Ex-Algerian Minister Blames Former Colonial Countries for Exploitative Handling of World
Demonstrators are silhouetted against a national Algerian flag as they stage a protest on the Republique Plaza to press for an end to the 20-year-rule of Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, in Paris, France, Sunday, March 17, 2019. 
Sputnik Africa’s program ‘Africa on the Move’ today looks at the legacy of the Algerian Revolution against the French colonial system. On November 1 it marked its 68th anniversary. Algeria’s former minister of industry and a historian discusses Algeria’s achievements and the issue of memory.Algerians view November 1, 1954 as a symbolic day representing one of Africa’s episodes in its struggle against colonization.However, nearly 70 years after gaining independence, the majority of African countries, having established economic ties with their former colonizers, are still unable to thrive industrially, scientifically, and technologically.Ferhat Ait Ali, former Minister of Industry and Mines, believes that the main reason for this is “the colonial, exploitative vision of the world displayed in aggressive diplomacy”. “I don’t think there is a single country that could transform its former victims and auxiliaries into future allies and economic and commercial rivals,” he adds.
As an example, he said that "if western car manufacturers were ever to relocate their factories back to Europe, they would leave a wasteland in the African countries that hosted them," since "there is still no African automotive industry even at a 40 percent integration rate".
Why the Memory Issue Is Not Moving Forward
France still considers Algeria, as well as other African countries, “as though they were still French colonies,” Professor Ahmed Rouadjia, an Algerian historian and sociologist, said.He added that there is “an incurable paradox” among many French political and intellectual elites who put the victims of both sides on the same footing, considering them “collateral damage and tarring them with the same brush”.”It is as if Algeria were equal to France in this tragedy that lasted 132 years, as if Algeria had not been dominated, colonized, tortured and massacred”, he added, saying that “this is the problem of the Franco-Algerian reconciliation proposed by Macron and his experts [referring to the Stora Report – ed]
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