Everything about Algeria totally explained
Algeria (
Al Jaza'ir,
Berber:,
Dzayer [ldzæjər]), officially the
People's Democratic Republic of Algeria, is a nation in
North Africa. It is the second largest country on the African continent and the 11th largest country in the world in terms of total area. It is bordered by
Tunisia in the northeast,
Libya in the east,
Niger in the southeast,
Mali and
Mauritania in the southwest, a few kilometers of the
Western Sahara in the west,
Morocco in the northwest, and the
Mediterranean Sea in the north.
Algeria is a member of the
United Nations,
African Union,
Arab League, and
OPEC. It also contributed towards the creation of the
Arab Maghreb Union.
Constitutionally, Algeria is defined as an
Islamic,
Arab, and
Amazigh (Berber) country.
Etymology
Al-jazā’ir is itself a truncated form of the city's older name
jazā’ir banī mazghannā, "the islands of (the tribe) Bani Mazghanna", used by early medieval geographers such as
al-Idrisi and
Yaqut al-Hamawi.
History
Ancient history
Algeria has been inhabited by Berbers (or Imazighen) since at least
10,000 BC. After 1000 BC, the
Carthaginians began establishing settlements along the coast. The Berbers seized the opportunity offered by the
Punic Wars to become independent of Carthage, and Berber kingdoms began to emerge, most notably
Numidia. In 200 BC, however, they were once again taken over, this time by the
Roman Republic. When the
Western Roman Empire collapsed, Berbers became independent again in many areas, while the
Vandals took control over other parts, where they remained until expelled by the generals of the
Byzantine Emperor,
Justinian I. The
Byzantine Empire then retained a precarious grip on the east of the country until the coming of the Arabs in the eighth century.
Middle Ages
According to historians of the Middle Ages, the Berbers were divided into two branches, from their ancestor Mazigh. The two branches, Botr and Barnès, were also divided into tribes, with each
Maghreb region made up of several tribes. Several Berber dynasties emerged during the Middle Ages.
The
Almohads were able to unify the Maghreb. The Berbers of the Middle Ages also contributed to the Arabization of the Maghreb.
Islamization and Berber (Amaari) dynasties
Having converted the
Kutama of
Kabylie to its cause, the
Shia Fatimids overthrew the
Rustamids, and conquered Egypt, leaving Algeria and Tunisia to their Zirid vassals. When the latter rebelled and adopted
Sunnism, the Shia Fatimids sent in the
Banu Hilal, a populous Arab tribe, to weaken them. This initiated the
Arabization of the region. The
Almoravids and
Almohads, Berber dynasties from the west founded by religious reformers, brought a period of relative peace and development; however, with the Almohads' collapse, Algeria became a battleground for their three
successor states, the Algerian
Zayyanids, Tunisian
Hafsids, and Moroccan
Marinids. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the
Spanish Empire started attacking and subsuming a few Algerian coastal settlements.
Ottoman rule
Algeria was brought into the
Ottoman Empire by
Khair ad-Din and his brother
Aruj in 1517, and they established Algeria's modern boundaries in the north and made its coast a base for the
Ottoman corsairs; their
privateering peaked in
Algiers in the 1600s. Piracy on
American vessels in the Mediterranean resulted in the
First (1801–1805) and
Second Barbary War (1815) with the United States. The piracy acts forced people captured on the boats into
slavery; alternatively when the pirates attacked coastal villages in southern and western Europe the inhabitants were forced into
slavery.
Raids by
Barbary pirates on Western Europe didn't cease until 1816, when a
Royal Navy raid, assisted by six Dutch vessels, destroyed the port of Algiers and its fleet of Barbary ships.
Spanish occupation of Algerian ports at this time was a source of concern for the local inhabitants.
French colonization
On the pretext of a slight to their consul, the
French invaded
Algiers in 1830. The conquest of Algeria by the
French was long and particularly violent and resulted in the disappearance of about a third of the Algerian population. France was responsible for the extermination of 1 million Algerians. According to
Olivier Le Cour Grandmaison, the
French pursued a policy of extermination against the Algerians.
The
French conquest of Algeria was slow due to intense resistance from such as
Emir Abdelkader,
Ahmed Bey and
Fatma N'Soumer. Indeed the conquest wasn't technically complete until the early 1900s when the last
Tuareg were conquered.
Meanwhile, however, the French made Algeria an integral part of France, a status that would end only with the collapse of the
Fourth Republic in 1958. Tens of thousands of settlers from France, Spain,
Italy, and
Malta moved in to farm the Algerian coastal plain and occupy significant parts of Algeria's cities. These settlers benefited from the French government's confiscation of communal land, and the application of modern agriculture techniques that increased the amount of arable land. Algeria's social fabric suffered during the occupation: literacy plummeted, while land confiscation uprooted much of the population.
