The unlikely domino

Ahmed Ouyahia, "The Eradicator" - Prime Minister of Algeria. (Wikicommons: Magharebia). "We are the kings of our home!"

When political change comes to a world-system, does it begin near the center and then spread outward? That seems to be the common view. Karl Marx predicted that communism would first triumph in the U.K., France, and Germany, yet he was proven wrong. In 17th century England the "Levellers" called for giving all men the right to vote, an aim first achieved in the United States and only much later in England. Similarly, the late 19th century saw women gain voting rights in Scandinavia, some Australian colonies, and some western U.S. states. Not until 1928 were the same rights recognized in the U.K. 

The center is an interesting place for new ideas, but it's terrible for getting them implemented. It’s the place where power is concentrated, where resistance to change is strongest, where the elite has been established the longest, and where the elite has diverged the most from ordinary people in terms of self-interest and social distance. So the center is where new ideas have the most trouble spreading through all social strata and gaining acceptance. 

The situation is different farther out on the periphery of a world-system. Social distances are generally shorter and the elites less entrenched. This is partly because peripheral societies tend to be more recent—often beginning as colonies of central societies—and partly because weaker control by the center and greater contact with other world-systems may make them the scene of war, rebellion, and social upheaval, which in turn means replacement of local elites. New ideas can thus percolate more easily throughout the whole of a peripheral society

These are tendencies to be sure and, as such, may not always hold true. The periphery may be a quiet backwater where elites stay put and become more distant from the people. Furthermore, a new idea may face hostility not only from the elite but also from ordinary people. Communism, for instance, was admired in the Muslim world for its opposition to Western imperialism, but its atheism made support impossible among the working people it targeted.

In writing this series I'm simply arguing that public sympathy isn't the only factor in the spread and acceptance of new ideas. There is also elite hostility, and that factor tends to be more formidable at the center than at the periphery.

The next two to three years

A nationalist bloc of European nations has formed on the periphery of the Western world—Poland, Czechia, Slovakia, Austria, and Hungary. This has happened not only because public sympathy for nationalism is stronger there but also because elite hostility is weaker. The elites are less differentiated from the rest of society; consequently, there is more social cohesion and commonality of purpose. Finally, the language of the Western world being above all English, the centre has trouble maintaining ideological conformity in those countries where English is poorly understood and where ideology, like culture in general, tends to be locally produced.

In my previous posts I’ve argued that the nationalist bloc will spread outward into culturally similar countries, as well as into countries where post-national elites are unpopular and weakly entrenched. By the year 2021 this bloc will cover a much larger area: almost all of central and eastern Europe, plus Italy. 

It will also include a seemingly unlikely area that isn't European at all, an area that is, in fact, African and Muslim.  

Background to the migrant crisis

Population pressure has been mounting in sub-Saharan Africa for some time. While fertility rates have fallen throughout most of the world, often dramatically, the picture is different in this world region. Fertility declines have at best been modest, and in some countries, like Somalia, fertility has actually risen. The current pace of population growth will continue even if fertility rates fall dramatically:

Rapid population growth in Africa is anticipated even assuming that there will be a substantial reduction of fertility levels in the near future. The medium-variant projection assumes that fertility in Africa will fall from around 4.7 births per woman in 2010-2015 to 3.1 in 2045-2050, reaching a level slightly above 2.1 in 2095-2100. After 2050, it is expected that Africa will be the only region still experiencing substantial population growth. As a result, Africa's share of global population, which is projected to grow from roughly 17 per cent in 2017 to around 26 per cent in 2050, could reach 40 per cent by 2100.

