FEATURE-After conflict, Algeria rediscovers taste for culture

* Theatres, museums neglected during conflict with Islamists

•  * Algerian government now investing in cultural projects
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• * Officials hope to keep disenchanted youth off the street
• By Lamine Chikhi ALGIERS, June 15 (Reuters) – El Hadi Rjab used to be a showbusiness icon in Algeria, feted by the country’s ruling elite, listened to by millions and invited to sing in Moscow and Beijing. Now 69, he is sick, jobless and neglected. “As an artist I am abandoned,” he told Reuters. “I don’t need much. Just some recognition.”
• Rjab’s case symbolises the fate of popular culture in this North African country over the past 20 years. Once-vibrant, it was almost silenced by years of armed conflict between the government and Islamist rebels during which the militants declared music evil and people stopped going to the theatre for fear they could have their throat cut.
• Things are now starting to change. The violence has not gone away but it has subsided dramatically and the government is focusing part of its attention on reviving culture — not least to give the country’s millions of jobless young people something to do.
• It is investing some of the billions of dollars it has accumulated from oil and gas revenues in cultural projects including new theatres, museums and libraries. “Algeria deserves it after years of blood and tears,” said Benhamadi Zouaoui, General Manager of the state agency for major cultural projects. He listed five big projects to be built before 2014 including a centre for entertainment and culture, an Arab-South American library, a Centre for Arab Antiquities, a Museum of Africa, and an opera house. A music hall is also to be opened in the next few months.
• “SOUND OF EVIL” All of that would have been an unimaginable luxury during the conflict, commonly known in Algeria as “the black years,” which killed about 200,000 people. One of the main militant forces, the Armed Islamic Group (GIA) was know for beheading its victims and it had little time for the performing arts.
• It ordered Algerian families to stop playing music at weddings, and issued a fatwa, or religious edict, stating that music is “the sound of evil.” There is less violence now because the armed group has lost popular support and the military fight against it has become more efficient. At the height of the violence, in the 1990s, the GIA killed several performers including Cheb Hasni, a star of the hugely-popular brand of contemporary Algerian music called “Rai”, and playwright Abdelkader Aloula.
• The message to other artists was clear. Cheb Khaled, known as “the King of Rai” left Algeria for France, along with many other performers. Theatres and cinemas shut, in part because it was too dangerous for anyone to be outside after dark. The government, preoccupied with fighting the militants, had neither the time nor the money to defend culture. REVIVAL Years later, people are starting to venture outside again in the evenings, but there is little for them to do. Big concerts and rare and when they happen they attract huge crowds of hugely-enthusiastic, mainly young, people excited that they have found some live entertainment. Sometimes young peoples’ energy can spill over into anger.
• There are sporadic riots in Algeria over unemployment, price rises and cramped housing conditions. Officials recognise the need to occupy the disenchanted young. “Spaces where the youth can meet, listen to music, read books and have fun are a rarity in Algeria. We need to take care of this,” cultural official Zouaoui told Reuters in the former Ottoman palace where his agency is based. Reviving culture is also about Algeria rediscovering its self-confidence.

• “(Algerian President Abdelaziz) Bouteflika is pushing hard to give Algeria the rank it deserves in terms of culture,” Zouaoui said. The new focus on culture is likely to come too late for Rjab, the singer. He no longer performs. Mohamed Baghali, head of the culture department at the Eshorouk newspaper, said he could recite a whole list of once-celebrated performers from the 1970s and 1980s who were now living in poverty and obscurity. “The culture sector has got a small share of the oil bonanza, it is not enough because the needs are huge,” he said. But he added: “Things are moving in the right direction.” (Editing by Matthew Jones.