June (see /V 212), took the measure of its determination for the Arab and Kurdish peopowerlessness in the face of the army. The order of the day in the fundamentalist camp is: "be patient, fast, pray; this is not unable to stop the coup, but after a few months, when the regime's inability to deal with the country's economic problems becomes apparent, who else but the fundamentalists are in a position to step forward as the representative of the disinherited people? * *Chawki Salhi is a leader of the Algerian Socialist Workers Party (PST) which is in political sympathy with the Fourth International. The articles on "What is fundamentalism?" and "How to fight fundamentalism?" were originally written before the coup d'etat of January 11/12.
own mission of enquiry. However, under pay reparations to its richer neighbours.
This blockade is infamous. We must ples. *
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3
ALGERIA What is
International Viewpoint #221 • February 3, 1992 lems of humanity and the absence of any other source of hope.
Is fundamentalism fas-
Like fascism, fundamentalism appeals to nationalism. But in the latter case it is of a dominated and the nationalism oppressed nation that finds itself too close fundamentalism...
cism? Insofar as the latter term refers to something repressive, violent and to the European Community to develop freely. The latter will not intervene because of massacres or prohibitions; it will be the threat of the collapse of vassal
ARISING first amongst the petty bourgeoisie, intellectuals of lower class origin and small traders, with the support of the traditionalist sectors of the middle bourgeoisie, fundamentalism has become a mass phenomenon.
It has become a refuge for the marginalized and disinherited masses of the cities, who, in the absence of a mass workers' party, believe that they have found a party willing to wage a radical fight on social issues and against an oppressive regime.
CHAWKI SALHI
HE banal idea that the funda-
T mentalists are rooted in Islam is contradicted by the history of the FIS which has seen it first gain the youth politically before winning them over to religious practices. When people attribute an Islamic essence to
Algerian society, they do not explain why it took until the 1980s for this essence to manifest itself on the political level.
Fundamentalism is the party of despair, drawing its strength from the apparent failure of rational solutions to the probthen yes. But the problem is more complex if the
Marxist analysis of fascism as a regime of last resort for a hard pressed capitalist ruling class is applied.
fundamentalism
Yes, can introduce the qualitative change in the relation of class forces which has
Algerian the eluded regime since the 1970s. It can violently reduce the abolish wage, average social benefits, close and sell off public enterprises and change the rhythms of work - all basic conditions for Algeria to be integrated into the world market.
Yes, fundamentalism is accepted with a sinking feeling by a bourgeoisie which hesitates between the coup d'etat and cohabitation. However, imperialism has yet made up its mind whether to not allow a regime that threatens regional stability to be crushed by the weight of the foreign debt, or to collaborate with a regime of mass terror that can rapidly carry out the International Monetary
Fund's adjustment plans.
regimes that will concern it.
Yes, fundamentalism intends to suppress socialist parties, as Sahnoui stated at Setif last May. Yes, it is hostile to trade unionism, since its own union, the SIT, promotes collaboration and rejects the opposition between bosses and workers. However it has not developed alongside the workers' movement, but rather in its absence as a sort of monstrous substitute. It has not forged its militia in the struggle against social protests and its night of the long knives (the elimination of fascists opposed to the rich) will be more complicated.
It is of course a mass petty bourgeois movement and draws its support from the growing mass of the declassé and rejected in a capitalist society in crisis.
Islam is not the religion of an old order confronting a democratic revolution; on the contrary it is a substitute for a national identity in the face of a colonialist and imperialist West. It is the very rise of the FIS that allows us to begin to raise the issue of the separation of religion and politics.
Fundamentalism is not fascism, even if they have certain features in common. To confuse the terms would lead to emprying the concept of fascism of all content.
...And how can it be fought?
We are not indifferent to the prospect of the arrival in power of the FIS which would suppress our liberties. Before the recent charm offensive, we heard several times from the mouths of FIS leaders that our party would be prohibited, and even
THE campaign by the National Committee for the Salvation of Algeria, which mobilized the democrats against democracy, has legitimized the FIS in the eyes of its electorate. The only means to resist the establishment of a fundamentalist dictatorship is a mass mobilization for the defence of cultural and democratic gains.
CHAWKI SALHI
HE traditional recipe of revolu-
T tionaries for fighting the danger of a fascist or fundamentalist dictatorship is the workers' united front. However, in our situation this has no practical meaning. There is no mass
Communist or Socialist party while trade unionism is yet to free itself from the hold of the bourgeoisie, even if one cannot say that the various leaderships of the UGTA
4 union have always been merely adjuncts of the ruling National Liberation Front (FLN).
Despite this absence, it remains true that the road chosen by the democrats, that is, compromise with the very regime responsible for the failure, can only swell the ranks of the fundamentalists in the long run. To defeat the fundamentalists it is necessary to win the youth of the popular neighbourhoods away from them, while at the same time continuing the fight against liberalism and resisting the plans of the International Monetary
Fund (IMF).
