Algerian Protesters March on in Defiance of 'The Power'

A demonstrator with tapes over her mouth takes part in a protest against the country's ruling elite and to demand an end to corruption in Algiers, Algeria October 29, 2019. (Reuters)
A demonstrator with tapes over her mouth takes part in a protest against the country's ruling elite and to demand an end to corruption in Algiers, Algeria October 29, 2019. (Reuters)
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Algerian Protesters March on in Defiance of 'The Power'

A demonstrator with tapes over her mouth takes part in a protest against the country's ruling elite and to demand an end to corruption in Algiers, Algeria October 29, 2019. (Reuters)
A demonstrator with tapes over her mouth takes part in a protest against the country's ruling elite and to demand an end to corruption in Algiers, Algeria October 29, 2019. (Reuters)

Riad Mostefai has marched through the capital of Algeria every Friday since February to demand a purge of the ruling hierarchy, an end to corruption and the army’s withdrawal from politics.

Though some of his demands have been met, Mostefai plans to keep on marching each week along with tens of thousands of others who don’t believe an election in December will change anything, as long as an opaque ruling elite remains in charge.

“We’re continuing to protest because we don’t trust the system. It might regenerate,” said the 23-year-old apprentice hairdresser, according to Reuters.

Since the popular protests started, Algeria’s veteran president Abdelaziz Bouteflika has quit after two decades in power, many of his coterie have been arrested for corruption and his once all-powerful security chief is behind bars.

Now, the old guard, known by Algerians as “Le Pouvoir”, or “The Power”, hope the December 12 presidential election will end a state of constitutional limbo and create a government with enough legitimacy to wear down the demonstrators.

But with six weeks to go, the election is increasingly regarded by both sides as a pivotal test of strength after the most sustained public demand for peaceful change in decades.

The nebulous, leaderless opposition movement known as Hirak in Arabic has rejected the election, saying it won’t be free or fair under the ruling hierarchy and that it hopes a small turnout will compel the authorities to accept bigger changes.

The government, meanwhile, has been increasing the pressure on the protesters since the summer by ramping up the police presence at marches, arresting dozens of demonstrators and also detaining prominent opposition figures.

An informal network of politicians, generals and security chiefs has dominated Algeria since independence.

‘Finish the job’

For some of the hundreds of thousands who marched at the peak of the protests in the spring, the departure of Bouteflika in April and the jailing of his senior allies was enough for them to stop.

“I think Hirak has achieved most of its goals, now we need to move forward,” said Jalal Alalou, one Mostefai’s friends.

About 22 candidates have registered for the presidential poll and, for the first time, none is from Algeria’s liberation movement, the FLN, that won independence from France in 1962 after a bloody eight-year guerrilla struggle.

The country’s army, which has long been an influential political powerbroker, has also said it won’t back any specific candidate to try to convince voters the election will be fair.

But that’s not enough for others still committed to the protests.

“Those who are no longer marching with us are wrong because they think the departure of Bouteflika and his men is enough. They are wrong. We must finish the job,” said Chawki, 23, a student at Blida University, 25 km (16 miles) south of the capital Algiers.

Abdou, a 21-year-old student at Algiers’ Bab Ezzouar University, agreed.

“Bouteflika was a cancer. He has been removed. Now we need chemotherapy to kill the cells. This is why we must continue the protests,” he said.

Both students, who declined to give their family names, said they want all senior figures associated with Bouteflika to leave office and for the army to step back from politics, before they will accept the December election.

“No one can be against elections to end the crisis and move forward but we believe conditions for free and fair elections are not secured yet,” said Chawki.

Economic frustrations

For Mostefai, the protests represent an opportunity for Algeria, the biggest country in Africa, to join the club of democracies, with civilian governments that operate within the rule of law.

He is from the Jolie Vue area near downtown Algiers, one of six children living in a modest apartment with their retired parents. Like most of the country’s modern leaders, his father is a veteran of the fight for independence.

This Friday, the anniversary of the start of the uprising against French colonialism on November 1, 1954, the opposition is seeking a particularly big protest in an effort to seize that mantle of freedom from the old guard.

