The Hirak, a massive popular protest movement for democracy in Algeria which began in February 2019 and continues to challenge military authoritarian rule in the country today, is most potent when it can sustain mass mobilization against the regime across cultural, ethnic, linguistic, ideological, class, and racial lines.
1Elsewhere, I discuss the importance of sustained, cross-cutting mobilization in efforts to end military authoritarian rule. See Stephen J. King,
The Arab Winter: Democratic Consolidation, Civil War, and Radical Islamists (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020). This was largely the case throughout 2019 as the Hirak gathered millions of protesters in weekly demonstrations across Algeria, initially spurred by the cynical announcement of the candidacy for president of military-backed, aged, and seriously ill Abdelaziz Bouteflika for a fifth term.
Three generations after independence, the Algerian state is still resisting the open public debate and civil society engagement needed to reflect the countryâs pluralism and to begin to reckon with the legacy of slavery and racial discrimination. Instead of trying to impose a white Arab-Muslim identity on all Algerians, national unity and stability are more likely to be found in recognizing and accommodating diversity. Black Algerians need to be a part of the conversation about identity and belonging in Algeria. All Algerians need to be educated about slavery and anti-black racism in both schools and through consciousness raising by the government and civil society. A campaign to combat the banalization of racist language is urgently needed. Affirmative actions by the state are necessary for more black Algerians to emerge from the shadows of slavery, especially in the Saharan regions of the country.