 Hello. Good afternoon, everybody. Salam alaikum. Azul Flawen. Bonjour. Welcome to the symposium celebrating the 60th anniversary of the independence of Algeria. My name is Dr. Isha Belkadi and I'm a lecturer here at SOAS working on Amazir languages. I wasn't supposed to share the whole event, but I'm going to share the whole event because unfortunately we have a couple of colleagues who are of Sikh. My colleague, Dr. Ida Hadjib Ayaniz, who organized the tour and Dr. Arthur Aseraf, who is there, who is ill with COVID and we wish you a speedy recovery Arthur. So I'm very happy and proud to share this event as the daughter and the granddaughter of Algerians who were born as colonized subjects in their own land and whose lives trajectories were strongly impacted by colonization but I'm also happy to be here as a scholar who is passionate about the cultural heritage of Algeria. The rich history of the country, the diversity of its people, the diversity of its languages and how much of the history of the country is encapsulated particularly in the languages that are spoken all across Algeria. So we are all very honored here at SOAS to be hosting this event and to host all the wonderful speakers, the wonderful scholars who agreed to participate in our panel and who agreed to share their expertise on colonial history, colonial legacy and the development of Algeria in the past 60 years. So I will now ask Ida to say a few words. Hi everyone, you're welcome to SOAS. So my name is Ida Hajibayanes and I am lecturer here at SOAS as well. Just like Aisha, we're in the same department. So today we feel really privileged to welcome all of you, especially Mr. Lunes Magaman who is the ambassador for Algeria and Mr. Hamed Usama Salhi, the cultural attaché as well as Kader Meir, our COO. So now I actually had the privilege of organizing this event together with my colleagues Wayne Dooling, Aisha Belkadi and Sunil Pan together with Hamed Salhi and it was just very enlightening and exciting as well. So when Mr. Hamed Salhi approached us with the idea, we both thought that the Algerian Revolution has given so much what played out in Algeria, the whole settler-berber dynamics, the struggle for independence and how the nationalist forces shifted the colonial power was inspirational for so many African countries and beyond. And so it was very, very important for the Center for African Studies and for SOAS to celebrate this. And Aisha Belkadi reminded us, she said, we must host this because remember what Amil Cabral said, he said Christians go to the Vatican, Muslims go to Mecca and revolutionaries go to Algiers. And so today here, I hope we'll all be able to celebrate and learn a lot. Thank you. So I think I passed the mic on to our chair for Center for African Studies, Wayne Dooling. Thank you. Thank you very much, Ida. And let me start first of all by saying thank you to Ida who did all the hard work of organizing today's event and of course to thank our colleagues and staff from the Algerian embassy for approaching us in the first place. I won't give you for any length of time. I'm here merely to welcome you in my capacity as chair of the Center for African Studies. Thank you very much for coming. We have an audience in person and we have an online audience. I can't actually tell how many people we have online but I suspect it's a fair number of people who are online. And I'll just conclude on a personal to say that I'm, it would be remiss of me as a South African, not to mention that my country South Africa has very close ties with Algeria and Nelson Mandela, our first post-departure president, of course, went to Algeria. It was the first significant African country he visited during his years of exile and went to Algeria specifically to get military training with the AFL and the National Liberation Front and spoke in subsequent years after he was released from prison, spoke extremely highly of his time with the AFL in Algeria and said something like it was after returning from Algeria that I became a man referring very specifically to his military training. So it's a great honour for me to be here today as well in a personal capacity as well as my role as chair of the Center for African Studies. So thank you very much, Aisha. Thank you. Next I would like to ask our CEO, Hadi Ermian, to say a few words on behalf of SOAS Directorate. Thank you. Thank you very much. So welcome everybody. My name is Kadea Meir. I'm the Chief Operating Officer here at SOAS and I'm representing really the Executive and the Board of Trustees. Adam, our Director is in New York at the moment, so I couldn't be here. So he asked me to represent him and gives his apologies. I'd also like to welcome our very special guests, Lunas and Hamid who we are incredibly pleased to be able to host. I've been here at SOAS for about a year now, just under a year and it's clear that when you walk into SOAS or you walk onto the campus, it's a hotbed of political debate, discussion, disagreement. But what you get at SOAS is a level of passion, a passion about who we are, what we stand for and the types of discussions that we have. That ranges from economic, political, cultural, security, religious challenges across the world. Sometimes quite a lot of those arguments are had internally, which can be challenging for management, but let's put that aside. So we challenge the status quo. We challenge the status quo and we ask challenging questions. And we also seek to understand complex matters. My apologies. And I think today's event is just that. It's a commemoration of the 60th anniversary of Algeria's independence, but it brings together international experts, including many from Algeria to discuss and debate some of those issues. So it's an absolute pleasure to host that. One of the things that we're really proud of is the work that we've done in decolonising the curriculum. And I think we are one of the foremost universities in the UK. It's not in the Northern Hemisphere leading that debate, leading that discussion and demonstrating how we can decolonise the agenda and the curriculum. And I think hosting events like this and engaging in those debates can only support, facilitate and enable and strengthen that. And the other piece that we are very, very focused on is equitable global partnerships. So we are very interested in partnerships with institutions in Africa, Asia and the Middle East. But in a way that challenges again the status quo to avoid kind of the financial and the brain drain that comes with some of those partnerships as they currently exist. And what I hope through today's discussions and debates is that we can look to see how we can develop and strengthen that with Algeria, for example. And that's something that we've touched on. We're very interested in internet, in partnerships with higher education institutions in Algeria. And I hope from this discussion and from some of the meetings that we've had today, we can look to progress that and strengthen it. So a huge thank you. Thank you very much for attending and thank you for choosing us to host. And now I'm going to ask Mr Ambassador to say a few words. Thank you very much. This is Aisha for your kind word. Thank you very much for the university who was this first step of our program on celebrating the celebration of our 60th anniversary of independence. So first of all, I would like to thank Mr. Mr. Zain Badawi and Professor Adam Habib, director of SOS for their valuable assistance in the organization of this conference. I would like also to thank Mr. Kadir Mir and Ms. Ida Hadji for organizing the conference commemorating the 60th anniversary of the Algeria's independence. I would like to take this opportunity to thank all the Algerian and British professors and doctors and the students who have agreed to participate with us in this conference. Ladies and gentlemen, this celebration is a moment of recollection in memory of the one and a half million martyrs of the Algerian Revolution of the 1st of November, 1954. That restored our national sovereignty and independence. This revolution was marked by struggles, sacrifices that led to the liberation of the country. Through the evocation of our dramatic past following the French colonization, we are exercising our duty of memory towards our ancestors, millions of whom felt as resistance, fighters and mujahideen. Others were imprisoned and deported while millions of Algerians were dispossessed of their lands and properties. Our people still demand the recognition of their suffering from yesterday's colonizers, which implies the recognition of the truth of history. The issue or the concern of the memory still remains on the table and constitute one of our priorities. After independence, there was a great effort to build the Algerian state, illustrated by a development in all fields. The Algerian inherited a destroyed country following the war against the colonizer but took up the challenges, many challenges. For example, universities in Algeria have made a considerable leap forward extending their network of infrastructure to all the regions with the student population that is set to reach 2 million in the very near future. Ladies and gentlemen, joining us at this conference, which is jointly organized by the Algerian Embassy in London and S.Y.S. University of London, our speaker will discuss various facets of topics relating to the independence and post-independence of Algeria. What makes this conference rich is that we have speakers from different backgrounds, namely historians, political scientists, anthropologists and economists, leading us the discussion open to an audience composed of both Algerian and British nationals. We hope that this initiative will contribute to further highlighting our history, which is considered an important part of modern history and helped the British audience, in particular to better understand why Algerians are so proud of their history and so attached to their sovereignty. In conclusion, I would like to thank you all for your presence today and wish this meeting every success. My warmest wishes and regards for all of you and thank you very much for hosting this event. Thank you, Mr. Ambassador. I think you have to leave us very soon, no? So just feel free to leave. Thank you. Right, so we have two panels that are planned this afternoon. The first one is on the theme of anti-colonial histories. We were supposed to have three speakers, but one of them, Professor Ali Tablit, from the University of Algiers cannot join us today. So it's only going to be two speakers. So we're going to be listening to Professor Belkassem Belmekhi, who is professor in British and Commonwealth studies at the University of Oran. His research focuses on Muslims and Muslim nationalism in British India. And we will hear from Professor Martin Evans. Professor Evans is professor of history at the University of Sussex. He is an expert on the history of empires with a focus on the French empire, modern Algeria and Morocco. So the speakers will talk for 10, 15, I mean feel free to go over the limit since we have one less speaker. And then we'll have about 30 minutes for questions, to take questions from the audience. And yes, I know Arthur, sorry, I mean I know you were supposed to chair that session, so feel free to come in whenever you feel like it. So Professor Belkassem Belmekhi. Yes, hello, hello everybody. Hello, hello. Yeah, hello, we can hear you. Okay, good. Hello everybody. Thank you very, very much for this kind invitation to this very interesting conference. So the title of my presentation is the indelible imprint of French colonialism in post-independence Algeria. And so through this presentation I would like to offer a glimpse of an overview of the peculiar nature of French colonialism in Algeria by focusing on the long lasting impact that this system had on this North African nation and its people. Now the central argument I would like to stress here is that Algeria's colonial experience in the past century had on the one hand significantly shaped Algerian attitude towards France after independence and on the other significantly shaped Algeria, sorry, predetermined the quality of political relationship between Algeria and France up to the present. So this year Algeria marks the 16th anniversary of its independence from French colonialism. For today's Algerian youth, despite being preoccupied with much more urgent and also economic concerns, such as unemployment and low living standards, the country's colonial past still holds a special place in their hearts and minds. The very mention of Algeria's struggle for independence evokes images of torture and ruthless repression that were inflicted on the Mujahideen, that is freedom fighters, as well as ordinary civilians alike who were made to suffer indiscriminately. And surprisingly, France's colonial heavy handedness in Algeria had the long lasting impact on the nature of relations between both countries, which can be best described as very complicated and at times difficult. This fact is to a great extent compounded by the adamant refusal of the successive French governments to apologize for their country's bloody past in Algeria. Added to this highly sensitive issue is also the existence of other persistent issues unlikely to be solved, at least in the foreseeable future. And here I would like to mention two of these issues. First, the issue of Harkis. Now Harki is a term in Arabic denoted, sorry, is a term in Algerian Arabic denoting any Algerian who had collaborated with the French during their presence in Algeria. Now these Harkis, through much lobbying and exerting great deal of pressure on the French government, seek a return to their home country, Algeria. However, all their efforts have either to reach the dead end because for obvious reasons, neither the Algerian authorities nor the Algerian people in general seem ready to accept those who they still regard as traitors to the nation. The other funny issue of equal importance is the one related to the archives of the revolution. The successive French governments have been so far reluctant to give the archives of a dreadful oppression of the Algerian people back to the former victims representatives that is the Algerian government who claimed their historical ownership as well. This French intransigence remains a serious stumbling block in the Franco-Algerian relations. Algerians today hold mixed feelings towards France. Images of horrendous sufferings endured by their parents and grandparents transmitted through