On the account Facebook from Mohamed Sifaoui, a pinned publication: a thank you to the 25,000 readers of his live “Takiyya. How the Islamists want to infiltrate France. “Since analyzing and commenting on the news in France as in Algeria, Mohamed Sifaoui has not made only friends. When he announced, on May 30, his decision to no longer comment on Algerian news, it suffered a massive reporting attack that led to Facebook, first, to censor its text.
Some people wonder why I suddenly stopped posting comments on the situation in Algeria. I wondered a lot about the interest of publicly providing an answer to this question. After a long reflection, which lasted several months, I decided to answer it. I am aware that this will provoke, as usual, backlash, insults, condemnations, threats, defamation, accusations and a lot of hatred. Yes because the Algerian, overall, has become a hateful character who very often no longer knows how to express himself without insults or invective. Not being a specialist in diseases of the soul, I will refrain from going any further in this field. I will answer the question asked both frankly and very clearly. Let everyone make their own opinion. In a calm and reasoned way or in a hysterical way to stay in the local folklore.
I left this country definitively in 1999 with the firm intention of never setting foot again (except perhaps in cases of extreme urgency and again!). At first, I had tried to keep a link thinking that the departure of the regime, in particular that of Bouteflika, would make it possible to change things, in any case to improve them. I thus maintained a hope not for myself, but for the country. I was wrong, because the evil is much deeper. Evil has plagued every corner of the exercise of power but also large sections of society. The majority of them. Some corrupted by money, others by medieval ideologies and by material things.
Algeria is a toxic country. This I knew. What I did not know is that by force, many Algerians, drunk on nationalist, xenophobic, Islamist and hateful theses were themselves going to become toxic in their turn. I’m obviously not generalizing, because I know that many have managed to guard against a self-destructive mentality that dominates from the bottom to the top. But I am aware that the debility conveyed by Islamist discourse or that of the Rashad movement is much more audible than the positions of a democrat. And in all cases. If the first is embodied by a despicable delinquent and the second by a respectable intellectual, it is the first which will gain the broadest support. This is the result of formatting ensured, for a long time, by the FLN, RND, FIS, ANP, DRS system and so on.
On the other hand, I will be direct, I realized about a year ago, by questioning what is most intimate in me, that in truth I had absolutely no link with this country that I no longer consider my own. In my adult life, apart from fleeting moments, by questioning my memory, the name Algeria evokes in me only bad memories. Too much. Nasty things that my mind doesn’t want to remember anymore.
The famous “hirak”, what a strange name, ended up convincing me, beyond the folkloric character which can take on a sympathetic and endearing aspect that in truth, the Algerian being, the citizen, for the most part, is no longer. fit for democracy. If at the beginning, it seemed to be the bearer of an interesting idea and therefore of hope, in the long run, this movement allowed itself to be swallowed up by mediocrity. As usual. Yes the evil is very deep and, in my eyes, incurable. Moreover, this is verified with a majority of Algerians who go into exile. Most do not leave to share values with modern societies, they do not leave for democracy and human rights or freedom of expression, they do not leave so that their wives and daughters can acquire rights, they leave to consume better and take advantage of the materialist society, thus taking, most often with them, their mentality made up of religious fanaticism, bigotry, superstitions and archaisms. Their wives and daughters most often keep the veil, they leave Algeria to shut themselves up, in Europe, in ghettos to live with Algerians, they even go so far as to try to impose on the host countries archaisms that have massacred their own society, and so on.
Yes, out of honesty and frankness, I say it, I no longer feel anything for this country. There is nothing more that vibrates inside me when I hear the word Algeria. Sometimes I even feel disgust. When I see how society reacts to arbitrariness, how the regime treats its nationals, how binationals are often considered by power and by the people, this unbearable contempt which leads a regime to impose drastic conditions, in contempt of the constitutional rules, to prevent Algerians from returning to their homes under normal conditions. Yes, all this and many other things inspire disgust in me.
The health crisis and its management – to be compared with a country like Morocco for example – is, if necessary, an additional illustration of the mismanagement.
This is why I only look at this country with the eye of a journalist who can be interested in Algeria indiscriminately as he is interested in Burkina Faso, Syria or Mexico. There is nothing that can prevent me from talking about this country, of course, but there is absolutely no reason why I should do so: not even personal considerations.
I realized that loving a few Algerian dishes the way you like Spanish tapas or Italian specialties doesn’t make me a lover of Algeria. Same. If I listen to Algerian music, like I listen to Jazz or Blues, that doesn’t make me an Algerian. In truth, I no longer share anything with this country: neither its aspirations, nor the place taken by religion in the public space, nor the hatred that structures this country, nor the xenophobia that drives it, nor the corruption that drives it. erodes, neither the authoritarianism that characterizes it, nor this rejection of universal values, nor the absence of ethics. Nothing !
We are from a country, we are attached to it, when we are challenged by its problems, its future, its situation, when we follow its news, when we vibrate for its joys and sorrows. We are from a country when we recognize ourselves in a common destiny. However, me, for a while now, I no longer feel at all concerned by Algeria. I have neither love nor hate for him. I am totally indifferent in reality to the fate of Algeria and the Algerians. Where I do not feel more concerned other than through an intellectual curiosity which leads me to follow the evolution of Libya or Mali. That had to be said!
PS: I read some comments. I understand certain reactions, not those that insult or attempt to psychoanize me. I think I have a total psychic balance and no need for psychologists from Facebook to explain my approach to me.
For the others, sorry to have shocked or hurt. It is my nature to say things in a straightforward and candid manner. Yes, I am like this: when I love, I really love. And when I don’t love anymore, I don’t really love anymore and I say it.
No one is condemned or summoned to love their country of birth. When I no longer love even a country, things have happened. Things serious, hurtful and inexcusable enough to provoke this contempt, this indifference, which I feel today. I don’t like being taught a lesson. Especially when it is people who probably have everything to learn in matters of honesty and sincerity who indulge in this exercise. Algeria is the country where the brother killed his own brother. This is the country where the neighbor raped his neighbor. This is the country where the son steals his father. I repeat: it is a country where the majority of the population spends their life in the mosque, acting according to an inquisitorial logic, while being unethical. The problem is power, of course. But the problem is the people too. Its leaders are in its image and come from its womb and its womb.
I just wanted to clarify a personal position, remember that we must get out of this hypocrisy which would suggest that the militants of Rashad or of I do not know what political movement would be, de facto, because “opponents”, more respectable than the leaders. corrupt that they castigate. The real question is there, it seems to me. Thank you for your reactions because many have understood the meaning of my point.
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This Wednesday, June 2, around noon, the text was restored by Facebook. Mohamed Sifaoui explains: « After insistence, a few phone calls to Facebook France, a request to re-examine the text, it was confirmed to me that a massive report probably operated in a concerted manner by a company or an “dispensary” was at the origin of the blocking of my publication on Algeria. »
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