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June 23, 2008
Generation Faithful
In Algeria, a Tug of War for Young Minds
By MICHAEL SLACKMAN
ALGIERS =97 First, Abdel Malek Outas=92s teachers taught him to write math
equations in Arabic, and embrace Islam and the Arab world. Then they
told him to write in Latin letters that are no longer branded
unpatriotic, and open his mind to the West.
Malek is 19, and he is confused.
=93When we were in middle school we studied only in Arabic,=94 he said.
=93When we went to high school, they changed the program, and a lot is
in French. Sometimes, we don=92t even understand what we are writing.=94
The confusion has bled off the pages of his math book and deep into
his life. One moment, he is rapping; another, he recounts how he
flirted with terrorism, agreeing two years ago to go with a recruiter
to kill apostates in the name of jihad.
At a time of religious revival across the Muslim world, Algeria=92s
youth are in play. The focus of this contest is the schools, where for
decades Islamists controlled what children learned, and how they
learned, officials and education experts here said.
Now the government is urgently trying to re-engineer Algerian
identity, changing the curriculum to wrest momentum from the
Islamists, provide its youth with more employable skills, and combat
the terrorism it fears schools have inadvertently encouraged.
It appears to be the most ambitious attempt in the region to change a
school system to make its students less vulnerable to religious
extremism.
But many educators are resisting the changes, and many disenchanted
young men are dropping out of schools. It is a tense time in Algiers,
where city streets are crowded with police officers and security
checkpoints and alive with fears that Algeria is facing a resurgence
of Islamic terrorism. From 1991 to 2002, as many as 200,000 Algerians
died in fighting between government forces and Islamic terrorists. Now
one of the main terrorist groups, the Salafist Group for Preaching and
Combat, or G.S.P.C., has affiliated with Al Qaeda, rebranding itself
as Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.
There is a sense that this country could still go either way. Young
people here in the capital appear extremely observant, filling mosques
for the daily prayers, insisting that they have a place to pray in
school. The strictest form of Islam, Wahhabism from Saudi Arabia, has
become the gold standard for the young.
And yet, the young in Algiers also appear far more socially liberal
than their peers in places like Egypt and Jordan. Young veiled women
walk hand in hand, or sit leg to leg, with young men, public
flirtations unthinkable in most other Muslim countries.
The two natures of the country reflect the way in which Algerian
identity was cleaved in half by 132 years of French colonial rule, and
then again by independence and forced Arabization. Once the French
were driven out in 1962, the Algerians were determined to forge a
national identity free from Western influence.
The schools were one center of that drive. French was banned as the
language of education, replaced by Arabic. Islamic law and the study
of the Koran were required, and math and science were shortchanged.
Students were warned that sinners go to hell, and 6-year-olds were
instructed in the proper way to wash a corpse for burial, education
officials said.
There is a feeling among many Algerians that they went too far.
=93We say that Algeria=92s schools have trained monsters,=94 said Khaoula
Taleb Ibrahim, a professor of education at the University of Algiers.
=93It is not to that extent, but the schools have contributed to that
problem.=94
Over the years, the government has pushed back, reintroducing French,
removing the most zealous religious teachers and trying to revise the
religious curriculum. Seven years ago, a committee appointed by the
president issued a re****t calling for an overhaul of the school system
=97 and it died under intense political pressure, mostly from the
Islamists and conservatives, officials said.
But this year, the government is beginning to make substantive
changes. The schools are moving from rote learning =97 which was always
linked to memorizing the Koran =97 to critical thinking, where teachers
ask students to research subjects and think about concepts.
Yet the students and teachers are still unprepared, untrained and, in
many cases, unreceptive.
=93Before, teachers used to explain the lesson,=94 Malek said. =93Now they
want us to think more, to research, but it=92s very difficult for us.=94
Malek says he hopes to graduate from high school next year and now
wants to join the military, just like his father. He is a long way
from being the person who had accepted what he says the terrorist
recruiter told him =97 that soldiers, like his own father, are apostates
and should be killed. His resolution lasted for three days, until his
imam found out and persuaded him not to go.
But the call to jihad still tugs at him. In his world, jihad, or
struggle, is a duty for Muslims, but as Malek explains, the challenge
is who will convince young people of the proper form that struggle
should take.
=93They really convince you,=94 he said of the extremists.
Then later, with great sincerity, he asked: =93Can you help me? I want
to go to New York and rap.=94
The Family
In Algeria, your sense of identity often depends on when you went to
school.
