“The task of men of culture and faith,” said Albert Camus in Algiers in 1956, “is not to desert historical struggles nor to serve the cruel and inhuman elements in those struggles. Unlike in Egypt, Libya, and Tunisia, the political power of FLN in Algeria has remained intact. Under the pressure of the Algerian youth and civil society, Abdelaziz Bouteflika, who had been the president since 1999, is now out of the picture. Following several weeks of intense demonstrations by artists, intellectuals, students, lawyers and many other representatives of the Algerian civil society, the 82-year-old president named a new government on March 31. “As far as Algeria is concerned,” Camus wrote, “national independence is a formula driven by nothing other than passion”.

Source: Indian Express April 01, 2019 20:03 UTC