Islamist Parties in Algeria

Abstract

These two quotations reflect the diversity of Algeria’s Islamist movements.¹ Algeria has a range of different Islamist tendencies, illustrated by different strategies toward the state, civil society, and external partners such as the European Union. This chapter will focus more specifically on the two major Islamist political parties in Algeria, the Movement of Society for Peace (Harakat al Moujtama’ As-Silm, Hamas/HMS/MSP) and the National Reform Movement (Harakat al-Islah al Watani, Islah/ MNR). After a clandestine founding in the 1970s, these parties became parts of the official Algerian opposition in the 1990s. The Algerian government began the process of enfranchising some Islamist movements after the revolutionary Islamist strategies’ failure, notably illustrated by the Islamic Salvation Front (al-Jabhat al-Islamiyya lil-Inqad—FIS), banned by the Algerian regime in 1992.2 These two parties, the MSP and MNR, now have a new capacity to adjust their ideology to the daily concerns of civil society, leaving behind their former revolutionary posture. It is clear how Islamism as a social movement is today one of the most important forces of change in the region, having spread to different sectors such as trade unions, associations of women, young people, students, and even networks of businessmen.

Ok we are heirs of the Islamist tendency. But today we are inspired by the European Christian democrat experience. Islamist is a highly pejorative term in Europe. Our movements are not well understood. I understand myself as a Muslim democrat. Our specific Islamic values are indeed universal. I even think that we can be a model for Europe’s transforming identity.

—Ab ou j erra Soltani, leader of the MSP party

Talking about Islamism is the sign of Europe’s ignorance. It is my right to refuse this imported distinction between secular parties considered as democratic and so-called religious parties which should be democratised. Islamic political thought does not make a distinction between Islamic parties and non Islamic ones. The West is able to develop democratic tools such as parties, institutions, parliaments and I can adopt and use these tools. But it does not mean that I am going to give up my Islamic culture and its philosophy in order to imitate imperialist and rogue states which called themselves democracies.

—Abdellah Djaballah, former leader of the MNR party