Harraga and Hittistes III

The coast of Annaba in Algeria, from where
  harraga try to reach France or Spain.

AnAnd even worse (see Harraga and Hittistes II).

Today's El Watan (an Algerian newspaper published in French) reports:

Des harraga âgés de 10 ans en Espagne

Several harraga (African immigrants who try to smuggle themselves into Europe by boat) were intercepted earlier this week by the Spanish authorities as they tried to flee across the Mediterranean on "un petit bateau pneumatique" - that is, a small rubber dinghy.  This time,  it was neither a woman nor a grandfather who was fleeing to the West for a "better life"... but five boys aged 10 and one aged 16. 

The children were found on board alone, with no adults accompanying them.

What did the Romans ever do for Tunisia? Bulla Regia, that's what!

Detail of an underground mosaic, Bulla Regia

If you’ve just climbed to the top of the Roman amphitheatre at El Djem or are fresh from wandering across the seemingly endless ruins of Dougga, then your first feeling on arriving at Bulla Regia is likely to be one of disappointment.

It’s true, the theatre at Bulla Regia is impressive and the Memmian baths are immense. But, but... well, the Roman remains elsewhere in Tunisia are so outstanding that dusty old Bulla doesn’t quite seem to match up. So, why not push on back to the coast for a quick dip in the Med?

Because, if you do, then you’ll miss one of the most unique ancient sites anywhere in the world. If I had to make a choice between visiting, say, the Colosseum in Rome, England’s Stonehenge or Tunisia’s Bulla Regia, then it’s Bulla that’s going to win hands down every time. 

Dog-faced creatures and creatures without heads

An adapted version of this article, written by Culturissima's managing director, Dr David Winter, was first published in History Today Magazine.

He bites

Few countries have had such a profound impact on anyone at Culturissima as Libya.  Tripoli, where I'm sipping a mint tea in a semi-derelict café just off Green Square, isn't a particular favourite - too many cars, too many bureaucrats, too many nondescript blocks of offices - but the rest of the country... it's just fabulous.

Swimming in the Sahara

The most striking aspect of Libya, besides its vastness (it takes nearly a whole day, for example, simply to drive along the Mediterranean across the Gulf of Sirte), is the friendliness and openness of the people, their kindness and their readiness to smile and engage in conversation. “Dog-faced” they’re not.

I find myself here for three reasons: first, since I was a child I have loved North Africa, and Algeria in particular.  Trouble is, it’s a bit too dangerous to go to Algeria at the moment (at the time this article was written, May 2008) , so Libya – in spite of its reputation! – seemed a good second choice.  I guess that’s another one of the reasons why I’m here: no one has a good word to say about the country… so why not come and see for myself? 

And finally, as a lapsed Classicist who spent nearly half of his life studying Greek and Latin, how could I refuse the offer to accompany a handful of historians to the sites of ancient Libya, in particular those magna opera, Sabratha and Leptis Magna? 

He doesn't bite

Ask yourself this: can you think of any country that has been as insidiously daemonised as Libya over the past few decades? In the modern era, Libyans have learnt that, courtesy of Mr Bush's government, they inhabit a land “beyond the Axis of Evil”. Going further back into the annals, most histories of the Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya begin with Herodotus’ 5th century BC account of a land of “dog-faced creatures and creatures without heads, their eyes in their breasts”.  

"Get your head around this", suggests Beni, my London-educated, Tripoli-born colleague: "You wake up one morning, just like any other morning, you're having a fag, you turn the radio on - and wham! - you're informed by the BBC that you're part of the 'axis of evil'. That's worse than learning the tube is on strike as you're munching your bowl of Frosties, I can tell you." 

Beni, like his parents and his parents’ parents, has seen it all before, though. From 1922 onwards Mussolini, driven partly by a nostalgia for Italy’s Classical inheritance and partly by a need to house the peninsula's expanding population, embarked on a “civilising” mission to make Libya Italy’s “fourth shore”.  Anything ancient Rome could do, Mussolini could do better: a dozen years later a new country with a new name had emerged under Italian rule - “Libya”, an amalgam of the traditionally disparate regions of Tripolitania, Cyrenaica and Fezzan.

Giacometti in the Sahara?

Even though a late entrant in the North African colonial race, Italy managed to leave its mark on Beni's homeland.  As the self-styled "protector of Islam", Mussolini let Italian aircraft loose on Libyan horsemen; when that failed, Il Duce savaged the territory with deliberate starvation, sowed the country with concentration camps, deported families en masse, and erected a barbed-wire fence stretching 200 miles along the border with Egypt.