[...] It should be noted that the population of Africa will continue to increase in future decades even if the number of births per woman falls instantly to the level required for stabilization of population size in the long run, known also as "replacement-level fertility". Growth continues in that scenario thanks to the age structure of the population, which is currently quite youthful. The large numbers of children and youth in Africa today will reach adulthood in future decades. Because of their large numbers, their childbearing will contribute to a further increase of population even assuming that they will bear fewer children on average than their parents' generation. In all plausible scenarios of future trends, Africa will play a central role in shaping the size and distribution of the world's population over the next few decades. (United Nations, 2017, p. xxii)

Meanwhile, the inevitable has begun. When the slave trade ended in the early 19th century there began a long period when relatively few people left sub-Saharan Africa. Some did, but their numbers were relatively small—Senegalese riflemen, Somali seamen and, later, university students. This hiatus came to an end in the early 1970s. To fill insecure, low-paying jobs, French employers extended their zone of recruitment to sub-Saharan Africa, and this example was followed by employers elsewhere. Even Greece began to recruit African labor for jobs in construction, agriculture, and shipping (Pteroudis 1996).

The stream of migrants continued despite the economic slowdown that set in with the Oil Crisis of 1973 and the 1982-1983 recession. They came for the most part on temporary visas and then overstayed. Large-scale illegal entry did not begin until the early 2000s, via a route across the Sahara to Libya and then across the Mediterranean to Italy by boat (De Haas 2008). In 2008, Silvio Berlusconi, signed a treaty with Muammar Gaddafi to block this route, but enforcement collapsed with Gaddafi's overthrow and murder in 2011. The result was a surge in African migration.

Yet this surge is only the tip of the iceberg:

[...] it is a misconception that all or most migrants crossing the Sahara are "in transit" to Europe. There are possibly more sub-Saharan Africans living in the Maghreb than in Europe. An estimated 65,000 and 120,000 sub-Saharan Africans enter the Maghreb yearly overland, of which only 20 to 38 per cent are estimated to enter Europe. While Libya is an important destination country in its own right, many migrants failing or not venturing to enter Europe prefer to stay in North Africa as a second-best option (De Haas 2008).

African migrants currently take three routes to Europe: a western route via Morocco and Spain; a central one via Libya and Italy, and an eastern one via Egypt and Greece. Given the chaos in Libya, the central route is shifting to Algeria, and that country is increasingly becoming their final destination. "Our studies revealed that more than half of the migrants in Algeria actually live there," explains MDM. [Médecins du Monde]" Even if this was not their plan at the beginning, they end up finding a job and settling in one place." (Matarese 2016)

A changing response

Until recently, the official Algerian response has been similar to that of Western countries. Last July, the government announced plans to grant at least some of them residency rights and job permits. These measures were announced in a sympathetic tone:

"The presence of our African brothers in our country will be regulated and the Ministry of the Interior is using the police and the gendarmerie to take a census of all the displaced people," said Tebboune, who was replying to the concerns of deputies of the National Popular Assembly during debate over the government's action plan.

[...] "There are parties who wish to tarnish Algeria's image and label it as a racist country,' said Tebboune, who added: "We are not racists. We are African, Maghrebin, and Mediterranean."

"Africa and the Arab world are the natural extension of Algeria and the space in which it has evolved and developed," said Tebboune, underscoring "the moral and human duty that requires us to provide assistance to our brothers who are forced to flee their lands because of poverty and the torment of war." (Huffpost 2017)

Other members of the government, however, were less sympathetic. Also last July, the Minister of State, Ahmed Ouyahia, condemned the growing numbers of African migrants:

The African community that illegally resides in Algeria brings drugs, delinquency, and other scourges. One cannot say to the authorities: "Throw them into the sea" but one must live in Algeria legally.  [...] People will say to me "human rights!" but we are the kings of our home! (RT 2017)

Public opinion has also turned sour. In June of this year, an anti-migrant campaign was launched on the Algerian social media via the hashtag No to Africans in Algeria! This slogan may sound strange in a country that is, in fact, in Africa, but the reality is that the average Algerian feels more in common with Europe or the Middle East.

