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These essays, by a range of British, French, and Algerian scholars, concentrate specifically on the different and distinctive cultural identities which have been created in each country due to interaction. General chapters offer methodological overviews and place the problematic within its historical context. Part one deals with the colonial period up to 1954, part two with the War of Independence, and part three with the post-colonial period since 1962. In each case, the shifting identities are explored from a variety of disciplinary perspectives. ... Read more

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High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! The Algerian national team was formed in clandestine circumstances in 1958 when Mohamed Boumezrag, a leader of a section of the Front de Libération Nationale (FLN) of Algeria based in metropolitan France, returned from the 1957 World Youth Festival, in which a team representing Algeria, then a French colony, had taken part in an unofficial football tournament. Using the contacts he had made during the tournament, Boumezrag recruited 10, and eventually 30, of the best-known French-based Algerian professional players to secretly leave the country and go to Tunisia where the Algerian national team was formally established on 13 April. ... Read more

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Now entering its eighth year, the civil war in Algeria shows no sign of imminent resolution. Yet little has been written about the conflict, its various participants, and the opinions of Algerians -indeed, even about what exactly is being fought over. Restrictions on movement within Algeria have severely limited the ability of foreign journalists to analyze these issues, and there has been a paucity of firsthand accounts of how the conflict has played out across Algeria.Now, one of Europe´s leading authorities on contemporary Algerian politics has gained the kind of access necessary to present a clear, evenhanded account. The author interviewed residents in places in which few journalists have set foot: the impoverished suburbs of the major cities and the infamous "Triangle of Death" -the stronghold of the Armed Islamic Group and the scene of some of the worst carnage. Rather than presenting a historical account, The Algerian Civil War focuses on the strategies employed by the war´s main combatants, seeking to understand the significance of the conflict to all parties embroiled in it. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Much better than expected
I work on Algeria issues as a big part of my job so I picked up this book at the library.I was expecting it to be a tedious academic study without much in there for someone who has to deal with the real world.Surprisingly, it was readable and very interesting. I highly recommend this to anyone who either has to work in Algeria commercially (and could use some cultural/political insight) or who has a broader counter-insurgency or Middle East interest. ... Read more

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UNBOWED spotlights the culture wars in the Middle East between progressive, democratic, feminist forces on the one hand and, on the other, the forces of traditional culture represented, at the extreme, by religious fanatics. Author Khalida Messaoudi has been active in Algerian politics since 1993, but due to threats to her life, now lives in hiding. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

good book
Unbowed: An Algerian Woman Confronts Islamic Fundamentalism by Khalida Messaoudi is an important book.

The bad side is that the world does not realize that the arab world treats woman as third-class citizens.That is a disgrace.

An angry patriot talks
This book consists of a series of conversations between the journalist Elisabeth Schemla and the Algerian feminist Khalida Messaoudi. The conversations are organized into chapters according to topic. It is most interesting for the general reader when Messaoudi is describing her childhood and education. Later chapters focusing on her political struggles require the reader to have extensive background knowledge of modern Algerian politics in order to make sense of them. The repeated use of abbreviations in the book tends to be rather annoying for readers who aren't familiar with Algerian politics. They are explained in a glossary at the end. If you want an insider's view of Algerian politics of 1980s and 1990s, you must read this book. If you are simply looking for tales of an ordinary woman's life (or even an extraordinary woman's life) in Algeria, you'll need to look elsewhere.

