A nightmare called MAK

The scandal has splashed the entire political-military power, which is constantly multiplying its blunders and abuses both at home and abroad. The scene implicated by the Algerian Authority for the Regulation of the Audiovisual Sector (ARAV) is set in a market passage in the working-class neighbourhood of Bab-El-Oued in Algiers. On one of the walls there is a badly erased graffiti. "MAK", read the Algerian audiovisual gendarme. It was graffiti that nobody paid any attention to. Not even the leaders of the MAK (Movement for the Self-Determination of Kabylia) or its militants. Moreover, it took the ARAV a week to notice it. 

Of course, one has to wonder how ARAV waited until seven episodes had been broadcast, i.e. after a week, to notice graffiti that no one had seen.

To find an answer to this question, we asked our sources close to the building at 21 Boulevard des Martyrs in Algiers, the headquarters of the National Television Company (ENTV), to identify the source of this battle that has shaken the Algerian audiovisual landscape and made its director general, Nadir Boukabes, break out in a cold sweat. He was recently appointed to this post to replace Chabane Lounakel, who was sacked last December for a most sordid reason. To use Morocco's name to announce the qualification of its national football team for the semi-finals of the World Cup in Qatar is unforgivable. In less than 24 hours, the head of public television is dismissed as a bastard after long years of service to the regime under Bouteflika and then under Tebboune. Until this stage of the competition, the Algerian media were content to announce the elimination, in turn, of Belgium, Portugal and Spain without mentioning their opponents. Incredible but true. This is happening in the "new Algeria" of the Tebboune-Chengriha tandem.

This time, the appearance of graffiti on a wall in the background of a scene shot in a market almost cost his successor his job. The MAK, three letters banished from the Algerian media lexicon unless they are preceded by the famous phrase imposed by the military, "the terrorist organisation".

How and by whom was the scandal provoked? Our sources claim that a phone call from an army officer startled Mohamed Louber, chairman of the ARAV, on the evening of Thursday 30 March. As soon as he was told "you haven't seen the MAK, that terrorist organisation, on full display on public television", he almost fainted. He only came to his senses when he realised that they were only graffiti on a wall and that they appeared in the TV series "Eddamma" (the checkers game).

He quickly drafted a press release, which he sent to the official press agency (Algérie Presse Service), before calling the poor director general of ENTV and telling him off.

This reaction by ARAV, dictated by a general who was no doubt seconded by a laudatory puppet, is revealing of the level of certain Algerian decision-makers. Decision-makers to whom the old adage applies: "When you point a finger at the moon, the idiot looks at the finger". All that remains of a television series that gives viewers a glimpse into the sad daily life of a country that is sinking into all kinds of trafficking (psychotropic drugs, narcotics, gold, etc.) in order to survive in an immensely rich country is a graffiti that has been badly erased.

This serious drift on the part of the ARAV reveals like no other the timidity of the Algerian political regime in the face of the major issues facing Algeria today. Among other issues, the demand for self-determination for Kabylia under the umbrella of the MAK as a reaction to the state of neglect of this region in terms of socio-economic development and the repression of its inhabitants, especially its youth. Instead of negotiating and discussing intelligently with this political movement, whose leadership is essentially composed of well-known and recognised intellectuals and academics, the authorities in Algiers, rejected and despised by the entire Algerian people, prefer to deny and scorn. Worse still, they label this movement and its militants, who have never used violence in word or deed, as terrorists.

Refusing to face reality, the political-military power in Algiers is living a nightmare called MAK (Movement for the Self-Determination of Kabylia). A movement that is gaining popularity in its own region, Kabylia. It is taken as an example by other regions that are becoming aware of their poor living conditions caused by a regime incapable of providing the population with basic foodstuffs such as milk, semolina, oil and above all running water. Moreover, the MAK continues to cause Algiers' power to suffer incessant setbacks on the international political scene, especially within international human rights organisations.

Recently, the UN Human Rights Council reminded Algeria that it is mistaken in its definition of terrorism by mentioning in its resolution that "Algeria applies a definition (of terrorism) that corresponds to its context and reality". And Ferhat Mehenni, leader of the MAK added "a racist and anti-Kabylia reality". Proof of this is the inhumane treatment of political prisoners in the Kabyles.