For many Algerians, new violence feels tragically 'normal'

[Al-khiyal]

ALGIERS, Algeria -- They are forgettable doors, windowless and pale, unfit for a city with as grand a constitution as Algiers, battered though it is.

Sometimes a peephole is centered in the middle like a cyclops, maybe harboring a burly man winking behind it, but the doors are otherwise faceless, as intended. They are dotted all over the city, faithfully guarding secrets, and Nadir used to constantly point them out to me when we were out walking.

"See that door?" he'd say, and my eyes would scan for a door. "That's a bar. During the terrorism the extremists liked to bomb bars, so they had to be kept hidden, and the guy would only let in someone he knew."

Nadir would repeat the commentary every time we passed a bar door, assuming I would be fascinated, as maybe some other foreigner he encountered had been. But it only made me sad.

In the early 1990s, an Islamic extremist party was poised to win an election when the military postponed the second round of voting. This spawned an angry, aggressive and all out horrific campaign of terror that lasted some six years and claimed the lives of about 200,000 Algerian citizens.

Nadir's brother was one of them. "I'd been working [as an interpreter] for the U.N. [in Algiers] when my mother called and told me to come home immediately" he said. "I didn't find out what it was all about until I got there."

His brother was killed by a bomb, he said; his best friend's throat was slit while on a bus at what turned out to be a fake checkpoint. Recounting this, Nadir puffs on his black market cigarette, betraying no emotion.

Since 2000, when now-ailing president Abdelaziz Bouteflika was all but placed into office by the military - and then more officially elected in 2004 - the terrorism has curbed significantly. And Algiers itself has stood strong, having experienced no real threat for years.

But last week, two bombs were detonated inside the capital, including one borne by a suicide bomber, who blew up 25 people outside the prime minister's office (injuring around 200), signaling the return of terrorism to this North African nation.

I was in Algiers between October and February working as a journalism consultant for a newspaper, which is where I met Nadir, my interpreter.

One evening I stood alone outside the newspaper building; Nadir and some of the other journalists were quick to catch up with me. It was time for them to ask what I thought of Algeria, and they had followed me out there to get the score.

I had already been there a few weeks, so platitudes were discarded, words uncloaked. There is a menace on the streets, I told them, that I hadn't recalled feeling before. And I said I was baffled by communication: I often felt led with both hands down the wrong path, the conversational equivalent of funhouse mirrors.

The editor-in-chief explained why. "During the terrorism, we had no idea who to trust. This wasn't a real war with real sides. You never knew who the bad guys were, so you learned to say what you thought you should say."

"And we learned to read body language extremely well," added Nadir. "That's how we communicate now instead."

From Europe, the inbound flight into the capital swings across the tip of the Bay of Algiers and glides farther over the city, which stands awash in a chalky white mass of French colonial structures. The plane then sweeps around to bring the full Bay into view, in all of its magnificence.

This city and this nation is as dramatic as its coastline, and its history as tragic as the hearts that behold it.

It is a country that was mostly assembled by occupiers - Romans, Arabs, Turks and then the French, who held onto it for more than 130 years, finally releasing the nation back to its own in 1962, after a hard-fought, decade-long war.

The city has survived, although it wears its scars as open wounds. The cafe lifestyle imported by the French was banned during the years of terrorism for safety reasons, and because people rarely trusted each other enough to sit and have a coffee together.

The Casbah, the older, wiser cousin of an Old Town, is dilapidated and crime-ridden, and foreigners only enter with a guard.

Algeria has been more stable in recent years. But in certain pockets of the country, bombs are still routinely used in the absence of guns to wipe out opponents or threats; traversing the country overland is reckless, at best; and Westerners taking taxis (especially alone) is simply not done.

Standing there outside the paper, as the sun eased its way out of the sky, I asked the handful of reporters if anyone had friends or relatives killed by the terrorists, as Nadir had. All said they had.

But seven years into relative peace, with a fledgling but promising economy, they seemed to feel the worst was behind them.

Yet during the three and a half months I was there, activity began to increase. The extremist Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat had recently announced a happy marriage with al-Qaida, and the honeymoon soon began. A bus carrying United States government contractors was machine-gunned and bombed on the outskirts of the city. A police station was bombed, and small bombs went off close to the downtown press center, near a hospital.

When the publisher - whose spouse was killed in an act of terrorism 10 years prior - discovered I had donned a hijab and visited a mosque with a local female journalist, a finger was sharply wagged in my face. "You cannot go there, Patricia. It is too dangerous for you and too dangerous for me."

As the publisher retreated back behind an office door, I remained in the corridor, taken aback, the two editors with me also silenced and discomfited by the stern warning. After a short pause, I told one of the editors that I liked to window shop in the mornings. Is that okay? Probably, he said. Except you should alternate your days and times, and never go to the same shop twice.