"So you see", suggested Beni, "We Libyans look on your - the West's - mistrust of all things Libyan with a little bit of irony.  American and UN sanctions? No worse than the Italians starving my brothers to death. Trying to murder Colonel Gaddafi?  The hero of our revolution - Omar al Mukhtar - he was hanged in public in front of 20,000 of loyal followers".

"Does President Reagan really think that we Libyan savages are quivering in our sandals when he rants ‘You can run but you can't hide'?  Your friends the Americans can bomb the buggery out of Benghazi if they want - when the Italians were here, they killed one in four of my brothers and sisters".

And he's right, is Beni. When Libya finally came of age as an independent nation in 1951, it was a country on its knees, with an infant mortality rate of 40 per cent and an illiteracy rate of over 90 per cent.  The very act of autonomy was riddled with Western caprice: an independent Libya was a way of ensuring that British and American troops could be installed on Libyan territory - although for most Libyans this was preferable to one of the alternatives proposed: that France be granted stewardship of Fezzan and Britain be awarded Cyrenaica. Most astonishingly in view of her history of barbarity, Italy was initially granted Tripolitania.

Anyway, I’m on my way to the south, to the Akakus, where I can forget about Europe's colonial past.  The Akakus is a Saharan landscape of soaring dunes and colossal rock formations – rough arches, steep gorges and buttressed mountains.  This remote terrain, ineffably beautiful, is studded with thousands of lonely rock carvings - alligators and elephants, giraffes and buffalos (see photos) - that date back as far as 12,000 B.C.  Arid and ancient, the Akakus was once the dwelling place of Herodotus’ Garamantes, whilst today the nomadic, indigo-veiled Tuareg still wander across the vast expanses close to the frontier with Algeria and Niger. 

So you see, these mythical concoctions mask a tragic reality: Libya is a land whose ineffable beauty - from Leptis to the Sahara - has no need of mythologising.

Gabon's growing its own timber

A report last year estimated that foreign workers held 1,893 of the 8,590 posts in the Gabonese oil industry, with nationals occupying just 17 percent of available executive positions. If Gabon wants to secure its future as one of Africa's leading oil producing nations, then it needs to start “growing its own timber” before it is too late. 

More than a generation after oil was first discovered in Gabon in the early 1970s, one issue unites the industry's major players more than any other: the raw materials are just not up to scratch.

But it is not Gabon’s vast supplies of black gold that have been found wanting. Rather, it is a lack of local expertise that is causing concern as the Gabonese government faces up to the fact that there is a national skills shortage at all levels of the oil industry.

In October 2010 President Ali Bongo, responding to pressure from vocal unions such as the ONEP, announced plans to impose a 10 percent cap on foreign oil sector workers and to prioritise local job-seekers over their foreign counterparts.

But for a more sustainable future Gabon has to find a way to grow its own timber. And it is here that foreign oil companies are playing a significant role, their plans to increase the number of skilled local workers based on a simple formula: training, training and more training - not just for new recruits to the sector but also, crucially, for senior management. 

Shell Gabon, which first started operating in the country in the 1960s, has been promoting overseas bursaries for Gabonese students for several decades. And in 2010 ENI Gabon, part of the Italian ENI group, launched its "Citizen Programme", in which Masuku University will become a training hub for final-year geology graduates. There is more good news, too: experienced executives from the state oil ministry will soon be able to pursue their professional development at the renowned ENI Corporate University in Milan.

Total has resolved to take training a stage further. Earlier this year the French multinational signed a public-private agreement that will lead to the construction of a National Institute of Petrol and Gas at Port-Gentil. With courses in everything from oil exploration to the commercialisation of hydrocarbons, hopes are high that the institute will generate Gabon's very own oil elite, local men and women who will pass their technical and managerial skills on to the next generation of young Gabonese.

A smuggler in illegal immigrants tells his story

For well over a year now, on a number of different posts, Culturissima's David Winter has been drawing attention to the plight of Algeria's harragas, the young men - and increasingly women - who pay smugglers to ferry them across the Mediterranean to the "El Dorado" that is Europe. The following article has just appeared in the French press.


In spite of increased surveillance on the Spanish coast and around the islands off Italy, large numbers of young Algerians are still trying to cross the Mediterranean to reach the European Union - ensuring happy times for the smuggling industry in the Algerian town of Annaba, the hub of illegal immigration.