Anti-migrant discourse is summed up by this comment:

[...] these Africans from all over the Sahel think they're in conquered territory, being arrogant and threatening. They forcefully demand money and not food. They're everywhere and present a sorry picture of what a human being should be. Begging, nothing but begging from these hefty guys who are more athletic than Cristiano Ronaldo and who refuse to roll up their shirtsleeves and work. Now they're no longer content to be in southern Algeria; that's no longer their fine seigneury. They're moving into the coastal cities. There are hundreds of thousands of them, and more come every day. (RT 2017)

Threatening behavior might work in Europe, where the average citizen feels that only the police are entitled to respond to threats with violence. In Algeria, however, the police are a relatively recent institution, as is State authority in general, and every adult male feels entitled to use violence if threatened or even insulted. An exchange of insults can quickly escalate into fighting by both parties:

Kader, an Ivorian who has been in Algeria for six years, said there was a growing number of Guineans in Algiers. "They don't know the country, and they react very badly the minute an Algerian is rude to them or insults them. It ends up in a fight, and people get hurt." (Chenaoui 2017)

A single incident may become a riot. In March 2016 more than a hundred residents of a small town south of Algiers showed up at an abandoned shopping center where migrants were living and assaulted dozens of them in retaliation for an alleged rape (The Observers 2016). At about the same time in another town, some 300 local inhabitants surrounded and attacked a refugee reception center after a migrant from Niger murdered a local resident during a break-in (Huffpost 2016)

Last August, Ahmed Ouyahia was appointed Prime Minister, and migrant policy has grown increasingly hardline. Since August 25, more than 3,000 migrants have been summarily deported to Niger, including many from other African countries (HRW 2017). There is a striking similarity here to Israel’s response when African migrants began pouring into that country. It, too, initially responded like Western states but did an about-face partly because of the magnitude of the problem and partly because of pressure from public opinion. Whatever one thinks of either country, they are both fundamentally democratic, more so in fact than most Western countries. The elites cannot defy public opinion because they’re too close to the public and because they lack the firm ideological control that makes defiance possible.

Algeria, like Israel, will have to adopt harsher measures against the migrant influx. Unlike Israel, the migrant population is much larger and will continue to grow through natural increase alone. Meanwhile, public opinion is radicalizing. The situation may become like what we see in Greece, but without the external coercion that comes with being an EU member.

The migrant issue will loom large in Algeria's 2019 presidential election. Ahmed Ouyahia may run as a Trump-like populist candidate. He may even, à la Trump, call for construction of a fence along the southern border. And like Trump he has already been condemned by human rights groups, notably for his role in the "eradicator" faction that pushed for all-out war against the Islamist insurgency in the 1990s.

References

Chenaoui, Z. (2017). Adrift in Algiers: African migrants marooned in a new transit bottleneck, The Guardian, October 31

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/oct/31/algeria-african-migrants-libya-civil-war-europe

De Haas, H. (2008). Irregular Migration from West Africa to the Maghreb and the European Union: An Overview of Recent Trends, International Organization for Migration, Geneva

https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/14f2/ff491b6e9e0f66ad69ab58444bf3f3330708.pdf

HRW (2017). Algeria: Surge in Deportations of Migrants. Apparent Racial Profiling, Summary Expulsion of Sub-Saharan Africans, Human Rights Watch, October 30

https://www.hrw.org/news/2017/10/30/algeria-surge-deportations-migrants

Huffpost (2016). Après les affrontements de Ouargla, 700 migrants subsahariens transférés à Tamanrasset (Wali), March 3

http://www.huffpostmaghreb.com/2016/03/03/affrontements-ouargla-migrants_n_9371888.html

Huffpost (2017). Abdelmadjid Tebboune : La présence des migrants subsahariens sur le territoire algérien sera réglementée, June 24

http://www.huffpostmaghreb.com/2017/06/24/tebboune-migrants-subsaha_n_17281390.html

Matarese, M. (2016). Migrants in Algeria struggle for acceptance, Middle East Eye, January 6

http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/taboo-migrants-algeria-707071868

Pteroudis, E. (1996). Emigrations et immigrations en Grèce, évolutions récentes et questions politiques, Revue européenne de migrations internationales, 12, 159-189 (Espagne, Portugal, Grèce, pays d'immigration).

