Luis Martinez. The Algerian Civil War, 1990-1998. Translated by Jonathan Derrick. The CERI Series in Comparative Politics and International Studies. New York: Columbia University Press, 2000. xxi + 265 pp. $27.50, cloth, ISBN 978-0-231-11996-2.
Reviewed by John Calvert
Published on H-Africa (March, 2003)
The Logic of the Algerian Civil War ety of armed Islamist groups, several of them Algeria stood out among Arab countries in the spin-ofs of the FIS, against the security forces of late 1980s and early 1990s in taking concrete steps the state. toward the establishment of a liberal democracy. At its height, the struggle was marked by mas‐ In a desperate efort to shore up its fagging legiti‐ sacres of civilians, including the notorious 1997 macy, the ruling FLN (National Liberation Front) killings by radical Islamists of some four hundred arranged for Algeria's frst national elections. The women, children, and men at Bentalha in the Mi‐ provision of such a political opening was a gam‐ tidja plain. Government anti-insurgency opera‐ ble, but the regime assumed that the electorate tions, for their part, were blamed for extra-judi‐ would rally behind its newly found political liber‐ cial killings and other atrocities. To date the con‐ alism, thus restoring its political fortunes. It there‐ fict has claimed perhaps 100,000 lives, more than fore came as a shock when the Islamist FIS (Front those killed in the Lebanese civil war during the Islamique du Salut) handily won the initial round mid-1970s and early 1980s. of municipal elections and appeared set to win Luis Martinez, author of The Algerian Civil the next far more signifcant national round of War, 1990-1998, sets himself the task of explain‐ voting scheduled for 1992. ing the causal factors behind the slide into vio‐ However, the National Assembly election was lence. Given the contentious nature of the subject, not allowed to run its course. In order to prevent this is a tall order and it requires that Martinez, a the FIS from assuming power, the army inter‐ researcher at CERI (Centre d'Etudes et de vened on January 11, 1992 to unseat President Recherches Internationales) in Paris, scrutinize Chadli Benjadid and call of the electoral proceed‐ the available evidence in a manner that is both ings. Rather than experience a fowering of civil thorough and disciplined. The result is a work society, Algeria slipped into a civil war of excep‐ that lays bare the internal dynamics of a situation tional savagery and violence, which pitted a vari‐ of political violence, which participants justify H-Net Reviews with reference to political ideals but which in fact military government against the FIS following the is rooted in the more mundane concerns of mate‐ cancellation of the 1992 election. In an efort to rial advancement. nip the Islamist challenge in the bud, the State au‐ To his credit, Martinez dismisses as overly thorities closed FIS-afliated mosques and inter‐ simplistic explanations of the confict that privi‐ rogated individuals deemed suspicious, often lege Islamist ideology as the chief element. "From picking them up of the street. These and other re‐ this viewpoint," Martinez writes, "the war against pressive policies had a radicalizing efect on many the government is seen as arising from the ques‐ Algerians, especially on the young hittistes, the tion of the latter's legitimacy, and the struggle for unemployed "wall leaners" whose interests previ‐ the Shari'ah is seen as one reappearing identically ously had revolved around Rai music and football and chronologically in 'Muslim societies'." In this but who now gravitated to individuals willing ef‐ essentialist view, represented by scholars as di‐ fectively to resist the state authorities. verse as Bernard Lewis and Muhammad Arkoun, As Martinez explains, these and other disaf‐ "the violence of the Islamist fghters is supposed fected elements of society found an outlet for to be justifed by reference to an 'Islamic imagi‐ their humiliation and anger in the radical Islamist naire' which incorporates all situations of civil groups that had either formed or consolidated in war and violence in the states of the Arab and the wake of the military takeover, organizations Muslim world" (p. 8). such as the MIA (Armed Islamic Movement) and In his efort to come to grips with the "real in‐ GIA (Armed Islamic Group). At odds with FIS's terests and motivations" of political actors, Mar‐ procedural approach to politics, the emirs of these tinez adopts the assumptions of rational choice groups took their cues from the jihadist tradition theory, which holds that most, if not all, forms of represented by the Egyptian Sayyid Qutb and his human activity are goal-oriented and organized disciples, which included the pronouncement of around sets of hierarchically ordered preferences. anathema on those sectors of the State and society Seen from this perspective, the activities of the deemed to have compromised the sovereignty of radical Islamists and their government opponents God. As many of FIS's more economically well-to- become pragmatic and rationally calculated at‐ do supporters scurried to avoid the mounting con‐ tempts to gain wealth and social prestige within fict, often abandoning businesses and expensive parameters set by the postcolonial state. In Mar‐ homes, the more disafected elements of the soci‐ tinez's telling, the