Another Black Decade? - A multifaceted crisis snowballing into civil war and famine in Algeria

Opinion analysis by Nour AlMortada, Featured Writer

March 15th, 2022

Ever since its independence in 1962, Algeria has been struggling with instability, but one of the worst memories still engraved in the minds of those still alive today and who lived through it is that of the Algerian Civil War. It all started on the October 5th, 1988 when the Algerian youth took the streets due to high unemployment rates, rising prices and the government’s austerity measures. A mere six days later, about 500 people were killed and over 1000 injured in the event that soon catapulted Algeria into one of its darkest decades. Algeria plunged into an era of civil war, called the “Black Decade” and with over 200,000 dead, it appeared that the country would soon move on to better days, but that was not the case. Algerian president Abdelaziz Bouteflika was elected and the era of authoritarian, military rule began again. While Algeria became a socialist state, where free healthcare and schooling was available for all, access to basic food necessities remained an important issue.

Algeria’s dependency on exports for its raw material, as well as foreign competition, eventually started to affect the local economy. Food scarcity and insecurity has always been an issue for Algeria, as it has adopted an economic system that went beyond the funding it had. Each year, Algeria spends no less than $15 billion on subsidies. Despite lowering its deficit in 2021 to $1 billion, this improvement had no actual impact on the local economy. In the past, to avoid food insecurity, the Algerian government introduced subsidies on basic food necessities, and as a result, suppliers later began withholding these products and selling them on the black market, due to the marginally low net profit from the government-controlled prices. At the same time, suppliers faced the issues of competition; price dumping by foreign competition enraged suppliers who already felt slighted by the subsidies.

These are all issues that Abdelmadjid Tebboune did not eliminate and that date from his ousted predecessor. As protests start in Southern Algeria due to the inflation induced by the current events and the previously explained reasons, more and more people complain about the scarcity of necessary products such as milk and vegetable oil. However, the blame cannot only be put on the government, as explained prior, since it cannot be expected for Tebboune to pay the price for Bouteflika’s decisions. Yet, the current president and government can be held accountable for their actions in attempting to solve the issue. The current government has not yet lifted subsidies, which, as previously mentioned, amount to +$15 billion every year in government spending, but with talks of it floating in the air, people started panicking.

Consistent reassurances have been made by government officials regarding lifting the subsidies, but the policies made as a response to the current food scarcity crisis, while hold merit, are less likely to show, which only furthered the people’s fears. Tebboune and his government resorted to improving the citizens’ purchasing power, by lowering the gross income tax along other measures, rather than lowering or removing subsidies, as well as banning foreign products from the market. As a response to the scarcity induced by supplier hoarding, Tebboune indirectly caused another issue by eliminating the only replacement, thus pushing people to the black market to find their necessities.

With the government passing policies to prevent the sale of vegetable oil to children as a means of countering hoarding by suppliers in the black market, the disdain for the current leadership, although slightly misplaced, is justifiable. As prices of basic goods continue to rise, the average citizens are too busy trying to feed their families to think about who to blame. Prices of basic goods have risen tremendously in the last year as Algeria’s multifaceted economic crisis continues to worsen, caused by years of improper economic policy, and coupled with falling oil prices and the Covid-19 pandemic. Goods such as potatoes, which were previously readily available, have more than tripled in price; taking what used to be a cheap, and filling form of nutrition and turning it into a commodity to be sought after.

The current issues facing Tebboune, and the Algerian people, are accumulated issues that have gone unresolved for decades, despite consistent pressure from the people. Protests are not foreign to the Algerian public but are rather part of their culture. The use of public protests to place pressure on decision makers is what ousted Bouteflika prior, but the general fear lays in the repetition of “Black October”. The saying goes: “history repeats itself in patterns”, and the current layout fits the narrative. The conditions for which the Algerians are protesting today are eerily similar to those of 1988, and while the protests are still tame and so far, the government can maintain the relatively peaceful environment, the possibility of another “Black Decade” is becoming more plausible, unless the government takes definitive and sustainable action.