The enterprises must once again become the centre of the struggle of the oppressed; while the revolt of the marginalized neighbourhood youth will remain the strike force of that struggle, it cannot provide political leadership to the popular masses.
our right to live challenged. Indeed, any dissimulation of this danger in the eyes of the masses would be unpardonable.
However, to go from that to supporting the regime responsible for our despair is to abandon the people to the FIS, since the liberal economic policy will lead to ever increasing misery and thus to the growth of the fundamentalists.
The compromises between the union leaderships and the government will cost us dear, giving legitimacy to the fundamentalist trade union, the SIT. The time has come to construct a pole of reference for the trade unions as the nucleus of the union leadership needed. The idea of a militant union forum, floated in 1989 but never carried through, is the only one that would allow us to avoid the fate of setting up a tiny pseudo-union.
In time, the working class will mobilize. We have to ensure the emergence of an alternative built in struggle that can seize hegemony from the fundamentalists. *
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Increasing repression
THE Tunisian regime is facing a major economic and social crisis, to which it is responding with repression.
IV has received this report from Rym Ben Amor, a militant of the Organization of Revolutionary Communists (OCR - Tunisian section of the Fourth International). RYM BEN AMOR
T HE government of Ben Ali is
applying the IMF-inspired structural adjustment programme in a drastic fashion. This means a liberalization of the economy (65% of foreign trade has been privatized), price rises, of 100% in four years, privatizations involving 5,000 sackings in the past two years, and a change to the Labour Code allowing more "flexibility".
The state has abandoned certain social commitments assumed after indepen dence. A law for the privatization of half of the country's hospitals was passed in July 1991; furthermore, the government has announced that social security cover of hospital fees will fall from 100% to 80%. Since a week in hospital costs 800 dinars, people will have to pay 100 dinars — the minimum monthly wage. This law will be introduced in a gradual manner to avoid reactions. But public hospital services have already considerably deteriorated owing to the cuts in the health budget.
The state is also encouraging the creation of private primary schools and colleges. Parliament has refused to adopt a law private universities, but these
Unemployment has reached 500,000 and impoverishment is widespread. Now, at the end of December 1991, the prime minister has announced that the adjustment programme had until now only been half applied but that now it will be applied
Despite such measures the growth rate for 1991, forecast at 6%, was in fact only 2%.
Support for Iraq during the Gulf war was high here.! But after the imperialist victory the regime, which had taken up a demagogic stance during the war — with a show of support for domestic public opinion and obedience to all the UN decisions — had gained a measure of credibility when mobilizations receded. The regime took advantage of this to attack the fundamentalist Ennahda movement, including 12,000 interrogations of all those linked, however loosely, with the movement. Many were subsequently imprisoned. The fundamentalist networks have been completely dismantled. In order to justify this repression the regime spread invented stories in the media about supposed coups and insurrections planned by Ennahda.2
The pretext of fundamentalism
The regime has also tried to contain the other mass movements in the name of the struggle against fundamentalism. The weak democratic opposition parties, including the Movement of Democratic Socialists (MDS) and the Progressive Socialist Assembly (RSP) — have rallied round the regime to form an antifundamentalist front. They have subsequently demanded their reward since, for the moment, they are not even represented in parliament — however, even these crumbs have not been granted them and the regime continues its manipulations.
Ennahda was hard hit by the repression, with all its cadres in prison or hiding. The fundamentalists are thus taking no more public initiatives or political activity. But this does not mean that they are finished. In several cities movements of support for the victims of repression exist; martyrs are being made. Each time that the fundamentalists have been subject to repression (notably in 1981 and 1987), their audience has subsequently grown. In the medium term they will once again reappear on the political scene, above all after the events in Algeria, Which nave a big impact in Tunisia.
Furthermore, after the announcement of the results of the first round of the legislative elections in Algeria, the regime felt obliged to announce reforms of the Tunisian electoral code to calm the bour-
TUNISIA
Free Tunisian
Marxists!
ON January 4, 1992, following the distribution of a leaflet from the Revolutionary Communist
Organization denouncing economic austerity and the repression against the fundamentalists, 23 left wing activists were arrested in the town of Tajerouine. All were released with the exception of two members of the OCR. Three other members of this group were arrested later and tortured.
On January 15, five OCR milltants (Fathi Salawl, 27 years old, a worker; Saber Saadi, 18 years old, a high school student;
Mohamed Kamel Charl, 25 years old, unemployed, Imed
Zoghlaml, 20 years old, a student; and Habib Souili, 24 years old, a student) came before the prosecutor general who prolonged the period of their detention. They are charged with belonging to an Illegal organization, distributing leaflete without authorization and threatening public security. Four other OCR members are currently being
The latest news Is that their trial is now set for February 6 and applications for bail have been rejected.