Unbowed:An Algerian Woman Confronts Islamic Fundamentalism
Born in 1958, a red-headed, highly-educated and fiercely secular Berber, Messaoudi has established herself as one of Algeria's bravest and most articulate speakers of truth.In a series of interviewers with a French journalist, capably translated into English, she presents a pungent, invaluable first-hand exposé of the Islamist challenge in her country. Its every-day texture imbues her account with a feel for living in an Islamist tyranny-such as the incident of a primary school teacher who requests students to bring in corks for a practical experiment.When the children oblige, it turns out there is no experiment-only a trap; the teacher asked for the corks to find out whose families drink wine, then he launched into a violent diatribe against their miscreant parents for not living by Islamic law.A freethinker from an early age (as a teenager, she decided against prostrating herself during prayers, instead adopting a yoga-style position), Messaoudi does not mince words. She despairs about the descent of Algeria into what she calls "fundamentalist barbarism" and aruges that the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS), Algeria's main Islamist organization, has "absolutely all the classic ingredients of totalitarian populist movements." Contrary to most Western analysts of Islam, she discerns an "Islamist International" along the lines of the Communist International. In a particularly powerful analogy, she states "The veil is our yellow star" (even if she does stretch the analogy too far in arguing that the FIS obsession with women is "exactly like" Hitler's obsession with Jews). Were the Islamists to take power, she fears they would "clear the country of all the people who really bother them," which she assumes will be a very large group indeed.Like many Algerians, Messaoudi blames the Islamist rise in large part on the purposeful scheming of the dictatorship that ruled the country from independence in 1962 until the crisis in 1992. She argues that many of its steps, from introducing the Arabic language in schools to not cracking down on FIS, eased the Islamists' path. Messaoudi has her foibles, to be sure, sympathizing with Saddam Husayn and asserting that Washington was "completely responsible" for Scuds falling on Tel Aviv. But she emerges from these pages as a highly attractive intellectual, a heroine made necessary by the horrors of her country's recent history.

Middle East Quarterly, June 1999

A Riveting Account of the Oppression of Women in Algeria.
Written as a dialogue between journalist Elisabeth Schemla and feminist leader Khalida Messaoudi, this book details the heartbreak and the triumphs of being female in a country that has bowed down to the pressures of Islamic Fundamentalism. Messaoudi discusses her life in an intelligent, honest, and passionate manner as she details what it was like to grow up Algerian and female. She also explains the many players and political groups who have tried to control the direction of Algeria over the last thirty years. Most importantly, she brings to life the terrible reality of life in Algeria, where women have been betrayed and stripped of their rights as people by the government under the Family Code and then enslaved, terrorized, and murdered by the misogynistic enemies of that same government. Messaoudi also discusses the ongoing tension between the Berber culture and the Arab cultureof Algeria and its effect on the problems there. This is the first book I have read, in English, that gives such a clear accounting of the political climate of Algeria and of the lives of women there. ... Read more

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From its independence from France in 1962 until the begining of a democratiztion process in 1989, Algeria was a one-party state, with the FLN (National Liberation Front) established as the unique party in 1963. In practice, however, the FLN ever ruled Algeria. Its role was limited to the control and mobilization of Algerian society for the implementation of policies designed by the military - the actual nucleus of power. In 1989, following the outbreak of violent popular riots throughout the country, the Algerian administration engaged in a fast-track democratization process which came to parallel a policy of economic liberalization initiated in the early 1980s. Democratization was characterized by the introduction of multi-party politics and the new 1989 Constitution waived major principles that had guided the Algerian Revolution, including socialism, non-alignment and Third-Worldism. The revolt and the democratization process allowed the Islamist movement to enter the political arena, resulting in the Islamic Saviation Front (FIS)'s triumph in Algeria's first free local and regional elections.The prospect of an FIS-dominated parliament, however, led the Algerian Army to stage a coup d'etat, bringing to an end the democratic process. Today, the country is in a virtual state of war between official troops and various guerilla forces. The conflict has been the focus of world attention for many reasons: the barbaric methods used by both sides have been distressing news for believers in the respect of human rights; it raises questions about the political evolution of the Muslim world which draws upon religious dogma to contest the legitimacy of established regimes; and in a context where the fall of the Berlin Wall generated hopes for global democratization, how can a democratic process be dealt with which favours the access to power of a political party which qualifies democracy as alien to the Islamic tradition? The text focuses on France's foreign policy towards Algeria once the democratization process was brought to an end there. This focus is justified because no other state has led as active a policy.It is argued that, if French opposition to the FIS on ideological grounds was similar to most Western states' wincing at a new form of nationalism involving the ideological and cultural spheres, it was primarily motivated by the fact that this challenge to Western policial culture came specifically from Algeria - a country that has emotionally remained a part of France in the French collective imagination. ... Read more

