The Call from Algeria

Abstract

The main theme of the book is the study of how "Third Worldism"-as a school of thought-was born and developed, how it reached its apogee in the mid-1970s, and how it disappeared from the international scene in the 1980s, leaving in its place new trends such as liberalization, democratization, and lslamism. The author demonstrates his thesis through an examination of Algeria. Robert Malley explains his choice of Algeria for this case study by saying that Algeria is one of the "principal surrogates of Third Worldism," adding that "understanding Algeria's contemporary history is a good way to understand what has happened to the formerly progressive Third World." This led the author to divide his book into three parts. Part 1, "Gestation," is itself subdivided into two chapters. Chapter 1, "When South Met North," shows how Third Worldism was born th.rough a process of dialogue/conflict between the North and the South. Chapter 2, "The Origins of Algerian Third Worldism," demonstrates how Third World ideas were born and developed in Algeria, starting from the Ottoman era, th.rough the colonial period and the war for Algerian independence up to its apogee in the mid-1970s. In particular, he emphasizes the roles played by such Algerian personalities as Messali Hadj, the Emir Khaled, Ferhat Abbas, and Ibn Badis, in promoting the ideas of freedom, equality, solidarity, and justice, which have been the founding principles of Third Worldism. The author also shows the role that Islam has always 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), "The Making of a World," the author starts with the concept of Third World (Tiers Monde) 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 French Revolution in 1789. Then, the author recaJJs the authentic founding event of Third Worldism-the Bandung Conference of 1955. At the conference, twentynine Afro-Asian "heads of states, including the Algerian FLN, representing 1,300 million people," met to promote a collective self-reliance strategy within Third World countries; curiously enough, at the end of it, a resolution was adopted calling for the independence of Algeria. The apogee of Third Worldism, the author recalls, was reached in 1974 when the U.N. General Assembly launched its Sixth Special Session on Raw Materials and Development and called-under the initiative of Algeria-for a New International Economic Order (NIEO) based on the principles of equity, sovereignty, equality, interdependence, common interest, and cooperation among all states, irrespective of the economic and social systems ...