films, documentaries, history textbooks at schools and even orally by those who had lived the moment are all reminders that have shaped the Algerian mindset throughout the decades after independence. Indeed, anti-French sentiment felt by many Algerians today can be construed as a logical and expected post-colonial reaction due to the huge amount of hatred and unrestrained violence that was displayed by the French in the country from the beginning of colonization to the end. As remarked by Raymond Rudolf in his book The Myth of France, quote, the mind of Bujo himself was the mind of such generals as Salon and Massu, end of quote. This quotation summarizes exactly the very nature of French colonialism in Algeria. Bujo was a 19th century French general who got credit for having mercilessly repressed early Algerian popular resistance to French conquest. His name is very often associated with such cruel methods as the scorched earth policy and les enfumades that is the cruel annihilation of whole villages. Salon and Massu, meanwhile, were 20th century French generals of equal notoriety. These did not hesitate to resort to the systematic use of Gestapo-like methods of interrogation in their campaign to quell Algeria's liberation revolution. Curiously enough, some Algerians ascribe many of Algeria's ills today to French rule more than half a century ago. Though to an ordinary observer, this may seem quite unreasonable. There is a grain of truth in it. A good example could be the MAC movement, mouvement pour l'autodetermination de la Cabilie, an extremist movement whose members claim the separatism of Cabilia from Algeria. Despite being rejected by the overwhelming majority of Algerians, including many Cabilians themselves, this movement remains in nuisance, struggling, though unsuccessfully, to sow division in the country. Its inspiration is nothing but a colonial legacy resulting from the French attempt to control the Algerian pre-people through the Davidite and Perra policy. Here, I would like to open a little bracket and mention the fact that the MAC movement is sheltered by France and its members enjoy full protection provided by the French authorities. This is a very important point. Talking about the divide and rule policy that the French adopted during their presence in Algeria, it is worthwhile to mention the fact that in studying the Algerian society in the 19th century, French ethnographers and anthropologists and even historians sought to create a false dichotomy implying the existence of sharp differences between the Arabs and Cabils. In line with such a presumption, the Arabs were depicted in negative terms as lazy and trustworthy, backward, etc., and above all as naturally and receptive of Western ideas, as opposed to the Cabils who were depicted in positive terms as industrious, reliable, etc. The ultimate purpose behind this idea was eventually to drive a wedge between the Algerian people but also to win over the Cabils to the French side and gain their collaboration. It's interesting to note that these scholars were graduates from the Grands École, such as l'École politique, and that such Grands École, which were founded by the end of the 18th century, were originally military schools. In other words, these scholars, these ethnographers, these anthropologists, historians, etc., were also military people and their subjective study of the Algerian society was deliberately tailored to tally with the aims of the colonial project in Algeria. In this regard, Patricia Lawson has contributed an interesting book on this subject in which she refers to the Cabil myth as purely colonial creation. She describes how French scholars who had accompanied the occupation of Algeria sought to highlight or rather overplay the sociological differences between the Arabs and Cabils, which they intentionally manipulated so as to support their thesis on the superiority of the Cabils to the Arabs, describing the former as having a secular lifestyle and European-like more race and social behavior, rendering them more likely to be converted to Christianity and therefore more eligible for assimilation. For instance, Patricia Lawson, at some point mentioned the case of the French scholar who was simultaneously a lieutenant colonel in the French army, who sought to establish in his book, 26 Mois Abouji, a link between the Cabil and the Germanic tribes, stating that they had strikingly similar customs. By the way, this book, 26 Mois Abouji was the first book ever written by French on Algeria in French language. Well, so to put it all in nutshell, French rule in Algeria was by all accounts one of the harshest colonial systems that contemporary history has ever recorded. It would be no exaggeration to contend that French colonialism left a deep scar on the psyche of the Algerian people, even among post-independence generations. This is why, 60 years on, Algeria is still defined by its anti-colonial struggle, both at the popular and official levels. Anti-French sentiment among many Algerian youth today can only be said to be a justified post-colonial reaction. At the official level, anti-French attitude can be illustrated by the fact that Algeria, which is among the most French-speaking nations has so far turned its back on the Francophonie organization, which was set up by France back in 1970 in imitation of British Commonwealth. And instead, the Algerian government officially applied to join the Commonwealth organization. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Professor Belmiqi. I'm just now going to give the floor to Martin Evans, so whenever you're ready. Of course. First of all, just to say thank you to the organizers for inviting me for this event, celebrating or commemorating and thinking about the 60th anniversary of Algerian independence. What I'm going to talk about really is an issue really of a continuity between the anti-colonial struggle of the Algerian people and how this then led into a post-colonial anti-imperialist culture that was really integral to Algeria in the 1960s and 1970s. So really, I'm going to talk about how Algeria becomes a center of global anti-imperialism. Indeed, I would argue the center of global anti-imperialism in the 1960s and 1970s. And in particular, I'm going to talk quite a lot about one remarkable event, which was the Pan-African Festival in Algiers in July 1969, which just lasted for just over a week. This was an act of political and cultural anti-colonialism and decolonization. It really underlined how Algeria and Algiers have become a focus of anti-imperialist forces across the globe. So the way in which it became a magnet of support for anti-imperialists in Latin America, Africa and in Asia. But in particular, it seems to me that what we saw in the Pan-African Festival is a form of cultural expression, which by centering Africa at the center of this event was a response to some colonial narratives. So part of the energy of this remarkable event was captured by the American photographer and filmmaker, William Klein, a kind of remarkable document capturing the energy and revolutionary intent of the globalist, imperialist moment that we witnessed in Algiers in 1969. Yes, let's show the clip now. So this is some of the amazing visuals from the Pan-African Festival. So that's the visuals for the William Klein film and then for the whole festival, which I'll come back to talk about. And this has already been emphasized, this remarkable quote from Cabral about the Pan-African Festival, Muslims going on to make a pilgrimage to Mecca, Christians the Vatican, but national liberation movement to Algiers. So I think that's a really important thing to understand that both under Ben-Bella and Boumedien, Algeria wasn't necessarily a very, very rich country, but they devoted a huge amount of national resources to the continuation of decolonial struggles, particularly around in South Africa and in particular around the end of the Portuguese Empire. One of the remarkable kind of moments in this festival was actually a performance by Archie Shep. So Archie Shep was a free-form African-American jazz musician and through free-form jazz was specifically trying to, in a sense, challenge those jazz musicians who really still centre jazz or saw jazz within a kind of classical tradition. So very much centering jazz within Africa. And it's a very, very remarkable concert which really brings him together with a series of Tuareg musicians who are actually playing Ganawa music. Ganawa music, which in a way is a kind of symbol of the complex relationship between North Africa and South Africa. And what I want to do now is just show a short clip from the film that will really give you a sense of the kind of revolutionary anti-colonial internationalism which was on display within the conference. I think what was remarkable about that clip was the way in which the American poet Jonas and Archie Shep were self-consciously trying to connect the American, black American civil rights movement with Algeria. So the way in which decolonisation and the civil rights movement and the black rights movement in America were seen to be one and the same thing. This is the kind of remarkable kind of record that came out of that. And in a sense, I think it's really the way in which the Pan-African Conference in 1969 needs to be situated within wider political imaginaries. So in a sense, the first Pan-African Conference is in London in 1900 with WD Du Bois confronting issues of racism and of self-determination for the Caribbean and Africa and promoting a transnational concept, Pan-Africanism is a key idea of the 20th century. So you have subsequent conferences in Paris in 1919, London in 1921 and 23, New York in 1927 and Manchester in 1945. One thing that I would really underline about Manchester is that that obviously took place in the autumn of 1945 and there were motions of solidarity both with Morocco and in particular Algeria because of the huge repression that had taken place in Algeria in May and June 1945. We also have Pan-Arabism rooted in the Arab Renaissance joined in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Concepts of unification of the Arab world is a way of challenging European colonialism and the opportunity of this really under Colonel Nasser in Egypt during the 1950s and 1930s. And then the idea of the Third World an idea invented by the French demographer Alfred Sovi in 1952. So he talked about the idea that at that point everybody was obsessed or preoccupied with the Cold War, the idea of a confrontation between the First World and the Second World and he said what this meant is that people were actually ignoring the most important event in international history which was the emergence of the Third World out of decolonisation and here he made an explicit comparison with the idea of the Third Estate during the French Revolution. So the idea of the Third World like the Third Estate is the majority and I think here it's very, very important to underline the extent to which how Algeria became one of the leaders of the Third World movement. And I think the fourth kind of international imaginary that I would underline would be the non-aligned movement which was launched in Bandung in Indonesia in April 1955 led by Egypt and Yugoslavia and again which passed motions in favour of Algerian, Tunisian and Moroccan self-determination and again after independence Algeria took a key role in leading the non-aligned movement. Now in terms of after Algerian independence it seems to me that across the globe there were two ways in which really the idea of the Algerian Revolution became absorbed at a wider level by anti-imperialists and by anti-racists. One would be the impact, the enormous impact of the writings of France Fanon which are originally published in French but then translated into English. And Fanon I'm sure many of you are familiar with his ideas born in Martinique, fights in World War II for French goes to mainland France to study in Lyon but then goes to Algeria in 1953 as a psychiatric doctor and works in Bleeder. And there in particular one of the things that's remarked about his experience in Algeria is through his work there understanding that colonialism is not just an economic system it's also a psychological, social and cultural system. So the way in which he's looking at the way in which Algerians are made to feel consistently on a day-to-day level second class citizens and the effect that this has upon their mental health. He then resides in 1956 and joins the FLN as a journalist in Tunisia. He dies in 1961 but really the kind of two key books would be in 1959 published by Maspero which is year five of the Algerian Revolution which is then published in English in the mid-60s as a dying colonialism with portraits or analysis of the Algerian Revolution and then in 1961 the wretched of the earth the idea that Algeria was at the vanguard of an African Revolution which was a global revolution. So his key ideas, colonialism is a system the idea it's not just economic but cultural psychological the necessity of violence is an overcoming of the kind of mirror violence the violence of colonialism the idea that the third world is a new beginning and Algeria is at the forefront of that and a rejection of Europe and the revolution based in Africa is an alternative to Marxism and we see in Algeria after 1962 the way in which that becomes the centre of the third world revolutionary culture if we think about for example magazines like La Révolution African and the way in which so many of the liberation movements including the ANC they have their bureaus and bases in Algiers The other thing that I would emphasise is obviously the remarkable film by Gilles Ponticorvo some of that film draws upon the ideas of France final year 5 of the Algerian Revolution but the remarkable film The Battle of Algiers I still think although there's been a huge amount of work on this film but actually the impact it has for example amongst black radicals within the United States so for somebody like Archie Shepp this would have been his first understanding of the Algerian Revolution to have been seeing this film the same thing with the Black Panthers that come to Algiers in 1969 one of the first things they do is go to the Casbah in Algiers and to pay homage to the place where Alie La Pointe is blown up and they know about this through the film so the radical anti-imperialist nature of that film here just to underline this is something that I'm involved with at the moment which is a festival in Dublin in September 