by Hossam Hamza
Algeria’s constant insistence on embedding the principles of non-alignment and positive neutrality in its foreign policy expresses its realization of the intractability of understanding the pattern of its dealing with the dynamics of polarization at the level of the international system. It is intended to achieve the aspirations of the party making the claim.
This is what is understood from the Algerian president not missing the opportunity for his last media interview to repeat – in a way aimed at emphasizing – the roots of rationality and non-alignment in Algerian foreign policy: “We are trying to explain to them (to Moscow and Washington) that our affiliation is neither military nor ideological bias, because we are a state. Moderation, non-alignment is our policy.”
Those who follow the Algerian President’s statements to the media since the start of the Russian military operation in Ukraine in February 2022 would notice that they include, in content or disclosure, messages to the poles of the international system, especially China, Russia and the United States of America, that Algeria is keen on mutual and friendly respect in its relations with everyone, and that its positions are based on a rational basis that makes the national interest a final criterion for Algeria’s foreign policy.
As much as this position of Algeria suggests its keenness to avoid involvement in the battle of global competition between the West and the East, it also expresses its desire to maintain fruitful partnerships with all its partners.
This Algerian position was clear since the early days of the outbreak of the Ukrainian crisis, and it was implicitly expressed in a joint Chinese-Algerian statement following the visit of former Algerian Foreign Minister Ramtane Lamamra to Beijing between March 19 and 21, 2022.
At the time, Algeria and China said: “With regard to the Ukrainian issue, the two sides insist on the need to adhere to the goals and principles of the United Nations Charter, and to respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of states, while adhering to the principle of indivisible security and taking into account the reasonable security concerns of the concerned parties.”
There is no dispute that reading this position against the background of prior knowledge of the geopolitical causes and motives of the conflict reveals Algeria’s neutrality towards its parties and the balance it observed in building its position. his interpretation.
The tendency to regard Algeria’s position as siding with Russia because it did not imply a condemnation of it, dominated most of these analyzes and explanations, and the bottom line is that this tendency is caused by the popular idea that considers that everyone who does not take sides with the West, such position is necessarily biased towards Russia (and complicit with it). In addition to this idea being wrong, it stems from a Western influence based on the belief that the West has exclusive legitimacy in defining what is right.
In order to give this interpretation a stronger support, the strategic partnership signed between Algeria and Russia in 2001 and the armament deal they concluded in 2006 was recalled, and the history of relations between Algeria and the Soviet Union was also delved into to complete the construction of the narrative that tries to portray Algeria as an “alliance” with Russia against Ukraine and against the West. The shocking thing is that some Algerian academics and media figures fell into the trap of this not-so-innocent narrative and promoted it.
The persistence in promoting this narrative has reached the extent of an attempt to exploit it by Republican Representative in the US Congress, Lisa McClain, along with 27 other representatives, to demand the imposition of US sanctions on Algeria under the CAATSA law, in a letter they addressed to US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken on October 1, 2022.
This demand was preceded by McClain, Vice Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee Marco Rubio, who in September 2022 called for imposing sanctions on Algeria on the grounds of its purchases of Russian weapons.
Changing this vision required several diplomatic contacts with US officials that allowed an explanation of the Algerian position and its background. It seems that the decision to reopen the Algerian embassy in Kiev on February 26, 2023 had a great impact on understanding Algeria’s neutrality and nullifying the accusations of bias against it, as evidenced by Josep Borrell, the European Union’s High Commissioner for Foreign Affairs and Security, during his visit to Algiers on March 13. Last March, he called on Algeria to carry out diplomatic mediation between Russia and Ukraine to end the war that exhausted the Old Continent, a call that came after the European Union received news of Algeria’s reopening of its embassy in Kiev.
In contrast to this narrative that portrays Algeria as loyal to Russia, another opinion tends to see Algeria’s relationship with the Western-Atlantic powers as analogous to its relationship with Russia and China, with nothing but to ward off the suspicion of alliance with the latter two. He made them identical, without making any distinction between them or any difference.
This proposition is based, in our opinion, only on an explanation that lacks scrutiny. Therefore, the repeated insistence in Algeria’s diplomatic discourse on the principles of positive neutrality and non-alignment as fundamental determinants of its interactions with the global polarization movement that fades at one time and flares up at other times.
In addition to the fact that it does not consider puns in the diplomatic language of Algerian decision-makers in describing Algeria’s foreign relations, the previous proposition stems from a limited understanding of Algeria’s definition of neutrality. The latter does not mean at all the disruption of Algeria’s strategic partnerships, especially with its historical friends, and it can never be a reason for equality between all of Algeria’s relations with the poles of the international system.
Denying Algeria’s allegiance to Russia (or China) should not lead to denying the strategic nature of their relations, without being embarrassed to disclose this, because the strategic partnership between Algeria and Russia or between Algeria and China is not due to ideological rapprochement. If this were true, we would not have seen a strategic partnership between Algeria and Italy, in which there would be no dispute over its belonging to the West.
As a result, what gives specificity to Algeria’s relations with Russia and China and gives it a strategic character is its adoption of a revisionist vision of the global system and its rejection of hegemony and its structures and institutions that make Western countries and their interests higher and more important for investigation, even at the expense of the rest of the world’s peoples.
It is known that Algeria was the first to adopt this idea when it called, through the words of the late President Houari Boumediene, in his famous speech before the Special General Assembly of the United Nations in April 1974, to rebuild a new global economic order that breaks with the exploitation of poor countries and the plundering of their resources.
This fundamental idea that establishes the Algerian-Russian and Algerian-Chinese rapprochement, in our belief, not to mention other factors of a historical and political nature, has formed a relationship of trust, mutual respect and equality between Algeria and its partners, and it is the same idea that we find adopted in the texts and statements of the BRICS organization since the moment of its establishment in 2009. It was the point at which the Algerian perceptions met with the philosophy and goals of this organization. With this in mind, it is not surprising that we find joining the BRICS one of the strategic priorities of the Algerian state in 2023.
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* Hossam Hamza is an Algerian academic and political analyst
Articles with byline express the opinion of its author(s) exclusively; such content does not necessarily reflect the opinion or the position of Islamic Societies Review or its editors.