Hassinah Bou Bekeur, 26, enjoys watching the Saudi satellite channels
and the news in Arabic. She watches with her mother and four younger
sisters in one room. But her father, Nasreddin, 60, stays in another
room so he can watch in French, the language of his education.
=93He is not very strict,=94 she said of her father, with a touch of
affection and disappointment in her voice. =93We have more awareness of
religion now.=94
She took the veil when she was 20; one sister did so at 17, and
another sister at 15. The youngest, Zeinab, is only 12 and does not
yet wear the veil. The veil is a symbol of the distance between father
and children. While Mr. Bou Bekeur studied the Koran, Islam was not
the cornerstone of his identity. He says he even drank alcohol =97 which
is prohibited by Islam =97 until 1986. =93I never knew that,=94 said Amal,
his 17-year-old daughter, and then with a smile, she waved her fist at
her father and said, =93I will kill you.=94
The Bou Bekeur family illustrates the outcome of Algeria=92s school-
based Arabization project. The family is close but the generation gap
is extraordinary. It is not solely the result of schooling =97 but the
history of the education system here helps explain the distance
between the generations.
It begins with occupation and schools designed to train people for a
French-run system. Even after independence, the schools needed to
continue to train in French because the government needed managers and
experts to replace those French citizens who had left the country,
officials here said. In 1971, officials said, the Arabization project
began in earnest, when French was prohibited as a language of
education.
But there were not enough educators qualified to teach in Arabic, so
Algeria turned to Egyptians, Iraqis and Syrians =97 not realizing,
officials say now, that many of those teachers had extreme religious
views and that they helped plant the seeds of radicalism that would
later flourish in a school system where Arabization became
interchangeable with Islamization. In the Bou Bekeur house that meant
children far more religious than their father =97 and their mother.
=93The foundation of religion, I learned in school,=94 said Mr. Bou
Bekeur=92s son, Abdel Rahman, 25. =93We pray more than them and we know
religion better than them,=94 he said of his father=92s generation. =93We
are more religious. My father used to drink. I never drank. My father
asked me if it was O.K. to take a car loan. I told him, no, it is
haram,=94 forbidden in Islam.
So his father did not take the loan. His father is a quiet man in a
house of strong-willed people. He can barely help his children with
their homework, because his Arabic is poor. And he worries about their
future, and the future of his country.
=93Now they are at a crossroads,=94 Mr. Bou Bekeur said of his children
and their generation. =93Either they go to the West, or stay with this
and become extremists.=94
The children do not respond to such remarks. They often give their
father a kind of sad, knowing smile, as though they have done the best
that they can with him, and are pleased with the progress he has
made.
The family lives in a small pink villa, inherited from Mr. Bou
Bekeur=92s father, who was killed fighting the French.
Mr. Bou Bekeur=92s wife, Naima, is 48, and of a different generation
altogether. She was among the first to go through the state-sponsored
Arabization process. She said she remembered having a teacher from
Egypt who was supposed to teach academic subjects in Arabic =97 but
provided her first real lessons in religion.
Mrs. Bou Bekeur started serving lunch, homemade couscous. The family
was sitting in the main living room on big brown couches, as Mr. Bou
Bekeur scratched away at one of his French crossword puzzles. Hassinah
wore orange velour pants, an orange velour top and a large pink scarf
that covered her head and was pinned beneath her chin.
The conversation ****fted, with Hassinah complaining that men were
treated better at home than women. =93The boys don=92t have to wash the
dishes. Why?=94 she said. =93Why the difference? If I had a boy or girl, I
would treat them equal.
=93Women are supposed to work all day and come home and clean and cook =97
no way,=94 she fumed, her hands firmly on her knees.
Mr. Bou Bekeur seemed pleased. =93Women have more op****tunities today
than they used to. Women can participate in s****ts and still be
respected,=94 he said in his naturally soft voice.
=93No,=94 Hassinah said, gently, shaking her head at her father. =93My way
of thinking is more influenced by religion. My religion tells me =91no,
that=92s not right.=92 =94
Zeinab, the 12-year-old, was seated in the corner, headphones on,
humming a song by Beyonc=E9, and smiling as she did homework.
Malek and Friends
Four years ago, Amine Aba, 19, one of Malek=92s best friends, decided it
was time to take his religion more seriously, to stop listening to
music, to stop dancing, to stop hanging around with Malek =97 most of
which he accomplished most of the time.
=93Muslim countries have been influenced by the Europeans,=94 Amine said,
explaining why he thought he had not been religious enough for most of
his life. =93We have neglected our religion,=94 he said.