His family’s economic frustrations, such as his failure to find a job and his father’s small pension of $290 a month, have added to Mostefai’s determination to secure sweeping changes in a country that is a major oil and gas exporter and OPEC member.

Corruption provoked much of the outrage behind this year’s protests as many Algerians believed it was getting worse in recent years as the government carried out economic reforms to encourage the private sector.

Economists said the changes were necessary to reduce the state’s reliance on oil, which accounts for 85% of Algeria’s exports. But as members of the ruling elite, their relatives and friendly businessmen made fortunes, people grew angry.

Algeria came in at 105th out of 180 countries in Transparency International’s corruption perceptions index last year with a score of 35 out of 100, below the average for the Middle East and North Africa.

To make matters worse, when global oil prices plunged in 2014, hitting Algeria’s foreign currency reserves, the government responded by cutting back its lavish spending on social welfare programs.

“Our rulers have stolen the country’s resources. Algeria is rich but Algerians are poor,” Mostefai said.

Still, draped in the national flag as he marches each week, he acknowledges that broader change will be hard and that the protest movement lacks a clear strategy.

“We understand that it has to stop one day, but not now. Bouteflika’s men must go first ... We have launched the Hirak, but we don’t know how to end it,” he said.



Lebanon's Public Schools Reopen amid War and Displacement

Children playing in a shelter center for displaced people in the town of Marwaniyah in South Lebanon (AP)
Children playing in a shelter center for displaced people in the town of Marwaniyah in South Lebanon (AP)
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Lebanon's Public Schools Reopen amid War and Displacement

Children playing in a shelter center for displaced people in the town of Marwaniyah in South Lebanon (AP)
Children playing in a shelter center for displaced people in the town of Marwaniyah in South Lebanon (AP)

In the quiet seaside town of Amchit, 45 minutes north of Beirut, public schools are finally in session again, alongside tens of thousands of internally displaced people who have made some of them a makeshift shelter.

As Israeli strikes on Lebanon escalated in September, hundreds of schools in Lebanon were either destroyed or closed due to damage or security concerns, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

Of around 1,250 public schools in Lebanon, 505 schools have also been turned into temporary shelters for some of the 840,000 people internally displaced by the conflict, according to the Lebanese education ministry.

Last month, the ministry started a phased reopening, allowing 175,000 students - 38,000 of whom are displaced - to return to a learning environment that is still far from normal, Reuters reported.

At Amchit Secondary Public School, which now has 300 enrolled students and expects more as displaced families keep arriving, the once-familiar spaces have transformed to accommodate new realities.

Two-and-a-half months ago, the school was chosen as a shelter, school director Antoine Abdallah Zakhia said.

Today, laundry hangs from classroom windows, cars fill the playground that was once a bustling area, and hallways that used to echo with laughter now serve as resting areas for families seeking refuge.

Fadia Yahfoufi, a displaced woman living temporarily at the school, expressed gratitude mixed with longing.

"Of course, we wish to go back to our homes. No one feels comfortable except at home," she said.

Zeina Shukr, another displaced mother, voiced her concerns for her children's education.

"This year has been unfair. Some children are studying while others aren't. Either everyone studies, or the school year should be postponed," she said.

- EDUCATION WON'T STOP

OCHA said the phased plan to resume classes will enrol 175,000 students, including 38,000 displaced children, across 350 public schools not used as shelters.

"The educational process is one of the aspects of resistance to the aggression Lebanon is facing," Education Minister Abbas Halabi told Reuters

Halabi said the decision to resume the academic year was difficult as many displaced students and teachers were not psychologically prepared to return to school.

In an adjacent building at Amchit Secondary Public School, teachers and students are adjusting to a compressed three-day week, with seven class periods each day to maximize learning time.

Nour Kozhaya, a 16-year-old Amchit resident, remains optimistic. "Lebanon is at war, but education won't stop. We will continue to pursue our dreams," she said.

Teachers are adapting to the challenging conditions.

"Everyone is mentally exhausted ... after all this war is on all of us," Patrick Sakr, a 38-year-old physics teacher, said.

For Ahmad Ali Hajj Hassan, a displaced 17-year-old from the Bekaa region, the three-day school week presents a challenge, but not a deterrent.

"These are the conditions. We can study despite them," he said.