Starting from the principle that Algeria is a ” A land of thwarted potential, the country fends off outside influences, political changes and part of its own history”Roger Cohen, Paris bureau chief of the Times, published an article in which he evokes a greedy “oligarchy”, which bleeds a people who have become jaded.
Under the title “In Algeria, veiled from the world, the past and the future are also veiled”, Roger Cohen compares the country to Oran, “this beautiful but neglected port city” who “turns its back on its bay”a reference made to Albert Camus “La Peste”, who, living in Oran, had noticed that as “it is impossible to see the sea, you always have to go looking for it”.
This is not a bad metaphor for Algeria itself, he continues, because it is a country turned away from the world, enveloped in an opacity so dense that it numbs it.
“It has long sealed its border with Morocco and only recently reopened crossing points to Tunisia following more than two years. It minimizes exchanges with its neighbors and veils its political powers.he will say in the preamble.
Roger Cohen recounts his visit to Oran when President Emmanuel Macron visited Algeria with the aim of ending some of the trauma of colonialism and separation.
« I only stayed in Oran for a few days, that’s all my visa allowed me, and I found myself isolated as a foreigner in Oran, a city of 1.5 million inhabitants. For the ossified politico-military establishment that rules Algeria, tourism and foreign investment are suspect, as are theatres, cinemas or bookstores. It is a land of absences, of immense denied potential. It is a country that mistrusts foreigners, as if it were still at war,” he says.
And to add: My journey was, in part, a pilgrimage from Camus to the snail-shaped city on its plateau”but in today’s Oran, in the palm-lined avenues and litter-strewn alleys, there is no trace of him.
« There have been as many plagues as there have been wars in history, but pestilences and war always take people by surprise as well.”observed Camus in The Plague, “hasToday once more, events prove him right« , observe Roger Cohen.
The money from the vast reserves of natural gas and oil, he would say, flocks to the oligarchy, which often routes it to its true property in France. The Algerian people, worn out, have learned to shrug their shoulders. You ask someone regarding politics and the usual answer is: We are nobodies, we don’t know”, writes the journalist.
He indicates in this regard, with reference to Kamel Daoud, French-speaking Franco-Algerian writer and journalist, winner of the Goncourt prize for the first novel in 2015, that “Young people want to leave because it’s a sad country, a boring country. There is no freedom or leisure».
We cannot hide this one from you, as it illustrates the Algiers regime, or “Le Pouvoir”, as it is called, is such an anonymous authority that former President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, victim of a serious stroke, did not appear in public for many years. ” We were ruled by a portrait”told him Munir Remichi, a taxi driver.
Then the Hirak incited the army to oust Bouteflika, ” but hopes for change quickly faded. The momentarily shaken regime crushed the uprising and Abdelmadjid Tebboune, a longtime member of the political establishment, became president, although the consensus is that the real power lies elsewhere. Algeria has fallen back into its customary immobility,” he adds.
Roger Cohen who praises the Algerian people recounts his encounter with Oranais through his wanderings to the sea: “I found a fish restaurant in Oran, where Arab, Ottoman, Spanish and French history intertwine and retains something of the sleazy vibe it was once famous for. The rhythms, drumbeats and lamenting voices of Rai, the protest music that developed in 1920s Oran (then known as “little Paris”) blared from the loudspeakers. The fried calamari was delicious. I started talking with two Algerians who were working in the restaurant while my taxi driver, as I found out later, was pushing back once morest the secret police investigations.« .
Mohammed Raouf Mekhilef, 37, married and father of two children will tell him: “ Here there is nothing. It’s all for them, not for us. I can’t even buy a bike« .
For her part, 22-year-old cashier Djihane, who declined to give her full name, said: “ All I want is to make my way but there’s no chance here. If you can get us out of here, we’ll come immediately, we won’t even go home to collect anything”.
