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Title: Other Rojavas
Author: Crimethinc.
Date: 2017
Language: en
Topics: self-organization, Rojava, communes
Source: https://crimethinc.com/2017/11/02/other-rojavas-echoes-of-the-free-commune-of-barbacha-an-autonomous-uprising-in-north-africa-2012-2014

Crimethinc.

Other Rojavas

Chronicling an Autonomous Uprising in North Africa

The autonomous region of Rojava has gained international visibility as a

beacon of struggle against the Islamic State and other forms of

autocratic power, an experiment in which many anarchists are currently

participating. Yet Rojava is not the only region in which a struggle for

self-determination has expanded to open a path towards total liberation.

In north Africa, in the region of Kabylia, an ethnic minority oppressed

by racism and state oppression has initiated in a series of revolts

comparable to what the Kurds have accomplished in Rojava and the

Zapatistas in Chiapas. Throughout decades of struggle, they have

established zones of autonomy and built bridges to others in revolt, in

hopes of bringing about “a genuine emancipatory social revolution.” Read

on to learn about this underreported struggle.

Demonstration in Kabylia, April 20, 2014, commemorating the Amazigh

Springs of 1980 and 2001.

Translators’ Introduction

By Michael Desnivic and Habiba Dhirem-Kasper.

This translation has allowed us to share a recent resistance movement

that, until now, was completely unknown to English-speaking countries

and still largely unknown outside of Algeria. The author, a French

writer, filmmaker and documentarian, Matouf Tarlacrea, was very happy to

see its release into English. In 2014, he traveled to a commune called

Barbacha in northern Algeria with some friends for two days and

collected personal stories and documents to present “Échos de la Commune

libre de Barbacha” as both an article and short documentary video.

Matouf’s specialty is primarily in resistance movements around the

world. His grandparents are from northern Algeria and he currently lives

in Toulouse, France and is active in supporting CREA (Campagne de

Réquisition, d’Entraide et d’Autogestion or Requisition Campaign for

Mutual Aid and Self-Management), a squatted communal building inhabited

by people of various ethnic and cultural backgrounds united under one

common banner: the total and complete rejection of all authority.

Kabylia or Kabylie is a region in northern Algeria just east of the

country’s capital city Algiers, inhabited primarily by the indigenous

Kabyle people. Outside of Belgium and France, Berbers and Kabyles are

fairly unknown to Westerners: Algeria and all of North Africa are

imagined to be exclusively populated by Arabs. The Kabyle people are an

ethnic division of the Berbers, among many other Berber ethnic groups.

Most Kabyles and other Berber ethnic groups currently speak Arabic,

Algeria’s official language, as well as regional Berber dialects;

French, introduced via colonialism, is also common, especially in

business and education.

Who are the Berbers? They are the original inhabitants of North Africa

(Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, Tunisia) and parts of West Africa

(Burkina Faso, Mali, Mauritania, Niger). But they did not call

themselves Berbers: like the names of most indigenous peoples (e.g.

“Indians”), this name was given to them by invaders. It comes from the

Greek word barbarous and the Latin cognate barbarus; root of

“barbarian,” originally denoting a person with a primitive civilization.

The original inhabitants of this region called themselves Imazighen,

which roughly translates to “free people,” known individually as Amazigh

(masculine) and as Tamazight (feminine), who speak the

Tamazightlanguage. Their land was known as Tamazgha, renamed the

“Maghreb” by the Arabs. In Antiquity, the people of this land had close

relations with Ancient Greeks and Romans.

As with many ancient people, contact with outside cultures alternated

between friendship and hostility, with the Berbers playing the roles of

both conquerors and conquered. Their contribution to the developing

cultures of Antiquity and the Middle Ages has left a mark on African and

even European culture (for example, historians suspect St. Augustine may

have been an ethnic Berber). More recently, Situationist International

cofounder Guy Debord noted in his 1955 article “Introduction to a

Critique of Urban Geography” that the term “psychogeography” was coined

by “an illiterate Kabyle” he and his friends had known.

Algeria has a rich history of revolt against the various forms of

oppression and tyranny that have menaced it, including French

colonialism and theocratic autocracy. Algerian-born Albert Camus noted

the immense racism the Kabyles experienced through socioeconomic

exclusion, extreme poverty and famines instigated by the French

settler-colonialists in his essay “Misère de la Kabylie.” In We Are

Imazighen, Fazia Ailel states, “Berbers were denounced as a creation of

France” as a means to intensify discrimination from the dominant Arab

ethnic group. Generation after generation has resisted this racism. The

struggles against discrimination and colonialism led to struggles

against other forms of oppression as well. As is to be expected,

throughout history, revolutionary attempts in Algeria to overthrow

dictatorial systems of colonization and, later, state bureaucracy have

consistently been co-opted by various “liberators” attempting to secure

power for themselves via political, economic, military, or religious

leadership roles. This is as true on the African continent as it has

been in Europe and Asia.

Kabyles in particular have a long, vast history in avoiding authority

and hierarchy, rejecting French colonialism and bureaucracy, by

implementing local village assemblies; government in itself has mostly

been alien to them. In his 1902 book Mutual Aid, Peter Kropotkin noted

the rejection of authority that seemed to be imbedded in Kabyle culture.