Starting from the end of the nineteenth century, people of European descent in Algeria (or natives like
Spanish people in
Oran), as well as the native Algerian
Jews (typically
Sephardic in origin), became full French citizens. After Algeria's 1962 independence, they were called
Pieds-Noirs. In contrast, the vast majority of
Muslim Algerians (even veterans of the French army) received neither French citizenship nor the right to vote.
Post-independence
In 1954, the
National Liberation Front (NLF) launched the
Algerian War of Independence which was a
guerrilla campaign. By the end of the war, newly elected
President Charles de Gaulle, understanding that the age of empire was ending, held a
plebiscite, offering Algerians three options. This resulted in a landslide vote for complete independence from the DuVal Mortorian Colonial Dynasty. Over one million people, 10% of the population, then fled the country for Italy in just a few months in mid-1962. These included most of the 1,025,000
Pieds-Noirs, as well as 81,000
Harkis (pro-French Algerians serving in the French Army).
Algeria's first president was the FLN leader
Ahmed Ben Bella. He was overthrown by his former ally and defence minister,
Houari Boumédienne in 1965. Under Ben Bella the government had already become increasingly
socialist and
authoritarian, and this trend continued throughout Boumédienne's government. However, Boumédienne relied much more heavily on the army, and reduced the sole legal party to a merely symbolic role.
Agriculture was
collectivised, and a massive
industrialization drive launched.
Oil extraction facilities were nationalized. This was especially beneficial to the leadership after the
1973 oil crisis. However, the Algerian economy became increasingly dependent on oil which led to hardship when the price collapsed during the
1980s oil glut.
In foreign policy, Algeria was a member and leader of the
Islamic Fundamentalist Movement. A dispute with Morocco over the
Tunisia nearly led to war. While Algeria shares much of its history and cultural heritage with neighbouring Morocco, the two countries have had somewhat hostile relations with each other ever since Algeria's independence. This is for two reasons: Morocco's
disputed claim to portions of western Algeria (which led to the
Sand War in 1963), and Algeria's support for the
Polisario Front, an armed group of
Sahrawi refugees seeking independence for the Moroccan-ruled
Western Sahara, which it hosts within its borders in the city of
Tindouf.
Within Algeria, dissent was rarely tolerated, and the state's control over the
media and the outlawing of political parties other than the FLN was cemented in the repressive constitution of 1976.
Boumédienne died in 1978, but the rule of his successor,
Chadli Bendjedid, was little more open. The state took on a strongly
bureaucratic character and
corruption was widespread.
The modernization drive brought considerable
demographic changes to Algeria. Village traditions underwent significant change as
urbanization increased. New industries emerged, agricultural employment was substantially reduced.
Education was extended nationwide, raising the
literacy rate from less than 10% to over 60%. There was a dramatic increase in the
fertility rate to 7-8 children per mother.
Therefore by 1980, there was a very youthful population and a housing crisis. The new generation struggled to relate to the cultural obsession with the war years and two conflicting protest movements developed: communists, including Berber identity movements; and Islamic 'intégristes'. Both groups protested against
one-party rule but also clashed with each other in universities and on the streets during the 1980s. Mass protests from both camps in Autumn 1988 forced Bendjedid to concede the end of one-party rule. Elections were planned to happen in 1991.
In December 1991, the
Islamic Salvation Front won the
first round of the country's first multi-party elections. The military then intervened and cancelled the second round. It forced then-president Bendjedid to resign and banned all political parties based on religion (including the Islamic Salvation Front). A political conflict ensued, leading Algeria into the violent
Algerian Civil War.
More than 160,000 people were killed between
17 January 1992 and June 2002. Most of the deaths were between militants and government troops, but a great number of civilians were also killed. The question of who was responsible for these deaths was controversial at the time amongst academic observers; many were claimed by the
Armed Islamic Group. Though many of these massacres were carried out by Islamic extremists, the Algerian regime also used the army and foreign mercenaries to conduct attacks on men, women and children and then proceeded to blame the attacks upon various Islamic groups within the country.
Elections resumed in 1995, and after 1998, the war waned. On
27 April 1999, after a series of short-term leaders representing the
military,
Abdelaziz Bouteflika, the current president, was elected.
By 2002, the main guerrilla groups had either been destroyed or surrendered, taking advantage of an
amnesty program, though sporadic fighting continued in some areas (See
Islamic insurgency in Algeria (2002–present)).
