ALGERIAN PATRIOTS - ENGLISH

At the heart of Maghrebi turbulence, a deceptive fable has crept into certain Moroccan political and media discourses, one that seeks to forge a false symmetry between Algeria’s unwavering commitment to the sacred right of the Sahrawi people to self‑determination and what is brazenly presented as a purported Moroccan “right” to foment secessionist stirrings on Algerian soil—chief among them the phantom‑like Movement for the Self‑Determination of Kabylia (MAK). This equation is not only intellectually unsound but deeply perilous, for it dares to confuse a universally recognized decolonization cause with an identity‑subversion enterprise directed against a sovereign and millennial nation. By granting sponsorship to the MAK, Morocco has committed a strategic error of exceptional gravity, handing Algeria—on a silver platter—the opportunity to exploit a profound historical fault line: that of the Rif , a proud and indomitable land which, unlike Kabylia—eternally fused with the Algerian sou...

The firm, detailed rebuttal issued by Algeria’s Ministry of National Defence (MDN) against false claims about creating “mercenary units” in the Sahel is anything but a routine defensive gesture. It is a political and strategic signal that illuminates the shifting regional security environment, the rise of hybrid warfare , and Algeria’s growing centrality in Sahelian power balances. The Cognitive Battlespace: When the State’s Image Is the Target By describing the campaign as a “ flagrant slander ” pushed by media and platforms “ whose allegiance and orientation are no longer in need of exposure ,” the MDN lays bare the mechanics of information warfare : discrediting the military institution, eroding the state’s voice, muddying the doctrine—and, ultimately, undermining Algeria’s international credibility and regional influence . These cognitive operations rarely seek to persuade outright; they are designed to seed doubt —about intentions, legal compliance, and Algeria’s margins of ma...

Avoiding direct polemics or loud declarations, Algeria has opted for heritage diplomacy and UNESCO procedure to respond—indirectly—to Moroccan claims over the origin of the caftan. At the 20th session of the Intergovernmental Committee for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage (New Delhi, 8–13 December), Algiers emphasized confirmations and updates to elements inscribed since 2012, reinforcing its reading: the caftan is an authentic element of Algerian cultural identity, recognized within UNESCO’s framework. A Procedural Argument Elevated to Cultural Diplomacy In a statement published on 11 December via official channels, the Ministry of Culture and the Arts hailed “a new victory” for Algerian cultural diplomacy . Without departing from institutional sobriety, its communication stressed two core points: Inscription precedents : According to Algiers, the caftan appears in national files recorded since 2012, notably within the recognition of Tlemcen’s traditional herit...

The sixty‑day window that some outlets attributed to U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff closed without a “breakthrough” or any discernible political shift. No agreement, no formal talks, no pressure, no leverage—nothing. That outcome alone undercuts the narrative that framed this window as a “historic opportunity” or a “pressure card” aimed at Algeria. It also invites a broader reading anchored in the structural logic of power in North Africa, the Sahel, and the Mediterranean. 1) Algerian Decision‑Making Sovereignty and the Limits of the Diplomatic “Ultimatum” Algeria’s external posture is rooted in sovereign decision‑making and a renewed non‑alignment: it does not bend to convenience “timelines” or conditional injunctions. This is precisely why no official U.S. position ever established a binding deadline, brandished sanctions, or conditioned energy/economic files on a “response” to the initiative. In practice, the ultimatum is a low‑yield instrument against an actor for whom the political cos...

Youssef Hindi’s reflection on political Islam hinges on a governing idea: that Islam is, by its very nature, a continuous political project oriented toward the production of a specific historical order, and that contemporary Islamisms are merely late expressions of an original matrix. Persuasive as this proposition may be in its internal coherence and historical sweep, it nonetheless runs up against major conceptual aporias. It essentialises Islam, flattens the complexity of the political in Muslim societies, and retroactively projects modern ideological categories onto heterogeneous historical configurations. This article offers an analytical refutation of that thesis. We show that it rests on: an essentialist, unitary conception of Islam; a methodological conflation of the normative and the descriptive; a structural anachronism in reading premodern periods; a failure to recognise the fundamentally contextual character of modern Islamisms; an ideological narrative logic rather than a ...

A recent official letter from Morocco to UNESCO has reignited a simmering cultural dispute between Rabat and Algiers . In its correspondence, the Moroccan government denounces what it calls “inappropriate remarks” — including expressions such as “sons of Bousbir” and “Kingdom of Marrakech” — allegedly voiced by Algerian civil society during the evaluation of Morocco’s bid to inscribe the “Moroccan” Caftan on UNESCO’s Representative List of Intangible Cultural Heritage. Rabat accuses these actors of “political manipulation” and urges the organization to safeguard the integrity of its assessment process. Yet behind this diplomatic exchange lies a far deeper controversy: the origins of the Caftan and the legitimacy of Morocco’s claim to register it as part of its national heritage. Algerian civil society, highly active in heritage advocacy, views Rabat’s move as a blatant act of cultural appropriation — particularly since the Caftan was already recognized in 2012 by UNESCO as an ele...