FIS de la haine.

• Author: Zoubir, Yahia H.

The freest legislative elections since Algeria's independence in 1962 were held on 26 December 1991. The first ballot of those pluralist elections was won by the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS), the main beneficiary of the democratic process, a process which ended 30 years of single-party rule by the wartime liberation movement, the National Liberation Front (FLN). Had the second ballot, scheduled for 16 January 1992, not been interrupted by the military on 11 January, Algeria would undoubtedly now be run by an Islamist government and an Assembly composed overwhelmingly of Islamists. Governments and media in the West, on the one hand, and many intellectuals and so called democrats in Algeria and elsewhere, on the other hand, condemned the interruption of these elections, for they saw in their suspension an end to the democratic process itself. They have argued that had the FIS come to power, it would have proved incapable of fulfilling the electorate's expectations and would have lost its popularity after a few years, thus putting an end to its reign, and even making Algerians aware of the necessity of separating religion from politics.

Two distinguished figures of Algerian literature in both French and Arabic, Rachid Boudjedra and Rachid Mimouni, along with many small democratic parties and intellectuals in Algeria, welcomed the military's intervention, which they perceived as salvation for the country. Both authors rejected the arguments expounded by those who favored the continuation of the electoral process. Despite their different approaches, ideological predilections, and temperaments, neither writer shows the slightest sympathy for the Islamist movement regardless of the reasons that account for its rise. For them, Islamism is a historic regression, a return to barbarity, and an impediment to social, cultural, and technological progress. In their view, the FIS is nothing less than a fascist movement (Boudjedra:. 70; Mimouni, 153), which, like the Nazis, would endorse the democratic contest only as a ploy to come to power and then establish a totalitarian regime (Boudjedra, 105-6; Mimouni, 152). Consequently, it was vital that the ascent of the movement be stopped.

Boudjedra's passionate, yet well written, pamphlet whose title can also be read as "Son [fils]-of Hatred," is a merciless, uncompromising attack on the FIS and the Islamists in general. However, the title is somewhat misleading, for Boudjedra does not limit his attack on the FIS; he has spared no one: the official West (governments and media), successive Algerian regimes, intellectuals (himself included), and the population at large. In spite of...