RT (2017). L'Algérie raciste ? Une directive anti-migrants, finalement retirée, fait polémique dans le pays. RT en français, October 3

https://francais.rt.com/france/44118-algerie-raciste-politique-anti-migrants

The Observers (2016). Police watch as locals attack migrants in Algeria, March 29

http://observers.france24.com/en/20160329-video-algeria-migrants-attack-african

United Nations (2017). World Population Prospects. The 2017 Revision, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division, Volume 1, Comprehensive Tables

https://esa.un.org/unpd/wpp/Publications/Files/WPP2017_Volume-I_Comprehensive-Tables.pdf

Where do those tensions come from?

 

Home sweet home in the Scottish borderlands. This was one of the last regions of Britain to be pacified and brought under State control. People lived in fortified homes where the second floor could be reached only by an external ladder that could be pulled up. The stone walls were up to 3 feet thick. (source – photo owned by Les Hull)

I first went to elementary school in a largely English Canadian neighborhood of Scarborough. Schoolyard fights were only occasional, and there was almost always a good reason. My family then moved to a largely Scotch-Irish town in central Ontario. There, the schoolyard fights were a daily occurrence, and they seemed to happen for no reason at all. I eventually found out the reason … something to do with “respect” or rather the lack of it.

We like to think that people everywhere respond to situations more or less as we do. If the response is anger—red boiling anger that can kill—we assume there must be a very good reason. Otherwise, the person wouldn’t be so angry.

Hence the puzzlement over the Boston bombers. What drove them to such an act? Had they been treated badly? This was the conclusion reached by Justin Trudeau, the recently elected leader of the Liberal Party of Canada:

But there is no question that this happened because there is someone who feels completely excluded. Completely at war with innocents. At war with a society. And our approach has to be, where do those tensions come from? (The National, 2013)

Actually, the Tsarnaev brothers were hardly excluded from American society. Tamerlan married the daughter of a well-off American family and lived in their spacious home. Sure, if you look hard enough, you may find evidence of exclusion. There must have been slights and indifference, perhaps jokes about his first name, but such things don’t cause normal people to kill.

“Normal” is a relative term. In other societies, people do kill for apparently trifling reasons. In Les damnés de la Terre, Frantz Fanon discusses male violence in Algeria, particularly the lack of restraint and the apparently trivial motives:

Autopsies undeniably establish this fact: the killer gives the impression he wanted to kill an incalculable number of times given the equal deadliness of the wounds inflicted.

[…] Very often the magistrates and police officers are stunned by the motives for the murder: a gesture, an allusion, an ambiguous remark, a quarrel over the ownership of an olive tree or an animal that has strayed a few feet. The search for the cause, which is expected to justify and pin down the murder, in some cases a double or triple murder, turns up a hopelessly trivial motive. Hence the frequent impression that the community is hiding the real motives. (Fanon, 2004, p. 222)

This behavioral pattern begins early in life. Parents seek not to suppress it but to channel it in the right direction, i.e., defense of the family:

In Algerian society for example, children are raised according to their sex. A boy usually receives an authoritarian and severe type of upbringing that will prepare him to become aware of the responsibilities that await him in adulthood, notably responsibility for his family and for the elderly. This is why a mother will allow her son to fight in the street and will scarcely be alarmed if the boy has a fall or if she sees a bruise. The boy of an Algerian family is accustomed from an early age to being hit hard without whimpering too much. People orient him more toward combat sports and group games in order to arm him with courage and endurance—virtues deemed to be manly. (Assous, 2005)

This pattern of behavioral development doesn’t differ completely from my own. The difference is largely one of degree. But there’s also a difference in kind: the violent male as an independent actor who fights for himself and his immediate family. For “normal” boys in Western society, male violence is legitimate only when done under orders for much larger entities: the home team, the police, the country, NATO … Everywhere else, it is evil, criminal, and pathological.