“The Kabyles know no authority whatever besides that of the djemmâa, or

folkmote of the village community. All men of age take part in it, in

the open air, or in a special building provided with stone seats. and

the decisions of the djemmâa are evidently taken at unanimity: that is,

the discussions continue until all present agree to accept, or to submit

to, some decision. There being no authority in a village community to

impose a decision, this system has been practiced by mankind wherever

there have been village communities, and it is practiced still wherever

they continue to exist, i.e., by several hundred million men (sic) all

over the world.”

He adds:

“Mutual support permeates the life of the Kabyles, and if one of them,

during a journey abroad, meets with another Kabyle in need, he is bound

to come to his aid, even at the risk of his own fortune and life; if

this has not been done, the djemmâa of the man who has suffered from

such neglect may lodge a complaint, and the djemmâa of the selfish man

will at once make good the loss. We thus come across a custom which is

familiar to the students of the mediaeval merchant guilds. Every

stranger who enters a Kabyle village has right to housing in the winter,

and his horses can always graze on the communal lands for twenty-four

hours. But in case of need he can reckon upon an almost unlimited

support. Thus, during the famine of 1867-68, the Kabyles received and

fed every one who sought refuge in their villages, without distinction

of origin. In the district of Dellys, no less than 12,000 people who

came from all parts of Algeria, and even from Morocco, were fed in this

way. While people died from starvation all over Algeria, there was not

one single case of death due to this cause on Kabylian soil. The

djemmâas, depriving themselves of necessaries, organized relief, without

ever asking any aid from the Government, or uttering the slightest

complaint; they considered it as a natural duty. And while among the

European settlers all kind of police measures were taken to prevent

thefts and disorder resulting from such an influx of strangers, nothing

of the kind was required on the Kabyles’ territory: the djemmâasneeded

neither aid nor protection from without.”

Barbacha’s residents march against repression, Béjaïa, April 9, 2013.

The banner reads “Down with repression.”

On July 5, 1962, Algeria was granted independence after nearly 8 years

of war and 132 years (exactly to the day) of colonization. The brutal

war, depending on the sources, left around 400,000 to 1.5 million dead.

Confusion, fear, disillusionment and atrocity seem to be inevitable

byproducts of war, and the end of the occupation (as with the end of so

many) led to the rise of despotic leadership.

But after the colonial forces left, something unusual happened. Coming

to power at the end of the War, the workers and peasants of the country

decided to implement autogestion or self-management. Quickly, the

working class took over much of the industry and the peasants much of

the countryside. Thus the Algerian War of Independence suddenly became

the Algerian Revolution.

Algeria’s self-management revolution (1962-65) united the entire working

class, Berber and Arab, as well as even ethnic French pieds-noirs[1] to

build a socialist (some might even say “libertarian socialist”)

revolution that shook off the dead weight of political parties,

including the Leninism and Stalinism that numerous bureaucrats were

struggling to implement in Algeria and throughout most of the freshly

decolonized countries. The struggle of the Algerian workers, peasants,

and students was consistently hammered and wedged between various

ideologies: religious conservatism, Leninism (or “vanguardism”),

capitalism, nationalism, ethnic identity. Unsatisfied by each of these,

an Algerian proletariat—people who had not read Marx and Engels, brought

a communist party to power, or possessed any interest in centralizing

power and the means of production in the hands of the State—had

successfully done what socialists in the Cold War era were bent on

preventing working people from doing: taking power for themselves.

“After independence, the Algerians turned to socialism, which to them

meant self-management.” (Autogestion ouvrière et pouvoir politique en

Algérie (1962-1965), Monique Laks, 1970.) Revolutionaries in Algeria

were quickly superseding Marxism and its apologists. Ukraine, Germany,

Russia, France, and especially Spain are historically seen as the

bastions of anarchist and libertarian socialist insurrection by means of

self-management, especially in the form of workers’ councils. The

revolutionary reorganization of society got underway in Algeria along

similar lines, with far less influence from Western thinkers, pushing

itself to challenge both state control and private ownership of capital.

With an uncertain socio-economic future in post-independence, the new

rulers of Algeria appeared inept. After the war, the General Union of

Algerian Workers (Union Générale des Travailleurs Algériens or UGTA)

issued the following appeal: “…our battle is soon going to take a new

form… The resumption of economic activity will allow the workers to take

the initiative to be present everywhere, to participate, to direct and

control the economy of our country.” The UGTA continued an appeal to the

newly-formed government and the French former owners of the farms and

factories to reopen them. The UGTA stated that if there is “a negative

answer, the government must organize a system of management by the

workers.” The request fell on deaf ears at first, but workers’

self-management continued to come into discussion and was granted

official status by Ahmed Ben Bella, the first President of Algeria, in

September 28, 1962 in his inaugural speech (plausibly, however, to

outstrip his bourgeois competitors with his bureaucracy). After Ben

Bella was overthrown by Boumédienne in a coup d’état, self-management

and the workers’ movement were targeted by the new regime that blended

Islamic fundamentalism and technocratic state-planning, destroying

self-management in a few years’ time.

Barbacha, February 2014.

The movements of the “Arab Spring” were particularly intense in Algeria;

but they were preceded by several Berber Springs. In 1980, a lecture on

Kabyle poetry by Moulod Mammeri was banned at the University of

Tizi-Ouzo. This sparked the first spontaneous Berber Spring, a series of

riots and strikes aimed at demanding status for Tamazight as a national

or official language, and culminating in other attempts to change

Algerian society. Another Berber Spring broke out in 1988. A civil war

erupted in 1991 and lasted until 2002.

