The Call from Algeria

Abstract

The main theme of the book is the study of how "Third Worldism"-as aschool of thought-was born and developed, how it reached its apogee in themid-1970s, and how it disappeared from the international scene in the 1980s,leaving in its place new trends such as liberalization, democratization, andlslamism. The author demonstrates his thesis through an examination ofAlgeria. Robert Malley explains his choice of Algeria for this case study by sayingthat Algeria is one of the "principal surrogates of Third Worldism," addingthat "understanding Algeria's contemporary history is a good way to understandwhat has happened to the formerly progressive Third World." This led theauthor to divide his book into three parts.Part 1, "Gestation," is itself subdivided into two chapters. Chapter 1, "WhenSouth Met North," shows how Third Worldism was born th.rough a process ofdialogue/conflict between the North and the South. Chapter 2, "The Origins ofAlgerian Third Worldism," demonstrates how Third World ideas were born anddeveloped in Algeria, starting from the Ottoman era, th.rough the colonial periodand the war for Algerian independence up to its apogee in the mid-1970s. Inparticular, he emphasizes the roles played by such Algerian personalities asMessali Hadj, the Emir Khaled, Ferhat Abbas, and Ibn Badis, in promoting theideas of freedom, equality, solidarity, and justice, which have been the foundingprinciples of Third Worldism. The author also shows the role that Islam hasalways played in Third Worldist Algeria, notably through what has been called"Socialist Islam."Part 2, "Apogee," includes two chapters. In chapter 1 (the third chapter), "TheMaking of a World," the author starts with the concept of Third World (TiersMonde) as used for the first time in 1952 by French economist Alfred Sauvy,in relation to the "Tiers-Etats" which played an important role in the FrenchRevolution in 1789. Then, the author recaJJs the authentic founding event ofThird Worldism-the Bandung Conference of 1955. At the conference, twentynineAfro-Asian "heads of states, including the Algerian FLN, representing1,300 million people," met to promote a collective self-reliance strategy withinThird World countries; curiously enough, at the end of it, a resolution wasadopted calling for the independence of Algeria. The apogee of Third Worldism,the author recalls, was reached in 1974 when the U.N. General Assemblylaunched its Sixth Special Session on Raw Materials and Development andcalled-under the initiative of Algeria-for a New International EconomicOrder (NIEO) based on the principles of equity, sovereignty, equality, interdependence,common interest, and cooperation among all states, irrespective ofthe economic and social systems ...