2022 so bringing together 100 years of Irish independence and 60 years of Algerian independence and bringing together Algerian creatives photographers, filmmakers performance artists and thinking about their common histories but in a sense the kind of standout event from that will be the British Asian band Asian Dub Foundation will be doing a live score to the Battle of Algiers they've only done this three times before it's absolutely astonishing but the thing there for British people of Asian heritage they see in this film and the way in which this film confronts colonialism and French colonialism the idea that there is no equivalent in Britain so there you have the greatest film of all time with the greatest soundtrack and they make it even better so kind of the continuing radical implications of that film that has an enormous kind of impact in the 1960s and I think the other thing that I want to do is just to situate the Palafrican conference of 1969 was very much a reaction against the festival that was took place in Dakar and Senegal in 1966 really under the sort of leadership of the of the Senegalese president Leopold Senghor so this was first a festival of Désart Nègre and it was very much Senghor and a group of British students from Africa and the Caribbean in Paris very much influenced by the Harlem Renaissance in the USA and they wanted an expression of celebration of black culture and for Senghor it was about developing an equivalent for Francis Cullinan peoples and very much the concept of negritude the idea of a black identity based upon rhythm, spontaneity and emotion and the antithesis of European rationalism so the idea and he says in 1939 emotion is black just as reason as is Hellenic and in a sense Dakar in April 1966 is a kind of encapsulation of of those ideas a major international events 30 independent countries those with significant diasporas so Britain America, France, Haiti, Trinidad Tobago also it's a moment of a kind of key moment in the civil rights movement in the USA and unfinished anti-colonial struggles an emphasis on art, poetry and music and dance but what's really interesting in this festival is the idea is Africa does not include North Africa so kind of very much that's a kind of very very clear racial and poetic imaginary of negritude and the liberation movements are not invited nor is James Baldwin and I think that's really very very important in terms of understanding the context for the Pan-African Festival of 1969 it's very much a reaction against 1966 which was accused of very specifically of being neocolonial now in terms of Algerian nationalism very much as it emerged in the 1920s and 1930s one based upon Arab Islamic identity and the idea of the war of one and a half million martyrs which the ambassador spoke of at the introduction to the conference means that post 62 Algeria has a huge place in legitimacy as a leader of the third world we have the first president Amid Ben-Bella supporting liberation movements and organizing a second Bandung Conference here's we know is overthrown by Boumedien that second Bandung Conference doesn't take place but nevertheless under Boumedien there's a continuation of seeing Algeria really as a vanguard as a country of a revolutionary leader in Africa it plays a key role in the organization of unity and in 1967 offers to host the Pan-African festival which is Bouteflika that she says this that's because Algeria because of petrol has the resources to do that and shows the generosity that he wants to wants to finance this the festival very much a reaction against the Dakar event includes the whole continent it puts an emphasis on the liberation movements it includes the Black Panthers who are now on the run from American seat refuge in Algeria but also the Palestine Liberation Organization which has been founded in 1964 very much inspired by the National Liberation Front in Algeria really it's a kind of key moment in terms of launching the PLO as a kind of international idea I would say that within the festival there are three spaces to the spaces for intellectual discussions there are spaces in prompt you spaces in Algiers itself and as we saw the Archie Shep concert there is incredible music events that take place it's kind of really remarkably captured in the film's opening procession in Algiers with all these different African liberation movements processing through Algiers so Senegal attack is being neocolonial the event is about cultural decolonisation I think that's very very interesting in terms of now decolonisation being very much a contemporary theme a contemporary idea but actually that was something really prominent within this festival and also new solidarities being forged through the festival and particularly between the Black Panthers and the PLO and some of the people that performed Nina Simone Mary McCabe and this is I really recognise that such as the who in the centre of Algiers and this was the African American centre the Black Panthers which was right next to the Simre bureau for the Palestinians so that explains through that physical proximity the kind of solidarities between those two and these are some of the posters that are produced and of course as we will know that within if you go to Algeria solidarity with the Palestinian cause is a reflex action and this is a moment really when that became anchored within the festival I think really what I would say is that just as a way of conclusion is obviously the relationship between Algeria and Africa it's a very complex history in terms of the relationship between North and Sub-Saharan Africa and it's important for us to really escape or shoot any romanticisation there are problems and there are issues which are to do with the legacies of the slave trade and racism which are present there but I think what is really important in terms of the 1969 festival is in the 1920s and 1930s the kind of the bedrock of Algerian nationalism and the Arab Islamic identity of course solidarity over Ethiopia was very very important but it's really only after independence that Africa as a kind of central part of Algeria is pushed to the fore and in a sense here the leading role that Algeria takes in the liberation of the continent which as we saw earlier on which is very very true the extent to which that was recognised by Nelson Mandela when he returned to Algeria after his liberation in 1990 for him that was a hugely symbolic moment the role that the Algerian people had played in supporting South Africans in the liberation of South Africa right thank you Thank you so much that was really really interesting so we have we don't have 30 minutes I think we have like 20 or 25 minutes for questions I'll just stop sharing let me just put everyone on screen so we have about 20 to 25 minutes for questions before I ask the audience for the questions let me just ask Dr Arthur Aseraf if he has any comment or any questions I don't want to put you on the spot but of course I'm doing just that but you're also the other expert on colonial history yes you are of Algeria so if you have any question or comment Hi everyone I'm sorry I can't be with all of you for a really important event but it's a pleasure to see all of your faces and to hear these papers I don't have a great but maybe just to get the conversation started so this is obviously a really important anniversary and it's the Algerian Revolution kind of remains something very important to think with for a lot of people I guess I'm wondering to the two panelists what have been some recent trends in how we understand this event what have been some changes in research internationally maybe on the more academic side some new aspects that are being explored or other shifts in the way in which this history has been commemorated in the past I don't know 10 to 20 years in a way that it wasn't discussed a longer time ago I don't know if anybody wants to respond to that that's just what I was interested in interesting for an audience to know what the kind of hot topics are in current research Professor do you want to come in or Professor Evans Professor Evans so thank you also that's a big question what are the hot topics in Algeria I suppose I would say that maybe there would be just things to think about which I think is in a sense the paper that I was talking about in the 1960s and 1970s I think it would be true to say then at that point that the FLN as a kind of idea as a kind of entity as a kind of in terms of what it was seen to have achieved had a huge prestige and I think that one of the things there is obviously I think academically the significance of the great book by Mohammed Habbi which is published in 1980 which is Mirage reality which was really trying to say that actually the FLN was not what a lot of revolutionaries thought about, thought it was and talking about the authoritarianism of the FLN and I think that was a really key moment and I think the way in which that really had a kind of long-term effect on the historiography which is affected by events as well I would underline in particular October 1988 where you see the kind of Algerian army firing on Algerian protesters in Algiers I suppose it's really moving away from a narrative which was focused upon the FLN and saw it in terms of a unified resistance movement so much of the really important research it seems to me it's been thinking about what about the role of other organisations the Algerian Communist Party there's the work of Malika Rahal which has been talking about the kind of liberal Algerians the work of Benjamin Store recovering the central role of Masali Haj as somebody who is absolutely crucial in terms of the history of Algerian nationalism so I think one thing there would be pluralism I think the other thing is really possibly thinking about Algeria in a kind of comparative and a connected context so I think there's a kind of way in which trying to think about Algeria in a much broader sense so opening up conversations with historians working on colonialism elsewhere whether it be in the context of what we're trying to do albeit with a cultural festival in Dublin in September that is about opening up a conversation between Ireland and Algeria it's actually really interesting the kind of points of commonality between those two histories Masali Haj at the end of the 1920s would say that Ireland was a key inspiration for Algerians because Ireland in its fight against British colonialism there were two issues land and religious identity so I think there about the connections and there similarly although I've talked about the kind of interconnected histories between Algerians and Palestinians who actually has done the research on this it's talked about as an emotive subject but that would be something that would be really interesting to explore so I think those would be two things I don't know if that answers your question but it's also the hot topics Thank you I think we have a few a couple of questions from Ida Yes, hi so I just want to pick up the idea of Algeria not being part of Africa which is quite historical as you mentioned so now just thinking of what Mazrui has talked about triple heritage of sort of like people some people in Africa what is the thought of young Algerians now are they thinking that they could be part of this triple heritage or do they think they're also part of Mediterranean and the Roman and I don't know what's the thought of the young people now Thank you That's probably a question for someone who's in Algeria right? So maybe a professor you might have a better idea Yeah, well actually we always consider ourselves as Africans as North Africans but we do we feel that we do share so much with the African continent we feel that we belong to this continent and Algeria's struggle for independence still remains other peoples African peoples, right? It's still something of the hour it's a topic of the hour and this is reflected in the behavior of people who for example they have a tendency to reject French language and I think there is a similar thing taking place in Latin Africa and the Africans want to reject French influence and Algeria well there is also something that happened these days Algeria is hosting the Mediterranean games and these are taking place in my home city of Oran I'll tell you something that happened which is symbolic but which has big significance when the delegations of the opening ceremony when delegations were coming out holding their flags and there was the Spanish delegation the Greek delegation they were cheered by people young people because the stadium was mostly filled by young people and when the French delegation was coming out people started whistling well this is very symbolic but it means a lot it means a rejection of French influence and the French and the same thing is taking place I think in sub-Saharan Africa in Mali where people are demonstrating perhaps on daily basis this is not something that is said in the media I think it's kind of stifled but many people African peoples want to get rid of this French yeah thank you we're gonna take some questions from the audience and then we'll come back I know there's a couple of questions from the people online I know someone has their hand raised but I'll come back to you promise thank you very much professor I appreciate your confidence just two things first after I think 1959 Algeria start or 60 Algeria start to open embassies in Africa Fanon was the ambassador of Algeria in Acre in Ghana first the second is Algeria Revolution also opened the front of Mali it was the front of Mali in 1960 and also as you know Mandela started his Milita aura his training in Algeria in 1961 I think thank you very much professor thank you do you want me to respond what's the early questions about Algerian identity shall I take questions from online I'm a bit confused that wasn't a question right no that was just a comment okay I agree with you obviously totally and one of the people that's speaking in Dublin is Elaine McTuffie and she of course was with France Fanon in Acre they were very worried one night because they went out dancing and they sort of forgot that they started smoking French Galois when actually course Galois cigarettes were banned if you were kind of in the Algerian liberation movement because they were they were French I think it's more about it's interesting looking at the history of Algeria in the 1920s and 1930s it's very much about Pan-Arabism the Pan-African dimension from what I've looked at is not necessarily there although of course