Alcohol has resurfaced as a hot-button issue in Algerian politics,
with ultra-conservative Muslims angered by plans to liberalise sales in a
country torn between respect for Islam and freedom of choice.
With deeply-conservative Salafists threatening to take to the
streets, Prime Minister Abdelmalek Sellal in mid-April blocked a
circular issued by Commerce Minister Amara Benyounes liberalising the
wholesale trade of alcohol.
“The prime minister, to keep the peace and harmony, has decided to
freeze the circular,” Benyounes said on the radio, complaining he had
been the “victim of a media lynching” orchestrated by private television
channels.
A popular firebrand television preacher, known as Chemseddine, had accused the minister on Nahar TV of “waging war on God”.
“We want laws which conform to sharia (Islamic law) and not to the
World Trade Organisation,” he fumed, mockingly predicting that the sale
of pork, which is banned in Islam, and prostitution would be next in
line for liberalisation.
On the web, activists have launched a “together for an Algeria
without wine” Facebook page that has attracted more than 10,000
supporters.
The
daily El-Watan newspaper suggested that by freezing the circular,
Sellal had exposed “the weakness of the current leadership in the face
of the Islamist tendency”.
The newspaper said political-religious pressures have been forcing
government and local authorities to pass “incoherent and contradictory
laws”.
The circular issued by Benyounes, a minister from a secular party,
aimed to scrap a ruling by an Islamist predecessor enforcing a system of
permits for wholesale trade in alcoholic drinks.
According to the minister, 70 percent of imported alcohol is sold on
the “informal” market in Algeria, which itself only produces wine and
beer.
Annual beer production is running at 1.6 million hectolitres (42
million gallons) and wine at 700,000 hectolitres, said Ali Hamani, head
of the Algerian Beverage Manufacturers Association, adding that 85
percent of output is consumed locally.
– 40% rise in imports –
Algeria, with a population of 40 million, 99 percent of whom are
Sunni Muslims, in 2014 imported $82 million (73 million euros) worth of
alcoholic drinks, a rise of more than 40 percent over two years.
And yet the authorities have closed hundreds of bars for a whole host of infractions.
“Many of them are waiting desperately for authorisation to reopen
after having met all the requirements in terms of hygiene, security and
respect for the environment,” a bar owner in downtown Algiers said, on
condition of anonymity.
“It’s a political decision. The authorities are scared of the Islamists,” he said.
The series of closures has forced alcohol drinkers indoors, with most
opting to drink either in smokey bistros, at home, or in remote outdoor
sites away from the public eye.
One customer lamented the decline in local drinking holes.
“We used to have 15 bars around here, now we only have one,” he said,
expressing envy for those allowed to take non-alcoholic refreshments in
outdoor cafes in the Spring sunshine.
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