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"[A] fascinating and important study. . . . Well researched, well organized, and well written." Small Press Book Review "Friedman shows that the Jews were never `French,' that even as they migrated to France their customs, rituals, and daily life were still rooted in the Arab world." Stanly Aronowitz ... Read more

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Great read and a lot of truth!
Well researched. Clearly written. Credible sources a must read for serious scholars intrested in North Africa in general, Algeria in particular. ... Read more

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This digital document is an article from APS Diplomat Strategic Balance in the Middle East, published by Pam Stein/Input Solutions on January 31, 2005. The length of the article is 1988 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: ALGERIA - The Algerian Model.
Publication: APS Diplomat Strategic Balance in the Middle East (Newsletter)
Date: January 31, 2005
Publisher: Pam Stein/Input Solutions
Volume: 49Issue: 1

Distributed by Thomson Gale ... Read more

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In these original readings of Albert Camus' novels, short stories, and political essays, David Carroll concentrates on Camus' conflicted relationship with his Algerian background and finds important critical insights into questions of justice, the effects of colonial oppression, and the deadly cycle of terrorism and counterterrorism that characterized the Algerian War and continues to surface in the devastation of postcolonial wars today. During France's "dirty war" in Algeria, Camus called for an end to the violence perpetrated against civilians by both France and the Algerian National Liberation Front (FLN) and supported the creation of a postcolonial, multicultural, and democratic Algeria. His position was rejected by most of his contemporaries on the Left and has, ironically, earned him the title of colonialist sympathizer as well as the scorn of important postcolonial critics. Carroll rescues Camus' work from such criticism by emphasizing the Algerian dimensions of his literary and philosophical texts and by highlighting in his novels and short stories his understanding of both the injustice of colonialism and the tragic nature of Algeria's struggle for independence.By refusing to accept that the sacrifice of innocent human lives can ever be justified, even in the pursuit of noble political goals, and by rejecting simple, ideological binaries (West vs. East, Christian vs. Muslim, "us" vs. "them," good vs. evil), Camus' work offers an alternative to the stark choices that characterized his troubled times and continue to define our own. "What they didn't like, was the Algerian, in him," Camus wrote of his fictional double inThe First Man. Not only should "the Algerian" in Camus be "liked," Carroll argues, but the Algerian dimensions of his literary and political texts constitute a crucial part of their continuing interest. Carroll's reading also shows why Camus' critical perspective has much to contribute to contemporary debates stemming from the global "war on terror." ... Read more

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In this account of the Algerian War’s effect on French political structures and notions of national identity, Todd Shepard asserts that the separation of Algeria from France was truly a revolutionary event with lasting consequences for French social and political life.

For more than a century, Algeria had been, legally and administratively, part of France; after the bloody war that concluded in 1962 it was other, its eight million Algerian residents deprived of French citizenship while hundreds of thousands of French pieds noirs were forced to return to a country that was never home. This rupture violated the universalism that had been the essence of French republican theory since the late eighteenth century. Shepard contends that because the amputation of Algeria from the French body politic was accomplished illegally and without explanation, its repercussions are responsible for many of the racial and religious tensions that confront France today.

In portraying decolonization as an essential step in the inexorable "tide of history," the French state absolved itself of responsibility for the revolutionary change it was effecting. It thereby turned its back not only on the French of Algeria—Muslims in particular—but also on its own republican principles and the 1958 Constitution. From that point onward, debates over assimilation, identity, and citizenship—once focused on the Algerian "province/colony"—have troubled France itself. In addition to grappling with questions of race, citizenship, national identity, state institutions, and political debate, Shepard also addresses debates in Jewish history, gender history, and queer theory. ... Read more

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This digital document is an article from Encyclopedia of the Modern Middle East and North Africa 2, brought to you by Gale®, a part of Cengage Learning, a world leader in e-research and educational publishing for libraries, schools and businesses.The length of the article is 213 words.The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase.You can view it with any web browser.This second edition reflects the far-reaching changes the Middle East has undergone in recent years, making it more relevant and necessary than ever before. Covers the modern history of the Middle East and North Africa, with major sections on Colonialism and Imperialism, the World Wars, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the United Nations' involvement in the region. Each country in the region is reviewed, detailing its population, economy, and government. ... Read more