Algerian, Moroccan, Tunisian activists would have met them in Paris in the 1930s when that's a kind of pub of anti-colonialism but I think it's very very noticeable in the 60s when that comes to be really at the forefront of an Algerian political imaginary which then really is exemplified by the kind of Pan-African festival which I mean it's amazing actually how little research has been done on that that is still awaiting it's historian in terms of that moment there's a remarkable work that's been done by the Algerian artist Zineb Sidira around 69 but that is still really a moment that's kind of really open for historical historical research in terms of obviously I'm not Algerian all I can say is that, and please don't laugh I do box twice a week with somebody who is Algerian who says that I actually box like an Algerian I always take that as a compliment but I think I would say one of the things that strikes me about the Maghreb is the way in which it's really a kind of crossroads so you've got the Mediterranean aspect you've got the African aspect you've obviously got the impact of Arab culture and French culture and obviously you've got the Amazigh culture as well I think that's very very important one of the things I'm very proud of at Sussex is that we have a centre for Middle East and North African studies the Maghreb is not the Middle East it is different and that's obviously one of the things that's a danger in Britain that so much of the research that's done in the Maghreb is done within Middle East departments I think that that means that we can lose the specificity of what is the of the Maghreb Yes, thank you So I'm going to take some questions from the online audience Wada Ben Moussa you've had your your hands up for a while I apologise Do you still have a question? Do you still want to come in? No Sorry you need to give them permission to speak again So Wada, I think you can now speak you should be able to speak Maybe we can take one of the questions in the Q&A So there's a question from Savitavic Hello, I had a question about the idea of the term third well being coined by Alfred Sovi However, terms like this have been so looted and racialised and far from neutral and celebratory So if we commemorate do we need to critically reflect on some of the origin of these terms I don't know who that is meant for but is anyone Is anyone able to answer that? It's a complicated question I think That's a really complicated question I think what I was trying to do was to try to precisely situate how the term first emerged I think in Alfred Sovi's eyes it was about raising a question of the majority world saying that this is the majority what does the majority want from the 1950s onwards I mean obviously third world as a concept has been extensively criticised which we can see or which use the experiences of Latin America Africa and Asia to want we can't I suppose interesting enough to understand that Gilo Ponticobo's The Battle of Algiers is greater central for all time but in terms of that as an example of third cinema I think what I was trying to do as a historian was to try to briefly but to actually try to textualise and historicise that term which I fully recognise is absolutely problematic Okay, thank you Arthur, I saw that you had your hand raised do you still want to come in? Oh sorry, I don't need to I think the term was there was a really important moment of organisation and solidarity around that term and that previously as Martin has been pointing out a lot of anti-colonial activity was specific to one continent so there was Pan-Asianism where you might have Pan-African conferences and it is around the term third world in the 1950s and 60s in particular that you see a lot of global organisation against imperialism so that term doesn't really work for us now but you can't just put it aside because it was very important for people at the time as a way of organising their struggles. I also just want to say very quickly based on the previous question I think it is important and slightly uncomfortable to recognise that there is significant anti-black racism in Algeria just like in every other country I mean it is not exceptional to Algeria or to North African countries but it is also part of how that society operates and that sometimes makes relations with other regions in Africa complicated particularly when it comes to migrants within Algeria. Yes, thank you for adding this so we have a question in the audience so we will go to the audience here and then I will come back to the audience sometime. Thank you so much I wondered if you could talk about how successful by any metric the Pan-African festival was in achieving its own aims and one way that I would probably think about it is that if there was another iteration today would we still be able to have that kind of gravitas and sense of solidarity what has happened to the Black Panthers, what has happened to the PLO is there unity or has imperialism won in fact Thank you That is a great question I think I would say two things maybe about it and it is really connecting with what Arthur said which I think is really important I have been involved in doing a kind of really interesting project well I think it is interesting which is really comparing Rai music with reggae music in terms of protest cultures and there is a great film done by a French director called Marty Mazzogna where he actually brought together kind of reggae musicians with Algerian Rai musicians like Chuck Cullard to exchange and play the reason I say that is that of course in the 1960s sorry 1970s you had a movement within Jamaica that saw itself as kind of a global anti-imperialist third worldist attempting to kind of elucidate third worldist alternative I think those are the kinds of connections and solidarity that you show developing around third worldism which had a very positive kind of content and intent in terms of I know that in 2009 the Algerian government kind of did a kind of modern day version of the kind of Pan-African festival which had some great musicians that were involved like Chuck Cullard but he really had very very little kind of kind of impact and I think that one of the I suppose one of the original organisers said that this was an example of something which had lots of beaucoup de ressources but in 1969 beaucoup de ressources that's really important in 1969 I think really captured a very very important moment of optimism and I still think that the histories of all this are ready to be written because I think one of the things that's really striking about the 1960s is the extent to which many of the talented third world leaders you know die or assassinate in dubious circumstances I mean here, sorry I don't want to break a taboo here by mentioning a Moroccan let's mention Mehdi Ben-Bakar Mehdi Ben-Bakar who was inspired by the Algerian Revolution and saw a very very close connection around pan-migreb solidarities between Algerians and Moroccans in the 1960s well of course as we know he dies in extremely dubious circumstances in 1965 and here's a number of those examples I think there that's something that's still a history to be written in terms of that kind of kind of not without its problems I think that Mehdi Ben-Bakar was in many respects quite authoritarian but in a sense that vision that he had which is very much foregrounding the Palestinian struggle within this kind of pre-continental struggle you know he was organizing before he was assassinated a huge conference in Havana so I think that history is really still there to be to be recovered in all of its complexities we don't want to romanticize it but I think, I don't know if that really answers your question but it's kind of trying to think about how you situate citizenship and there's broader broader kind of history and culture which I still think is still really to be written Thank you, should I take another, can I take a question from online because I think someone had Elise Mazurier Do you want to come in? Sorry people have been waiting a while to ask their questions that we gave up Does it work now Elise? Yeah I think it's working Thank you, yes you can do it Thank you very much for both presentations and I have questions for both speakers so first for Professor Balmiki my questions was whether you could maybe draw a short picture comparing the way the French authorities framed this image of the Kabil population and also in comparison with the Berber population across Morocco and Algeria and what were the differences of the French policy depending if it was to protect trade or department and especially what was the impact of the military theories in which those populations were recruited differently maybe in the army and then I had a question for Professor Evans comparing the Pan-African festival and if there had been during this festival any and also through the exchanges that it enabled and the spaces of encountering between African-American activists and decolonization activists and recently decolonized states societies if there had been any comparison concerning both the theory of colonialism applied to the North African framework and to the British and French empires but also to participation both of ethnic minorities from the US and Canada and from the colonized territories British and French empires to World War I and World War II and the continuation of this participation into the occupation of Germany after World War II and also participation until the decolonization wars because also I was wondering if the exchanges lasted after the Pan-African festival and what was the insight of those different activist groups under the Vietnam war and in the way how the USA waged a war in a recently decolonized part of the French empire some decades after the Indochina war Thank you. Sorry, before you answer can I ask the answers to be brief because we're kind of running out of time and we have a lot of people who want to ask questions also online and here in the audience and I would like to give everyone the opportunity to ask their question. Thank you. I think the first question was for Professor Belmiki. Yes. Okay, so just briefly I would like to say that we cannot compare Algeria with Morocco. I mean they did not have a colonial experience. Algeria, in Algeria there was a settler colonialism that is which sought to eliminate the indigenous population and its culture and replaced it by a settler colony which was brought from southern parts of Europe from France, Malta, Spain and Italy. So Algeria was annexed as three French departments. Constantinois, Loranie and Algeria. Morocco was a different story. Morocco became a protectorate. Now, in Algeria the first thing the French thought to do was to divide the Algerians and they wanted to exploit the opportunity of the Cabels being slightly different from the Arabs I mean to a certain extent and they wanted to play around that. But in the end it was total failure. In the end it was a total failure and that's it. So the divide and rule was their objective from the beginning because they wanted to have the collaboration of the Cabels in order to be able to subjugate Algeria quickly. Thank you. And now your question, Professor Evans. I think yes, I mean clearly there was a kind of connection between the Black Panthers, the importance of France Fanon, but also the cultural impact of the battle of Algiers in those circles in America was enormous. I mean I know one Black Panther militant who was imprisoned and at his trial one of the accusations that they've been using in the battle of Algiers is a kind of like military strategy film in the way this shows how you could kind of conduct urban guerrilla warfare in the United States. So I think there in terms of those connections I think one of the things that I would say this is a kind of roundabout way of answering it. So I'm involved in a project at Sussex called Black at Sussex where part of that is working with a photographer, somebody called Charlie Phillips who's arrived in the mid-1950s from Jamaica and started taking photographs around Notting Hill and around sort of Soho jazz clubs. He's there's a great series on the BBC at the moment, the art that made us which talks about Charlie Phillips as being one of the most significant artists in Britain today and he's involved in a project with another photographer at your chair where he's photographing Black alumni from Sussex. So it's kind of really interesting. So the person that wrote the pamphlet which was about how the British education system was failing West Indians Bernard Corde was also a leader of the Grenadian Revolution was a student at Sussex Paul Gilroy who wrote Ain't No Black and Union Jack was a student at Sussex but also one of the people was Len Garrison. Len Garrison founded the Black Cultural Archives in Bricson and if you've not been there I really recommend that you go to kind of astonishing archive around Black British history but as a student in the mid-1970s at Sussex Garrison who was studying the School of African Agents studies at Sussex founded a review called the Afraz Review it's astonishing to read it. I mean he actually interviewed people like C.R.R. James Walter Rodney but in that kind of sort of journal what you see is this relationship that Len Garrison sees the struggle of Black people within Britain absolutely within this anti-imperialist third worldist perspective so I think those kind of that impact of Algeria via people like Fanon who's translated into English enormous impact on Black British kind of activists in the 1780s you kind of like see that so it's kind of really through the work of Len Garrison absolutely kind of remarkable. I suppose the other thing I would say I mean it shows how stupid I am to really realise until I was teaching this kind of course about three or four years ago it's such an obvious point that C.R.R. James Trinidad Trotsky is going to Paris in the mid 1930s to write the Black Jackabins and for him the Black Jackabins the idea that Haiti is the first successful slave world is an inspiration to global anti-colonists and anti-imperialists everywhere so in a way we do see these connections are emerging already in the 20s and 30s between different global networks that are really important and still very much unexplored. Thank you so I think there was a question here from the audience. Yeah it was a question for Doctor or Professor Burkemi and before I start I just want to thank Professor Evans as well because your work was really helpful during my undergrad degree to access