The Masters of Algiers: Chronicle of a Caste in Disarray
The greatest crime of a regime is to steal the dream of a nation and its youth, leaving behind generations condemned to seek hope elsewhere, denied to them in their homeland.
The masters of Algiers are sinking into a burlesque tragedy, a grotesque farce where the old monarch, 79 years of withered arrogance, still imagines himself as the beacon of the nation, the hand that will shape tomorrow’s triumphant economy, the visionary emperor who will rule over sub-Saharan Africa by reviving the slave trade, enslaving the masses to grow his fields of disillusion, hoping thus for a mirage of food security, a dream forever out of reach for successive governments. And now he dreams again, this august leader, of conquering Morocco, of reducing Tunisia to a docile vassal – he sends two tons of sugar as if history could be bought with sweets.
A lost clown from a militarist caste in the diplomatic game, he shamelessly grovels before Russia, China, India, begging for entry into the BRICS, only to end up a miserable extra, outdone by Eritrea! What a humiliation! Yet, as a consolation prize, he gets a seat in their bank – provided, of course, he pours in 1.5 billion dollars, the price of entry into this charade.
Meanwhile, the money-printing machine runs at full speed, confusion reigns between legal and informal exchange rates, an open-air comedy that all can see and endure. 1,200 Algerian doctors, for their part, flee, preferring to take their oaths elsewhere, in France. In the meantime, housing is being built, but electricity? Gas? Details in this paradoxical kingdom, one of the largest energy producers, where water is still cut off, decade after decade, in an infernal cycle.
Along Algeria’s 1,200 kilometers of coastline, men, women, and teenagers, deprived of a future and without qualifications, see hope only across the Mediterranean, that sea which has become a vast grave, where the illusion of a radiant elsewhere drives thousands to embark on boats of death, toward miserable exile. In foreign metropolises, they wander, refugees under torn tents, squatting in precarious shelters, moving from one charity to another, begging for survival. Algeria, in its shame, watches its children beg for asylum while sending deceitful selfies to their loved ones, feeding an infernal cycle of despair and departures.
Meanwhile, the government news agency stirs, publishing diatribes against French commentary on the elections, as if France were still the monarch’s last escape, his joker to divert attention from his ignominies. He is called “Maximo,” a tragic nod to Fidel Castro, but who would wish for Algeria to sink into the same chaos as Cuba?
What a waste! This country with such rich lands, such sublime landscapes, and vibrant youth full of intelligence, yearning to live, not elsewhere, but here, in this Algeria they love, which they could make prosperous, if only the masters of Algiers would give them the chance.
Khaled Boulaziz
