Algeria : Searching for Salvation

Ominously recalling Iran in the months before the Ayatullah Khomeini's revolution, thousands of Muslim worshipers manifest their desire for an Islamic republic by walking to the Kouba mosque each Friday morning. The men flaunt their allegiance by wearing long cotton kamis and beards -- reputedly the dress of the Prophet Muhammad. The sheik whom they come to hear speaks of martyrdom and sedition.

"The Algerian people are Muslims," says the voice on the minaret's loudspeaker. "The police who prevent people from coming to prayers are not true Muslims." Security forces surrounding the mosque listen impassively as the message grows more strident. "This government ruined the country. It is the people who suffer from the economic crisis. The government claims it is Muslim, but if it is, why won't it proclaim Shari'a ((Islamic law))? The people of Algeria want an Islamic state. They should be allowed to choose this freely."

Such sermons have galvanized the discontented in a country mired in political and economic chaos. Earlier this year, members of the fundamentalist Islamic Salvation Front issued a manifesto of civil disobedience and occupied sections of Algiers to protest electoral laws that they claimed were devised to deny them victory in parliamentary elections originally scheduled for June. After some 100 people died in street fighting between the army and demonstrators, balloting was postponed and President Chadli Bendjedid declared a state of siege to restore calm.

How could a nation that is geographically and culturally closer to Paris than to Mecca or Tehran come to such a pass? For years the government managed to contain the fundamentalists by building mosques and passing laws to placate them, then arresting leaders who became too powerful. But after political parties were legalized two years ago, the Islamic Salvation Front won an overwhelming majority in the June 1990 municipal elections, the first multiparty vote since Algeria gained independence from France in 1962. Then the gulf war sparked a fresh burst of anti-Western sentiment. If the fundamentalists ever come to power, they vow to outlaw alcohol, segregate the sexes and impose Shari'a, creating a society dramatically different from the socialist state built more than three decades ago by nationalist revolutionaries.

While most Algerians profess to be devout Muslims, they do not wish to see the tyranny of socialism replaced by a tyranny of mullahs. But they do want to be led out of the country's political and economic chaos. Since 1962, the socialist National Liberation Front, which led the fight for independence, has ruled. The party lost credibility as its ideology failed to supply the European standard of living Algerians want.

The economy is crippled, and many citizens blame the government's mismanagement and corruption. Unemployment is estimated at 30% of the work force. Housing and consumer goods are in scant supply. The drop in world oil prices has drained petro-revenues by two-thirds, and most of the remaining earnings go to service the $25 billion foreign debt. "When I see the poverty in the streets, I feel ill," says Zena Haraigue, who won Algeria's highest medal as a freedom fighter. "The government filled its pockets and its stomachs, and now they ask what's wrong with their young people."