Algerian Anglophone sources especially Algeria's sorry France's Undeclared War so that was really great to hear you speak just then. So for Doctor Burkemi I wanted to just touch on the fact that you said there's two points that you know create hostility amongst Algerians today the first being especially towards France the first being Harkis and the second being France's inability to apologise for colonisation but I just wanted to add I think the fact that France continues to use colonial methods on their postcolonial communities today is something that also creates hostility I did my undergrad dissertation on the effect of Covid on postcolonial communities and I found that a lot of the colonial methods that were used in Algeria actually still being used on Algerians in France today I wanted to know if you could comment on that and just add if it's something that you think is also creating that tension Yes thank you very much for this point actually the problem is in the mentality of the French and there is a serious problem there which is the fact that on daily grounds you can see the French media and also revengeful former coloniser communities who engage in Algeria bashing the only thing that we understand is that these French find it really very difficult to come to terms with the fact that Algeria is an independent nation and that's a serious problem and there are people who are highly placed in French states who still have that mentality and as long as that mentality continues we'll always have such murky relations between Algeria and France Thank you This is just anecdotal evidence but in 1991 I drove with three Algerian friends two Algerian women and an Algerian guy from Paris to Marseille to take the boat to Algiers and I'd say it's really interesting the people that stop you and think what you're up to is that we were stopped by the police so we actually used to get it as a routine that we'd show the passports and I'd be the last person to show the passport the British passport and that really created a reaction to a French police one person actually said to me a French police man said so you're the pimp are you? Okay sorry it's like obviously I was not the pimp but that was the pimp Sorry that left me but I'm fine now there's a question online that might be slightly related to this last question it's from Do you see a difference in trends of scholarships? Do you see a difference in trends of scholarship within Algeria or perhaps Africa more broadly versus scholarship in the Anglophone world in terms of interest or priorities or frameworks so either either speaker you can see Arthur nodding No Very interesting question Yes Sir Arthur please No noise I think one thing that's interesting is I'm not sure this is a necessary answer but I was involved in curating an exhibition comparing Paris and London between the mid-1950s and the mid-1990s in terms of how both cities have been transformed by global migration but in particular the role of music in anti-racism and that's how we began the whole thing about comparing reggae and rye One of the things that was very interesting within France is actually a really suspicion towards the term post-colonial even in a very basic level the idea that post-colonial means is intimating that somehow we're beyond colonialism or colonialism is somehow ended and I was really quite struck by that the extent to which there was a within meeting to kind of what explanations is actually a sort of idea that post-colonialism is obviously about the after-effects of an empire understanding that complex relationships between past and present so that's just one real comment kind of the differences and I suppose there in terms of its striking I think the extent to which within France and Algeria a lot of the ways in which knowledge is organized at a university level is you still see the continuation of an influence of the kind of French system is very obvious that's just a comment I'm sure it really is answering Thank you, we have Zinedine Swalmy who has their hand raised let me just give you permission to speak Zinedine Do you want to come in? Hello Yes, we can hear you Yes, hello everyone First of all I would like to thank everyone for hosting this event Well, my question actually I had asked it on the chat box but I'll just say it again Well, we talked about Algeria's past for this whole conference and I was wondering what our panelists think lies ahead for Algeria in terms of well its implication in Africa in the Mediterranean sea in the Arab world we can see for example that the government is investing in building infrastructures to well to build more economic integration notably with Sub-Saharan Africa so what do you think lies ahead for Africa in the next let's say 60 years since it's the 60 years anniversary Can I answer? Yes, sure, go ahead I think Algeria has learned Algeria is a young republic 60 years old is young by international standards but Algerian government has learned from its past mistakes and now we can see mutations taking place in Algeria's economic organization and etc recently Algerian government changed its investment law rules in order to encourage more investment coming from abroad and also Algeria is refocusing its attention away from well away from France now we have more partners with Turkey, with Italy recently Algeria signed a very very important strategic treaty with with Italy that would encourage more exchange of know-how in trade etc so I think I'm not specialist in Algerian affairs by the way but as an Algerian scholar I think Algeria is changing Algeria is changing and the Algerian government has learned from its past mistakes what people are really serious want to get things over because with all the money that we have had in the past and we haven't reached that level of where Algeria is for example sufficient in terms of food in terms of organization now we have to the Algerian government is changing and the focus is shifting away from France as far as I know now recently there was a decision by the Ministry of Education to introduce English in primary schools and this is going to be at the expense of French French is going to be relegated to third place and this is my viewpoint thank you that's a really interesting question and part of the focus of the event in Dublin is thinking about Algerian futures and we're going to have a similar event at Sussex hopefully around the Brighton Film Festival in November so thinking about futures what are the futures for Algeria I think one thing that I would say is that in the event in Dublin I think it's going to open up questions through comparison so if we think about Ireland 40 years ago how many people in Britain would have perceived Ireland in terms of its stance over divorce, marriage, gay rights and the way in which that has changed over the last 40 years and the way I think it's going to be really interesting to have that conversation to think about the ways in which Algeria could change over the next 40 years by making that kind of comparison so I think that's what I would say in terms of thinking about Algerian futures through a comparative perspective thank you sorry thank you I can see there's a couple more questions in the chat but I think we really need to move on because we're even by Algerian standards we're late so I think we need to move on and if we have time in the second panel maybe we can come back to those questions so I would like to thank our two speakers Professor Belmeki and Professor Evans thank you for your very interesting presentations and thank you to everyone in the audience for very great questions and thank you Arthur for participating yes yes yes yes thank you very much I think we can start the second panel should we have maybe a five minute break let's have a five minute break and then we'll have our second panel so we'll start again at 4.30 hello again we're ready to start the second panel so in this panel we have three speakers two will be joining us online and one will be here with us at SOAS we have Dr Amel Yusfi who is professor and senior researcher at the University of Tlemcen and Dr Amel Yusfi works on historical and biological anthropology and archaeology second we will be listening to Dr Amir Lebedawi who is a lecturer in political economy of development here at SOAS and he has expertise in several key regions of the world including Latin America Africa and the Arab world and then finally we'll be listening to Dr Mekia Neja from the University of Orem who has expertise in international relations, conflict processes and comparative politics so Amel Yusfi will be talking about higher education in Algeria after independence, achievements challenges and openness doctor when you are ready we are thank you thank you Mrs Haisha you hear me yes we can hear you very well and we can see you as well thank you hello everyone very happy and glad to be with you to celebrate the 16th anniversary of the independence of Algeria this this this day is very important for us it is an event in our glorious history the history of the nation the history that one million and a half million of Martyrs may their sales for the liberation of our country so and thank you for this kind invitation so my intervention in this meeting is about higher education in Algeria after independence achievements, challenge and openness this intervention aims to highlight the main achievements and challenge of higher education system in Algeria across its evolution the higher education and scientific research sector has witnessed a great development in recent years due to the state's interest in the sector by increasing the number of structures such as universities institutes, laboratories and scientific research centers and this is within the system of reforming the sector to keep pace with the development touching various society whether Arabic or western but before we start talking about higher education after independence let's review higher education in Algeria during the colonial period this letter received a big attention I mean the higher education in Algeria received a big attention by the French authorities especially at the beginning of the 20th century but this type of education was in the interest of the French and the Europeans the Algerians received just a little like from it at the beginning of the occupation the French was sending their children to France to continue their university studies University in Algiers was established in 1909 which remained the only university in North Africa until independence it is a French university in its fullest sense of the world from Algeria at its name before 1962 in fact the first beginning of the higher education in Algeria did not go back to the year of 1909 when the University of Algiers were found nor to the law of the 20th of December 1870 1879 which enacted the establishment of three higher schools for higher education rather it's present in Algeria goes back to the decree of 1857 according to which the preparatory school in medicine and pharmacy was established however the effort and steps to establish the school go back to a longer time in 1849 the Institute of Medicine in Algeria took the initiative to establish higher education in the field of medicine which while there were only fifth primary and once secondary school in Algeria at that time so efforts were focused after the elimination of popular resistance because in that period we have many popular resistance like that of Abdul Qadir and Ahmed Bey to develop primary and secondary schools education after the progress recorded in the field of primary and secondary education for the French of course the project to establish higher education in the medical field was renewed in 1854 but this project was not abolished in reality except by establishing a preparatory school in medicine and pharmacy in 1857 this school started its task with eight permanent professor and four temporary teacher and this school also benefited from all the advantage granted to the preparatory school of medicine in France as for the law of December 1879 the law of the 20th of December 1879 it is considered the first serious step in the field of education as is stipulated the establishment of these schools for higher education arts, law and science the aim of establishing higher education in Algeria especially in the field of medicine was to serve colonial interests but by this way declared the French minister at that period in 1854 the Salvandie declared that if we occupied Algeria with war we would preserve it with civilization the Arab race can only be controlled by religion or medicine so if religion separated medicine bring as closer that's what declared the Salvandie after 1962 and until 1969 this stage were marked by the establishment of many universities in Algeria starting with the University of Iran in 1966 and then the University of Constantine in 1967 so at the University of Algiers it includes four faculties 19 institutes centers four high schools and an astronomical observatory for Iran it had four faculties the faculty of load and the economic science, the faculty of art the faculty of science and the faculty of medicine at Constantine was home to the national school of medicine and the science institute the institute of legal studies and literary concerning the pedagogical system it was identical at the time to the French system and stages where flows first bachelor's degree lasted three years certificate of in-depth studies and it lasted one year a third degree doctorate and it lasted two years and the state doctorate degree with a duration of five years to prepare after that as you know that before 1970 the high ministry of education depend to the ministry to the educational ministry so this stage begin with the history of the event of the history of higher education and scientific induction in the year of 1970 which is of pivotal date at the reform at the top of the educational system pyramid immediately after the year an important reform came the reform charter includes a comprehensive strategy for the future of higher education in Algeria this project focus on four main objectives diversification diversification and education of university increasing the number of university all over the country improving the educational level replacing the French language with Arabic except for the scientific ones and most of human Italian discipline adopt the national language which is Arabic the development of higher education and the role of scientific research in creating international