Page 76 - Msingi Afrika Magazine Issue 16

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Cover Story

ALGERIA

NO MORE LIMITATIONS

Samuel Phillips

frika, or Alkebulan, like every form, of limitation that which most of its people live, Alge-
which many of us call men set around others, and like ev- ria extends southward deep into the
home, has gone through erything that is found under the sun, heart of the Sahara, a forbidding
Alots and lots of setbacks. time and seasons do come to create desert where Earth’s hottest surface
Her back as the Mother Continent a new beginning. So, concerning the temperatures have been recorded
has been used and abused for gener- limitations that have been placed on and which constitutes more than
ations, by those who only see her as Afrika, her children and everything four-fifths of the country’s area. The
their cash cow and not as an entity to she stands for, the time has come for Sahara and its extreme climate dom-
be loved, honored and wished well. that cage of limitation to break and inate the country. The contemporary
break it must. Algerian novelist Assia Djebar has
She has been badly treated and bad- highlighted the environs, calling her
ly spoken of by both outsiders and This is much about Algeria as much country “a dream of sand.”
insiders whose only agenda is to con- as it is about the entire 55 nations of History, language, customs, and an
tinue riping her apart for their selfish Afrika and those of Afrikan descent Islamic heritage make Algeria an in-
agendas. She has been, both deliber- in the diaspora. NO MORE LIM- tegral part of the Maghreb and the
ately or not, subjected to many years ITATIONS. larger Arab world, but the country
of trauma, pain, leadership failures, also has a sizeable Amazigh (Berber)
and the fleecing of her human and About Algeria population, with links to that cultur-
natural resources, all with a genera- Algeria is a large, predominantly al tradition. Once the breadbasket
tional, mental and ideological cage Muslim country of North Afrika. of the Roman Empire, the territory
of limitations set around her. But, From the Mediterranean coast, along now comprising Algeria was ruled

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