On April 18, 2001, an event occurred that again put Algeria and the

Kaybles in the international spotlight. Guermah Massinissa, an

eighteen-year-old high school student arrested in Tizi-Ouzou, a city in

Kabylia, was shot by police while in custody under very mysterious

circumstances. Rioting broke out almost immediately, causing what was

dubbed the “Black Spring.” As often occurs in uprisings against

State-sponsored murder, the entirety of the society and everything it

produced was called into question. A movement emerged for an autonomous

Kabylia.

This revolt elucidated what the insurrectionaries were ultimately

attempting to do and what they wanted to communicate to Algeria and the

rest of the world: they refused to be led or dominated by anyone,

French, Arab, or Kabyle.

Men, women, and children all over Kabylia participated in this third

Berber Spring. The common slogan chanted was “You can’t kill us, we are

already dead!” (Somewhat more intimidating than “We are the 99

percent.”) Kabyle women were particularly active in the revolt, voicing

their disgust against the possible State-sponsored murder of their

brothers, husbands, boyfriends, fathers, and sons.

Government offices, courts, police stations—all repressive

infrastructures of the State—were put to the torch. Showing a

thoroughgoing critique of all the different things that restricted their

liberation, the rioters went after the buildings of political parties

and Islamic fundamentalists. The Islamists, whose ideological terror

paralleled the State’s autocracy culminating in the deaths of countless

Algerians, saw their meeting places turned to ash. By the end of the

month, the entire region of Kabylia was in total revolt. Every attempt

at negotiation with the Algerian government was rejected by the

communities of resistance. Police and Islamic fundamentalists were

consistently driven out of villages and cities. Labor unions and

left-wing parties were shunned as all attempts to take authority were

considered traitorous, including voting in the elections.

The people of the region recreated the aarch (similar to Kropotkin’s

aforementioned system of the djemmâa), a method of coordinating the

needs of the community with revocable delegates from the village

assemblies (see Wolfi Landstreicher’s Autonomous Self-Organization and

Anarchist Intervention). Via aarchs, the community runs decisions by

consensus and assembly. By rejecting hierarchy, it purges the old

Algeria—and the old world itself—that asserted its assault on freedom

through the police state and Islamic fundamentalism.

Habiba’s father, an ethnic Kabyle, was married with two daughters during

the Algerian War of Independence. He was a harki, something he did not

like to talk about. It was a poignant subject in their household. Why

would anyone choose to fight against his country and people? Wearing

these two badges of shame, a harki and a Kabyle, was not easy.

The word harki has generally come to mean “traitor”: in the Algerian

context it refers to an Algerian soldier who fought on the French side

of the war—sometimes not by choice. Habiba’s father was told his family

would be killed if he did not help the armed forces of France keep

Algeria as their colony. In return for fighting at their side against

the anti-colonial forces, he was promised asylum in France. He found a

new life in France, where Habiba was born. Obviously, the transition

wasn’t easy for the family. They would have preferred that their country

regain its independence from France, and it did, but they never were

able to savor the victory. As a child, Habiba visited Algeria with her

mother, but things were not the same as her mother had left it. As for

Habiba, the experience was very disappointing. She had hoped for

acceptance but instead encountered disdain from children in the village

her mother grew up in. Being called a dirty Arab back in France was

normal, almost expected, but to be called a dirty French in the land of

her ancestors left her disheartened and confused.

It was a few years before she understood what it all meant. She was the

daughter of a traitorous harki, a man who had betrayed his country and

fled with hundreds of thousands of others. Or at least that was what

those kids were told she was.

After that trip she had a better understanding of where she came from

and she was never the same again. Everything she thought she was came

crumbling down. It was only after decades that she discovered her true

background: her parents had been Arabized; they were Kabyles assimilated

into the Arabic culture and language, and all her life she was made to

believe she was part of a culture that deep down she knew she was never

part of. Today she is proud to say that she is part of the Kabyle

people, some of the most resilient and courageous people in North

Africa. Today she hopes that the people of Kabylie will keep fighting

for their rights, for their language and to regain their independence.

In translating this piece and presenting the existence of the movement

in Barbacha to the English-speaking public, we strongly felt their

struggle needed to be known to a wider audience. We did so not just

simply to offer a mere news piece to enlighten the Anglosphere on the

zeitgeist in northern Algeria, but to inspire others, to move people out

of pessimism and fatalism, to show them resistance and change are not

impossible. Furthermore, we do so for the people of Barbacha’s request

for support and solidarity outside of Algeria, as they have stated

plainly that they wish to unite with everyone across the world who yearn

for freedom from oppression. We present this project to serve as

outreach in order that their struggle might connect with other struggles

against authoritarianism, hierarchy, capitalism, and racism.

Barbacha City Hall, blocked by the residents to prevent the installation

of the “shameful alliance,” 2013.

Echoes of the Free Commune of Barbacha

“Échos de la commune libre de Barbacha,” by Matouf Tarlacrea (with the

gracious help of Amazigh, Morgane, Da Taïeb, Mabrouk, and Da Elhamid) in

Article 11, 2014. Translated from the French by Michael Desnivic and

Habiba Dhirem-Kasper.

Barbacha is a small region in Kabylia, made up of 34 villages with

27,000 inhabitants. Since 2012, the people there decided to forego

holding the reins of municipal authority to instead develop diverse

forms of self-management, notably via their Open General Assembly (OGA).

Matouf Tarlacrea was there a few months ago accompanied by friends. He

brings with him this collective story.

Echos de la Commune libre de Barbacha.

