And racism in Algeria... (translation)

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www.lintelligent.com/gabarits/articleJAI_online.asp?art_cle=LIN01084discrenneir0

Another permanent concern of the government:relations with sub-Saharan Africa.They always constituted a priority for the Algerian diplomacy.
Also, our matter aims neither at throwing oil on a badly extinct fire, nor to call in question the contribution of Algeria in the emancipation, the fights of release and the development of the continent.
We propose to our readers an outline feelings which can test the black Algerians, or the Sub-Saharan ones who still lived or live in Algeria, that they are clandestine students, diplomats or.Controlling or ordinary citizens, the Algerians generally refute the charge of racism, this is why they will have to read with attention testimonys which follow.
The Constitution devotes the equality between all the Algerian citizens, the official speech denies the existence of any racist behavior, and justice never had to deal with this kind of businesses.But with good to look at there…
Since independence, no census evaluated with precision the importance of the Algerian black community.No official statistics are available, the ethnic and linguistic details being regarded as dangereous because of this State Jacobin.Majority in the Algerian Sahara, Blacks are primarily concentrated in the Great South of the country.In addition, of strong black communities, fruit of last and sometimes tormented transhumances, live in the great urban centres of North.The History did not retain notable incidents, and the cohabitation, in the South as in North, proceeded in a way more serene than agitated.What did not exclude a certain racism and an unconscious "négrophobie".
Mohamed is a young black academic, descendant of slaves to the service of will nomenklatura colonial Turkish.He is presented in the form of a oulid el-Qasbah, wire of the Kasbah, marks deposited, exclusive with the Inhabitants of Algiers of stock.He likes the chaâbi, hybrid musical kind, mixture of traditional urban Andalusian and haouzi, sound impulses of the Kasbah of Algiers, whose Master was el-Hadj Me hamed el-Anka.Mohamed is of all displacements of his favorite team of foot, the USM Algiers, club which truste since a few years all trophies.It is him which tells best discrimination with Algerian "We do not have business with a racism like that which prevailed in the south of the United States or in South Africa.There never was, to my knowledge, of lynching of Black, with the Kasbah or elsewhere.But we always lived with this perpetual glance which points out our difference to us.My neighbors find normal to call me Babay [ see small lexicon in framed ], my colleagues of work, my friends of the club of supporteurs and everyone in fact as much.And if I protest, it is me which passes for the malicious one.Our community continues to symbolize pitches it.Worse:in the stories of grandmothers, we play the bad roles, kidnappers of children, plunderers or vagrants.There is no place for a black hero in the collective memory of my people "In a note of humour, Mohamed proposes a quiz with all those which want to know if racism is a reality in Algeria.
- How much black Algerians they form part of the great figures of the national movement?
- How much the Algerian army counts it black Generals?
- How much ministers originating in this community they were named in the successive governments of Algeria?
- How much black footballers they form part of the national selection?
"If the sum of the four digits exceeded the fingers of only one hand, notes Mohamed, the doubts about the racism of my compatriots would be admissible" It is true that the political scene was scanty as black leaders.Since independence in July 1962, the only institution of scale to be directed by a Black was a trade-union power station:general Union of the Algerian workers (UGTA).In the high military hierarchy, only the General Hassan Beldjalti, Abderrezak for the close friends, former attache of defense in Washington and ex-adviser with the safety of president Liamine Zéroual, is originating in Algerian South-west.He also lived discrimination.Today with the retirement, the Babay nickname accompanied during all its career.