The coast off Annaba

At least one million dinars [£8, 500] is the gold mine reaped by a smuggler for each "crossing" or "consignment". The books are closed after three crossings per season at the rate of one crossing every two weeks. How is this "turn-over" achieved? What kind of logistics are called for?

We spent weeks trying to find out before being put in direct contact with a smuggler whom we are going to call "Ahmed". After several days of prevarication, our smuggler ended up by agreeing to meet in a restaurant situated at the end of Annaba's Rizzi Ameur beach, the headquarters of the smugglers' union. For nearly two hours, Ahmed explained to us the initial steps involved in organising a crossing.

They start by collecting details about the number of applicants so that they can narrow down what type of boat to buy, and whether to order it from an illegal workshop or to hire it from some off-shore fishermen. Once the boat has been supplied, it has to be painted black to avoid being intercepted by the coast-guards at night. The assignment to find the boat is entrusted to intermediaries who receive on average a sum of 1,000 to 1, 500 dinars [from £8.50 to £13]: a craft 7 metres long, able to take up to 20 people, costs a smuggler some 70,000 dinars [£600], as opposed to 40,000 dinars [£340] for a 5 metre boat with a capacity of 10 to 12 places.

For VIP applicants - known in the trade as fachafich - the smuggler, at the request of his clients,  will opt for a small boat with an outboard-motor, with the price varying between a million [£8,500] and one and a half million dinars [£12,750]. According to Ahmed, the motor-boat itself is either bought (following a levy on the VIP harragas) or stolen. Then they have to procure the outboard-motor through casual networks in the capital, Algiers. New,  and with a 10 HP motor,  it comes to 460,000 dinars [£3,900],  with a 5 HP and 7 HP costing respectively 150,000 [£1,300] and 200,000 dinars [£1,700]. 

The next step,  as outlined by Ahmed,  consists of acquiring a GPS and a compass - two pieces of equipment that are essential for the crossing - for which the smuggler will have to pay out the tidy sum of from 30,000 [£256] to 80,000 dinars [£685] for the former and 3,000 [£25] to 4,000 dinars [£35] for the latter. Twenty drums (each with a capacity of 20 litres) represents the amount of petrol necessary for the crossing,  as well as drum of oil. For this,  explains Ahmed,  recourse to an intermediary is absolutely necessary. To dispel any suspicion that might be aroused by buying so much petrol in a service station,  the smuggler calls on the help of the owners of high-powered cars,  often the sons of well known figures in Annaba,  with whom he enjoys "good" relations.

Rare are the smugglers who think to equip a boat with life-jackets: the harragas are deemed to be good swimmers,  Ahmed makes clear. Having gathered together all the logistical equipment,  negotiations are opened about the price of the trip,  that is to say with the "passengers" to be carried. These prices are fixed according to what the client looks like and where he comes from: the price per place can go from 40, 000 [£350] to 200,000 dinars [£1,700] for the applicants known as zawalia (the poor). The price applied to the most well off,  the VIP harragas or those hailing from other towns in Algeria,  varies between 150,000 [£1,300] and 200,000 dinars [£1,700].

Half of the sum is paid in advance a few days before departure. The balance is paid on D Day. "We demand that half the price is paid before departure so that we can settle all the preliminary expenses. The remainder is cashed in a few minutes before departure and is then entrusted to a member of the family who must be on the spot at the moment they leave. This money has to be held as security as there's always the risk that the relevant authorities might mean the operation has to be aborted",  emphasises Ahmed.

Questioned on the possible turn-over, Ahmed first of all refrained from replying then,  as we insisted,  finished up by letting slip the figure of one million dinars [£8,500] minimum per crossing,  at the rate of three or four shipments per season.  Sniffing this juicy bonanza,  numerous are those who have launched themselves into this new market. When this activity first started to emerge, in 2005,  it was under the control of only three individuals. Today,  their number has risen to more than a dozen in Annaba.

This article first appeared in the French journal Courrier International and was translated from the French by Culturissima's managing director, Dr David Winter.


Links to further harraga posts:

Harraga and Hittistes I
Harraga and Hittistes II
Harraga and Hittistes III

True, there aren't many airports in the desert

It's true, there aren't many airports in the desert. All the more reason, then, that you'd expect the locals to be able to give you directions to the nearest airstrip. My driver gave up asking. "They're from El Oued, they're all in-bred. Look at their hands, they've got toes instead of fingers. They don't even know what a plane is, they only know how to shag camels". Zahir paused before concluding: "And they're as ugly as the devil". 