Barbacha—Iberbacen in Tamazight, the Berber language—is a region in

Little Kabylia, Algeria, self-managed by its inhabitants since the end

of 2012. “Barbacha is just a small hamlet left aside from all the

treasures of Algeria,” says Da Taïeb, an elder of the Commune. “It’s a

poor region located in a mountainous area. We have no trails or roads.”

As in other regions, the peasants and workers of Barbacha fight day by

day to live a dignified life confronted with all the forms of

exploitation and oppression imposed by the State and capitalism. But in

Barbacha, something else has also created itself. The 27,000 residents

of these 34 villages comprising the population of Iberbacen, effectively

self-organized through the Open General Assembly (OGA), established a

collectively-occupied building. “In Barbacha, we have created this house

to protest against the system that crushes us endlessly. The system that

governs us right now is rotten,” says Da Taïeb. He and a few others

welcomed us in February 2014 with their story and showed us their

archives.

Here are a few sketches of these roads drawn by the people of

Barbacha—paths for all those who are fighting for emancipation all over

the world.

A Tradition of Insubordination and Autonomy

The region of Barbacha has been a site of Berber resistance against all

colonization as well as a place of continuous battles for Tamazight

culture and language. This has been imbedded in the long history of the

struggles of the Kabyle people for autonomy and independence. The region

cultivates this with the methods of practicing mutual aid and

solidarity, insubordination and insurrection that are passed down from

generation to generation. “It’s a movement that was born in 1979. And

this fight for culture, for language, for everything, continues. Because

we are not [yet] independent!” says Da Elhamid, a welder in central

Barbacha.

Like most parts of Kabylia, the region revolted in 2001. Among what was

obtained were cultural rights, and those revolts allowed the inhabitants

to eliminate numerous police stations and gendarmeries[2] which were

opposed to all forms of struggle and any autonomous social life.

On top of the harassment, the racketeering and the systematic

brutalities, the Algerian State for a long time applied a strategy of

tension based on murder and civilian abductions as a form of permanent

counter-insurrection. Faced with an exceptional regime, the people did

not give in. In 2001, they expelled the police and military forces in

the Barbacha region and burned down their buildings. Mabrouk, an English

teacher in the commune, explained that the population was doing without

security services for thirteen years: no gendarmerie, no police. During

those thirteen years, no crimes or infractions were committed.

Mabrouk, an English teacher.

Amazigh, a youth from the region, has determined that the gendarmerie

“is of no use. On the contrary, it oppresses. It’s not there for our

security. For twelve years, we organized ourselves in village

committees. Each village assures its security by its own residents.” It

is in this collective self-defense experiment that new forms of communal

self-organization have been created. Mabrouk further explains, “We

organized ourselves. Each village has someone responsible. And the

people of these villages organize together. If there is an enemy that

wishes to enter, we create a security post at night and we organize with

everyone to help in teams.” He goes on to explain that after four years,

people got in the habit of living without these security teams. “But as

soon as there’s a problem, everyone will come together and organize and

fight.” In Barbacha, there are not even State-run courts: justice is

rendered on the traditional model of the aarchs, the councils of the

wise.

The Shutdown of the Daïra Subdivision of a Wilayah (prefecture),

that is to say, a sub-prefecture. [A Wilayah (an Arabic word) might be

better understood in English as “region,” “province,” “county,” etc. A

Daïra, unique to Algeria and the Western Sahara, can be best translated

as “district.” —Trans.] and Its Replacement by the Open General Assembly

The direct conflict with the Algerian State and its structures grew even

more divisive during the preparation of the municipal elections of

November 2012. During this time, the Wali (governor) Hemmou Hmed

Et-Touhami actually refused to register the PST,[3] largely supported by

the residents of Barbacha. They decided to fight so that the PST could

be registered. And they won this cause. In the elections of November 29,

the PST finally got 39% of the vote, with six out of fifteen elected.

Clearly their list is the majority.

Except that the four other parties on the list formed an alliance to

impose another mayor, Benmeddour Mahmoud, of the RCD. And this occurred

despite the existence of a law declaring that a list that has obtained

35% of the vote can nominate the new mayor. The election was held even

without the PST member list present, who had not even been notified of

this. This “shameful alliance,” as Barbacha’s residents called it,

united the RCD,[4] the FLN,[5] and the FFS,[6] parties initially opposed

to one another, in their struggle for state power.

The population of Barbacha rose up against this manipulation. They

closed the Daïra, then city hall, and collectively requisitioned the

local village hall in order to create the Axxam n Caâb[7]—the House of

the People—where, since then, the Open General Assembly (OGA) of

Barbacha’s villages meet. A banner hangs there: “Long live the struggle,

for only struggle pays off.”

Within this assembly, only alcohol, drugs, and “lack of respect” are

prohibited by collective decision. Da Taïeb explains how it operates:

“As soon as there is a problem, we meet, we make decisions; our words

matter. This is our strength, the law of the people. […] This house, we

acquired it with our collective power. No one can shut it down, and here

we speak of whatever we wish to speak of, we say whatever we want.

Letting anyone step on our toes is out of the question.” The welder Da

Elhamid adds, “Everyone has the right to speak. And the people there are

there as volunteers. That is democracy, true democracy, because it comes

from the people. […] We organize ourselves for marches, for

contributions, for everything, everything, everything. We must always

fight.”

Da Taïeb.

