Culture, Society & Diaspora
Culture, Society & Diaspora
Algerian society is shaped by a history of conquest and resistance, independence and reinvention. Understanding Algeria means understanding the forces—colonial, religious, economic, and social—that have moulded its people.
Here we explore the figures who defined the nation, the institutions that govern, and the questions of identity that Algerians continue to navigate.
The term pieds-noirs – often glossed as ‘black feet’, though the term’s origin is disputed – refers to the European settler population of French Algeria, a community whose 132-year presence in North Africa ended abruptly with Algerian independence in 1962.…
Mohamed Larbi Ben M’hidi was born in 1923 in the village of El Kouahi near Aïn M’lila in eastern Algeria, into a family associated with local religious scholarship (marabout tradition). From the age of four, he studied the Qur’an at…
Noureddine Morceli dominated the 1500 metres like few athletes before or since. Between 1990 and 1996, the runner from the coastal village of Sidi Akkacha near Ténès won three consecutive World Championships titles, claimed Olympic gold at Atlanta in 1996,…
Assegas Ameggaz! On 12 January, as the Gregorian calendar’s new year settles in, Algerian families across diverse regions prepare to celebrate Yennayer, the Amazigh (often called ‘Berber’ in older European sources) New Year. This ancient festival marks the first day…
On 13 February 1960, a blue-tinged fireball erupted over the Algerian Sahara, marking France’s entry into the nuclear age. Code-named Gerboise Bleue after the desert jerboa (a desert rodent), this first French atomic bomb was detonated at a remote site…
Mohammed Dib spent over five decades crafting novels, poetry, and stories that traced the arc of Algeria’s 20th-century experience—from colonial hardship to independence, from exile to global literary recognition. His work, written entirely in French yet unmistakably Algerian in spirit,…