cooperation mechanism through national and international research program after 1998 this was characterized by legislative and structural expansion and partial reform the higher education directive act was established in September 1998 the decision to organize the university in the form of college creating joint tax for the new baccalaureate holder establishing university center at this stage higher education system in the world were directed towards LMD which is license master and doctorate which made Algeria attack agreed importance to reforming its university educational system in order to keep peace with globalization and accelerating technical technology taking place in the western world higher education is under the authority of a government minister who prepare and implement government policy on higher education and scientific research. A regional distribution is made in relation to the socio-economic network of each region and the number of students Algeria accounts now 54 universities 9 university centers 37 national higher schools and 11 higher normal schools. Scientific research and national priority in the education policy is defined by a legal framework its target is to set up links between scientific research carried out in university and other sectors and abroad. Currently the scientific research network and their supervision includes 6 agencies 19 centers 12 units and 1,472 laboratories. The mechanism of international cooperation adopted by the Algerian state in the field of higher education and scientific research includes professor and researcher in various scientific research fields and this is within exchange program such as allocating scholarships the benefit of professor researches and doctoral students. Among this available grants we find for example Erasmus and Profas and a process and exchange scientific missions. In Algeria and exactly in Clemson University the Pan-African University of Water, Energy and Climate Change Science POST contributes to the sweetenable development of Africa it is the unique in North Africa POST offers two years master programs in accordance with international standards master in water science and the master in water energy and climate change. Algeria has several cooperation relations with Arab and European countries in the field of higher education and scientific research whether at the level of university institutions or at the level of research centers and research projects. Finally it is evident that the Algerian state gave great attention to higher education and scientific research especially after independence and it is still thriving hard and changing more efforts benefits for the experience of foreign university for the success for the success of their system. To achieve the development and economical role and keep pace with scientific development and interaction in knowledge society. Thank you for your attention. Thank you very much Dr. Yusfi Do you want to come? So our next speaker is Amir Libdiwi and he is going to talk to us about Algeria's economic development since independence reflections on the past 60 years and their implications for the future. It is a real pleasure to be here today especially on such an occasion to celebrate the 60th anniversary of our independence and it was particularly interesting to hear the insights from this morning and the presenter just before me on what the history actually teaches us about our identity and potentially about where we are going. So today the topic that I wanted to address is the issue of industrialization and the reason why is because that is what I work on but also because it is impossible to dissociate Algeria's independence with the theme of industrialization and in fact because the Algerian revolution was a way to achieve political independence but industrialization was also perceived as the way to achieve economic independence after political independence and it has captured the collective imagination of Algerians in terms of becoming an industrialized nation being economically free as well leaders after independence were imagining that Algeria would become the Japan of Africa becoming the industrial engine and in fact Martin was mentioning some of the Algerian how it portrays Algerian identity this is also something for those of you who have watched the men from Oran there is also moments in which they say when they think about maybe they can build a little shuttle or maybe they can develop this kind of industry or the wood sector industrialization is very much part of Algeria's post-colonial aspirations and in fact if you look at the crest of the Republic of Algeria there is a factory so it's very much on in the collective identity and the ambition to achieve industrialization goals I only have 10 minutes but I thought so I have to focus on a few messages but I thought because you're celebrating six decades of independence I'll focus on six main messages briefly but thinking about you know why looking at our past industrial experiences both successes and challenges can tell us about the present and the future of where we can go so the first message is though Algeria was a relatively industrialized colony compared to some other colonies that were mostly just extractivist or focused on agriculture Algeria was left with considerable challenges in terms of promoting industrialization at independence there was a massive drain of skilled workers of operating factories after independence right so Penoise that went back to France but also the technological dependence right on French industries and French technologies that prevailed but despite the dependence on the former colonial power but despite this there were some quick successes by 1965 so only three years after independence about 500 factories were reopened and new factories were being created which is a testament to the collective will that Algerians had to industrial aspirations after independence and something to note as well of course that a lot of those initiatives were reopened factories where initiatives led by workers so not something that is top to bottom but everybody being involved to figure out how to kickstart industrialization again which leads me to the second message which is that there were considerable achievements that need to be recognized until this day in terms of industrialization and this is perhaps the part of Algerian history where industrialization progressed the fastest using the concept of industrializing industries coined by the French economist de Bernice and there was this vision even of petroleum as a catalyst for industrialization so from the inception and policy documents and policy speeches oil the leaders at the time didn't necessarily see the countries being oil dependent but thought that the oil can be used to foster manufacturing to develop different types of industries and this is how Algeria developed a steel sector an automotive sector actually the first engine ever manufactured in Africa right at industrial scale at the time and the fertilizer industries to promote agriculture as so on and in fact the initial successes were so rapid that Algeria was seen as an industrial development model that formed the basis of policy lessons in other post-colonial states some of you might be aware of might know Huig Roberts is a British historian who works on Algeria and he tells the story of the way he got into Algeria was doing his PhD in the 1970s and people in Oxford and people at the time were talking about the Algerian industrial development model and he thought what's going on there I want to do this research and he went there and he changed topics in the end but just to show that this is something that was making waves at the time however and that's my third message this industrialization model was short-lived right and faced limitations over time and that is something that is important to acknowledge and think about as it also forms and informs the present and future in terms of what we can do better Boumedien's death in 1978 led to the disruption of the industrial strategy as successive leaders were not as interested in industrial models and industrial policy and to some extents one can say that the main hurdle perhaps they needed more time for Algerian industry to become competitive through learning by doing through gradual technological capability accumulation it took Toyota 40 years to become profitable in terms of 40 years of learning by doing until reaching global competitiveness and this is part of the industrial process however we need to acknowledge that there were also perhaps barriers of omission in the design of the strategy to begin with as the strategy was mostly an inward oriented components so modeled a little bit after the USSR model so kind of producing for the domestic market without much intention to go into exports and this is perhaps one of the main difference between the East Asian industrialization model Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and even China nowadays to the path that Algeria had taken because there was this switch at some point after being inward oriented focusing on reducing imports there was this switch towards promoting exports and I've had the chance to meet and interview people who had worked on the country's industrial strategy and some of them claim that towards the the end of shortly before his death Boumedien was starting to change his mind about having an outward oriented industrial strategy that's something that we can never know what would have been the effect of it or whether it would happen but something that we can say with more certainties that the objective of Algeria's industrialization was social equity full employment but not necessarily competitiveness at least in the early stages and since then and that leads to my message for Algeria has experienced a premature de-industrialization if you look at different indicators in terms of industrial employment relatively to employment and agriculture and services or manufacturing value added it has dropped after in the 80s 90s and even in the 2000s and 2010 it has stagnated but never went back to the pre-1980 levels and that has to do with the fact that over in more recent decades and that's my fifth message the economic model and especially the all revenue management model has enabled some progress in terms of fueling consumption social consumption model of especially nasty goods modernization of infrastructure but did not necessarily translate into fueling industrialization and manufacturing the way it was done perhaps in other countries like Malaysia where all revenues were used for in large parts to fuel industrial competitiveness so in a way a lot of the resources were also used for fiscal stabilization in foreign reserves or in the fond de régulation des recettes but there was much less investments into the manufacturing sector and long-term competitiveness which leads me to the last message which is that nowadays industrialization remains as important as ever for Algerian society and Algeria's future because Algerians look for a path to industrialization several lessons can be learned not only from international experiences of others who've done things differently but also from our own history in terms of the successes that were achieved the limitations and challenges and shortcomings that were faced and two of which are the outward orientation of industrialization but we also need to recognize that the conditions of industrialization have also dramatically changed since the 1960s, 70s and 80s so as we look for new models new things need to be considered that we're necessarily considered before and one of which has to do with the rise of global value chains in a globalized world so nowadays countries don't industrialize anymore by developing an entire sector of industries but they industrialize by focusing on specific activities within global value chains they integrate those chains with an upgrade within them the other thing that perhaps is worth ending on is the issue of climate change as the world decarbonizes its economic systems the demand for oil may drop and as Algeria look for a path to diversify its economy there also opportunities that rise from what they call green industrialization which was not in the agenda a few decades ago and many opportunities for Algeria to learn to seize in the context of a low carbon low carbon future and that future will be essential because as you know everybody runs out of oil eventually but yeah, so that's what I wanted to end on in terms of the still and persevering need for industrialization and the taking stock of what has been achieved, what has been done right and the challenges that remain for the future and of economic independence in Algeria. Thank you very much Thank you very much for a very interesting talk our last speaker in this panel is Dr Mekia Nejar who's going to talk to us about making the case for colonialism and colonial studies in MENA knowledge production a critic Hello I'm very happy to share this panel with you also thank you for inviting me I will shift a little bit my topic to the epistem of colonial studies in the work stage so making the case for colonialism and colonial studies is an attempt to explore the way in which colonial logic animates concepts and narratives in knowledge produced in MENA and post-colonial world and how the disciplinary pain works or canons of thought that are used to organize knowledge usually from the center to limit our understandings and imaginaries not of the margins but also the founding premises of these concepts and narratives speaking and talking about colonialism is not a mere narrating or telling a past story colonization is not old for many reasons and one of these reasons is that part of modern predicament such as democracy enlightenment, freedom, liberal values have been raised in tandem with colonial enterprise for that we need to examine the present to addressing the past, the past is the present and the present has a lot to do with the past so we aim to examine to reconsider in colonization that the inception of thinking about democracy ethics and equality was limited to the Europeans why simultaneously the violence the humanization and operation were empirically operating on the ground and particularly I mean Algeria so as a certain scholar I would like to approach or re-approach which part of colonial experience matter for the colonized people asking what are the limits of liberals and more democracy reposition who are the progenitors and the outers of world