Mabrouk, the English teacher in his thirties, specifies that, “We fight

against corruption, for the dignity of the people.” Faced with the

“power of the State” which describes them as “a mafia of young people

who spend their nights in a house,” Mabrouk states that the people that

come to the Axxam n Caâb are “the peasants, the intellectuals, the

artists.” “It is a place of one hundred percent freedom: there are no

currents, neither religious nor political, inside this house; there are

no ideas of the PST or any alliances with the FFS, only the ideas of the

peasants and the inhabitants.”

After each assembly, someone is in charge of writing a communiqué that

is dispatched to prisons, to citizens, and posted on all the walls of

the commune. It is even sent to the security services, “Because we don’t

do this behind closed doors!” says Mabrouk.

An excerpt of the very first bulletin of the OGA, broadcasted and posted

in the villages of the commune states:

“We citizens, the men and women of the Commune of Barbacha, organized as

an Open General Assembly, strongly reaffirm our rejection of Daho Ould

Kablia’s[8] instruction which opens the path to clientelism, and we

consider the installation of the pseudo-mayor by decree of the Wali of

Bgayet (Prefect of Béjaïa) dated December 17, 2012, to be annulled and

invalidated. […] Furthermore, we hold the public powers and those

elected in the so-called coalition responsible for the decay of this

situation (blockading the Daïra and city hall, the treatment of communal

workers, etc.). We reserve the right to create large-scale actions. […]

LONG LIVE THE WILL OF THE PEOPLE! STAY IN SOLIDARITY! LONG LIVE THE

STRUGGLE!”

-Communiqué No. 1 of the Open General Assembly of the Residents of

Iberbacen, December 26, 2012.

Little by little, the Open General Assembly of the residents of Barbacha

has replaced the centralized and authoritarian management of city hall.

At first limiting itself to the struggle against the State, it extends

itself, little by little, to different domains of collective life. A

path to the basics has anchored in a unique history.

The Autonomy of Struggle and the Struggle for Autonomy

It’s in this battle against the installation of a fraudulent mayor by

the State and the big political parties that the Commune of Barbacha

creates self-organization. While the swindler mayor tries to settle in

the PCA (the People’s Communal Assembly, Assemblée populaire communale,

or “city hall”), accompanied by an attorney general, a crowd assembles a

first time to prevent access. Resolutely determined to solve the

problem, the residents decide to block all access to city hall. Hundreds

of them, including activists from the FFS and the RCD, in disagreement

with the elected parties, mobilize day and night, occupying and blocking

all municipal services (the registry office, etc.) and prohibit the

slightest meeting of these elected puppets.

“The interests of the Commune, which is in a state of stagnation, come

before all other interests, and our interest today is to place Barbacha

back on track; this can only happen by the resignation of all elected

officials,” announces the second Communiqué of the OGA (December 30,

2012). Communiqué No. 3 points out the strategies of rottenness

exercised by the State against the population to create divisions among

those mobilized against them. This text calls for the dissolution of the

PCA, the nomination of a temporary leader of the Daïra to manage

administrative affairs, and a rally for January 5 at the headquarters of

the Wilayah of Béjaïa. The assembly signed off, “To the peoples and

populations of the world fighting for real sovereignty: may the year

2013 be a good and happy one of solidarity struggles and all that can be

gained from them!”

To get to Béjaïa from Barbacha, it’s about 40 kilometers (25 miles). Not

exactly next door. The demonstration of January 5, 2013 nevertheless

unites over a thousand people. The protestors block the main road

leading to Béjaïa to demand the organization of new elections. This

demonstration marks the effective involvement of the residents of other

communes in other Wilayahs.A solidarity even more valuable emerges

knowing that legal proceedings would be charged against militants

accused of blocking city hall.

Communiqué No. 4 shows that in the space of autonomous struggles, there

emerge new forms of collective organization:

“In detailing its durations of battles, the General Assembly (GA) made

the following propositions:

The reinforcement of its self-organization by the integration of more

delegates and volunteers of all villages by their distribution into

commissions according to the tasks it has accomplished and the demands

to stop and take charge;[9]

An improved organization of volunteer actions concerning vigilance and

security as well as trash collection, particularly around Suq n Tlata;

-Taking charge of repairs in different sectors: the supply of drinking

water, sanitation, public lighting, etc.;

Scientific and cultural activity in organizing nightly festivities after

the GA’s tasks are completed;

Quarantining those elected by the shameful alliance, requiring that they

resign within 24 hours, the denunciation of their sponsors and support

as well as all participants in the various attempts at manipulation in

the instrumentalization and intimidation of high school (and other)

students and communal workers;

-The construction of a general strike and other large-scale actions.”

Therefore, the General Assembly is not just an organization for struggle

and resistance. It has become an everyday meeting place and takes charge

of various aspects in the maintenance of the commune: trash collection,

the distribution of fuel for schools, cleaning, etc. Mabrouk spoke also

about how the employees of the People’s Communal Assembly (PCA) hadn’t

been paid in four months: “These are people who have four, five, or six

children. In order to take care of them these past four months, we

organized together to find money and food, to respond to their needs… In

addition, we help the sick who may be in need of passports to travel to

France or Belgium for healthcare, and we take care of that for them. We

also do the same for the maintenance of schools, supplying them with

fuel and supplying their cafeterias.” Some business owners and residents

even contributed to finance certain projects. Mabrouk recounts: “This is

how we’ve worked from then until today. We have assemblies all the time,

we work in solidarity. We want a PCA of the people, not a PCA of power.”