=93Like us,=94 said Malek, who was nearby with a new buddy, Muhammad
Lamine Messaoudi, a baby-faced 18-year-old with a bit of a paunch and
a constant smile. The two burst into nervous laughter.
Malek, Amine and Lamine are each dealing with the forces shaping their
world in slightly different ways. Amine has chosen religion; Malek,
who has gelled hair and a slight stutter, has taken a middle road of
religion, girls and rap; and Lamine appears a sentry of the left,
interested in beer, girls and, he hopes, a life in France.
Each has felt the push and pull of the political-ideological fight
going on in Algerian schools, between those who want to maintain the
status quo and those who hope to reopen a window to the West. The
messages the young men receive through teachers and the curriculum are
still, almost uniformly, aimed at reinforcing their Arab-Islamic
identity. But that is changing, slowly, and not without a fight.
=93We would never have imagined Algeria could one day be faced with
violence that would come from Islam,=94 said Fatiha Yomsi, an adviser to
the minister of education.
Students go to school amid subdued tension because many educators do
not like the changes that are coming.
=93He is an Islamist. He would not shake my hand before,=94 Ms. Yomsi said
as she introduced an Arabic teacher during a morning tour of Al Said
Hamdeen high school here. Then as she walked around, she pointed out
the front line in the struggle, keeping boys and girls together in
class.
=93You see, all these cl***** are mixed,=94 she said. =93It is very
im****tant. We fought for this. That is why I am targeted for death.=94
At stake are the identities of young people like Malek, Amine and
Lamine =97 and their futures.
The young men focused on trying to pass their exams, because Algiers
is full of examples of those who have not. More than 500,000 students
drop out each year, officials said =97 and only about 20 percent of
students make it into high school. Only about half make it from high
school into a university. A vast majority of dropouts are young men,
who see no link between work and school. Young women tend to stick
with school because, officials said, it offers independence from their
parents.
Algeria=92s young men leave school because there is no longer any
connection between education and employment, school officials said.
The schools raise them to be religious, but do not teach them skills
needed to get a job.
This is another cause for extremism, and it is one reason the police
do nothing to stop so many young men from illegally selling everything
from deodorant to bread at make****ft stands.
=93These stands are illegal, but they let them do it as a matter of
security and because of unemployment =97 instead of them going out and
carrying weapons,=94 said Muhammad Darwish, a social studies teacher in
the Muhammad Bou Ras middle school, as he passed m***** of young men
selling on the street.
Malek, Amine and Lamine are all trying to avoid ending up like a vast
majority of their friends =97 selling on the street. Lamine and Malek
try to study. But they say that is only because if they fail the
exams, they cannot get into the military =97 and if they cannot get into
the military, they will have no status in Algeria. They have focused
on the science curriculum. But their hearts do not seem to be in it.
=93They don=92t let you like education here,=94 Lamine said.
Malek met Amine when Amine=92s family moved into the walled and guarded
compound for military families where Malek already lived. It is beside
the Casbah, the old Arab quarter, where streets wind up and down hills
that fall from the mountains to the sea. That was four years ago, and
the young men became friends, going together to the mosque where they
practiced the traditional way of reciting the Koran aloud.
But as Amine grew more religious, Malek began to drift away from him,
in part out of concern for his father. =93The military and a beard don=92t
go together,=94 he said. Malek shaved his beard and started to spend all
his free time with Lamine, a very quiet young man with a shaved head.
One of their favorite spots to relax is the monument to those killed
in the war against the French. The concrete monument soars more than
300 feet into the sky, with three ramps sweeping up to an apex.
The sky was blue, the wind heavy and the clouds white on a May day
when Malek dropped to the pavement and began to break dance, his feet
in the air, his shoulders pressed to the ground. Suddenly Algerian rap
played from Lamine=92s cellphone as they danced and laughed =97 until they
stopped.
Amine wrapped his arm around Malek=92s shoulder and they recited the
Koran, their voices carrying through the wind. Lamine stood by,
silently.
=93I only have 25 days until the test; I have to go home,=94 Amine said.
=93My mother will be mad at me if I don=92t study.=94
After he left, Lamine was asked how he felt about Amine. He has
frequently teased him, suggesting that they go together to the bar for
a beer. Lamine does not go with Malek to pray, talks often about
drinking alcohol and said that two years ago he was arrested trying to
sneak onto a ****p to get to France.
=93He=92s O.K.,=94 Lamine said. =93I=92d like to be like him. I=92d like
to=
be
religious someday, too.=94
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