This schizophrenic attitude to violence was the subject of the Milgram experiment. You’ve probably heard of it. Assistants are told to administer ever stronger electric shocks if a subject fails on a learning task. About 65% of the assistants—the real subjects of the experiment—will increase the shock intensity up to the top end of the scale, even when the pseudo-subject pleads for cessation. Yet the same assistants act very differently if the decision is theirs. Only 1.4% of them will, on their own initiative, increase the shock intensity up to the top end of the scale (Milgram, 1974)

You may not have heard, however, that this finding holds true only for societies like our own. When the Milgram experiment was done with Jordanian assistants, they were just as willing as Americans to inflict pain under orders (62.5%). But they were more willing than Americans to inflict pain when no orders were given, with 12.5% of them delivering shocks right up to the top end of the scale (Shanab & Yahya, 1978).

How would Chechens have responded in the same situation? Or Algerians? Or Scotch-Irish? Male violence has long been viewed differently in different societies. In our own, it is stigmatized, except when done “under orders” by soldiers or the police. Some societies, however, had no police or army until recent times. Every adult male was expected to use violence to defend himself and his family. Yes, you could go to a law court to settle your differences with someone. But even if the court ruled in your favor, the sentence still had to be enforced by you, your brothers, and other male family members. That’s the way things were done. For millennia and millennia.

Gene-culture co-evolution

Humans differ from other animals in that we create a large part of our environment. We adapt not only to a physical environment of climate, landscape, vegetation, and wildlife but also to a cultural environment of our making: codified laws, behavioral norms, religious beliefs, social and political systems, and so on. We shape our environment, and this environment shapes us. To be more precise, it selects the kind of individuals who can live in it.

Initially, all adult males everywhere had to defend themselves and their families, not by paying taxes but by getting their hands bloody. This situation changed with the rise of the State. In other words, some powerful men became so powerful that they could impose a monopoly on the use of violence. Only they or their underlings could use it. Male violence had been “nationalized” and could be used only if ordered by the State or in narrowly defined situations of self-defense.

In this new pacified environment, the violent male went from hero to zero. He became a criminal and was treated accordingly. Society now favored the peace-loving man who got ahead through work or trade. This process has been described for England and other parts of Western Europe by several academics, like Gregory Clark. With the establishment of strong States toward the end of the Dark Ages, and a subsequent pacification of social relations, the incidence of violence declined steadily. Violent predispositions were steadily removed from the population, either through the actual execution of violent individuals or through their marginalization and lower reproductive success. The meek thus inherited the earth (see previous post).

Or rather a portion of it. In some parts of the earth, particularly remote mountainous areas, State control came very late. These are societies in the earliest stages of pacification. Male violence is a daily reality, which the State can only contain at best. Such is life in Chechnya … and elsewhere.

Genetics of male violence  

But is such gene-culture co-evolution possible? How susceptible is male violence to the forces of natural selection? Are some men more predisposed to violence than others? Is this a heritable trait, or something that men pick up from their peers?

A meta-analysis of twin and adoption studies estimated a heritability of 40% for aggressive behavior (Rhee & Waldman, 2002). A later twin study found a heritability of 96%, where the subjects were 9-10 year-olds of diverse ethnic backgrounds (Baker et al., 2007). This higher figure reflected the narrow age range and the use of a panel of evaluators to rate each subject. In the latest twin study, the heritability was 40% when the twins had different evaluators and 69% when they had the same evaluator. By comparison, many of us accept that homosexuality is inborn even though the heritability of that behavior is much lower: perhaps 34-39% for gays and 18-19% for lesbians (Wikipedia, 2013).

