We are all looking for a way to define ourselves, a way to understand who it is that we are in the world. Often, we try to create identities for ourselves by looking at the ways in which we are different from other people. This by itself is not necessarily bad, for it is true that all people are in some ways unique and there is nothing inherently wrong in feeling that one if unique. However, the unfortunate side of such a tendency is that humans tend to define themselves not only as different from their neighbors but as better than them, which leads to much of the violence and grief that exists in the world.
This paper examines the phenomenon of Islamic fundamentalism in Algeria today, taking into account a paradigmatic statement by Axtmann about the nature of human identity. Axtmann writes that: ôThe search for identity within a global world may manifest itself politically in the formation of a global consciousness, religious fundamentalism, civilizational consciousness and/or ethno-national revivalismö.
All of these things have happened in Algeria. Sometimes this is because different ethnic, religious, gender or generational groups have different goals. Sometimes, however, it is because individuals within the same group choose to search for their identity in different ways, taking one but not the other pathway that Axtmann outlines.
Algeria has seen a great deal of Islamic fundamentalist violence in the past decade, but certainly not all of the country has decided to follow the path of religious fundamentalism, and indeed the fundamentalism of some has pushed others onto a pathway of global consciousness.
The barbarity of the war between Algeria's government forces and Islamic extremists has shocked the world. Massacres of entire villages,
assassinations by death squads, car bombings and mass arrests have turned the country into a place of near-mythic terror.
And yet with increasing confidence, authorities here be...