"What, the locals?"

"No, the camels".

"Thanks for that, Zahir. And a good-looking camel, what does that look like?"

Zahir came over all French - his shoulders sighed "bof" - as he focused his attention on doing what Algerian men do best in life: scratching his balls. 

I got out of the car and sought out some local knowledge.

"Airport?"

"Aéroport? Aeroporto? Aeropuerto? Um, Flughafen?" 

Nothing. 

"The nearest brothel, please?"

El Oued

Nothing. 

Unamused, the El Ouedians carried on walking by as though I was the crazy one, as though it was me who had toes instead of fingers.

"David Beckham?"

"Ah, Mister Beckham! Come to my house for a mint-tea and meet my daughter - very nice daughter. Strong thighs, sturdy hips. Wants to see snow and kiss David Beckham". 

"Ah, you speak French! Where's the nearest airport please? It's supposed to be a couple of kilometers from here".

"El Oued, this is El Oued. Welcome to El Oued. Welcome to my country".

"Yes, thanks, very kind. I'm looking for the airport - airplanes. You know, nnnnowwwww... " I stretched my arms out wide like an albatross, made plane noises (obviously), whirled around a bit and pretended to be a plane... obviously. 

A crowd gathered.

And then a bigger one. Lots of shouting, too - I couldn't understand a word, except (I think) some old bloke shouting indoors to his missus: "Oi, Margaret, come out here, there's this nutter pretending to be an albatross - an albatross in the desert, can you believe it? Bloody foreigners".

Camels

A chap with teeth and shoes appeared and everyone fell silent: "Mister White Man, what a bald, white head you have. I am the mayor - I am the mayor of all El Oued. All El Oued. Welcome to my country, welcome to El Oued. I am here to serve you. What is it that you desire?" 

Fantastic! Perfect French! "The airport", I pleaded, "Do you know where the airport is, please?"

"Which one?"

"Which one? There are two?"

"No".

"How many are there, then?

"None".

"Okay, okay... Do you know... Do you know what an airplane is?"

"Patronising git", I could see him thinking. "Mister White Man, we are not stupid here, we are not like the people of Ouargla... "

"Yes", I interjected, just to get my own back on Zahir, "where they all have toes instead of ..."

"Exactly. I know what an airplane is. That, for example, is one over there".

Locals

He took me by the hand and led me around the corner of the building.  Less than three miles away across the flat and dusty desert, sitting in splendid isolation on the sand, was an airplane. And next to the airplane was a tower topped by a radar dish. 

In the "old days", when I first arrived in Algeria, I would have scratched my head repeatedly and tried to work out what this mis-communication was all about. Now, I just clapped my hands, smiled as wide as possible (showing all my teeth, just to rub it in), shook everyone's fingers and exclaimed: "Magic, magic! I love your country!"

My new friends pushed the car until the engine spluttered into life and waved us off to the airport, "El Oued International Airport - Gateway to the Sahara" according to the weathered sign that greeted us on arrival.

Zahir, taking one look at the policeman manning the road block, spat: "Pay me now, I'm not going in there".

"But I need to get some change to pay you properly".

"Bugger properly. It's okay just give me 20 instead of 30. Bye".

"Um, okay, nice meeting you... " 

God, it was hot. But it was an airport, there was a terminal, there was some shade, I had some water. I sat down on my bag and tried to get some sleep - or some rest at least - until the plane arrived, although I was pretty sure she wouldn't be on it. Some more police arrived. I smiled and waved hullo. Some more police arrived. I smiled again. They started shouting at me; nothing unusual in that - it normally means nothing. What was strange, though, was that these policemen all had teeth. These were proper policemen. What are they doing here in the middle of nowhere?

To be continued

Yes we can't

World Cup fever in Algiers

This article, written by Culturissima's managing director, Dr David Winter, was first published in When Saturday Comes June 18, 2010

Yes We Can't runs the headline in English in one of Algeria's leading papers as the Desert Foxes, still groggy after their 1-0 reverse against Slovenia, prepare to face the ogre anglais. Algeria expects, but not a lot: Une Mission Impossible is how Le Soir d'Algerie sums up the national team's chances against England, although most of the cafe talk still centres on who to blame for Sunday's defeat. Rabah Saadane gets it in the neck for his team selection, Abdelkader Ghezzal for his two yellow cards and Fawzi Chaouchi for his Greenesque goalkeeping blunder.

