For the past several months, both Algeria and Sudan have been in ongoing protests against their respective governments. Sudanese of all ages and from all walks of life have been demanding with chants of "Tasqut bas" roughly translates to the "regime must fall that's all," that the 30 year old military junta of President Omar Al Bashir step down. The people have had enough of the government's use of fear through silencing critics no matter their profession, arrest and torture of university students, journalists and activists and critics by NISS, by excessive use of military force against ordinary Sudanese in Khartoum and in the marginalized areas of Darfur, Red Sea State and the Blue Nile area and the crushing economic collapse of the Sudanese pound and lack of medicines, closure of news critical to the government. On April 6th, the largest demonstrations and protests in Sudan's history took place across Khartoum as hundreds of thousands of protesters took to the street united in their disgust and anger at the rickety military junta of Al Bashir. The protesters even managed to reach the Sudanese military HQ and have not slowed down despite police arrests. Like Bouteflika, Al Bashir's end is near it's just a matter of time. The Sudanese people are no longer afraid of either the military, NISS who have been detaining protesters in Kordofan and Dongola states and using excessive forces as well as shootings. Some 51+ people have been killed since the protests began across Sudan in December, but the people have stayed strong and continue to protest with their feet and voices. The April 6th is also the anniversary of the 1985 Uprising against the Jaafar Niamery government also on April 6th. It was not coincidental at all. Also remember that both Algeria and Sudan joined the larger Arab Spring in 2011 that began in Tunisia Algeria's neighbor.
On the other side of Africa, in Algeria sandwiched in between Morocco and Tunisia, the Algerians have been fed up with the 20 year rule of the now former President Abdelaziz Bouteflika who signed his resignation letter on April 4th. Algerians are still not rightly so satisfied with just Bouteflika stepping down. The people want anyone tied to his regime gone with no expectations. Remember, Algeria used to be the epitome of third world liberation struggles, non align movement, revolutionary politics being anti-colonial in the 1960s to 70s. The renowned Martinique psychiatrist Frantz Fanon drew inspiration for his magnum opus Black Skin, white masks (one of many magnum opuses) and psychiatric studies on brutal military force and colonialism's physiological effects on colonized peoples through treating Algerian patients in the psychiatric ward and studying Algerians' fight for independence from France pre 1962. He also studied the affects on the oppressor. Algeria was and is a case study in nations overcoming decades of economic and political colonialism and being tied to imperial powers against the will of the local peoples. Although Algeria's economy is slightly better than Sudan due to gas and oil and other smaller manufacturing, Algerians have also experienced police repression, arrests for government criticisms, exile like Sudanese expats and ongoing states of emergencies each time Algerians protest for their basic rights. Despite a shorter rule, Bouteflika is extremely frail and can barely sit up. It had long been common knowledge (despite failed media blackouts) that Bouteflika 82 years old has long standing health problems. Since the protest began in January, the Algerian people have shown just how fragile Bouteflika is. Both figuratively and politically. It should be remembered that Bouteflika came to power in 1999 toward the end of the brutal Algerian Civil War (1991-2002). He was originally elected under the promise of ending the war, creating lasting peace and stabilizing Algeria.
Since Algeria's independence from France which treated the North African nation more like a French department ie Corsica or Martinique not a colony, Algeria had balanced between socialism and the then rising Islamic awakenings of the 1970s. The successful Islamic Revolution in Iran would later inspire the likes of Algeria's own FIS (Islamic Salvation Front) and its cousin in Libya the Libyan Islamic Salvation and the Islamic Fighting Group (that in the 1990s became more Takfiri terrorists). Its also worth remembering that the Islamic groups and movements originally began as social movements championing for social change for the marginalized and poor in society, providing students and their families with education and faith. The war began in the aftermath of an election in which Islamic parties won the popular vote over the socialists and other secular parties. Up until 1991, Algeria was secular and socialist much like Sudan and Libya were. Sudan witnessed its own coup in 1989 that ended the socialist government's rule in which Omar Bashir promised a sharia based and Islamic government in a literal interpretation. As with other socialist governments at the time, France, U.S. and UK did not want socialism to become an alternative to capitalist and representative democratic government system. Socialism, keep in mind was popular in many African countries such as Ethiopia, Algeria, Sudan, Eritrea, Burkina Faso (Thomas Sankara), Guinea-Bissau with Amilcar Cabral, Egypt and Libya to name a few. Socialism's emphasis on all of society benefiting from the common well being fits in with the communal culture of African societies that also places importance on a unified people progressing through improved infrastructure, technology and social safety nets not just one person benefiting from health or education. Which is a fact that few Western countries know little about including the pundits and the so called experts on Algeria or Sudan.
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