This collective handling of the organization of the commune leads to a

form of revolutionary radicalism. In its “Open Letter to Everyone” dated

January 22, 2013, the OGA announces:

“We will spare no effort to build any bridges necessary to expand our

movement to all the Algerian people for a genuine emancipatory social

revolution to federate our multiple discontents, oh so legitimate, and

all of our actions. In Sidi Buzid, it was a suicide. In Barbacha, it was

a ray of hope that shined through.”

January 26, 2013: the six legitimately elected members of the PST and

the NRD (Rassemblement national démocratique[10]) resigned and gave

their power of attorney to the Assembly to move toward the dissolution

of the PCA and to provoke new elections. The Assembly also decided to

demand the resignation of the entire prefecture. In its Communiqué No. 6

of January 29, 2013, it calls on the entire population of Barbacha and

“every person convinced of the justness of our battle, wherever they may

be” to stage a general strike on commune territory on January 31, with

“the shutdown of all access from midnight to 4 pm.” The communiqué ends,

“Long live the people, organized and conscious. Long live the people’s

solidarity. We are moving forward.”

But on January 30, the FLN building is burned down. Claiming their

strategy to be “peaceful,” the OGA condemns this action which it sees as

provocation from the State to justify its repression. Communiqué No. 7

of January 30, 2013 proclaims:

“We are telling all Hamhamists,[11] enemies of the people at the bottom

of society, that these kinds of acts will only reinforce our

determination to fight you, you and your sponsors, until victory. Our

battle is neither tribal nor individualistic. It is a real class

struggle that started in Barbacha. It is the will of the people against

the will of bourgeois and mafia power that, instead of serving the

people at the bottom of society, offer themselves as servants to global

and imperialist capitalism.”

The exceptional regime applied for so long in Kabylia and the regimes of

repressive terror deployed during the Berber Springs and the 1990’s both

left permanent scars on the relationships in Algerians’ movements

regarding the use of violence. In Barbacha, the majority of the

population—which participated in the burning down of a police station

thirteen years earlier [in 2001]—seems to prefer occupations and

blockades of buildings, roads, or towns as well as mass marches and

general strikes. But in the debate between the residents (which we

attended), the partisans of armed insurrection, although in a minority,

are not stigmatized or cast aside; they are respected in their

perspectives and are integrated into the struggle. It seems there is a

predominant will to minimize employing acts of violence the more

co-opted they can be by power and the more useful they could be to

justify the remilitarization of the territory, while completely

undertaking all forms of offensive direct action when the situation

necessitates it. For example, a young anarchist in Barbacha who is very

involved in the Assembly prefers what he calls “nonviolence,” and says,

“even in my interventions within the movement, I defend the idea of

sometimes utilizing violence, such as, for example, burning the ballots

next April 17 [the date of the presidential elections]. I see all the

psychological scars of past movements, like the events of 2001. Just

seeing a gendarme makes us want to burn everything down.” In Barbacha,

these debates seem to uplift the movement rather than dividing it.

The general strike of January 31, 2013 is a success. During the popular

meeting at the end of the day, much of the population decides to

organize a march and then a sit-in in front of the Wilayah of Béjaïa on

February 3. The OGA adds “a more radical action, namely the blocking of

street traffic access to both entrances of Béjaïa.” Both of these

actions are massively implemented, but they don’t suffice for the

Prefecture to give in. In Communiqué No. 9 of February 4, 2013, the

Assembly speaks of the risk of a “fratricidal bloodbath among Barbacha

residents” if the demands of the population are not met. Faced with the

“masquerades” of a power that’s attempting to criminalize them, they

become from then on an organ of people’s self-management.

“Our movement is jealous of its own independence. It is above all

parties and all partisan logic. We pronounce our decisions in total

democracy (direct, we should say) in an Open General Assembly that we

have adopted as a popular commitment to our conscious organization. […]

We forbid you to judge our method of struggle. We have already declared

that we have passed the stage of rioting. Our movement is highly

peaceful and of an exemplary maturity.”

On February 11, the minority opponents of the OGA try again to enter the

PCA to reinstall the “Mafioso” mayor, but they are stopped by the local

population blocking access to city hall. In response, the Assembly calls

for a new gathering in front of the Wilayah on February 17. The

Wilayah’s administrator agrees to meet with the representatives of the

OGA and the PST. During this meeting, the decision is made to reopen the

Daïra, but without its official leader, and confer limited

administrative powers to the General Secretary of the Daïra, Toufik

Adnane. He is in charge of the Assembly’s management of the “current

affairs of the commune,” meaning mainly administrative records, the

payment of municipal employees as well as the deliverance of birth and

death certificates (which the population needs to proclaim its rights).

In consequence, the representatives of the OGA decide to cancel the

rally scheduled for February 17. But they plan a new “peaceful” march

and encampment in front of the Wilayah’s headquarters on March 24.

That Sunday, March 24, marks a turning point. Faced with 2000

demonstrators blocking the headquarters of the Wilayah of Béjaïa, the

Walicalls on riot police who intervene with extreme brutality, injuring

many people—one young demonstrator even has both legs broken.

Twenty-four people are arrested, including Sadeq Akrour, the PST mayor,

who is released—with bandages around his head from the beatings—after 24

hours from the pressure and acclamations of hundreds of people that came

to wait for his release. On March 25, the OGA announces a new general

strike in Barbacha to pick up the comrades that were arrested the day

before in Béjaïa.

Emotions run high in Kabylia as they do in the entire country.