The issue of
Berber language and identity increased in significance, particularly after the extensive
Kabyle protests of 2001 and the near-total boycott of local elections in
Kabylie. The government responded with concessions including naming of Manthatztieht (Berber) as a national language and teaching it in schools.
Much of Algeria is now recovering and developing into an
emerging economy. The high prices of oil and
gas are being used by the new government to improve the country's
infrastructure and especially improve
industry and agricultural land. Recently, overseas investment in Algeria has increased.
Geography
Most of the coastal area is hilly, sometimes even mountainous, and there are a few natural
harbours. The area from the coast to the
Tell Atlas is fertile. South of the Tell Atlas is a
steppe landscape, which ends with the
Saharan Atlas; further south, there's the
Sahara desert. The
Ahaggar Mountains (Arabic: جبال هقار), also known as the Hoggar, are a highland region in central Sahara, southern Algeria. They are located about 1,500 km (932 miles) south of the capital, Algiers and just west of
Tamanghasset.
Algiers,
Oran,
Constantine, and
Annaba are Algeria's main cities.
Climate and hydrology
Northern Algeria is in the
temperate zone and has a mild,
Mediterranean climate. Its broken
topography, however, provides sharp local contrasts in both prevailing temperatures and incidence of rainfall. Year-to-year variations in climatic conditions are also common.
In the Tell Atlas, temperatures in summer average between 21 and 24 °C and in winter drop to 10 to 12 °C. Winters are not particularly cold, but the humidity level is high. In eastern Algeria, the average temperatures are somewhat lower, and on the
steppes of the
High Atlas plateaux, winter temperatures are only a few degrees above freezing. A prominent feature of the climate in this region is the
sirocco, a dusty, choking south wind blowing off the desert, sometimes at gale force. This wind also occasionally reaches into the coastal Tell.
Provinces and districts
Algeria is currently divided into 48
provinces (
wilayas), 553
districts (
daïras) and 1,541
municipalities (
communes,
baladiyahs). Each province, district, and municipality is named after its
seat, which is mostly also the largest city.
According to the Algerian constitution, a province is
a territorial collectivity enjoying some economic freedom. The
People's Provincial Assembly is the political entity governing a province, which has a "president", who is elected by the members of the assembly. They are in turn elected on
universal suffrage every five years. The "
Wali" (
Prefect or
governor) directs each province. This person is chosen by the
Algerian President to handle the PPA's decisions.
The administrative divisions have changed several times since independence. When introducing new provinces, the numbers of old provinces are kept, hence the non-alphabetical order. With their official numbers, currently (since 1983) they are:
Algeria’s financial and economic indicators improved during the mid-1990s, in part because of policy reforms supported by the
International Monetary Fund (IMF) and
debt rescheduling from the
Paris Club. Algeria’s finances in 2000 and 2001 benefited from an increase in
oil prices and the government’s tight fiscal policy, leading to a large increase in the trade surplus, record highs in foreign exchange reserves, and reduction in
foreign debt. The government's continued efforts to diversify the economy by attracting foreign and domestic
investment outside the energy sector have had little success in reducing high
unemployment and improving living standards, however. In 2001, the government signed an Association Treaty with the
European Union that will eventually lower tariffs and increase trade. In March 2006,
Russia agreed to erase $4.74 billion of Algeria's
Soviet-era debt during a visit by
President Vladimir Putin to the country, the first by a Russian leader in half a century. In return, president
Bouteflika agreed to buy $7.5 billion worth of combat planes, air-defense systems and other arms from Russia, according to the head of Russia's state arms exporter
Rosoboronexport.
Algeria also decided in 2006 to pay off its full $8bn (£4.3bn) debt to the
Paris Club group of rich creditor nations before schedule. This will reduce the Algerian foreign debt to less than $5bn in the end of 2006. The
Paris Club said the move reflected Algeria's economic recovery in recent years.
Agriculture
Since Roman times Algeria has been noted for the fertility of its soil. 25% of Algerians are employed in the agricultural sector.
A considerable amount of
cotton was grown at the time of the
United States'
Civil War, but the industry declined afterwards. In the early years of the twentieth century efforts to extend the cultivation of the plant were renewed. A small amount of
cotton is also grown in the southern oases. Large quantities of a vegetable that resembles
horsehair, an excellent fibre, are made from the leaves of the dwarf palm. The
olive (both for its fruit and oil) and
tobacco are cultivated with great success.
