The assassination of Matoub Lounes on 25 June unleashed a wave of protest from the Kabyle minority in Algeria and among Kabyle immigrants living in France. The timing of the assassination, almost concurring with the date fixed by the Algerian government to implement the Comprehensive Arabisation law on 5 July, compounded the anger of protesters, who were simultaneously faced with their two arch enemies -- Arabisation and the Islamist movement.
An extremist dissident splinter group, an offshoot of the Armed Islamic Group (GIA), claimed responsibility for murdering the young singer. Matoub Lounes was a symbol for Algeria's Kabyle minority. He had struggled, by means of his art, to bring the state to officially recognise the Berber or Tamazight language and to place it on an equal footing with Arabic.
Lounes made no secret of his distaste for the Islamist movement in Algeria, extremists and moderates alike. For him, an Islamist dominated Algeria would mean succumbing to despotism and darkness. And among Kabyle artists, he was the most bitter critic of the Algerian government, accusing it of persecuting the Kabyle minority, of incompetence in confronting the Islamists, of deep seated corruption and economic mismanagement.
For many outside observers, it may well appear that, in his manifold protests, Lounes embodied the grievances of the Kabyle minority in Algeria. Yet the fact that the best known Kabyle singer was assassinated at the hands of the most fanatic and violent of Islamist factions, sparking widespread protest, does not imply that the Kabyle minority whole-heartedly shares his demands or has adopted common causes for protest. The two parties enjoying the largest Kabyle following, the Socialist Forces Front (FFS) under Hussein Ayat Ahmed and the Rally for Culture and Democracy led by Said Sa'di, differ markedly over the question of the rights of the Kabyle minority. The FFS promotes a more conciliatory approach in its attempts to secure coexistence between Berber and Arab cultures, while the Rally for Culture and Democracy is relentless in its demands that Berber and Arabic be treated identically by the state.
The Rally for Culture and Democracy views the Algerian Islamist movement as a homogeneous entity, threatening the values for which the republic is presumed to stand -- enlightenment, modernity and secularism -- hence the need to prohibit the Islamist Movement completely. The FFS, on the other hand, distinguishes between Islamist factions, most importantly between the GIA and the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS). The FFS concedes that while an iron fist must be used with the GIA no settlement to the Algerian conflict is possible without formulating a balanced and democratically acceptable formula capable of encompassing shades of Islamist opinion.
The Kabyle minority in Algeria is divided over another major issue on which the late singer had a declared stand -- the status of the French language and the position of the Francophone community. Ironically, although the Kabyle minority had played a leading and crucial role in the resistance against the French during the Algerian war of independence, the fear that the rising tides of Islamism and Arabisation would threaten Kabyle cultural specificity has led the Rally for Culture and Democracy to actively solicit the support of the Francophone community.
An alliance emerged in Algeria demanding the maintenance of French as the basic language of the state, alongside Arabic and Berber, the argument being that French is the language of progress. A second feature of this alliance is to perpetrate links with France; the third, a call to effectively neutralise the Islamist trend.
The segment of the Kabyle minority represented by the FFS, however, while recognising the need to maintain the teaching of French in order to keep abreast of scientific and technological developments, remains adamant that this should not take place at the expense of the two indigenous languages. French, they argue, while important, should not be privileged over either Berber or Arabic. This segment of the Kabyle minority continues to maintain complex relations with France, and its position gives rise to trends in three directions.
The FFS actively and energetically solicits support among the vast Algerian community in France. It seeks, too, to make use of the French media in propagating its vision and spreading its approach among the intelligentsia and has been energetic in its attempts to bring pressure to bear on the Algerian state on those issues in which the support of the French government is deemed necessary.
Given the disparities and differences within the Kabyle minority over major factors in the Algerian crisis, we should not misunderstand or underestimate the complicated nature of the situation. It would be far too simplistic to view the protests by one Kabyle segment following the assassination of its favourite singer as somehow constituting a broadly based and coherent rebellion by a bloc rallied behind what the singer stood for and against.
Certainly, Lounes represented that segment of the Kabyle minority which broadly supports the Rally for Culture and Democracy. But the Rally's positions on many important matters widely differs from the position of the FFS. Reading the situation as an uprising of this important minority, and claiming that it has been spurred by consistent and coherent support of the singer's own protests is to ignore the internal divisions in the Kabyle community.
The assassination of Matoub Lounes has sent shock waves throughout the Kabyle minority in Algeria, opening up a great many vital and sensitive issues. The fact that it occurred so close to the date set for the implementation of the Comprehensive Arabisation law has no doubt served to both fuel and focus Kabyle anger and protest.
But it remains equally true that the Rally for Culture and Democracy has attempted to capitalise on the assassination of the singer in order to propagate its own views and positions on various issues connected with the Algerian crisis, views that are not necessarily shared by a majority of the group they claim to represent. It has, however, been successful in taking advantage of the assassination to further its own agenda, and there can be no doubt that the circumstances of the singer's untimely death have reinforced the demands and programme of the Rally at the expense of the FFS, particularly on the issue of Arabisation and the recognition of the Berber language as one of the official languages of Algeria.
In focussing attention on the issue of ethnic divisions in Algeria, and on their political ramifications, the assassination of Lounes and the response it provoked has identified a major arena in which the Algerian crisis will play itself out.
*The writer is senior researcher with Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies.
