Calls for GenZ protests in Algeria framed in media as Moroccan plot
میدل-ایست-آی - 1404-07-11 19:18:24
Calls for GenZ protests in Algeria framed in media as Moroccan plot
Copycat calls in Algeria for youth-led demonstrations like those in neighbourhing Morocco have been denounced as a Moroccan plot to destabilise the country by Algerian pro-government media.
While Morocco has been gripped this week by protests demanding reforms and an end to corruption led by the recently founded youth group GenZ 212, anonymous social media accounts have published similar calls for protests in Algeria under the title GenZ 213.
"Freedom for Algeria", "Social justice now" and "Free our homeland from the gang", read many these posts, some of which depicted Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune as a witch. Others displayed images of political prisoners.
Posts have called for a mobilisation across North Africa that would go beyond Algeria and Morocco to affect Tunisia, too.
The Algerian news agency APS quickly responded, publishing a long article on Tuesday titled "Despite its clinical death, the Makhzen [the Moroccan leadership] has not forgotten Algeria".
The article took aim at what it deemed "social injustices" in Morocco, which when "combined with soaring prices and the lack of prospects for young people, fuel the anger and disenchantment" of young Moroccans.
It noted the popular rejection of strengthening Moroccan ties with Israel in the midst of the genocide in Gaza, arguing how Algeria, on the contrary, offers its citizens a "foundation of social justice that protects the most vulnerable".
"Far from being a superficial model, the Algerian welfare state constitutes a concrete bulwark against marginalisation and poverty, and a guarantee of national cohesion," the state agency wrote.
"These are all achievements that distinguish Algeria from its Moroccan neighbour, where inequalities are worsening and where the bulk of wealth remains monopolised by a minority."
It then cast doubt on the calls for protests in Algeria, which it said "are part of a political strategy aimed at projecting Moroccan tensions abroad and weakening Algerian national cohesion".
"With this manipulation, Morocco and some of its regional representatives are attempting, through desperate actions, to destabilise the two most stable countries in the Maghreb: Algeria and Tunisia."
Other Algerian media outlets published similar claims, such as TSA, which asked: "Who is pulling the strings of this operation, which resembles yet another attempt at destabilisation, and why now?"
"Every time it faces internal difficulties, [Morocco] blames Algeria and, when possible, seeks to export its suffering," the online newspaper wrote, calling the similarity of the movements' names a "curious coincidence".
The name GenZ 212 refers to Morocco's +212 telephone code and the socially conscious generation born between 1997 to 2012 that has been leading protest movements worldwide, like in Nepal. The Algerian telephone code is +213.
Moroccan media, in turn, mocked these accusations. The Hespress website accused Algeria of "inventing external plots".
"The social and political reality in Algeria is much gloomier than the official narrative," it wrote.
In Morocco, too, many pro-government social media sources have also accused, without proof, foreign elements of being behind the GenZ 212 protests, whose instigators remain anonymous.
Nervousness in Algiers
While these mutual accusations are part of a long-standing animosity between the two North African countries, which severed diplomatic relations four years ago, they also evoke some nervousness in Algiers.
The calls for protests in Algeria come amid a persistent economic crisis, with an unemployment rate of over 30 percent among under-24s and inflation affecting purchasing power.
Added to this is a closed civic and political space. The Hirak, the vast pro-democracy movement that led to the fall of long-time autocrat Abdelaziz Bouteflika in 2019, has since been completely neutralised by the authorities after the Covid crisis and the crackdown on the second anniversary of the movement.
According to human rights defenders, there are between 200 and 250 prisoners of conscience in Algeria, mainly linked to the Hirak.
Algerian authorities have been accused by rights groups of crushing dissent and closing civic space by restricting freedoms of expression, press, association, assembly and movement.
All this led to an increase in clandestine migration attempts abroad.
The European border-control agency Frontex has recorded a 22 percent year-on-year increase in clandestine crossings in the western Mediterranean since the beginning of the year, and more than 90 percent of the 11,791 migrants departed from Algeria. Algerians are now the leading nationality to emigrate to Spain by sea, seven times more numerous than Moroccans, who often occupied first place in recent years.
Finally, the Algerian leadership is weakened by power struggles within its ranks, as recently exposed by the flight of Major General Abdelkader Haddad, the ousted head of Algeria's most influential intelligence service, who reportedly escaped his house arrest in Algiers and fled to Spain on a speedboat.
The incident has been interpreted as a sign of the divisions and recurring instability within the Algerian political and security system.
The authorities are therefore particularly wary of any form of popular mobilisation at the moment.
Although known for its defence of the Palestinian cause, in August the Algerian government refused a request from several political parties to organise a large-scale popular march in Algiers in support of Palestinians in Gaza.
“The Algerian authorities refuse to authorise any street demonstrations for fear of seeing the return of the Hirak,” Algerian journalist Ali Boukhlef told Middle East Eye at the time.
Their closure to dissent was also exposed a few months ago after the appearance of a new hashtag on Algerian social media expressing the rejection of government policies, which went viral in the country.
#Manich_Radhi or “I am not happy, satisfied” was shared by thousands of Algerians to vent their discontent with the social and political situation as well as the lack of freedoms.
The slogan appeared after the fall of President Bashar al-Assad in Syria, as many Algerians drew a parallel online between these events and the situation in their country, and warned authorities of a similar fate.
The state reacted by carrying out dozens of arrests in connection with the hashtag.
“The reality is that anger is simmering, and the flame of the 2019 Hirak protests has not yet been extinguished,” Boukhlef told MEE.
