On July 5, Algeria celebrated the 60th anniversary of its independence with a military parade in the capital city, Algiers, complete with tanks, helicopters and missile launchers, moving along roads lined with the national flag. The event was meant to celebrate a pivotal day in 1962, when the country officially bucked French colonial rule after fighting a brutal, eight-year war of liberation. But for many, the vision of military hardware parading across the capital that sunny, summer day served instead as a reminder of all that has gone wrong since independence.
According to Mourad Ouchichi, a professor of political science at the University of Bejaia, the display was designed for both international and domestic consumption. “On the one hand, it aimed to portray Algeria as a regional power. But it also wanted to showcase that the army and the people are together as one, which is a fallacy,” Ouchichi said. “I think many Algerians looked at it as a joke, rather than [seeing] the seriousness and pomp that the army wanted to project.”
Indeed, the military celebration comes at a time of great dissatisfaction for Algerians. Six decades after liberation, many of the expectations for what independence would bring to Algeria—freedom, prosperity and equality—have been met with disappointment. The military is still in power, running an aged autocratic system that primarily benefits a small group of political elites, at the expense of Algeria’s economic and social potential.