Especially since during this time news has spread of the government’s

use of police force against the demonstrations of unemployed workers in

the south. “This is how, while struggling for the unconditional

liberation of our six comrades under judicial control, it is now more

urgent than ever to find new methods of struggle in order to prevail

with the success of the so-called principal demands,” states Communiqué

No. 20 of March 26.

The mobilization does not weaken. On Sunday, March 31, hundreds of

Barbacha’s residents demonstrate again in front of the court of Béjaïa

where six of their own are scheduled to appear for a hearing. They

demand all legal proceedings be suspended. They also announce national

actions for upcoming days to impose the dissolution of the municipal

council and to demand new elections. The OGA calls for a general strike

in Barbacha and a gathering in front of Béjaïa’s courthouse on April 9,

the trial date of the 24 arrested. More than a thousand demonstrators

rally in front of the court to protest and the general strike is

massively undertaken.

Axxam n Caâb, House of the People, Barbacha, February 2014. The banner

reads, “Long live the struggle for only struggle pays off.”

All this pushes the population to further develop methods of

self-organization. Communiqué No. 23 of April 11, 2013 states:

“The path is still long and difficult. Therefore, the reinforcement of

the self-organization of the population must be our permanent task: it

is necessary to strengthen the current village committees and create new

ones in villages and neighborhoods not yet organized. Because the

relative return of the maintenance of the Daïra and City Hall

constitutes an important step in our fight, the real development of our

Commune must be our strategic objective. […] These are our true battles:

the Buâmran mine, the mini-dams, town fuel resources, the high school,

the CEM of Tibkirt, RN 75, [12]the Commune’s and Wilayah’s roads,

telephone and internet services, machines, agriculture and forestry,

youth and leisure, etc. A true synergy of the people at the bottom of

society is more than indispensable to move forward and succeed with this

project.”

April 19 and 20, 2013, the Assembly is in charge of organizing the

festivities commemorating the Berber Springs of 1981 and 2001. It is in

this context that the idea emerges and gains momentum that a people’s

assembly is the best and most legitimate means to solve the problems of

the inhabitants and collectively improve their lives. In their

Communiqué No. 26 of May 2013, the OGA states that it’s convinced that

the nomination of the General Secretary to manage the Daïra does not

bring desired solutions for the population. The Assembly also denounces

“all tentative desire to rehabilitate the mayor of the alliance and his

team in order to put them in command of our glorious commune.”

Rightfully, on May 22, Mohamed Benmeddour, his team, and the members of

the “alliance” tried once again to enter city hall. But they were again

pushed out by the crowd. However, the Assembly decided in favor of a

concession: the reopening of city hall. This is as much about managing

“current affairs” as much as it is of “the critics.”

During the summer, the Wilayah blocks all power of signature from the

General Secretary—the only finances it leaves at his disposable are for

“a closure,” destined to protect the Daïra as well as the means to

reinstall the gendarmerie. The General Assembly challenges the

unwillingness of the Wilayah, stressing the fact that the population has

accepted making concessions (notably, the reopening of city hall). In

the “Appeal of September 21,” the OGA thus denounces: the reduction of

communal services to a strict minimum; the fact that communal workers

were receiving their payments bit by bit, and, if they’re lucky enough

to receive them, months late; the refusal of the Wilayah to approve the

budget of 2013 (which stifles the communal treasury); the shutdown of

all construction sites, especially of the local high school; the end of

the school bus service (the bus drivers have not been paid and neither

have any of the suppliers for the school’s cafeteria) and the “squatting

of the local commune by the gendarmerie.”

Finally, after a long wait, on October 1, the General Secretary is

authorized by the Minister of Interior to divide the budget and pay the

commune’s employees. But during the entire fall of 2013, the “shameful

alliance” tries many times to get back into city hall. Each time, the

people of Barbacha, united and determined, prevent them. To present

their discontent about the installation of the mayor, a large popular

meeting is organized on November 29, 2013. A thousand residents

participated, voting by a show of hands against the shameful alliance.

“Of the more than one thousand people responding to our call, only three

hands were raised (one ironically) in approval of the installation of

the infamous mayor of the RCD-FLN-FFS shameful alliance, Mohammed

‘Mahmoud’ Benmeddour, whom we had generously invited to speak. It was an

authentic referendum worthy of a real people’s direct democracy, unknown

anywhere else,” stated Communiqué No. 32 of December 6, 2013.

The struggle doesn’t budge. However, the demands directed to the State

and public powers for the shutting down of judiciary pursuits, the

dissolution of the PCA, and the funds destined to develop the commune

are all unsuccessful. More radical perspectives emerge among the

population.

Da Elhamid.

And What if the People’s Assembly Completely Replaced City Hall?

The battle for new elections and to establish a “legitimate” city hall

comes with numerous concessions. It begins with the return of the

gendarmerie, although it would be kept out of the commune and will avoid

all conflict. Mabrouk says that the State justifies the reinstallation

of the gendarmerie as a measure to protect the population against

“terrorism.” Additionally, Da Elhamid tells us that not very long ago,

the gendarmes would have arrested us for having our discussion. “Nothing

has changed, it’s still the same system. Because even the gendarmes

[might as well be] colonial gendarmes,” he says.

The reinstallation of the gendarmerie is not the only concession. The

residents that are in favor of having new elections plan also to give

the House of the People back to the PCA as a measure of goodwill. This

is summarized in Communiqué No. 30:

“If the logic of appeasement and advancement moves toward the final

unblocking of this conflict, and the return of the meeting place (the

Axxam n Caâb) to the Commune (nobody questions its character as a

communal good) can help reinforce this dynamic, we are ready for this.