The actual neural basis remains to be sketched out. Perhaps a greater predisposition to violence simply reflects stronger impulsivity and weaker internal constraints on behavior (Niv et al., 2012). Or perhaps there is a lower threshold specifically for expression of violence. Or perhaps ideation of violence comes easier. Or perhaps the consequences of a violent act trigger feelings of pleasure. Frantz Fanon noted that the violent male seems to feel pleasure at the sight of blood. He needs to sense its warmth and even bathe in it. There is in fact an extensive medical literature about “abnormal” individuals who feel pleasure at the sight of blood and even wish to feel and taste it, whereas “normal” individuals feel disgust and often faint (Vanden Berghe & Kelly, 1964). Again, words like “normal” and “abnormal” are relative …

All of this may seem incomprehensible to nice folks like Justin Trudeau. Surely, no one in his right mind would enjoy violence. There must be another reason for such horrors. A good reason. A reason that would make sense to nice folks. Because, deep down, we’re all nice folks, aren’t we?

References

Assous, A. (2005). L’impact de l’éducation parentale sur le développement de l’enfant, Hawwa, 3(3), 354-369.

Baker, L.A., K.C. Jacobson, A. Raine, D.I. Lozano, and S. Bezdjian (2007). Genetic and environmental bases of childhood antisocial behavior: a multi-informant twin study, Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 116, 219-235.

http://cnpru.bsd.uchicago.edu/PDFs/Baker_2007_JAP_RFAB.pdf 

Fanon, F. (2004). The Wretched of the Earth, New York: Grove Press.

Milgram, S. (1974). Obedience to Authority, New York: Harper & Row.

Niv, S., C. Tuvblad, A. Raine, P. Wang, and L.A. Baker. (2012). Heritability and longitudinal stability of impulsivity in adolescence, Behavior Genetics, 42, 378-392.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3351554/  

Rhee, S.H. and I.D. Waldman. (2002). Genetic and environmental influences on antisocial behavior: A meta-analysis of twin and adoption studies, Psychol Bull., 128, 490-529.

Shanab, M.E. and Yahya, K.A. (1978). A cross-cultural study of obedience, Bulletin of the Psychonomic Society, 11, 267-269.

The National. (2013). Trudeau on Boston bombings, April 17

http://www.cbc.ca/player/News/ID/2380243779/

Vanden Bergh, R.L., and J.F. Kelly. (1964). Vampirism. A review with new observations, Archives of General Psychiatry, 11, 543-547.

Wikipedia (2013). Biology and Sexual Orientation,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biology_and_sexual_orientation

 

 

Population replacement in Algeria?

'Trans-Saharan' immigrant camp in Algeria

The 21st century will see a surge of emigration from sub-Saharan Africa that will eclipse the one that used to pour out of Europe into the Americas, southern Africa, Siberia, and Australia. Millions upon millions will be claiming new lands for themselves, just like Europeans of another age.

The biggest surprise will be their push into a wide range of territories, and not simply the homelands of the former colonial powers. Remember, this is not a game of ‘tit for tat.’ It is not some kind of just recompense for colonial wrongs, although its enablers will portray it as such. This is a game that predates our notions of justice and even humanity itself. In fact, it is as old as the oldest life forms.

One front of this population expansion will be Algeria, a Mediterranean country immediately north of sub-Saharan Africa. Until recently, it was a country of emigration, not immigration, its population growing almost entirely through natural increase. The last decade, however, has seen its demography become more and more ‘European’. On the one hand, the fertility rate has fallen to 2.27 children per woman—just enough to replace the existing population. On the other, immigration has become a significant source of population growth.

