, 2020). From a political and legal perspective, other scholars prefer to analyze the Charter by analyzing the idea of pardon and the absence of punishment, and truth commissions by refereeing to similar experiences in post-conflict settings (Joffé, 2008; Moussaoui, 2013).…”