An uprising of protests and demonstrations among the Berber population of Algeria has been compared to the Palestinian intifada against Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. Up to 80 people may have died in clashes with security forces, following the death of a young man in police custody. These events differ from the clashes between the Algerian regime and Islamist organisations, in which hundreds of thousands have died over the last nine years, since they concern the six million strong Berber community (20 per cent of the Algerian population) concentrated in the mountainous Kabylie area in the north-east. The original indigenous inhabitants of the country, they have survived absorption by successive waves of conquerors, from the Romans to the Arabs to the French colonialists.
Only with great difficulty have the Berber people maintained their separate identity since Algeria achieved independence from France, enduring discrimination against their Tamazight language and a failure to have their cultural rights respected in the educational and political systems. Their leadership has tended to be secular and radical, reflecting resistance to French, Arab and Muslim influences. That has given the Berber people a valuable role in offering the promise of a more diverse Algerian society during the lethal polarisation it has endured since the military prevented an Islamist opposition movement coming to power through elections in 1992.
The significance of the present Berber uprising is that it draws not only on their traditional demands for cultural autonomy but on popular anger over poor housing and widespread youth unemployment that have also animated many of the Islamic protest movements. As a result of the clashes one of the Berber parties has withdrawn from the government and there have been large protest demonstrations. President Abdelaziz Bouteflika has promised a national commission of enquiry into the events; but his announcement typified the centralist and security mindsets most Algerians have come to expect from a government that remains dependent on the military leadership which holds the real reins of power in Algeria.
The military's role is underpinnned by control of Algeria's lucrative energy export business, which binds it to an uneasy but mutually beneficial relationship with France. The ruthlessness with which Islamist and now Berber rebellions have been handled by the regime is reminiscent of the savage methods used to fight against Algerian independence. Two recent books published in Paris, one by the French General Paul Aussaresses describing and justifying torture during the battle of Algiers in 1957, the other by a former Algerian special forces officer, Lieutenant Habib Souaidia, explaining how the army fought against its Islamic enemies, have dramatically confirmed that continuity. It remains to be seen whether the Berber revolt will break this dreadful pattern.