The current influx began in the mid-1990s. Initially, it flowed into the Saharan portion of Algeria from the neighboring states of Niger and Mali. Over the past decade, its sources have broadened to include all of West Africa and even Central and East Africa. This ‘trans-Saharan’ immigration is also spreading to the north of the country, i.e., the Mediterranean coast:

Further north, in Alger, between the migrants in the old Arab city (the Casbah), the old colonial center (the Port-Saïd quarter essentially), and those in the peripheral quarters (Dely Brahim, Chéraga), and even though the migrants keep a very low profile, there are at least 15,000. In Oran, Algeria’s western metropolis, though closer to the border, there are several thousand (between 3,000 and 5,000) whereas for Maghniyya, a town next to northern Morocco, […] the member of the legislative assembly for that town gives a figure of 3,000 migrants in a camp nearby (Oued Jordi) and 4,000 others in the town itself. (Bensaâd, 2009)

This is something new for Algerians:

The phenomenon of clandestine immigration in Algeria is relatively new for a country like our own, which has become, in only a few years, one of the desirable destinations for nationals of sub-Saharan countries, with some of them attempting to settle here. (Algerie-dz.com, 2005)

At first, it was thought that they were simply passing through on their way to Europe. Many were, but many more saw Algeria itself as their new home:

Some might think that these Black African immigrants are just passing through Algeria, while they wait to find a way to enter Europe. But in reality they say they have found what they want in Algeria. As proof, they have moved in with their families. (Algerie-dz.com, 2005)

Last year, the national gendarmerie estimated that 70% of all clandestine immigrants intend to settle in the country permanently (Algerie360.com, 2009).

Efforts are certainly being made to control the influx. Bensaâd (2009, p. 18) reports that 3,000 migrants are being expelled per month at Tin Zouatin, on the Mali border. And Tin Zouatin is just one of three ‘expulsion points.’ Even though Algeria has signed all of the international conventions on refugees, it has never granted anyone refugee status (Bensaâd, 2009, p. 20)

Yet the influx continues and anti-immigration sentiment is rising among Algerians. It is unclear, however, how this sentiment will translate into political action. The current administration is committed, at least superficially, to a paradigm that took shape during the independence struggle of the early 1960s, i.e., international socialism, pan-Africanism, and Third Worldism. There is a political opposition—the Islamists—but they too are committed to a universalist paradigm that could hardly be used to mobilize opposition to immigration. Remember, most of the trans-Saharan immigrants are also Muslims.

Algeria is thus caught in an ideological gridlock that will probably allow the influx to continue, at least for now. Will we eventually see population replacement? Such a scenario might seem unlikely. After all, Algeria’s fertility rate has not fallen below the replacement level and its gendarmerie has shown a degree of seriousness in dealing with clandestine immigration that would put many Western countries to shame.

Against this, it should be pointed out that the fertility rate has already fallen below replacement in neighboring Tunisia (1.84 children per woman), and this decline will likely spread to the rest of North Africa. Meanwhile, immigration cannot help but increase. First, there is the long porous border with sub-Saharan Africa, particularly with those regions that now have the highest rates of natural increase on the continent. Second, production of oil and natural gas will spur economic growth and create employment for immigrant workers. Third, the Algerian leadership is committed to maintaining at least an outward show of pan-African solidarity. This might explain the secrecy that seems to surround most immigration data (Bensaâd, 2009, pp. 17-21). Too much information could inflame public opinion or, as the demographer Ali Bensaâd puts it, force the Algerian authorities to address “a new societal reality for which they have no legal and social answers.”

So, yes, if current trends continue, we will eventually see population replacement. This process will be fueled not only by high levels of African immigration but also by the youthful age structure and high fertility of the immigrant population, which may pass the one-million mark as soon as five years from now. At that point, immigration control will start to break down, with clandestine immigrants simply melting away into the existing community. Algeria too will be entering the “age of interesting times.”

References

Algerie-dz.com (2005). L’Algérie, eldorado de l’immigration clandestine, Sept. 6, 2005
http://www.algerie-dz.com/article3318.html

Algerie360.com (2009). Immigration clandestine : En Algérie, 70% des clandestins se stabilisent, June 2, 2009 http://www.algerie360.com/algerie/immigration-clandestine-en-algerie-70-des-clandestins-se-stabilisent/

Bensaâd, A. (2009). Le Maghreb à l’épreuve des migrations subsahariennes. Immigration sur émigration, Paris : Éditions Karthala.