liberal order, democracy and progress and why in order to understand contemporary post-colonial world I pick up two items to analyze, Algeria and Alexis de Docqueville as examples to decipher cognitively the colonial institute system so the objective of invoking the locus of democracy and its inherent interrelations or implications if any with colonial logic is to provide new sites of critique and studies we aim what we what we are aiming to do not to refute the historical narratives on colonies rather is to add more stories from other geographies and social context adding many other colonial subject stories questioning some what I call epistemic ambiguities we try to problematize the non embodied connections and ideas between democracy and colonialis in historical accounts reassessing which matters of freedom values and democratic inception and colonialis raise our attention and equally important how imperial and rational rationalize knowledge orders condition and at times constrain the ways in which we are able to define what the problems of the post-colonial world politics are prior to our analysis let's start with colonial history power and knowledge as briefly what is at stake is the challenge to visualize the interplay of historicity of what happened and that which is said to have happened which is usually and clear courting from Michelle what history is much less than how history works how history functions because the pastness of the future is the process of becoming what we are the post-colonial is in the process of becoming it's about to counter narrate the unfolding narratives as I said but to provide new strategies which help us to reposition and generate new narratives countering inequalities of power of the past as it is said to have happened so our objective to make students or researchers to think across the programs of the text of the archive to enable them to understand the politics of representation the complexities the subtleties of the relation between what they were reading and seeing and to comprehend the nature of that relation as a relation of power the historical representations must not be considered as a knowledge transmission of past events but must establish some relation to that knowledge by learning and and learning as to who you are viewed and Jack Goudy also the production of history reveals in terms of historicity with power that applies not only in the archives but also dominates the processes and practices by which the pastness is authenticated ratified and organized at the end as knowledge coming here we can find such intersectionality of the power of knowledge and power of narration telling a story because the boundary between other processes is often quite fluid so regarding Tocqueville Alexis de Tocqueville is well known by his seminar book but he should also be known for his essays where he advocates clearly and explicit incitement to practice Razia's La politique des terres brûlées in Algeria. We have to interrogate what made Tocqueville think so brilliantly about liberalist values think oppressively to put an end to the lives of other peoples so a critique many scholars have written scrutiny on Tocqueville, most impactful analysis series analysis have been made by Cherie Welge and the remarkable works of Jennifer Pot among others. However, their writings stop short to re-approach the nexus of colonial logic with liberal framings in Tocqueville men's side with the exception of the heart criticism of Olivier Lucourt Gómezon Edévitin Todorov. So contextually the point to learn here is when Tocqueville openly and explicitly embraced violent subjugation of the colonized as a necessity of France empire prestige, he was considered just in their critics insensible aristocratic or having mal-addressed politic he was inconsistent paradoxical in his positions all of these sorts of academic just make him appear totally fuzzy and ambivalent with eventual psychic pathology or disorder. So this unjustified and explanatory argument intent to keep him subliminal in his democratic part at the end why concealing and laying him away as a violent colonian percusser. What does Tocqueville oppressive colonial logic mean for the study of democracy and justice in the world now I'm asking so despite being a democracy advocate and further admire of political freedom and the French Revolution he was an active parliamentary in French empire as a colonial officer who provided scrutiny politic recommendation essays on Algeria during a decade from 1837 to 1847 these essay were anything but tactical policy how to subjugate the Algerian indigenous even though Tocqueville could empathize for example with the Indians in America but in other hand he incited to annihilate the barbarians in Algeria the paradoxical positionality disclosed the Russian and colonial assumptions that underpin the foundations of democracy and sovereignty eventually looked at the linkage we can find between the French Revolution achievement and the colonization and they're taken immediately after that in 19 and 20 centuries we can ask to what extent the liberal democratic trajectory was concomitant with colonial and Russia system so the real politic of Tocqueville was that colonization provided the most important impetus for the transformation of European into scientific races of all epistemic violence to civilize is to colonize the most striking issue but Tocqueville taught in one hand that his audacity to make Algeria as an experimentary laboratory of colonial administration in empirical and material terms where the fact of domination must be corollary subject to and conditioned by colonization on the other hand he made a rationale for democratic model in France the lines between his sociological analysis and moral judgment and political prescriptions are more than puzzling he was acceded really he was acceded and pertinent analysis he was obsessed by the place of France in the world he was a nationalist imperialist whose slogan was dominate to colonize and colonize true extermination with no reservations what are we super to learn now so it is important to understand the historical count based on the memory of the people when there weren't any sort of any kind of domination occupation colonization by foreign power a simple removing to word the origin of democracy thinking that was absolutely not for humanity or freedom of the word it was rationalized that it allows for white people to subjugate other non-white white people because they were considered ontologically inferior the canonization of talk we taught on democracy should be placed in dialogic with his canonization on the colonization of Algeria and the consolidation of the Algerian as subject should impact our pedagogy in envisioning visual lives what colonial experience is supposed for peoples who underwent different degrees of subjugation and expropriation the colonial fact was not random phenomena nor isolated from the modern political system it was planet strategize and engineer it it represent the heart item of bargaining or locus of democracy and colonialist civilization we argue that colonialism the power in our relations and the democracy emerged to be constitutive at least in the ideal system coming to conclusion what are we supposed to do what are the solving options my concluding notes deal more with methodology with methodic disturbance epistemic disturbance there is a responsibility to alter the nature of these nexus altering its modus operandi revealing and re-establishing the invisible disrupting the colonial gaze in the Polish production and postcolonial work through a reparatory project which is able to recognize the genealogy of interconnectedness of liberal order with colonialist that sums up the ability to respond to challenges and suggestions from other geographies, other historians other scholars and figure out the category of evidence in which such responses must be uncalled I should call to disturb the effort of mainstream discourse to sustain the early geniary alienation that inaugurated the democracy and the modern disposition of nation state which where we should remember themselves as the site of colonial experimentation and domination calling to the colonial move implies challenging the enduring aerocentric premises through epistemic attitude values, dispositions and with the views that get learned and learned constitute and unconstitute while studying the manner quoting from Audrey Alejandro she said it's not to show how much room we can get to look at the knowledge produced on colonialism but to look to the many fastest standpoint which enable us to visualize the experience of the colonized people and relegated to the systematic analysis regarding the behavior of the postcolonial state as such Thank you very much for your attention Thank you doctor Right, so let me have a look at the time so we don't have a lot of time for discussion and questions I can see that there's a couple of questions already online so I'm just going to go straight to the questions and then if anyone in the audience here has any question I can take them so the first question is for Dr. Amel So Dr. Amel, what is required to make Algeria's education system fit for a 21st century globalized labor market? Okay, thank you very much for this question the short questions that make and but in deep in deep in their meaning so I I can answer briefly but precisely the openness of the Algerian government and the adoption of an international strategy that keeps faced with the international labor market this is what what I can say about this question as well as achievement the quality of education and learning for the Algerian universities and rising the level of their qualification what the global also what the global job market demands I think also that the Algerian university goes in ways of reform it reform itself by the demand of of the 21st century globalization labor market I think I have answered this question thank you Thank you very much I'll move on to another question another one yes we have another question I'm not sure it's just for you I think this is for everyone so there's a question from an anonymous attendee how how has the very notorious brain drain facing the Maghreb impacted Algeria's industrial plan I think it's for you Ania and do you think those that had all their education outside in France the UK, Canada funded by the Algerians that should return to support the economy or pay back the phones these are good questions and they're somehow related I think these are good questions which are somehow related in terms of the most important resource that a country has is the human capital and it's in that sense that the fact that many of the skilled engineers that were operating industries in colonial Algeria the fact that they were not indigenous Algerians and left after independence this is the challenge that it posed for post-colonial Algeria so it's not this is to go beyond this simplistic argument to say that there were many factories in Algeria so they were set for industrialization that's not true because the people who were trained by the colonial administration to operate them were gone and the challenge they took to reopen them is a tremendous one that deserves particular attention and then talking about the human capital side of things we would go back to the question of scholarship which is a good one an important one and the question I think has an opinion on it different and some of you might disagree but I look forward to hear it the answer is probably that it depends on one hand most people who receive taxpayers money to study abroad to fulfill particular skills to contribute to the economy should go back and help however there are instances in which a skilled diaspora oversees you can have returns on investments that can exceed whether you just have somebody that goes back that might not actually use the same skills to the same level and you see it in many different countries you have entire industries that have emerged in developing countries thanks to skill diaspora sent overseas for example the whole IT sector in India is basically Indians who tend to study computer science in the United States that state worked for Google in Silicon Valley and then at some point went back with even more not just the skills but also the experience and contributed again but obviously this depends on the context hopefully that people can bring back whatever they acquire overseas even if they stay longer the other thing to also say I have much more informed opinion on it is to what extent do scholarships help generate human capital for sending people overseas and then to actually come back when you're not sure compared to investing the same money in Algerian universities so you send a scholarship to the UK it's about 50K a year probably 30K with living expenses you can probably hire one professor even from overseas or locally or whatever to come to Algeria and actually teach 50 people for the same amount of money leaving the question out there what are the best ways to stimulate human capital and the role of the skilled diaspora sent overseas and then this also depends on the policy back home as well if there is a plan to reintegrate people sent overseas if people are sent overseas to study topics which jobs are being created back home for people to go back to or if they're sent overseas to study topics in which their their skills are not going to be maximized or used to their full potential when they return to Algeria Thank you Dr. Yusfi do you want to add anything or Dr. Neja Yes I have something to add about the policy about the policy of industrialization industrialization the policy that Algeria adopt after independence that Mr. Dr. Amir has evoked I think that this policy has failed as for example you know that for example the Hajjar in Annaba or the SNS of Razawet I think because this failure is because of the the Algerian government want to to explore in this sector but I think that it was not well studied because just after the independence they want to to big big project big project in industry but I think that they were not well studied not for for example the geographical one their aim at that period is to absorb in employment to give well society and economic to the country but they left other sites I think that I don't know if Dr. Amin is sharing my opinion Neja very interesting thoughts and I think that you mentioned because I think this industrial complex which is a steel complex actually reflects the history of Algerian