“At first glance, the comparison, at least as a cautionary tale, seems warranted,” Dr. William Lawrence, until recently the International Crisis Group’s North Africa Project Director, writes for the Fikra Forum. In 1992, the Algerian military cancelled the second round of parliamentary elections that the Islamist Front de Salvation Islamique (FIS) was poised to win in a landslide, forcing President Chadli Bendjedid to resign. That action propelled Algeria into a tragic “black decade,” resulting in over 200,000 killed, millions injured and displaced, and an entire generation of Algerians lost to debilitating outcomes or to the diaspora. With a promising democratic transition knocked off course, Algerian politics never fully recovered, and remain disoriented two decades later. ….. Given the frightening possibility of another derailed democratic transition descending into violence, editors and experts outside Egypt are feeding the public a steady diet of “specters,” of “chaos,” of “civil war,” of Algeria-like “bloodbaths,” as Egypt “teeters on “the edge of the abyss.” Of course, Egypt is not Algeria, and, more important, Egypt refuses to be Algeria. …..Experts have laid out excellent arguments about how Egypt is different from Algeria: - See more at: demdigest.net/blog/2013/07/egypt-the-next-algeria/#sthash.OfS0mcqw.dpuf
Posted on: Thu, 25 Jul 2013 19:39:56 +0000
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