Creating new perspectives since 2009
Items by Yasmina Allouche
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#FBFightsPalestine
Activists launched the #FBFightsPalestine media campaign against Facebook (FB) this week to condemn Facebook’s deliberate targeting of pages which support Palestinian rights. Social media users across Twitter and Facebook used the hashtag #FBFightsPalestine to draw attention to the campaign. Coordinated by Sada Social Centre, the campaign began on Tuesday evening this...
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'It makes no sense': an Irish mother's fight to return her 3 abducted children from Algeria
On a summer’s evening in July 2015, three young children were taken by their father from Ireland to Algeria while their mother waited for them at home. Kamel Fekkar was supposed to be on a routine visit, so the children’s mother, Gina Davis, from Dun Laoghaire, Dublin, “wasn’t expecting...
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Western Sahara explainer
About 570,000 Sahrawis live in the region, the vast majority in refugee camps along Algeria’s border for the last 26 years....
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Macron’s money mission in moving beyond Algeria’s past
Young and brimming with enthusiasm, the then presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron created shock waves when he visited Algeria earlier this year and described France’s 132-year colonial period boldly as a “crime against humanity”. Ten months later, France’s youngest-ever President adopted a more traditional conciliatory tone during his 12 hour...
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#SaudiMovieTitles
Today Saudi Arabia announced it will open cinemas in the Kingdom next year for the first time in 35 years. The move is part of a series of social reforms by Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman to shake up the ultra-conservative Kingdom. The government will begin licensing cinemas with...
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Remembering the 1952 Egyptian Revolution
What: Egyptian Revolution of 1952 Where: Cairo, Egypt When: July 22-26, 1952 What happened? The Egyptian army’s failures became evident after the Arab-Israeli war in 1948 with many of the serving officers accusing King Farouk of abandoning them. Lieutenant Colonel Gamel Abdel Nasser, who served in the war, formed...
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#Wear_Algerian_for_Eid
The celebratory holiday of Eid this week had a traditional twist as Algerians took to social media to launch the hashtag #Wear_Algerian_for_Eid in a bid to encourage locals to tap into their country’s culture and don traditional wear for the occasion. Muslims traditionally wear new clothes and plan special...
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Remembering the massacre of 45,000 Algerians
What: French massacre of Algerians When: 8 May 1945 Where: Setif, Guelma and surrounding areas What Happened? As Europe celebrated the beginning of the end of World War II with Germany surrendering on 8 May 1945, thousands of Algerian men, women and children were mobilised by the French in...
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How the empty ballot boxes echo Algeria’s hollow hope
As Algerians take to the ballot box today to vote in the country’s legislative elections, campaigns boycotting the vote have received more attention in the last couple of days as politicians make last ditch attempts to urge people to vote. The latest campaign of #mansotich (a play on words...
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The politics of being Berber
Demonstrations, strikes, school boycotts, riots and arrests have been the norm in a cyclical manner in relations between the ruling Arab authority and the Berber region in Algeria for the past two decades. What has become an unbridgeable schism separating the two divides is tension often exploited by the...
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A Night with Mahmoud Darwish
The night was dedicated to remembering Palestinian poet and political activist Mahmoud Darwish’s powerful work on Palestine. ...
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Why France’s colonial chapter in Algeria is anything but history
Election season can be a circus at the best of times but in France it comes with a dose of controversy. Recent comments by presidential hopeful Emmanuel Macron referring to France’s colonialism in Algeria as a “crime against humanity” has caused uproar from one end and mediocre reactions from...
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6 years after the Arab Spring: Where is Libya now?
Six years ago North Africa and the Middle East were engulfed by the fires of the Arab Spring in events that seemed unfathomable barely a year before. Fast forward six years and each country transitioning after the Arab Spring tells a very different and often tragic story. Of all...
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Is there a solution for Syria to be found in the Algerian civil war?
As it gets set to enter its sixth year in March, the war in Syria has set itself apart from other struggles of the Arab Spring since its onset in 2011. Though no conflicts can ever be regarded as entirely equal in cause and effect, one example in recent...
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Algeria: How cancelling elections led to war
What: 1992 elections are cancelled by the military Where: Algeria When: 11 January 1992 What happened? By October 1988, Algerians’ anger was made tangible for the country’s ruling National Liberation Front (FLN) party, and deadly protests in Algiers forced the FLN to accept the reality that they were no...
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Hundreds protest, call for peace in Aleppo
More than 1,000 people have been killed over the last month....
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Remembering the First Intifada
By the end of the First Intifada in 1993, 1,489 Palestinians and 185 Israelis had been killed...
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Algeria’s War of Independence from France
1.5 million people perished in the seven and a half year Algerian War which erupted in 1954...
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Why Algeria’s ‘Black October’ in 1988 defined its role in the Arab Spring
It is 28 years since Algeria’s “Black October” that has defined Algeria’s socio-political discourse ever since. Accepted as Algeria’s second most defining date after independence in 1962, 5 October 1988 also holds the answer to the question why Algeria did not succumb to the Arab Spring that ignited the...
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Algeria cannot be truly independent whilst it seeks French acceptance
Last week President Francois Hollande finally acknowledged France’s abandonment of Algerians who fought alongside French colonial forces in the Algerian war of independence. His words were welcomed by the surviving “Harkis” who have been waiting more than half a century to hear them; for others, though, this comes as...
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Risking death to document life in Syria
Much like Syria as a whole, little was known of the city of Raqqa before the civil war and the establishment of Daesh. Now, however, Raqqa conjures up images that stretch to public square beheadings, women clothed in black and groups of unruly men running amok with tanks and...
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Turkish MPs: ‘Good has come out of this evil’
Turkey has never been as united as it has become after the failed military coup, that was the overwhelming message from Turkish delegates who took part in a cross-party debate regarding the recent events. Speaking at the Yunus Emre Turkish Cultural Centre on Wednesday, the five members of parliament...
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Love, Bombs and Apples
Smoke fills the small studio, the lights dim and the room falls silent as the audience is transported away from London to a stage in Ramallah. Thus begins the first scene of playwright Hassan Abdulrazzak’s 90-minute monologue taking the audience on a journey through four different scenarios laden with...
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One picture says a lot about Algeria’s stark reality
Sitting lifelessly with a skeletal, vacant gaze next to French Prime Minster Manuel Valls, Algerian President AbdelAziz Bouteflika looks painfully out of place; like a corpse kept alive artificially. This is no exaggeration: the uncomfortable image of Bouteflika looking so woeful next to a comfortable and healthy Valls has...