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The contribution of the black community in the Algerian artistic life is undeniable.Qarqabou and Gnawa (for Guinean) make dance in all the areas of the country, and one of the poets having more inspired the inheritance of the song chaâbi is Lakhdar Benkhelouf.But very few music lovers know that Benkhelouf, which lived in XVIe century in Mostaganem, great agglomeration of the West, was black.
If you ask a young person to quote you the name of an actor, a playwright or a black Algerian scenario writer, it will be quite unable to answer you Sometimes ", tells Mohamed, when I walk in the street and that somebody wants to ask me for the hour, it does it in French, persuaded that it deals with Native of Niger or Chadian, manner of meaning that Algerian cannot be black" Even if crushing it majority of the young people wants "to break village", the Algerians are very little travellers and know little about their country.Many rural discovered on late that they had black compatriots, thanks to the military service.
Rym, young Oranian translator, evokes the stories of love between young Algerians of different color "In Oran, there are many Blacks, but if one of them maintains a relation in love with its white neighbor, that seldom finishes with one" they lived happy and had many children ".Anguish of my mother?That I bring back for him, one day, an applicant who is not white "And if it is in addition foreign, the situation becomes complicated.Many Algerian married Sub-Saharan the, close ones to bench on the university.By making this choice, they had to leave the family hearth and live today in the country of origin of their husbands.The majority of them are cut their parents and do not return any more to Algeria.Before that, they were scoffed, even attacked, in their district, because they will have had the impertinence to be posted with Babay, hand in the hand.
Zouleikha, secretary in an administration, in saw of all the colors with Birkhadem, popular district of Algiers.Its wrong?To appreciate the company of Adif, a Beninese diplomat whose chancellery was in this district.It regularly invited it at it.His/her parents saw no disadvantage there.What was not the case of the neighbors.They complained some with his/her brother:"How can you accept that your sister attends an African?"they asked him unceasingly.
Its family resisted the attacks until the day when the grandmother of Zouleikha came from her village of Djurdjura to spend a few weeks to Birkhadem.This Day, Adif Was invited To lunch.Cry horrified at the matriarche:"Dachou dibin asaligani yagui sakham?- That made this Senegalese on our premises?"it in tamazight asked.Vis-a-vis the silence of his/her parents, poor Zouleikha tried to slacken the atmosphere:"It is my friend, and it is not Senegalese" the grandmother threatened not to give the feet in the house any more if Adif at once did not leave the places, and Zouleikha was obliged to put its guest at the door.His/her left friend, it challenged his grandmother, "I did not know himself also racist.And why especially Senegaleses?"After a long sigh, the matriarche answered him:"It is not me the racist, it is them.The Senegalese riflemen positioned in Kabylie during the Fifties so much did us of evil.They raped the shepherdesses, plundered our herds, ransacked our harvests and drew us above like rabbits "For Sabiha, sociologist at the university of Algiers," the misdeeds of the sub-Saharan troops of the colonial army accentuated the négrophobie Algerians of North.Saligani, for "Senegalese", became the generic term designating all the black Africans "
Tens of thousands of African frameworks, today senior officials in their countries, were formed in faculties, institutes or large Algerian schools.It is one of the arguments which use the official ones to refute any charge of racism, conscious or unconscious "the number of purses which annually the government grants sub-Saharan students is eloquent.As an example, half of the framing of the oil group Angolan Sonangol was formed by the Algerian Institute of oil with Boumerdes, ensures an Algerian diplomat.French-speaking Africa particularly profited from this generosity "
Serge Nitch is Cameronian, it made studies higher in a large school of agronomy in Algiers.He raises the following paradox:"Algeria is the country of Africa which offers the most grants to the academics come from the four corners of the continent.This will of the Algerian capacity to materialize its membership of Africa and its preoccupation with an integration are seriously attenuated by the racist behavior of its citizens.Of course, one cannot affirm that all the Algerians are racist.During five years that I passed in this country, I met marvellous people who did not attach importance to the color of my skin, treated me like their similar.But their embarrassment as soon as we tackle the problem of racism proves that this plague exists at them "
Professor.Such is the pseudonym chosen by this student Malian in theology at the university Emir-Abdelkader de Constantine. "I cannot believe that I am out of ground of Islam, since the Algerians regard us as animals.The last incident in date goes back to a few minutes.While returning to me with the cybercafé to transmit this courriel to you, of the children threw me stones, and no adult intervened to put an end to it.We do not have business with simple abusive remarks, but with true physical aggressions, in full day and without nobody being moved some.Our diplomatic representations are well-informed, but do not do anything to alert the authorities "
Tinder is him student in social sciences at the Es-Senia university, in Oran.It saw the martyrdom with the daily newspaper, that it is in public transport, on the campus or in the street "You know which was the reaction of the ambassador of my country in Algiers when I told him my vexations?It coldly answered me:you have only to refuse the purse and to set out again at home "
More than the boys, the girls are subjected to a particular treatment.Aissatou is native of Niger.The university cycle that it had chosen was to last five years.She held out only eighteen months.She left the university of Tizi-Ouzou, gave up her purse and was registered in Dakar "Our manner of equipping us shocked people who took to us for whores.As soon as I left the university city, the motorists stopped to ask me for the price of the master key "sexual Harassment by the professors and assistants, indecent proposals by the agents of the administration and humiliations in any kind;for Djeïnaba, Mauritanian, "with the eyes of the Algerians, that one is sénégalaise, Malian, Zairean or, like me, Arab and black, our arrival here can be explained only by our will to sell our body".
Discrimination was accentuated with clandestine immigration.The candidates with the exile in Europe forward from now on by Algeria.The nationals of the majority of the countries of the Sahel do not need visa to enter on the Algerian territory, last bolt before Marseilles, Alicante or Rome.As the passage is expensive, they remain a few months in Algeria, time to work - they are increasingly numerous in the building sites of the building and guarding -, to accumulate money to treat to a false Schengen visa and the voyage.The most exposed to this phenomenon are the cities of the Great South with black majority, Djanet, Illizi or Tamanrasset, which besides does not exclude the hostility from the local population with regard to the African "clandos" (see framed).In the first half of 2004, the statistics of the Algerian police force give a report on 2 581 renewed at the border, and the prisons of the north of the country already have their houses dedicated to this category of prison population.
Cherif Ouazani, Special Correspondent