The themes of recollection and past precedents have been constants in all Algerian elections since the country's independence from France in 1962. Sporadic ethnic clashes between the indigenous Amazigh peoples of Algeria and the far more numerical preponderant Arabs also complicate the complex political map of the country. No one familiar with the complacency and drift that has characterised successive Algerian governments in handling the Amazigh challenge and the lawlessness in Algeria's vast Saharan wilderness can be unimpressed by the Amazigh's new sense of purpose. This week fighting erupted between Bedouin Arabs and indigenous Amazigh, claiming the lives of scores of people and leaving more than 200 injured. The reasons for the violence seem to be economic as well as political, though they are also cloaked in religious rhetoric. The main belligerents are the Bedouin Chaamba Arabs and the indigenous Mozabi Amazigh. The fighting that has pitted the Bedouin Chaamba and the indigenous Amazigh against each other has long historical roots and was fomented by the French colonial authorities. The internecine violence has also taken on political overtones ahead of Algeria's general elections in April. The Amazigh accuse the Algerian authorities and security forces of standing idly by as Bedouin Arabs butcher innocent civilians. The security forces counter that the Amazigh are members of Salafi or militant Islamist terrorist groups. The Algerian authorities have also dispatched special security units to restore law and order in the vicinity of the oasis of Al-Ghardaia where the fighting has been fiercest. The interest shown by the Algerian authorities can be explained by various factors. Chief among them is their determination to contain terrorism. The Ain Amenas oil refinery 800 miles south of the capital Algiers was subjected to a terrorist attack last year, and the proliferation of arms and the chaos in neighbouring countries such as Libya and Mali has further compounded the dangerous security situation in Algeria itself. For this reason the current clashes are viewed as a threat. The country is a major oil and natural gas producer. Oil accounts for some 60 per cent of Algerian government revenues, 30 per cent of the country's gross domestic product (GDP) and more than 95 per cent of its export earnings. As a result, disorder in the southern areas of Algeria directly threatens the national economy. However, as the noose has tightened around the militant Islamist groups in Algeria, spurred on by the secularist ruling National Liberation Front, known by its French acronym the FLN, the Islamist groups themselves have taken advantage of the country's porous borders to create a climate of chaos in remote parts of this sprawling nation, Africa's largest in geographical terms. The aged and ailing Algerian president Abdel-Aziz Bouteflika has remained aloof from the tribal and ethnic clashes, adamantly refusing to issue an official statement on the subject. However, less than two months before the elections, Algeria is likely to witness more of the current spate of ethnic and religious conflicts. Rampant corruption, the narcotics and illicit arms trade and banditry appear to be main reasons behind this latest spate of confessional violence. “The fight against corruption and bureaucracy is the whole society's affair,” Prime Minister Abdel-Malek Sellali told representatives of Algerian civil society in the predominantly Amazigh city of Tissemsilt, southwest of the capital. This is an admirably tough-minded statement of intent, but is it simply FLN propaganda and does the ruling party still have any credibility or political clout? Algeria's unique anti-colonial and anti-Islamist history has given rise to a remarkable, albeit not entirely unique, secularist political culture and relatively permissive society in the Arab world. Algeria, like other North African nations, is subject to a distinctive range of influences, and yet it has been a pioneer in the Arab world of politically and militarily containing the Islamists. Islamist parties in Algeria such as the Movement of Society for Peace and the Islamic Renaissance Party are boycotting the April elections. It is against this backdrop that the current clashes on the edge of the Sahara assume increasing significance in the run-up to the polls. The Algerian Minister of Interior Tayeb Belaiz, has dispatched anti-riot forces to the troubled area, increasing the forces from 3,000 to 6,000 troops. The Chaamba Arabs, who follow the Maliki school of Islamic jurisprudence, migrated into northern Africa from the Arabian Peninsula centuries ago in successive waves. The Islamist militants in Algeria mostly subscribe to the Hanbali school, better known for its offshoot the Wahhabi strand of Islam prevalent in Saudi Arabia. The Maliki school is regarded as the most moderate of the Sunni Muslim schools and it is most prevalent in North Africa. The Chaamba Arabs live in the central area of Algeria in the regions known as Al-Golea and Al-Oued lying on the northern edge of the Sahara. This area also happens to be the stronghold of the indigenous Mozabi Amazigh, who adhere to the non-orthodox Ibadi form of Islam, an offshoot of the early Khawarij Movement, whose advocacy of jihad against rulers they deemed to be insufficiently pious led to nearly two centuries of conflict in the Muslim world. The Khawarij regarded all those they deemed as non-pious Muslims to be infidels, resulting in a period of embittered and injurious factionalism in the early days of Islam. Contemporary Amazigh, Ibadi or not, see themselves as the victims of state repression and institutionalised discrimination. Not only do the Chaamba Arabs differ ethnically from the Mozabi Amazigh, but they also espouse different faiths, so to speak, even though each is convinced that their version of Islam is the correct one. Ahead of the April elections, Algeria is facing simmering tensions across the country. There are many in Algeria who draw parallels between the Amazigh Ibadi movement that has retained a socially conservative outlook and contemporary militant Islamist extremism. Algeria's Ibadi Amazigh are a minority in the Muslim world, and other Ibadi are geographically concentrated in Yemen and Oman. Scattered communities are also present in isolated oases in Libya, Tunisia and Zanzibar. The resurgence of Amazigh identity politics in North Africa has coincided with a new political assertiveness, and ironically also with the uprisings of the Arab Spring. It has often resulted in armed clashes and mass protests demanding linguistic rights and the recognition of Amazigh cultural rights. The Amazigh also fear that the ruling FLN's promises are bound to be broken as most parties in Algeria woo the country's more numerous Arabs. They charge the Chaamba Arabs with desecrating their shrines and holy places, and communal violence broke out in May 2013 following an alleged attempt by the Chaamba Arabs to use forged property records to take over an Amazigh cemetery. The Amazigh trace their lineage back to the regional capital of Tiaret in northern Algeria. When Tiaret was overrun by the Fatimid Shia in 933 CE, the Ibadi Amazigh fled to the south, first to the Ourgla Oasis, and finally to their present stronghold centred around Ghardaia in the early 11th century. The area today has an estimated 400,000 people. Many observers suspect that the conflict that is marking it today is fuelled by rivalries between the narcotics smuggling networks that are rampant in the area. Fulfilment is foreclosed for the Ibadi Amazigh if the Algerian authorities do not champion their cultural and political rights. However, non-Amazigh Algerian voters have not been paying much attention to Amazigh rights, and therefore most political parties in the country at best pay lip service to the Amazigh cause.
