The culture of Algeria encompasses literature, music, religion, cuisine, and other facets of life in Algeria.
Religion
The state religion of Algeria is Islam. About 99% of the Algerian population are Muslims, specifically Sunni Muslims. It also has Christian and Jewish minorities who make up less than 1% of the population.
Islam was introduced to Algeria with the Muslim conquest of the Maghreb in the 7th century. Under Umayyad rule, Musa ibn Nusayr continued the program of spreading Islam and the Arabic language through missionary activity and chose seventeen religious scholars to convert the locals. Many people became Muslims at the hands of these scholars and the inhabitants of the Maghreb gradually converted to Islam. Caliph Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz sent to the governor of Ifriqiya Ismail ibn Abdallah all scholars and men of culture, who were ordered to teach the religion of Islam. They were distributed around the regions of the Maghreb. In less than one century, the great majority of Christians converted to Islam with 'great zeal that they sought martyrdom', and the final conversions took place in the first two centuries after the hijrah. The Arab migration to the Maghreb consolidated this process.
Since independence after the Algerian War, regimes have sought to develop an Islamic Arab socialist state, and a cabinet-level ministry acts for the government in religious affairs. President Houari Boumédiene sought to increase Islamic awareness and to reduce Western influence, although the rights of non-Muslims continued to be respected.Deeb, Mary Jane. "Islam." Algeria (Country Study). Federal Research Division, Library of Congress; Helen Chapan Metz, ed. December 1993. This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.
Greetings Greetings in Algeria have been described as lengthy. In addition to handshaking, Algerians ask about health, family and work to show concerns for others. Friends and family also exchange kisses on the cheeks. Some Algerian men might avoid prolonged eye contact with women and avoid personal questions. These behaviors are observed out of respect and to maintain appropriate social manners. Most Algerians uphold Arab traditions of hospitality, and are friendly and helpful.
Cuisine
Algerian cuisine features cooking styles and dishes derived from traditional Arab, Amazigh, Turkish, and French cuisine. The influence of Jewish, Spanish, Berber, and Italian cuisines can also be observed. The cuisine is flavorful, often featuring a blend of traditional Mediterranean spices and chili peppers. Couscous is a staple of the diet, often served with stews and other fare. Other popular Algeria dishes include doulma, chakhchoukha, and chtitha.
Dress Algerian clothing, influenced by the country's rich history and cultural heritage, varies among different regions and communities in Algeria. Traditional Algerian clothing is Islamic custom, although there are Algerians who adopted clothing based on Western style, especially in the cities. In urban areas, there is a mix of traditional clothing and increasingly common Western-style clothing, whereas traditional clothing is much more common in rural areas. As an Islamic country, Algeria has limits on dress code. Most Algerians follow Islamic dress codes, and foreigners are expected to show modesty, such as female visitors having to avoid exposing their shoulders, knees or chest.
One of the most common traditional garments for both men and women in Algeria is djellaba. The djellaba is a long, loose-fitting robe that typically reaches down to the ankles. It is made from various fabrics, such as cotton or wool. The djellaba usually has long sleeves and a hood, and it is often worn over other clothing. In rural areas, women often wear a traditional dress called haik. The haik is a large rectangular piece of fabric, usually made of wool or cotton, which covers the body and is wrapped around the head as a hood. The haik is typically white, but it can also be found in other colors and patterns. It is of Andalusi Arab origin. The traditional dress for men in Algeria includes a loose-fitting shirt called gandoura. The gandoura is usually made of lightweight fabric and is worn over sirwal. Men also wear a variety of head coverings, such as turbans or fez hats. In urban areas and on special occasions, Algerians often wear modern Western-style clothing. However, traditional garments are still highly valued and are worn for cultural celebrations, religious events, and weddings. Other examples of traditional Algerian dress include the qashabiya, kaftan and karakou. In Kabylia and the Aurès, Berber jewellery made of silver, beads, and other items was an important component of Berber identities up to the mid-20th century.Camps-Fabrer, Henriette (1970). Les Bijoux de grande Kabylie. Collections du Musée du Bardo et du Centre de recherches anthropologiques, préhistoriques et ethnographiques, Algiers, Arts et métiers graphiques.
Camps-Fabrer, Henriette (1990). Bijoux berbères d'Algérie: Grande Kabylie, Aurès. Aix-en-Provence: Édisud.
Literature
Modern Algerian literature, split between Arabic and French, has been strongly influenced by the country's recent history. Well-known poets in modern Algeria are Moufdi Zakaria, Mohammed Al Aid, Achour Fenni, , and Azrag Omar. Famous novelists of the 20th century include Mohammed Dib, Albert Camus, Kateb Yacine, Ahlam Mosteghanemi, and Assia Djebar. Among the important novelists of the 1980s were Rachid Mimouni, later vice-president of Amnesty International, and Tahar Djaout, murdered by an Islamist group in 1993 for his secularist views.Tahar Djaout French Publishers' Agency and France Edition, Inc. (accessed 4 April 2006)
In philosophy and the humanities, Jacques Derrida, the father of deconstruction, was born in El Biar in Algiers. Malek Bennabi and Frantz Fanon are known for their writings on decolonization. Augustine of Hippo was born in Tagaste (modern-day Souk Ahras), and Ibn Khaldun, though born in Tunis, wrote the Muqaddima while staying in Algeria.