More venom is reserved for the team's barber, now obliged to carry his scissors in his back pocket for the rest of his life. Three of Algeria's players took to the pitch against Slovenia with dyed blond locks: "Bloody poofs," hissed my neighbour. "Since when have Arabs been blond? I'm glad they lost, otherwise all the kids would have come home looking daft. Why can't they be proud of where they come from?"

This last point is moot: 16 of the Algeria squad were born in France, and they're now being compared to the tomatoes on sale in Bab el Oued market: imported and crap. One hero did emerge from the opening game, though: the Algerian supporter pictured sitting atop one of the floodlights high above the stadium drew repeated roars of laughter from television spectators used to devising cunning ways to defeat the authorities.

There can be no doubt that the mood of national pessimism will be entirely cast aside as the England game approaches. Why? Because Friday's match is the most eagerly anticipated fixture in Algeria's history as it offers the country that rarest of opportunities: the chance to heave itself onto the world stage. To share a pitch with Lampard and Gerrard and Rooney is a source of inestimable pride for a nation that is largely ignored by the West.

What is more extraordinary still is that there is no bitterness or animosity towards England or the US, the Fennecs' final group opponents, even though these two countries have recently promoted Algeria – ludicrously – to the premier league of terrorist nations. Should they win today, then the decade of national strife will be forgotten – and the arranged elections almost certainly called at once.

The jubilation following Algeria's qualification for South Africa surpassed the outpouring of joy following independence in 1962. Victory over the Three Lions – and Franz Beckenbauer has just appeared on national television saying it's possible – would catapult this most downtrodden of countries into an ecstasy of teetotal celebrations: "Hallucinant, it would be hallucinant if we beat you."

So much for African fraternity

Patriotism in the Algerian capital, Algiers

I'm working in Algiers, the Algerian capital, on behalf of Culturissima, writing and researching a batch of cultural tours along Algeria's Mediterranean coast and deep down into the Sahara.

But the World Cup's just this moment started, and South Africa - the host country, of course, have just played their first match... so I've sent this off to a British football magazine for publication:

So much for African fraternity: the moment the referee blew the opening whistle for South Africa versus Mexico was the signal for the inhabitants of Algiers to desert their television sets and turn the streets of the capital into a Mediterranean Rio.

"Aren't you watching the game?"

"No, we want to have fun! One, Two, Three - Viva l'Algérie! Besides, it's sunny in North Africa but it's snowing in South Africa!"

He’s right: the television reception is poor – so much so that my neighbours devoted the whole of last night to hooking their ramshackle tv set directly to a huge satellite dish on the roof of a nearby tower block.

The reward for such initiative?

A spell behind bars - the dish sits on top of the local police headquarters.

Hopes are far from sky-high as Algeria gears up for Sunday’s opening clash between the Desert Foxes and Slovenia (Or is it Serbia? Croatia? Nobody seems to know).

"Une participation honorable, that’s what we’re after", says one local journalist: "But that’s the problem – that’s all we ever want: mediocrity. Give us our daily bread and fixed elections once every five years – that’s all we ever pray for".

Falah Benyoucef set out to disprove such cynicism by walking from Algiers to South Africa to watch Algeria’s first game, a journey of 8,000 miles.

It was only after trudging over the Atlas mountains, traversing the broad expanses of the Sahara desert and reaching Algeria’s southern border with Niger that Falah, now a national hero, inspected the visa in his passport: Maximum Stay in Niger – 24 Hours. Seven hundred miles in the space of a day was a feat too far even for Falah the Magnificent.

A few hundred wealthy Algerian supporters have made it to South Africa, flying from a special terminal that is normally reserved for pilgrims on their return from Mecca. On arriving the fans learned that "capitaine courage", Yazid Mansouri, has been dropped by manager Rabah Saadane, whose latest press conference ended with the hope that his team will make up for their individual weaknesses with collective desire.

This esprit de corps is very much alive in the western city of Oran – or that’s what the president of the region’s electricity board is promising: "We will have an équipe of highly trained engineers on duty during all Algeria’s matches. There is no reason for the public to panic".

Why the worry?

Well, many Oranais are still confused as to what happened to Zidane in the 2006 final. There was a power cut just before the forehead of Algeria’s most famous son made contact with Materazzi and many locals have still not seen the pictures of one of sport’s most iconic moments. It couldn't happen again, could it? Well, in the southern city of Ouargla the thermometer is now touching 46° in the shade, the power has gone off, the back-up generator has failed, there's no air-conditioning, no running water... but "One, Two, Three - Viva l'Algérie!"