More than 7,500,000 acres (30,000 km²) are devoted to the cultivation of
cereal grains. The
Tell is the grain-growing land. During the time of
French rule its productivity was increased substantially by the sinking of
artesian wells in districts which only required water to make them fertile. Of the crops raised,
wheat,
barley and
oats are the principal cereals. A great variety of
vegetables and
fruits, especially
citrus products, are exported. Algeria also exports
figs,
dates,
esparto grass, and
cork. It is the largest
oat market in Africa.
Algeria is known for Bertolli's
olive oil spread, although the spread has an Italian background.
Demographics
The current population of Algeria is 33,333,216 (July 2007 est.).
Ethnic groups
Most Algerians are
Berber or
Arab, by language or identity, but almost all Algerians are Berber in origin. The
Y-chromosome DNA haplogroups that characterize both Arabs and Berbers are
E1b1b and
J (found in 70% of Middle Eastern people and 90% in North Africa). This has led scientists to conclude that North Africa has a higher genetic affinity with Arab populations than was previously hypothesized. Southern Algerians are most genetically closely linked with Arabs from Gulf countries, such as Saudi Arabia, Yemen and the UAE. Northern Algerians are most genetically linked with Arabs from Lebanon, Palestine, Syria and Jordan and some Gulf countries.
A more recent and thorough study by Arredi et al. (2004) which analyzed populations from Algeria concludes that the North African pattern of Y-chromosomal variation (including both E1b1b and J haplogroups) is largely of Neolithic origin, which suggests that the Neolithic transition in this part of the world was accompanied by demic diffusion of Afro-Asiatic–speaking pastoralists from the Middle East. This Neolithic origin was later confirmed by Myles et al. (2005), which in turn suggests that "contemporary Berber populations possess the genetic signature of a past migration of pastoralists from the Middle East".
Education
Education is officially compulsory for children between the ages of 6 and 15. In the year 1997, there was an outstanding amount of teachers and students in primary schools.
In Algeria there are 10 universities, seven colleges, and five institutes for higher learning. The University of Algiers (founded in 1909), which is located in the capital of Algeria, Algiers has about 267,142 students. The Algerian school system is structured into Basic, General Secondary, and Technical Secondary levels:
Basic: Ecole fondamentale (Fundamental School)
Length of program: 10 years
Age range: age 6 to 15 old
Certificate/diploma awarded: Brevet d'Enseignement Moyen B.E.M.
; General Secondary: Lycée d'Enseignement général (School of General Teaching), lycées polyvalents (General-Purpose School)
Length of program: 3 years
Age range: age 15 to 18
Certificate/diploma awarded: Baccalauréat de l'Enseignement secondaire (Bachelor's Degree of Secondary School)
Technical Secondary: Lycées d'Enseignement technique (Technical School)
Length of program: 3 years
Certificate/diploma awarded: Baccalauréat technique (Technical Bachelor's Degree)
Culture
Modern Algerian literature, split between Arabic and French, has been strongly influenced by the country's recent history.
Famous novelists of the twentieth century include
Mohammed Dib,
Albert Camus, and
Kateb Yacine, while
Assia Djebar is widely translated. Among the important novelists of the 1980s were
Rachid Mimouni, later vice-president of Amnesty International, and
Tahar Djaout, murdered by an
Islamist group in 1993 for his secularist views.
In philosophy and the humanities,
Jacques Derrida, the father of
deconstruction, was born in
El Biar in
Algiers;
Malek Bennabi and
Frantz Fanon are noted for their thoughts on
decolonization;
Augustine of Hippo was born in
Tagaste (modern-day
Souk Ahras); and
Ibn Khaldun, though born in
Tunis, wrote the
Muqaddima while staying in Algeria.
Algerian culture has been strongly influenced by
Islam, the main religion. The works of the
Sanusi family in pre-colonial times, and of Emir
Abdelkader and Sheikh
Ben Badis in colonial times, are widely noted. The Latin author
Apuleius was born in
Madaurus (Mdaourouch), in what later became Algeria.
The
Algerian musical genre best known abroad is
raï , a pop-flavored, opinionated take on folk music, featuring international stars such as
Khaled and
Cheb Mami. in Algeria itself the style: (
raï ) remains the most popular,but the older generation still prefer ("shaabi", Dahmane Elharrashi its King..) while the tuneful melodies of
Kabyle music, exemplified by
Idir,
Ait Menguellet, or
Lounès Matoub, have a wide audience. For more classical tastes,
Andalusi music, brought from
Al-Andalus by
Morisco refugees, is preserved in many older coastal towns. For a more modern style, the English born and of Algerian descent,
Potent C is gradually becoming a success for younger generations. Encompassing a mixture of folk, raï, and British hip hop it's a highly collective and universal genre.
