Thursday, December 24, 2015

Algerian revolutionary leader, Hocine Ait-Ahmed, has died

I wrote this in Arabic: the death of Hocine Ait-Ahmed reminded me that the revolutionary leaders of the Algerian revolution were of a different material. They all were made of iron.  They were ruthless, firm, unwavering, principled, tough, and uncompromising.  That is why they won and could not be debated by the savagery of French colonialism.  That is not the same calibre of the Palestinian revolution. Palestinian resistance leaders are pragmatic, soft, compromising, and very diplomatic.  Even Arafat with my deep disagreements with all his policies, he was not a tyrant (in fact, Mahmoud Abbas is far more of a little tyrant than Arafat, who allowed his critics to be around the same negotiating table with him): he always avoided signing death sentences even in the cases of spies, embezzlers, etc.  Same for George Habash who always avoided going along with tough sentences against people who betrayed the Front.  As for Hizbullah: in the 1980s, its leadership was close to the Algerian model, while Nasrallah took it to the Palestinian model.  I am talking here only about effectiveness and not about assessing of policies and practices.