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Cultural Resistance during the Revolution of Smiles: Reimagining National Identity
Abstract
When former Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika announced his bid for a fifth mandate in 2019, a wave of political satire abounded on Algerian social media, from twitter to YouTube. Dissent first began through satirical cultural production. Social media has therefore allowed Algerian activists to produce a counternarrative that opposes the state-controlled media and evades censorship. Although the 2019 Hirak movement in Algeria, also known as the Revolution of Smiles, primarily mobilised activism on the streets during protests, online activism mapped new paths of engagement for the Algerian diaspora and became a useful way of monitoring and documenting the revolution. This paper explores the Hirak-related cultural production and artistic resistance through social media in Algeria. Focusing on political satire and online activism, the paper argues that the Online Hirak movement, which was happening in tandem with the protests, was a turning point in Algeria’s satirical cultural production. Not only has this online activism -through humour and creative satire- managed to evade censorship, but it has also functioned as a way of redefining “Algerianness”. The cultural aspirations of the revolution aimed at envisaging a national identity that opposes the one which was previously contorted by the dominant narratives of the War of liberation and the Black Decade. In order to explain this, the paper focuses on the Hirak’s strategic use of creative satire, pride in pluralism, and the adamant refusal of descent into violence. In addition to studying the slogans and banners that were used during the Hirak marches, the paper maps a typology of creative satire on Algerian social media. This paper therefore focuses on the cultural ambitions of the Algerian Hirak and the aspirations of reconfiguring the national identity through activism. The paper concludes by demonstrating the differences between the cultural production during the Black Decade and the Hirak to clearly designate the latter as a second chance of redeeming the Algerian national identity and liberating collective memory.
Discipline
Other
Geographic Area
Algeria
Sub Area
African Studies