However, the public powers must know that it’s because of this meeting

place that the movement has remained peaceful and refined in wise

judgment. In any case, the General Secretary was allowed to use it

whenever the necessity arose. By default, each one of us will assume

responsibilities. […] We are neither terrorists nor are we cowards. We

are the planners of adventures and are consciously organized with the

single goal of allowing our commune to have its part in development and

that our proud people have the means to assume their full duty to

contribute to the veritable liberation of our dear country, Algeria, and

so that it can contribute to the construction of a universal project

that can liberate all of humanity.”

A city hall, even if it’s far-left and sincerely engaged with its

residents, cannot do anything that can radically change the lives of

people. It would remain a manager, a hierarchy, a link in the network of

the powers of the state and capital. It may represent the people, but it

is not the people. Mayor Saddek Akrour summarized the role attributed by

the state to the PST while in office during the preceding mandate: “We

suddenly found ourselves in a feedback loop of public finances between

oil profits and private enterprises.”[13] In this context, and since the

basic demands for the economic development of the commune were not

carried out, a growing number of the residents are conscious of the fact

that the Assembly should not just be reduced to a tool only for

struggle, but that it could become a structure of political, economic,

and permanent social self-organization.

By the end of the month of December 2013, the state still had not

satisfied the demands that the OGA had presented in exchange for the

return of the leader of the Daïra. Those in the camp that think that the

People’s Assembly should completely replace all forms of State power are

again reassured. Da Taïeb, whom we meet in February 2014, sums up his

strategy. “We have to completely destroy the Algerian system. It’s not

just about Bouteflika,[14] his ministers or his walis: the state must be

completely destroyed. Only generals live well in Algeria, the people

have nothing. Rich state, poor people! This is why the people revolt. To

take back our rights. Because there is a way! This is hoggra.[15] Look!

A Member of Parliament gets 35 million dinars per month or more, plus an

international passport, while any other employee in the commune makes

only 15,000 dinars! […] We are protestors and we wish for other

marginalized people like us come to our aid, that we all unite, that we

help one another.”

He is interrupted by a friend, “What interests us is not the elections,

but in assembling together […] to struggle against this system.”

The reflection on the elections and the political parties has

effectively evolved amongst the residents of Barbacha who have invented

a way to manage themselves and their own lives. The position of the

welder we met is clear: “The political parties, I don’t like them.

Because with parties, you raise a person up, and once they’re at the

top, ‘the king is dead, long live the king’—it’s always been like that.

Because I have spent a long time in political parties, they don’t

interest me anymore. Because as soon as someone is at the top as a

Member of Parliament or a mayor, once he goes up, that’s it, you never

hear from him again, and then the day he needs the people, he comes

back, he whines. ‘We’re going to do this, we’re going to do that…’ and

at the end there’s nothing. These people are only interested in power

and money.”

Confronting the state and capitalism that are ravaging its territory and

very existence, the people of Barbacha lead a continuous struggle for a

dignified life. Through the practices of mutual aid and collective

resistance, they invent an emancipated society on an everyday basis.

Like others before them, notably in Chiapas, they do not attempt to take

state power but to dissolve it, along with capitalism, via federated

self-organization in communes. Like the Zapatistas, they know that

solidarity is a weapon when coordinated struggles come together.

This is the welder’s conclusion: “We have to fight where we are. If

everybody fights together, in France, in Morocco, here… we can improve

things.” And as the elderly Da Taïeb tells us, “Alone, the residents of

Barbacha won’t be able to throw this out. So we are trying to create a

great movement, a bulldozer, to destroy it.”

[1] European supporters of and participants in the Algerian Revolution

were referred to later as pieds-rouges.

[2] Generally unknown in English-speaking countries, a “gendarmerie” is

a French word (and French invention) for a military police force

involved in the law enforcement of rural regions. In Algeria, they are

substantially militarized and brutal, thus particularly despised.

—Trans.

[3] PST: Parti Socialiste des Travailleurs (Socialist Workers Party), an

anticapitalist and internationalist party founded in 1989, a member of

the Fourth International.

[4] RCD: Rassemblement pour la Culture et la Démocratie (Rally for

Culture and Democracy), social democratic party created in 1989 founded

after the formation of the Mouvement culturel berbère.

[5] FLN: Front de Libération Nationale (National Liberation Front),

current party of the State under the ruling military junta.

[6] FFS: Front des Forces Socialistes (Socialist Forces Front), social

democratic party founded in 1963.

[7] Axxam n Caâb: this is Tamazight, not Arabic. —Trans.

[8] Daho Ould Kablia (born 1933), former Interior Minister of Algeria in

charge of Algeria’s gendarmerie, among other bureaucratic affairs.

—Trans.

[9] This peculiar phrasing at the end of the sentence is in the original

French. —Trans.

[10] National Rally for Democracy, liberal party founded in 1997.

—Trans.

[11] Opportunists that only act to fill their bellies.

[12] RN: Route National. A highway. —Trans.

[13] Interview in Paris, 2008.

[14] Abdelaziz Bouteflika, current President of Algeria, in power since

1999. —Trans.

[15] In the Algerian Arabic dialect, the word hoggra (also spelled

hogra), often translated as “oppression,” means having one’s rights

denied to them, being cheated, exploited, humiliated, or scammed by a

ruler, authority figure, or government. The term was used frequently

during the Arab Spring in Algeria. One conducting hoggra is known as a

haggar. —Trans.