Algerian culture has been strongly influenced by Islam. The works of the Sanusi family in pre-colonial times, and of Emir Abdelkader and Sheikh Ben Badis in colonial times, are widely known. The Latin author Apuleius was born in Madaurus (Mdaourouch), in what later became Algeria.
Music
The Algerian musical genre best known abroad is raï. Originating in western Algeria in the early 1900s as a combination of popular music and traditional Bedouin desert music, it emerged as a major world-music genre in the 1980s. It is a pop-flavored, opinionated take on folk music, performed by internationally-known talent such as Khaled and Cheb Mami. It sounds like pop music, sung in Arabic with tonal and instrumental influences of traditional Bedouin music, as well as cultural and religious influences. Singers of Raï are called cheb (Arabic: شاب, or shabab, meaning young) as opposed to sheikh (Arabic: شيخ, shaykh, meaning old). Within Algeria, raï remains the most popular musical form, but older generations tend to prefer shaabi, performed by singers such as Dahmane El Harrachi.
Although raï is now generally welcomed and praised as a cultural emblem of Algeria, in the post-independence period the form was often attacked or criticised by Islamic and government authorities. These attitudes began to change around 1985, partially due to the influence of Colonel Snoussi, an ex-military officer turned raï artist.Gross, Joan, David McMurray, and Ted Swedenburg. "Arab Noise and Ramadan Nights: Raï, Rap, and Franco-Maghrebi Identities." Diaspora 3:1 (1994): 3- 39. [Reprinted in The Anthropology of Globalization: A Reader, ed. by Jonathan Xavier and Renato Rosaldo. Another reason for the shift in attitude toward raï was the music's growing popularity in France, which the Algerian government viewed as positive.
Andalusi music, brought from Al-Andalus by Morisco refugees, can still be heard in many older coastal towns.
Kabyle music, exemplified by Idir, Ait Menguellet, or Lounès Matoub, also enjoys a wide popularity.
Women in Algeria In comparison to other Muslim majority countries, Algerian women overall have historically possessed more levels of freedom. Algerian women have seemed to be offered more leniency and have continuously proved to have an important voice in Algerian society. However, while they seem to receive leniency, they still suffer from an overall lack of protection of legislation or cultural norms.
Media
Visual arts
1910: a generation of precursors
During the first half of the twentieth century, artists mainly recuperated models and patterns imported – or imposed – by an imperialist French power.
As Edward Said argued in his book Orientalism in 1978, Algerian artists struggled with the perception and representations of Westerners. Almost a century after the conquest by the French, Azouaou Mammeri (1886–1954), Abdelhalim Hemche (1906–1978), Mohammed Zmirli (1909-1984), and Miloud Boukerche (1920–1979) were the first to introduce easel painting. They benefited from "breaches" in the educational system and were able to pursue training in plastic arts. Even though they attempted to focus on the reality of Algerians' everyday routine, they were still, to a certain extent, incorporated in the Orientalist movement.
The tradition of oriental illumination and miniature was introduced around the same period, through artists such as Mohamed Racim (1896–1974) or Mohamed Temman (1915-1988). It is the two main expressions of figuration in a country where popular abstract symbolic, Berberian or Arabic, are integrated mainly through architecture, furniture, weaving, pottery, leather and metal workmanship.
How to reappropriate one's own history is a dynamic in Algerian contemporary art, reflecting on the deep social changes people experienced.
Artists attempt a successful introspective work in which the duality in terms of identity creates a dynamic that overcomes "orientalism" and exoticism. The main stake is for the artist and the spectator to reappropriate a liberty of expression and interpretation. Main artists of that period are: Boukerche, Benaboura, Ali Ali Khodja, Yelles, or Baya.
1930: a generation of founders
The vast majority of the artists incorporate the theme of the independence war, from those who lived it to the artists who use it as a legacy. Impregnated by all the artistic and ideological movements that marked the first half of the twentieth century, artists are concerned with the society they live in and denounce segregation, racism and injustice that divided communities of colonial Algeria. There was a clear shift from orientalism and exoticism: new themes such as trauma and pain appear, for instance, in the portrait The Widow (1970) by Mohamed Issiakhem.
"Art is a form of resistance as it suggests and makes visible the invisible, the hidden, it stands alert on the side of life".
It was also a time when Algerian artists started organizing themselves, through the National Union of Plastic Arts or UNAP (1963), for instance; artists such as Mohamed Issiakhem or Ali Khodja were part of it.
Non-figuration and "Painters of the Sign"
Abdallah Benanteur and Mohamed Khadda opened a path for abstract (non-figurative) Algerian art. They were French since childhood and emigrated to France. They were followed by artists such as Mohamed Aksouh, Mohamed Louail, Abdelkader Guermaz and Ali Ali-Khodja. Mohamed Khadda wrote: "If figurative painting appears as the norm in terms of expression, it is the result of an acculturation phenomenon". Artworks are a form of liberation in that sense, as literal representations do not seem to fully emerge from the cluster of exotism and orientalism.