Algeria: Anger of the Dispossessed
Fifty years after winning a bloody independence struggle, Algeria remains disturbingly unstable and impoverished. British historian Evans and journalist Phillips draw a complex, engrossing portrait of a nation afflicted with many contemporary problems: terrorism, economic inequality, a stalled transition to democracy and the rise of Islamic fundamentalism. After gaining independence from France in 1962, leaders spoke of democracy but ruled with a one-party state. The first generation of free Algerians grew up under an increasingly corrupt military dictatorship. As decades passed, a swelling population and massive unemployment among young people increasingly attracted to the Islamic movement exploded into widespread violence during 1988's Black October. Although the army brutally suppressed the uprising, thereby radicalizing many victims and observers, the government determined that democratization was essential. After reforms, the radical Islamic party won a landslide victory in the 1991 preliminary electoral ballot despite laws aimed at the party's suppression. Military leaders canceled further elections and imprisoned thousands of Islamists. Other Islamists took to the hills. A vicious guerrilla terror campaign ensued for a decade. Evans and Phillips's clear-eyed tome reveals a fractured society seething under an insecure and oppressive government.(Jan.)Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.