Dr David Winter

The principal objective is to not be ridiculous

Algerians like their flags large

This article, written by Culturissima's David Winter, was first published in the Racing and Football Outlook, June 2010

"The principal objective is to not be ridiculous"
Rabah Saadane, Algeria manager

The "Desert Foxes" are a team of largely French-born exiles - but never has an équipe of outsiders been loved with such pride and such passion. And, quaint though it may seem, only one thing matters to Algerian fans and players: being there. "What a privilege to be on the same pitch as England", says Foued Kadir, the Algerian midfielder who turns out for Valenciennes: "Lampard, Rooney, Gerrard – I watch them on tv and now I can’t believe I’ll be playing against them!"

There is little analysis in the Algerian press about the chances of Ziani, Bougherra and the boys in green but mention two subjects – the French coach and a coach in Cairo - and vooomph! the street cafés light up. According to a headline in Le Soir d’Algérie, "Domenech n’aime pas les Algériens".

The proof? He left Benzema and Nasri out of the French squad. And the Egyptians? During the combustible qualifier between the Rats and the Pharaohs last November, the Algerian team bus was stoned by a gang of locals. FIFA has just announced its "timides sanctions" against the Egyptian FA and the whole of Algiers is crying its favourite phrase: It’s a plot! It’s this fierce, often paranoid, closing of the ranks that could just leave "Mister Capello" looking faintly ridiculous on June 18.

Algeria at the World Cup

Win, lose or draw, there'll be war

This article - written by Culturissima's David Winter - was first published in When Saturday Comes May 30, 2010

What are the expectations for the team?
Low. It’s the taking part and the fact that Egypt won’t be there that counts. There is undiluted admiration for England, especially Wayne Rooney; the US are going to be a lot harder to beat than anyone thinks (largely due to their discipline and experience of World Cups) and no one remembers or much cares who the third team is. Even though there is not much hope, there is huge amounts of optimism. Over 40,000 national jerseys have been sold in France alone since qualification.

Is the coach popular?
Yes, he is. Rabah Saadane was even elected “Man of the Year” and, whatever happens, will largely remain so. For one, Algeria will never forget their defeat of Egypt (though they’re still awaiting with interest FIFA’s verdict on the stoning of the Algerian team bus in Cairo). Secondly, no matter how Algeria get knocked out, it will be the fault of the Egyptians, who apparently run FIFA.

Are there any players with unusual hobbies or business interests?
Many players are unknown as almost no one in the starting line-up lives in or was born in Algeria. Plus, only one player has ever and will ever count for Algeria: Zinedine Zidane.

Who are the best and worst interviewees?

Chadli Amri makes a good interviewee, especially when talking about the hogra of Algerians living in France (hogra means being excluded and held in contempt): “North Africans being molested in France or not given housing like the others? It happens all the time. Me, I’m not putting up with that.” The coach is good when it comes to slagging off Egypt. But Lionel Messi gets twice as many column inches as any Algerian. And Zidane only needs to fart to be in the papers.

Is the team likely to have any unusual goal celebrations?
All Algeria’s goal celebrations will be over-the-top. After qualifying, both at the stadium itself and on the victory drive from the airport back to the centre of Algiers, the players paraded with a mock version of the World Cup, as though they had already won it. Elsewhere, one might consider this arrogance; here it was innocent.

Have the team recorded a song for the World Cup?
No, but at the last count 28 CDs had been knocked out by various groups celebrating qualification. “One, two, three [sung in English in a very thick Algerian accent] – Viva l’Algérie!” earns rapturous applause everywhere.

What will the media coverage be like?
Wall to wall, both in French and Arabic, with all matches covered live – and French TV is streamed into most homes. People will celebrate and take to the streets for days even if they lose. Public debate about the team risks being seen as “déstabilisation de l’équipe nationale” unless you are a member of the 1986 World Cup squad, in which case it’s perfectly acceptable to start every sentence with: “In my day...”

Will there be many fans travelling to South Africa?
A couple of thousand very rich and very privileged Algerians are hoping to make it. As ever, though, they will have to surmount numerous bureaucratic hurdles. The government has decided that to obtain a new biometric passport, each citizen is obliged to list the names of the friends he had at primary school as well as their best friend during national service.

