The region most affected by the fires is Kabylia, the solidarity of the united Algerian people has denied any specter of regional divisions as part of the country's political life, writes Nacima Ourahmoune, professor at Kedge University School.
In this summer 2021, Algeria is facing a double test: on the one hand, an oxygen shortage in hospitals in the middle of the third wave of Covid cases due to the rapid spread of the delta variant in a country that has not yet been vaccinated much. ; on the other hand, and not so long ago, fires of unprecedented violence, which caused dozens of deaths.
Social networks, where solidarity is organized, were already overwhelmed with poignant images of saturated hospitals and exhausted doctors, who also pay a heavy price to the epidemic. There are now added impressive apocalyptic images that reveal the extent of the human, material and environmental disaster caused by colossal fires that seemed to mastered by August 16. According to the authorities, these fires were of a criminal nature: on August 12, the President of the Republic announced the arrest of 22 arsonists.
The slowness of the rescue
The villagers, above all in Kabylia, a particularly affected region, had to face the fire with rudimentary means.
The reinforcements from civil protection and the army were received positively by the population, but deemed late and insufficient in the face of the magnitude of the disaster. Very quickly, citizens have urged the state to accept international aid : given the scale of the disaster, the issue of national pride had to take a back seat. Sending two Canadairs provided by the European Union took three precious days because the Algerian authorities, anxious to save face, insisted on signing a commercial rental agreement with the EU.
Meanwhile, with the humor of resistance that we know to Algerians. Internet users had compared the Canadair equipment of neighboring countries, quantified the cost of a Canadair and staff training, and compared these relatively small sums to the disproportionate budget devoted to military spending.
Particularly affected by the fires, Kabylia is known for its irredentism materialized by a recurring election boycott, including the legislative elections of last May, which constitutes, in fact, a challenge launched to a central power which classified in May 2021 as terrorist the Kabyle autonomist movement (MAK), a minority in the region. The repression targeting the peaceful Hirak movement, launched in early 2019 and whose weekly marches were prohibited, has led some to ironize the fact that the government largely uses water cannons to disperse the demonstrators, but that these same cannons are not found when it is necessary to rescue the populations.
The population has become accustomed to widely questioning the country's governance on social networks, a major space for expression in the country, whether it is a health crisis or a fire, a shortage of oxygen, but also cash, semolina, oil, milk, water or even power cuts.
Also, the announcement of a three-day national mourning to commemorate the civilians and servicemen who died as a result of the fires angered the web as the fires continued to spread. Internet users did not fail to point out that it took three days before officials presented themselves to the victims to trigger a special compensation fund and six days for the head of state to visit two hospitals. The feeling of abandonment of the population was not extinguished when on the evening of August 12, the President of the Republic declared that the request for international assistance had been expressed by Algeria on August 9 but that this was unavailable due to the fires in Greece. Two Canadairs expected from Spain on August 13, 2021, and one from Switzerland the next day, announced the president. Many Internet users were surprised that these procedures lasted so long, given the urgency, and deplored that the Algerian authorities did not accept the aid offered by neighboring Morocco, with which diplomatic relations are strained.
Algerians, champions of social solidarity
Without waiting, from the evening of August 9, a phenomenal solidarity was set in motion, transcending the divisions between regions and widely supported by the diaspora - a mobilization in continuity with that still at work to face the shortage of health resources.
Calls to act with responsibility and unity to help disaster areas flooded the web, an important enabler. We remember that in March 2020, with the advent of the coronavirus, it was the citizens, before the State, who put an end to the Hirak marches, out of responsibility in view of the health crisis - the Algerians had moreover been recognized by international media like "Champions of solidarity" ».
In a very short time, the Hirak had mobilized its codes of solidarity collaboration through social networks to compensate, as far as possible, for the fragility of the health system.
This summer, a massive outpouring of generosity crossed the country. From the whole of the territory, endless convoys of donations have flocked in particular to Kabylia, the most affected area, signing the union of the people in adversity.
Calls to list the needs, reliable associations per village, the necessary foodstuffs, drop-off locations, departure routes from the main towns were widely relayed on the networks. At the same time, hundreds of young people from different regions spontaneously went to help the locals in remote villages. There are moving scenes of fraternity, sometimes between people who do not speak the same language (Kabyle / Arabic), which fortunately contrast with the racism and discrimination of which Algerian social networks are often the field of expression.
Kabylia, inspiration from the theories of social solidarity
In Kabylia, solidarity from across the country has been spectacular. Hotels, foyers, party rooms opened their doors to affected families, maintaining an ancestral principle of hospitality.
In this region, the governance systems of ancestral structures that include several levels such as the jemaà ("village assemblies" studied by Pierre Bourdieu) mingle with modern formal institutions (local authorities, associations, companies, etc.) to form agile collectives with strong "Social capital", quickly identifying needs. Families, deliberating together on the decisions to be made, organize the action and resolve conflicts. This time, the Kabyles also used social networks to communicate, facilitating the delivery and distribution of aid. Thus, when a village is overflowing with donations, it manages to avoid waste (modern theme), reconciling this tradition with real agility in terms of the use of communication tools and donation management.
It was after having read works on social organization in Kabylia (in particular those of A. Letourneu and A. Hanoteau) that the father of sociology Émile Durkheim forged the problematic of mechanical and organic solidarity. Historically, according to Hanoteau and Letourneux, who wrote in 1893, the whole Kabyle society is imbued with "the spirit of association and solidarity" and "everywhere we find, in its various degrees, solidarity association, both in the lesser interests of private life than in the relations of the family, the village and the tribe ”. Bourdieu underlined in this regard that "to the imperfection of the techniques responds a hyperbolic perfection of the social bond, as if the precariousness of the adjustment to the natural environment found a counterweight in the excellence of the social adjustment [...]" . This contribution recent report by journalist Farid Allilat illustrates the topicality of this matter.
Bourdieu will develop in this same Kabylia the main concepts of his theory, in particular those of "social capital" and "symbolic violence", in direct relation with the feeling of honor which spares no society.
A shadow on the solidarity board: a tragedy within tragedy
On August 11, Djamel Ben Ismaïl, a young volunteer who came to Kabylia from the town of Miliana, located hundreds of kilometers away, to participate in the fight against fires, was lynched in the Kabyle town of Larbaâ Nath Irathen.
Suspected by the crowd of being one of the authors of the fires, he was literally immolated in the public square, in the presence of the police. An investigation is open, many suspects arrested thanks to videos taken by onlookers.
A shock wave outrage and rejection of barbarism crossed the whole country (and beyond, via the diaspora). This savage crime could recrystallize divisions (between Arabs and Kabyles) that national solidarity transcends. In this context, the majestic reaction of the father of the victim, who called for fraternity, humanism and union among all Algerians, forced respect throughout the country. When various assemblies representative of Kabyle society asked for his forgiveness, he declared “I lost a son, I gained children. You are all my children ”, thus putting out other fires.
In an emergency, at the scene of the tragedy, the village and citizen committees published this press release. As of now, the principle of ancestral reparation is being organized, with calls for donations from Kabylia to support the family of the victim and his region, Miliana.
Inter-regional solidarity and union continued massively despite this dark episode. Djamel Ben Ismaïl, artist, volunteer, Hirakist, celebrated on the web, will come to haunt the conscience of Algerians for a long time.
Nacima Ourahmoune, Professor, researcher, consultant in marketing and sociology of consumption, Kedge Business School
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read original article.