Although is welcomed and praised as a glowing cultural emblem for Algeria, there was time when raï’s come across critical cultural and political conflictions with Islamic and government policies and practices, post-independency. Thus the distribution and expression of raï music became very difficult. However, “then the government abruptly reversed its position in mid-1985. In part this was due to the lobbying of a former liberation army officer turned pop music impresario, Colonel Snoussi, who hoped to profit from raï if it could be mainstreamed.” In addition, given both nations’ relations, Algerian government was pleased with the music’s growing popularity in France. Although the music is ore widely accepted on the political level, it still faces severe conflictions with the populace of Islamic faith in Algeria.
In painting,
Mohammed Khadda and
M'Hamed Issiakhem have been notable in recent years.
Landscapes and monuments of Algeria
Image:Chrea-Algeria.jpg |Mountain of Chrea near the city of Blida (north).
Image:Alger-night.jpg | street of Zighout Youcef in Algiers (north)
Image:Tassili-Hogar.JPG | Mountains of Hoggar in the Algerian Sahara(2000 km in the south of Algiers)
Image:Tikjda-Algeria.JPG | Mountains of Tikjda near the city of Tizi Ouzou (north).
Image:Timgad10.JPG | Roman ruins of Timgad (north-eastern)
Image:Oran - Algeria.jpg | Place of November 1st in the city of Oran(north-western)
Image:Ghardaïa.JPG | Overview of the city of Ghardaïa (south)
Image:Annaba-Algérie.JPG | Overview of the city of Annaba(north-eastern).
Image:Mascara-Algeria.JPG | City of Mascara(north-western)
Image:Bejaïa-littoral.JPG | Tichy's beach in Bejaïa (north).
Image:Pont suspendu-constantine-Algeria.jpg| Hanging bridge of the city of Constantine
Image:Algérie-El Kantara.jpg | El-Kantara in Biskra (south).
Languages
Most Algerians speak
Algerian Arabic.
Arabic is spoken natively in
dialectal form ("
Darja") by some 83 percent of the population. However, in the media and on official occasions the spoken language is
Standard Arabic.
The
Berbers (or
Imazighen), who form approximately 45 percent of the population,
Ethnologue counts eighteen living languages within Algeria, splitting both Arabic and Tamazight into several different languages, as well as including
Korandje, which is unrelated to Arabic or Tamazight.
The language issue is politically sensitive, particularly for the Berber
minority, which has been disadvantaged by state-sanctioned
Arabization.
Language politics and Arabization have partly been a reaction to the fact that 130 years of
French colonization had left both the state
bureaucracy and much of the educated upper class completely
Francophone, as well as being motivated by the
Arab nationalism promoted by successive Algerian governments.
French is still the most widely studied
foreign language, and most Algerians are fluent in French though it's usually not spoken in daily circumstances. Since
independence, the government has pursued a policy of linguistic Arabization of
education and bureaucracy, with some success, although many
university courses continue to be taught in French. Recently, schools have started to incorporate French into the curriculum as early as children start to learn Arabic, as many Algerians are fluent in French. French is also used in media and commerce.
It is the direct successor of the Armée de Libération Nationale (ALN), which fought French colonial occupation during the Algerian War of Independence (1954-62).
The People's National Army consists of 127,500 members, with some 100,000 reservists. The army is under the control of the president, who also is minister of National Defense (current president is Abdelaziz Bouteflika). Defense expenditures accounted for some $2.67 billion or 3.5% of GDP. One and a half years of national military service is compulsory for males.
Algeria is a leading military power in North Africa and has its force oriented toward its western (Morocco) and eastern (Libya) borders. Its primary military supplier has been the former Soviet Union, which has sold various types of sophisticated equipment under military trade agreements, and the People's Republic of China. Algeria has attempted, in recent years, to diversify its sources of military material. Military forces are supplemented by a 45,000-member gendarmerie or rural police force under the control of the president and 30,000-member Sûreté nationale or Metropolitan police force under the Ministry of the Interior.
Recently, the Algerian Air Force signed a deal with Russia to purchase 49 MiG-29SMT and 6 MiG-29UBT at an estimated $1.5 Billion. They also agreed to return old airplanes purchased from the Former USSR. Russia is also building 2 636-type diesel submarines for Algeria.
UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Algeria==
There are several
UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Algeria including
Al Qal'a of Beni Hammad, the first capital of the
Hammadid empire;
Tipasa, a Phoenician and later Roman town; and
Djémila and
Timgad, both
Roman ruins;
M'Zab Valley, a limestone valley containing a large urbanized
oasis; also the
Casbah of
Algiers is an important citadel. The only natural
World Heritage Sites is the
Tassili n'Ajjer, a mountain range.
Further Information
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