Young people want to rule Algeria

The scene narrated by the 35-year-old Algerian writer Kaouther Adimi, on one of the pages of

Our Riches.

A bookstore in Algiers

It is a great example of the feelings that Algeria had not long ago. Two in their sixties sit in a cafe in the Algerian capital with a 20-year-old. They rant about everything until they notice the boy. “What are the youth doing, eh?”, They say, “What are you waiting for to go out and demonstrate? Why are you so soft? Adimi, who was trained in Algiers, his hometown, but now lives in France, published the work almost two years before especially the young, but also the not-so-young, kicked the streets against a possible fifth term of Abdelaziz Buteflika. . They weren't that soft and the president resigned in April 2019. But they want more and that's saying a lot when about half of the 43 million Algerians are under 30 years old.

Like the young man in the novel, a group of twenty-somethings leaves a cafe, undoubtedly more modern than the one the writer imagined, next to the National Higher School of Journalism and Information Sciences, in the Ben Aknoun neighborhood of Algiers .

There are five, four boys and a girl.

It's two o'clock in the afternoon, it's the last day before the exams and it's a bit of a laughter.

They observe the press accreditation with some initial suspicion;

they do not have good memories of a recent visit by French reporters.

Amina Aouali, 21, speaks first.

What do you need?

What could be better?

"An employment contract, there is no guaranteed position when we finish our studies," he says.

More information

• Strong abstention in Algeria hinders the post-Buteflika era

Unemployment in the country is around 14% - thousands of jobs have been destroyed by the confinement and, especially, the closure of ports -, more than 26% for young people between 16 (legal minimum age to work) and 24 years old. Let's imagine that there is a contract, in the best of cases. "I'm still studying, but what I see from friends is that the salary is not enough," he continues. The minimum is set at 20,000 dinars (125 euros). And that has to allow to have dreams, as mentioned by Oussama Dilmi, also 21 years old. Even that of starting a family. “I want to have it, of course, why not?

Inshallah

[hopefully] ”, he resolves seriously. They laugh at the questions, French is difficult, but when talking about family ...

Algeria belongs to the young. They flooded the lists for the legislatures last Saturday - 48 hours after the elections, there is still no result. The parties go to them, they know that they have to offer them something, improve their training, that they do not leave, and if they leave, that they come back. The economy, highly dependent on hydrocarbons, is weak with falling crude prices. Three decades of Buteflika created a monolithic, corrupt, excessively bureaucratic system. The current president, Abdelmayid Tebún, admits it. To be an entrepreneur, you have to sweat - according to World Bank data, Algeria is ranked 157 out of 190 countries in creating a business. "If I found a good salary here," says Oussama, "I would stay." But if he found it abroad, too, he admits.

And that the majority do not see with good eyes that that elite - they are recognized as "elite" - that is formed outside, does not return. They

jokingly

call them

harragas

, a term directed at illegal immigration. Most of them, they admit alimón, want to stay for and for their country after finishing their studies.

Melissa Lakrib is a bit older than these guys. He is 23 years old and is studying Political Science in Cairo, from where he talks by video call. He directs Alg Eunesse, an association that seeks precisely to guide young Algerians, who have a critical sense and know how to find a life, even beyond what they have studied. He wants to return, although the covid has made it difficult for him. "Young people love their country, Algeria, even if it is hard at times," he says. His experience tells him that the employability of students is low. "There is a

boom

in graduates and not everyone can have a job."

That work by Adimi that saw the light in 2017 speaks of a bookstore in which Albert Camus was published for the first time in the 30s, on Charras street. It still exists and converges with Didouche Mourad, one of the arteries through which the Hirak movement has manifested itself, which kicked out Buteflika and which still maintains the pulse against the current government today. There is everything in this Hirak, but finding the young people involved in Algiers today is not an easy thing. Fersaoui Abdelouhab, 40, is located in Bejaia, in Kabylia, east of the Algerian capital. There, the authorities still find it difficult to contain the demonstrations, which are prohibited in the capital. He doubts, but acknowledges that this is not the time to be seen by Algiers - "there is a police device," he says on the phone.

According to several local NGOs, more than 220 people remain in detention for their links to the activities of this movement. Abdelouhab leads Rassemblement actions jeunesse (RAJ, Youth Actions Encounter), one of the flagship organizations of the Algerian Hirak. He has a very fluid political speech, it goes like a shot. "This is not going to stop," he points out, "it is a matter of time, we have a youth that has organized and wants to grasp its destiny." But the fate for some of these activists haunts police stations. Abdelouhab himself spent seven months in prison between 2019 and 2020. He was accused of undermining the unity of the nation.

The Hirak, which as their leaders insist, is not only the street, but debates, discussions, a road map, wants the Government to keep open dialogue with young people, who are interlocutors in a transition process. Abdelouhab took the baton in RAJ from Hakim Addad, 57. "I passed it on to him because I'm not so young anymore," Addad admits, speaking from a demonstration against the far right in Paris. The pandemic caught him there and a return ticket to Algiers is still prohibitive after the reopening of borders on June 1. He has two processes open against him in Algeria and he knows that he may end up in prison, where he has already been for three months. "You have to channel and control that fear, but we will continue," he says.

Let's go back to the Ben Aknoun neighborhood, to the School, where Mohamed Boukellal, 21, is waiting to speak.

List;

He has many concerns to express, but as the others are interrupted and let go, he is left in two: "First, unemployment", he points by raising a first finger, "secondly, that there is no agreement of the School with any means of communication, I want to be a good sports journalist ”.

It is difficult for them to say that everything is going wrong because it is not like that.

"I'm pessimistic," Mohamed continues, "well, uh, 50/50, half and half."

We agree not to talk about politics, I still have something taboo.

But did they participate in the elections on Saturday?

One of the five, yes, to get a few dinars.

The rest, in short, better not to talk about politics.