Arab Spring's Prescursor: Algeria

I just finished John Kiser's fine book, "The Monks of Tibhirine," which provided the basis for the screenplay of Xavier Beauvois' wonderful movie, "Of Gods and Men."  Kiser's deft treatment of Christian-Muslim relations is depicted against the violent background of French colonialism in Algeria.

The Western press has romanticized the so called "Arab Spring," as a prelude to a golden age of Western democracy and modernity in Middle East nations oppressed by their own dictators.  Some of this is wearing off as the reality is showing something different. 

In Kiser's book, Ali Benhadj, a popular preacher who resonated with disaffected Algerian youth says,"For Muslims liberty is constrained by the law of God, not by the rights of others....rights change, and liberty is an illusion that can be trampled by the state.  True liberty comes from submission to God."  Benhadj wrote this in  the newspaper El Munguid ("The Deliverer") around 1988. 

So the Western concept of a secular, political democracy in which the state regulates religion to being a solely private matter, is anathema to the population in the Middle East.  It's interesting to read about the commonality of ideas and mutual respect between the local Algerian Muslim population and the Cistercian monks, who are People of the Book. 

In a speech at the Es Summa mosque in November 1989, Kiser writes that Ali Benhadj said, "They (the Algerian ruling elites) are just like the French before them.  They believe that God can be separated from life, visited perhaps once a week in a mosque.  They have adopted the so-called Enlightenment thinking of the French, which is at the root Greek, an insolent idea that man is the measure of all things.  Everything comes from God. Secular thinking separates man's spirit from God. Islam teaches that it is man's duty to be humble and to serve God in accordance with his commandments." 

The Syrian, Tunisian, Egyptian and other elites bring their own philosophical, political and economic baggage to the discussion about the future of the Arab Spring.  Reading about Algeria's history through Kiser's book was very instructive in thinking about the future of the countries which are trying to throw off the shackles of authoritarianism.  It will not be a short struggle.