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The following article was commissioned by an online media and written on Monday, March 11 2019, a few hours before the date for the upcoming presidential election was postponed and president Bouteflika announced he would not be running again. It was heavily edited with a title that doesn't befit the text. Here is the original version. On Friday March 8 2019, ((photo: Slogans in preparation for the March 8 2019 demonstrations, Twitter, Farah Souames.)) Algeria experienced one of the largest waves of demonstrations in the country’s history. Algerians took to the streets in protest against President Abdelaziz Bouteflika running for a 5th term in the presidential elections scheduled for 18 April. The protests have grown steadily since February 22, including not only the major cities of Algiers, Oran and Constantine, but also smaller cities and towns across the largest country in Africa. Students (and women make up the majority of Algerian students today) joined the protest on the February 22. The presence of women became even more spectacular as last Friday was also International Women’s Day.Bouteflika, who is now82 years old, suffered a stroke in 2013. In 2014, he ran for a fourthpresidential term without ever appearing in public. Instead, a team of wing-menacted as his spokesmen. Since then, he has appeared only rarely, driven in hiswheelchair, obviously unable to speak or move, with a blank stare on his face.To say the least, this has left serious doubts about his ability to act aspresident. Reactions in Algeria range from pity, to a sense of humiliation, tosarcasm aimed at the presidential entourage who have staged such appearances.The President’s younger brother Saïd was a particular target of demonstrators’slogans. Bouteflika was nevertheless designated as the official candidate ofthe party of the National Liberation Front (FLN), which has governed thecountry since independence, either in a clear misreading of public opinion andthe risk of popular opposition or as result of internal conflict which failedto produce an alternative candidate.&#160;The comparison betweenthe massive demonstrations in Algeria and the protests that led to the fall ofMoubarak in Egypt and Benali in Tunisia is inescapable, and the upraising inSyria, Libya, Yemen or Bahrein. Observers have been wondering since 2011 whyAlgeria appeared impervious to the wave of protests that swept across the Arabworld. Are the current protests a sign that Algeria finally catching up withhistory?In a presidentialmessage read on March 3, Bouteflika (or his handlers) appeared to be makingconcessions, much as Mubarak had done: if elected again, the president wouldcall for a further, anticipated presidential election in which he would notrun, and a national conference to create a second republic with a newconstitution. As in Egypt in 2011, protesters did not back down but protestedfurther. Based on such comparisons, many foreign journalists have expressedconcern that the country may descend into violence. In France, some were quickto mention the apocalyptic vision of a wave of Algerian emigrants fleeingtowards Europe.Yet the contexts of Syria or Egypt; or even Tunisian in 2010, whereauthoritarian regimes left no space for opposition, are different to that ofAlgeria in 2019. Whilst not entirely democratic, Algeria is not entirelyautocratic either. While some social and political movements have beenrepressed in the past years – for example the campaigns of the unemployed inthe south of the country – you can sit in a café and criticize the intelligenceservices, the FLN, the army, or even write about it in a newspaper. Not onlythat but the demonstrators know their history, including how the protests of2011 played out. They have mostly avoided the slogans of 2011 such as “Thepeople want the fall of the regime”.&#160;The protests open up the question of a possible post-Bouteflika transition.While it is unlikely that Bouteflika will run as planned, there is always thepossibility that his entourage will push the confrontation further. And if theyback down, how and by whom a transition could be engineered is a question thatis still up in the air, as is the question of the reaction of the army, led bychief of staff Gaïd Salah.&#160; Another question that remains difficult is thecapacity of political parties as well as opposition leaders to play aconstructive role in this process. None of them at this stage seem to have thecharisma or the political program to gain large popular support. As to civilsociety, while there are a number of courageous associations fighting fordemocracy, women’s rights, workers’ and unemployed people’s rights, they areunable to mobilize widely. The future direction of a process opened up by anupsurge of the people on the political scene is still full of uncertainties. But the present demonstrations are not only the beginning of a process. There is something more specifically Algerian to them. In the sheer happiness and the excitement of marching together, there is a joy of being at one once again. After all, Algeria has already known violence: after the youth protests of 1988, Algeria was the first of all the Arab countries to experience a political transition. The rapid rise of an Islamist party, the FIS (the Islamic Salvation Front), lead to the interruption of the electoral process in 1992 through military intervention, and an Islamist insurrection that led the country to a decade of violence. The Islamist terrorists perpetrated targeted assassinations, car bombings, and later massacres of entire villages. While Algeria was the only state that managed to repress such an insurrection, the amount of violence necessary to do so is still the object of heated arguments. More than ten years after the end of the “Black Decade”, the wounds of those years still weighed heavily.The current marches and demonstrations have been described by some of theprotesters as a collective rebirth, and a milestone in the healing process of acountry. Many older people marched on March 8. Some of those who were oldenough compared them to the magnificent festivities of independence in 1962.One elderly man broke down in tears: “I was 14 then. This is like the day ofindependence”. The self-discipline of the protesters who bring garbage bags tothe marches to pick up the trash, who sweep the squares to leave them clean,who sing “silmiyya, silmiyya” (“peaceful, peaceful”) is a testimony totheir knowledge of history: the recent history of Algeria as well of that ofthe Arab world.&#160;No matter what takesplace tomorrow or in the weeks to come, something has already happened inAlgeria.&#160;https://www.facebook.com/elbilad/videos/2353662621580706/