industrialization from being an impressive effort towards building a steel industry in a postcolonial state to facing a lot of shortcomings and slowing down and nowadays I mentioned climate change to end but if we look at the future of the green steel SMS in the same one in the east of the Algeria in the east of Algeria and the other in the west of Algeria at the opposite of the the same country I think yes yes okay thank you I think there's a hand raised online from Elis-Mazurier I'm not sure if it's the hand from the first panel or if it's a new hand so I'm just on mute you and then you can tell us yes thank you it's also a question which I wrote in the chat because I was I was astonished when you quoted that Japan was compared to Algeria and that Algeria would become the new Japan economically and I was wondering if there had been any comparison with the flying geese model because the flying geese model has been used for East Asia to explain that Japan would economically also that the other countries of the regions in different ways would benefit from Japan's growth and take up Japan's industrial role as Japan would go more in the tertiary sector and I was wondering if there had been also a comparison of this model applied to Algeria and the Maghreb region and also because of the context of American occupation in Japan if there had been any comparisons or reflections on the systems of occupations and occupation as a phenomenon compared to colonialism yes yes yes you can take it first thank you for a very interesting and perceptive question the interesting thing about Japan is I believe, correct me if I'm wrong but this is the first country that has recognized Algeria after independence but according to my knowledge is that correct I don't know I believe it's the first country that has recognized Algeria as an independent state you don't think so sorry I don't think so because the GPRA before 1962 was already recognized by a number of places they might have been the first ones in 1962 but even that okay so anyways maybe I'll check my information but you mentioned the flying geese model but just to put things into historical perspective the time in which Algeria by the way it was not being compared to Japan the aspiration was to become the Japan of Africa and at the time the flying geese had not yet flown right so South Korea Taiwan Hong Kong and so on it was basically a time where they were also still industrializing and you can see their success was from the 1960s up until nowadays but at the time Japan was more of the reference for industrialization that Algeria was trying to emulate in terms of comparisons with other African countries I'm not entirely sure but maybe that's something that can be discussed furthermore over after the conference or if you are in so as and so on okay thank you so we have a few questions here in the audience so who was first you go first okay this question is for Dr. Amel how can universities or the government in general prevent brain drain which is basically because loads of students are leaving for countries like France and Canada so even though we have universities how can we prevent students from leaving and actually invest in the country also another question for the panelist do you think that industrialization is actually a good thing for Algeria because if you look at the work conditions in Japan and other places in the west it's not actually a healthy work life balance whereas if you look at other countries in the Mediterranean and even France and Spain and everything it's very much a work to live compared to a live to work lifestyle so yeah just how would that even be implemented in Algeria when we have a much more relaxed way of life so yeah but too relaxed do you want to answer the question or is your question related? okay so we'll take your question okay my question is to Dr. Ameliosfi it's the same Dr. how you can explain the phenomenon of 1200 doctors who get their visa to France last three months do you think that it's a normal phenomenon or it's we can say a failed of system or policy of higher education this is the first question secondly it's a state of celebrity how do you think the Algerian say affected by the value of globalization how can I understand this thank you Dr. Amel I think both questions were for you yes I am I think that I believe that the brain drain is less this at this period not for example the period of the 90s 1990 that period Algeria passed with a period which was very very how to say it very difficult and I think that at that period more the brain drain that was very important at that period but I think that the reform at the university at the Algerian university at this last years gives more opportunity for the Algerian lecturer and so on to keep in Algeria I think that for the phenomenon of the doctors that the second intervener I think that it is not the failure of the system nor I think that at that period that I think that they want to have more opportunity for abroad if we can say I think that yes thank you do you want to add anything or the question on the pace of life and whether it matches it is compatible with industrialization I have to say is the first time I ever get asked this question and it is nonetheless it is an interesting and important one I think that the main thing here is to still be able to sustain a tranquil pace of life you need to industrialize so the question there is not so much in terms of stress levels, number of hours you put in per week but the key point is productivity if you have a high productivity for a worker you actually don't need to put in that many hours and you still have you don't have to kill yourself at work like the Japanese do and I believe a few years ago some of the country's highest manufacturing value are countries like Switzerland the Netherlands, Sweden these are not the Japanese Japan, Korea of the world, these are countries where through increases in productivity using the right production techniques using the right technologies industrial output is quite high compared to the amount of hours one is able to put you mentioned Italy, France but these are countries that Italy had industrialized now it affords a level of income thanks to its past industrialization France is also heavily industrialized so in terms of number per hours I recently heard that Mexicans work many more hours per week than the Japanese but obviously this doesn't match so there is a big cultural element there and I think the issue that some of these industrialized nations face like Japan may have more to do with specific cultural elements of Japanese society for good or for bad but they're not necessarily features of industrialization that have to be that symptoms that have to be present in other countries as they industrialize as well including Algeria thanks we have a question from Mr. Salli well thank you for all the speakers my question is for Amir Algeria is still struggling in diversifying its economy we have a lot of income from selling hydrocarbons products so I want to begin from your last thought climate change do you think that the path to decarbonizing the economy will be positive or negative in the current situation, the current economic situation thank you that's your question we probably could have an entire conference just to discuss it and unpack it but it's an extremely important one and the answer is it depends on the policies that are being used to tackle decarbonization in a non-strategic way decarbonization will have disastrous effects for the Algerian economy but the thing is a lot of it is outside of our control because it's global decarbonization that means that as you decarbonize economic systems there will be less demand for fossil fuels or we will run out of fossil fuels before that because it's non-renewable so in a way and that will mean a loss of jobs in the fossil fuel sectors, loss of public revenues and foreign exchange however decarbonization also brings about a wide range of economic opportunities for countries that surf it with the right angle and renewable energy jobs for example there's a lot of jobs being created in the renewable energy sector about 12 million globally but they're not distributed equally some countries about four of them the US, India, Brazil and countries in the U capture like 80% of jobs in the renewable energy sector but there is also a tremendous opportunity for countries like Algeria which have solar energy potential to use renewable energy to fuel industrialization so nowadays in the business and financial world there is an appetite for decarbonized services and decarbonized sectors so if you have renewables that means that as you talked about the drive nowadays is towards the production of zero carbon steel because steel is carbon intensive it's energy intensive so if you have the right conditions and you can produce clean renewable electricity at a low cost that opens up wide ranges in terms of pathways to diversification that are not otherwise available so these are the ways in which the decarbonization agenda could actually be an opportunity for countries like Algeria with the right with the right strategy and policy tools thank you I think we have no more yes we have one last one thank you very much for the presentation I want to come back to the presentation made by Dr. Amir thank you very much it was just if you allow Dr. Amir that I you delivered the presentation you talked about six messages I just want to add one message the message is that there is a lot of things happening in Algeria those days to improve the climate of investment in the country and to improve and to develop the industry you talked about the history of the industry in Algeria there is a very attractive investment project I read the draft it's very attractive it has been debated in the parliament those days to improve the climate investment and to attract more investment in Algeria to develop the economy so by this law and improving all the climate investment in Algeria you are going to take poverty we will to develop the economy and also to take this issue to resolve this issue of brain drain by the way brain drain it's an international phenomenon it's not proper for Algeria that's normal this movement over the world between countries I want to say just a message a lot of things are happening in Algeria and to create opportunities opportunities and job for Algeria thank you very much thank you I think do you have anything to add to that? no I mean that's absolutely true and there is an investment change of investment law being planned I think these are the kind of ways in which the climate becomes more in line with 21st century challenges and the needs of the financial world and globalization and perhaps the last thing you asked about solar energy renewables something I forgot it wasn't in the scope of the presentation but you know this agenda renewables and transition Algeria had been pioneering efforts actually since the 1980s actually the CDER center for Centre de développement des énergies en globe which the mission is to actually develop low carbon technologies right through R&D and these efforts start very very early on so in a way it's kind of looking at some of the past aspirations seem that there is a sort of continuity in terms of embarking on new challenges it's not kind of taken by surprise but you see that there is a historical drive to try to to be a pioneer in some in some fields which include renewables thank you I think there's no more questions neither online nor here in the urgent so I will ask you to thank with me our three speakers Dr. Yusfi Dr. Lebedioui and Dr. Néja for the thank you to you here in the Brunei gallery and to those of you following us online for your interesting questions and for your enthusiasm I think you made the two panels very very interesting and very exciting I'm going to invite Mr. Hamid Salih to come and give us some concluding remarks and thank you to our chair it was very fun actually I'm just going to change that yes it was quite fun to share this well thank you very much for your brilliant moderation of the two panels and I think it was planified to have this conference in about two hours and now I think in three hours so thank you all of you for all your patience and thank you for our panelist so I would like to thank all the professors and the doctors for the excellent presentation and the content of their papers Professor Martin Evans is not with us now ah you are here hello that's great so he was very receptive for the idea of organizing this conference and he will honor us next Monday at the embassy of Algeria in London with another lecture on the occasion of Independence Day so the invitation is open for all of you I'm grateful to Professor Bilbas Micky also for he has also shown willingness to participate despite his busy schedule he will be organizing another event along with Martin events in 17th of September in Dublin I hope we will be invited that day um thank you Dr. Amal Yusfi for for her part was very willing to participate with us the dean of her university who recommended her confirmed her high level which she proved during her presentation and a special thanks to Dr. Micky Anizhar who was among the first to be contacted for this ceremony she was highly recommended um to us for her research and her and dedication to her field and of speciality I would like also to thank Dr. Amil Ibn Diwi we are here for your great dedication and for taking up the challenge of making a presentation on post independence economy in 10 minutes I was having discussion with him and I told him if you can present 16 years or 60 years of economy in just 10 minutes and I think you did it and you can be registered in Guinness book of records Dr. Ayshab Al-Qadi you were excellent I thank you for you were kindly and you kindly accepted to host the two workshops with great success and ease considering the short notice on the same notes I yes on the same note I wish Dr. Ayshab Al-Qadi a speedy recovery after the unfortunate positive test result for COVID-19 last but not least I cannot conclude without presenting my warm thanks and gratitude to Dr. Ida Haji Vianis and Dr. Wain Dolling the share of Center of Africa for the organization and the follow up on the program point by point without your input Mrs. Ida and Mr. Wain this conference could not be could not take place and to all of you and the source University of London as well as all the participants present or online a big round of applause well thank you very much