Algeria prepares for the World Cup

This article - written by Culturissima's David Winter - was first published in When Saturday Comes May 6, 2010 

To walk the streets of Algiers in early May is to be surrounded by thousands of locals clad in the green and white of the Desert Foxes. No surprise there – 40,000 national jerseys have been sold in France alone since the Fennecs' qualification against Egypt last November. What is surprising, though, is to find oneself supping a mint tea in a cafe heaving with bearded regulars sporting the three lions of England on their chests. At a rough guess there are twice as many people wearing England tops on Rue Didouche Mourade as there are on Oxford Street. Yet no one seems to know why.

It'll end in tears

It is such a cliche (and, far worse than that, a cliche invented by their former colonial masters across the Mediterranean) but, for the majority of Algerians gearing up for the World Cup, it really is the taking part that counts. Most Algerians couldn't name a single player in their team, with the possible exception of Karim Ziani, and all that they know about their manager is that one, he cried on national television and two, someone elected him "Man of The Year".

No, every football conversation across Algeria, from the Mediterranean to the Sahara, goes like this: "Ha, ha, Egypt didn't qualify! We're going to get trounced. But who cares? Let's party!" This is followed by: "Is Beckham in the England team?" (news takes time to filter through to North Africa). Les Verts are rarely interviewed on television, some of them have only ever been to Algeria once or twice, and, let's face it, only one player has ever and will ever count for Algeria: Zinedine Zidane.

A couple of thousand very rich and very privileged Algerians are hoping to make it to South Africa to support the Fennecs. As ever, though, they will have to surmount numerous bureaucratic hurdles – the government has decided that, to obtain one of the new biometric passports, each citizen is obliged to list the names of the friends he went to primary school with as well as the name of his best friend during National Service. As with the England tops, no one seems to know why.

Sex tourism in Algeria

Central Algiers, where - just to
be clear - there is no sex tourism

I've just come back from another stay in Algiers, where I was invited, on behalf of Culturissima, to attend a travel show in the heart of the Algerian capital at the famous Hotel St Georges - famous because it's Algiers' oldest hotel, and it was here that Roosevelt set up his headquarters during World War II. 

As the only foreigner in attendance, I was - for once in my life - in great demand and enjoyed, momentarily at least, playing "hard to get".  A clutch of Algerian travel agencies was keen to suggest various forms of partnership with "the sir from England" but the greatest interest was shown by the Algerian media. Being interviewed - especially in a foreign language - is great fun at first... it soon becomes pretty wearing, though, answering the same questions: Why are you in Algeria? What do you think the future of tourism is in Algeria? Are the beaches nicer here than in Tunisia?

By the fifth interview, with the television lights bouncing off my bald head, I'd had enough - except that, a rarity in Algeria, there was a young woman waiting to interview me. Fresh out of journalism school, she began to ask me the same set of questions: What is your name? Where are you from? Why are you here?  

"Well, I'm here on behalf of a British tour company, looking to see what opportunities there might be to develop our market here".
 
"What is your market?" 

"Well, normally we operate in the Far East, but we've exploited all that region's opportunities for sexual tourism so now we're hoping to develop the same market in Algeria" - I said this with a straight face but was sure that she'd twig that I was pulling her leg. 

"And what age group will your tours be aimed at?"  

"Middle-aged men, largely".  

"About your age?"  

"That's right" - cheeky thing, I thought... but she still hadn't grasped that I was stringing her along.   
"And how big will they be?"  

"I beg your pardon?"
 
 "How big will the groups be?" It was at this moment that her minder - a middle aged man like myself but with a sense of humour - gently whispered in her ear that I was taking the micky.  

Virtually unknown in the English-speaking world

Less than three hours from London, yet virtually unknown in the English-speaking world, Algiers is one of the Mediterranean's most mesmerising cities, a captivating mélange of faded French grandeur and neo-Moorish folly crowned by a legendary casbah. 

The esplanade, central Algiers

Were "Alger La Blanche" situated on the northern coast of the Mediterranean, this dazzling euphony of blue and white would be one of Europe's most sought after destinations.

A lived-in, weather-warmed city, the Algerian capital is home to some of the most exuberant, playful art deco architecture anywhere in the world. Yet the boulevards of this Mediterranean Paris are also lined with mosques and minarets, notably the 17th century Fishermen's Mosque, as well as neo-Moorish delights such as the Grande Poste.

Central Algiers: imagine a lick of paint!

