HIBAPRESS – Follow-up
Once again, the big slogans fall at the first real institutional test, after Algeria failed to pass a law criminalizing French colonialism, despite the political and media uproar that accompanied its announcement.
After years of trading in the memory file and using it as a circumstantial pressure card, the National Defense Committee in the National Assembly came to empty the proposal of its content, with its explicit reservations about the clauses related to compensation and apology, which are the core of any law that is intended to be meaningful. This setback clearly reveals that what was promoted was nothing more than a political review directed at domestic consumption, and an attempt to divert attention from the real crises in which the country is floundering. If the Algerian authorities were serious about closing this file according to a legal and sovereign approach, they would not have hesitated to defend the right of their people to apologize and be compensated, instead of being satisfied with an emotional speech that quickly evaporates inside the corridors of institutions. Notably, the Algerian regime, which does not miss an opportunity to attack France in its official speeches, retreats practically when it comes to concrete steps that may disrupt its political and diplomatic calculations. This stark contradiction confirms that the colonialism file is used as a circumstantial blackmail card, not as a principled issue that is managed with stability and responsibility, which has undermined the credibility of the Algerian discourse internally and externally. The position of the National Defense Committee also reflects the limits of political boldness within institutions that are supposed to represent the popular will, but remain subject to the logic of instructions and narrow alignments. Instead of defending legitimate historical demands, the committee preferred to run forward, fearing a clash with complex calculations, which made the law born deficient, if not politically dead before it came to light. In the end, this failure consolidates the image of a regime that is good at raising slogans and does not know how to turn them into courageous decisions, and knows how to attack the outside while it is unable to resolve its options internally. Algeria, which claims to defend memory and sovereignty, finds itself once again a prisoner of a wooden discourse, which collapses whenever it approaches reality, and confirms that the problem is not only in the colonial past, but in a political present that is unable to face the truth.