Despite the increase in attacks last fall, most of my Algiers colleagues still felt somewhat secure, certain the strikes would wane after the May elections. But the only thing certain is the cynicism that comes with generations of war, and 200,000 citizens dead at the hands of so-called neighbors, coworkers, bakers, shopkeepers, businessmen.

Last week's horrific attack made that clear. As the editor-in-chief wrote me in an email two days later: "Don't worry more than necessary. I mean, everyone here has a lot of experience with these events. All is 'normal' now."

For many Algerians, new violence feels tragically 'normal'

[Al-khiyal]

September 11, 2007 -- She collected my right hand in hers and held it fast all the way to the mosque. We darted along between parked cars, first on this side of the road, then that, around the front of this person and the back of another. Jasmin was like an impatient and harried mother, and I was the kid stumbling over myself to keep up, and trying to understand the urgency tinged with fear that sprinkled her palm with sweat.

I didn't know then that she had put herself in danger to accommodate me.

I was in Algiers for four months working as a journalism trainer with Jasmin's newspaper, and had asked her to take me to a mosque. I arrived in the newsroom that Friday to prepare. Scarf in hand, I was met by Jasmin and her fellow women reporters, who flitted around me, fitting my headscarf with pins taken from their own; stepping back, from time to time, to appreciate their handiwork.

It was the first time I'd ever been to a mosque, and once inside, Jasmin relaxed. We were in what appeared to be a converted storage room, with a high wall separating the women from the men and, of course, the imam. At Jasmin's urging, I snuck a peak over the wall before I left, at the brilliant blue and white tiles that overlaid the walls and floor of the magnificent prayer room.

Back out on the street, Jasmin's angst returned, this time heightened, stemming from the men mingling at the front of the mosque. "They won't like you being here," she said, her clouds of worry engulfing us both.

The unofficial safety instructions were pretty clear when we arrived in Algiers last year, if scant. Women should avoid going out after dark without a man, daily routines should be altered, and never, under any circumstance, should we get into a taxi.

Algeria is struggling to emerge from more than 15 years of bloodshed. In the early 1990s, an Islamic extremist party was poised to win an election when the military postponed the second round of voting. This spawned an angry, aggressive and all-out horrific campaign of terror that lasted some six years and claimed the lives of about 200,000 Algerians.

Since 2000, when now-ailing president Abdelaziz Bouteflika was all but placed into office by the military (and then more officially elected in 2004), the terrorism has been significantly curbed. And the city of Algiers itself has stood strong, having experienced, until recently, no real threat for years.

It is well-fortified city. During my first few weeks in Algiers, I stayed at the famed hotel St George, which employed policemen with AK-47s on 24-hour watch. On an evening out at the theatre with locals, we encountered nearly as many policemen as citizens out strolling about.

Yet the terrorism began creeping back. While I was there, an extremist group announced a happy marriage with al-Qaida and the honeymoon soon began. A bus carrying US government contractors was machine-gunned and bombed on the outskirts of the city. A police station was bombed and smaller devices went off close to the downtown press centre, near a hospital.

In April, two bombs were detonated inside the capital, including a suicide bomber who blew up 25 people outside the prime minister's office (injuring around 200), officially bringing terrorism back to this north African nation.

Originally formed in the late 1990s from the civil conflict, the terrorist group now calls itself al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb.

Despite the increase in attacks, most of my Algiers colleagues still felt secure, certain the strikes would wane after the May legislative elections. But the only thing certain is the cynicism that comes with generations of war, and with 200,000 citizens dead at the hands of so-called neighbours, co-workers, bakers, shopkeepers and businessmen.

Each workday morning, my interpreter and I would meet early to review some of the newspapers. Nadir would move swiftly through each article, translating headlines, scanning articles and giving me summaries of the contents. Just days after the attacks targeting foreign workers, he found something that concerned both of us. "This one here quotes a warning to Algerians not to be seen with Americans," Nadir said, "or we risk becoming collateral damage."

I remembered Jasmin's grip on my hand.

But Islamic Maghreb has decided not to limit their attacks to foreigners, or to pre-election mayhem. Last week they struck twice: first in Batna (about 200 miles from Algiers), where a suicide bomber blew himself up among a group gathered to see President Boutiflika. Twenty were killed in that bombing.

And in another deadly blast this Saturday, a suicide bomb struck a coastguard barracks, killing 30 in a town about 60 miles from the capital.

Last night I contacted a colleague still in Algiers, to find out how everyone was doing. She said nothing has changed, except they are making plans to move to a more secure apartment.

When the bombings started again last spring, I got an email from the editor of Jasmin's newspaper. "Don't worry more than necessary," he wrote, "I mean everyone here has a lot of experience with these events. All is 'normal' now."

Beleaguered Algeria