The casbah - "a masterpiece of architecture and town planning" according to Le Corbusier - remains one of the world's most mythical labyrinths, its huddled houses tumbling down the hill-side before seemingly spilling over into the sea.

The interior of one of Algiers' palaces

Dead: the last Jew

The "last Jew in Oran", once home to
 a thriving Jewish community, has passed away

I am on a plane between Algiers and Oran as I write this (I'll post it on arrival, insh'Allah) and have just come across this article (attached - taken with my camera 'phone, I'm afraid) in Le Soir d'Algérie newspaper. I don't have time for a full translation, unfortunately, but basically it's recounting how the last Jew in the Mediterranean city of Oran (to the west of Algiers, the capital) has just passed away.
Correction
I've been told the article appeared in Le Figaro and not its Algerian counterpart.

Crocodiles and jellyfish in the Sahara

A guelta in the Algerian Sahara

Algeria isn't the easiest country to do business in - in fact, it's the most difficult destination that we operate in - but it is the most diverse and above all, the most beautiful and the most unspoilt.

Footprints in the desert

Algeria's mountainous Tassili region, bordering Libya to the east and Niger to the south, is distinguished by its towering dunes of sand, its sheer-sided canyons and its beguiling "forests of rock". The Tassili - "plateau of the rivers" in Arabic - is an open-air treasure-trove of more than 15,000 rock carvings and cave paintings that depict pre-historic crocodiles and cattle, giraffes and jellyfish.

Starting from the white-washed oasis town of Djanet, we recently navigated the Tassili's intoxicating landscape of palm-groves, wadis and dunes by camel, on foot and by jeep. Our tour (and, remember, Culturissima wasn't in the Sahara here on holiday - this was business!) - spent three nights under the Saharan stars as we tracked down the region's gueltas, the desert water-holes that sustain the Tassili's Tuareg nomads.

On the horizon

We also sought out the tarout, the endemic Saharan cypress trees that are over 2,000 years old... but we didn't encounter one of the Sahara's most extra-ordinary living creatures - crocodylus niloticus, an indigenous dwarf crocodile! Maybe next time!

Algeria celebrates victory over Egypt

This article was first published in When Saturday Comes November 19, 2009

They think they've won it already

I have to admit that I was scared for ten or so minutes after the final whistle blew here in Oran, Algeria last night. I watched Les Verts' World Cup play-off game with Egypt in a cafe in darkened streets of a city that I don't know. Anthar Yahia's 40th minute goal, a Van Basten-esque angled volley, unleashed the country's wildest celebrations since July 1962 – the month Algeria secured its bloody independence from France. Chairs flew over the road, aerosal sprays flashed into the sky, cars vroomed down the streets backwards and sideways, kids slalomed between klaxoning motorbikes and I had to duck once or twice to avoid the fireworks thrown like confetti.

More than 12 hours after the game ended, I've had to close my hotel window to keep out the noise of honking cars on the street 13 floors below. Even the barbus – the Islamic fundamentalists who for ten years brought the country to its knees – are dancing in the streets.

On the streets of Algiers

It is impossible for a European to imagine the rivalry that exists between the Fennecs and the Pharaohs. In Algiers, the offices of Air Egypt were burnt down two days ago. As the final qualifying group match drew to a close last Saturday, with Algeria minutes away from automatic qualification for South Africa, Algerian television's John Motson could restrain himself no longer. “Win it boys, win it for our million martyrs, show Egypt that Algeria never retreats," a barbed allusion to the fact that Algeria won their war against France but Egypt lost theirs against Israel.

After last weekend's two-nil defeat, Algerian president Abdelaziz Bouteflika commandeered half of Air Algérie's fleet to convey supporters to neutral Khartoum for yesterday's play-off match – a move that nearly backfired when disappointed fans ransacked Algiers airport on learning there were not enough planes to go around. Such disappointment is a distant memory this morning as Algeria unites in ear-splitting harmony. Chanting supporters, young and old (including a fair helping of women) are once more bringing the streets, and the entire transport network, to a halt. Want a taxi, train or plane? Ask again in a couple of days.

Today's mass-selling Le Soir d'Algérie, normally a French-language newspaper, is headlined with a single word in Arabic: Dernaha (We've done it!) and inside we learn that the mountains, wadis, villages and dunes of the Algerian Sahara are emblazoned with a familiar-sounding slogan: "Impossible n'est pas algérien." Both on the streets and in the media everyone is hoping, everyone is – ironically – praying that football fever will hammer the final nail in the coffin of fundamentalism.