political and ideological content ety girded themselves for what would amount to of the 1991-1992 electoral contests was subordi‐ "total war" against the government. As in other nated during the period of civil war to the ruth‐ comparable conficts in which terrorism and as‐ less and focused eforts of each side to maximize sassination are the norm, the ensuing violence its power against the other. In what is perhaps the had the efect of polarizing allegiances and choic‐ most controversial tenet of his thesis, Martinez es. contends that the purposeful accumulation of The most arresting sections of the book wealth and status by means of violence is deeply chronicle the momentum of the struggle as it ab‐ ingrained in Algeria's national culture. In resort‐ sorbed the energies and resources of the combat‐ ing to war, the contending parties simply replicat‐ ants. Martinez tells of how each side made use of ed in their own time the "banditry" of the Ot‐ a variety of strategies in order to enhance its pow‐ toman era Corsairs and Caids. er and weaken the other in the absence of victory Martinez traces the outbreak of the civil war in a frontal battle. to the policies of repression carried out by the
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Chief among these were the eforts by the replace one another through violence and with contending parties to gather economic assets, ini‐ alacrity. tially to empower their respective war eforts but Martinez makes a good case for focusing on eventually for purposes of personal advancement. material advancement rather than ideology as the While the armed Islamist bands turned, within central motivating factor of the civil war. Yet his the territories they controlled, to extortion and penchant for seeing the confict as rooted in Alge‐ other nefarious means, the government benefted ria's ancient political culture smacks of the cultur‐ from the fnancial support awarded it by the in‐ al essentialism he himself derides. While political ternational community, which feared an Islamist culture is always an important element in deter‐ takeover on the southern fank of the Mediter‐ mining the motivations and tactics of actors, it is ranean. This support took the form of debt tricky business to make it the prime determinant rescheduling and a program of structural read‐ in a historical argument. For example, Martinez justment. It also included a policy of trade liberal‐ might have examined more thoroughly the infu‐ ization, which, as Martinez explains, unintention‐ ence on the Algerian struggle of international fac‐ ally benefted the armed Islamists by enabling tors, including the impact of the trans-national Is‐ them to boost their economic resources as man‐ lamist networks. Many Algerian fghters, after all, agers of import-export companies. Drawing upon participated as Mujahidin in the jihad against the interviews of individual participants in the strug‐ Soviets in Afghanistan and remained in touch gle, Martinez paints a grim picture of life within with their Egyptian, Chechen, and Saudi col‐ the Islamist-controlled communes of Greater Al‐ leagues well into the 1990s. It would be interest‐ giers. Subjected to the thuggish tactics of the local ing to know whether the violence in Algeria is fed, emirs and their accomplices, many of whom were in part, from a source common to other Islamist common criminals, and surrounded at the out‐ insurgencies of the period. Jonathan Derrick has skirts of their townships by the armed forces of admirably translated the book from the original the State, the ordinary people of the "Islamist French and John Entlis provides it with a preface ghettoes" endured a "double state of siege." that usefully recounts the background to Mar‐ Martinez is pessimistic about the chances of tinez's narrative. Altogether, The Algerian Civil the Algerian regime to decisively defeat radical Is‐ War is a valuable contribution to our understand‐ lamism and put an end to terrorism. Rather, he ing of Algeria's troubled present. profers a scenario in which the government will Copyright (c) 2003 by H-Net, all rights re‐ co-opt and absorb the Islamist guerilla comman‐ served. H-Net permits the redistribution and ders and gang leaders, ofering these an opportu‐ reprinting of this work for nonproft, educational nity to share power within the State as political purposes, with full and accurate attribution to the managers of some sort. Given time, he suggests, author, web location, date of publication, originat‐ the Islamists may even supplant the current crop ing list, and H-Net: Humanities & Social Sciences of military men, much as the Chaouchs succeeded Online. For other uses contact the Reviews editori‐ "in supplanting the 'Djouads' (the warrior nobility al staf: [email protected]. of the east) in acquiring the status of Caid (native ofcial under the French) at the beginning of the twentieth century" (p. 248). Such an outcome is fully congruent with Martinez's vision of the Alge‐ rian State as a historical arena of political and so‐ cial contestation, in which elite fgures typically
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Citation: John Calvert. Review of Martinez, Luis. The Algerian Civil War, 1990-1998. H-Africa, H-Net Reviews. March, 2003.
URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=7319
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