Monday, October 7, 2002
Algeria enjoys digital piracy boom
AFP Algiers, October 07
Thanks to digital piracy Algerians are watching television from all over the world and buying CD-ROMS and software at knockdown prices. Television is booming as one of the few leisure activities left in this North African nation in the grips of a decade-old civil war, with satellite dishes everywhere, in shanty towns as well as wealthier areas.
Many Algerians have turned their backs on old-fashioned state television, preferring modern talk shows, entertainment and sport from abroad. It upsets Islamic fundamentalists who see television's influence hindering their aim of establishing Koranic law, or Sharia, in Algeria. The spread of satellite television is helped by the price of pirated access cards: just 150 dinars (2.2 euros/dollars) per month.
The French influence is still strong in this former colony and pirated music CDs by big French stars like Edith Piaf, Charles Aznavour or Algerian-born Enrico Macias that would cost 15 to 20 euros new in France go for only 200 to 300 dinars (3.2 to 3.6 euros). CD-ROM encyclopedias or Windows XP software cost as little as 120 dinars (1.8 euros).
The cards and discs are on open sale across the country. Islamic fundamentalists have torn down dishes they see as "symbols of sin and moral turpitude" and threatened their owners, because they bring American and European -- especially French -- programmes into the country. Although Algeria has a secular government, Islam is the official religion and remains a strong influence -- both political and social -- in much of the country.
In 1992, extremists seeking to set up an Islamic state mounted an insurrection against the government after the army cancelled the second round of a general election a Muslim fundamentalist party was poised to win. Some 100,000 lives have been lost in the bloodshed since, according to official figures.
"The Islamic fundamentalists, seeing the danger such a form of communication represents for their movement, have even tried to ban satellite dishes in municipalities they won in local elections" in the early 1990s, said one sociologist.
But others believe Algeria benefits from the boom. "These are the spoils of war", a teacher said sarcastically, quoting writer and theatre director Kateb Yacine, who sees the spread of French alongside Arabic as a national asset to be encouraged.
"France should approve of piracy because French programmes are the most watched", a journalist said, adding that Algerians particularly love satirical shows.
"Game shows . . . do more for the survival of French than the symbolic reopening of the French Cultural Centre in Algiers, which most Algerians could never get to and has hardly any books", said an accountant, a big fan of the genre.
However the days of piracy freedom may be numbered, as a backlash is expected from broadcasters impatient at the loss of income from a large market like Algeria with its 31 million population.
But it's not just fundamentalists who have doubts about foreign television, which can shock traditional Muslim society.
"It shows violence, easy money and sex, especially on the porn channels. Our society isn't ready to take all that at once. It could be torn apart apart even faster than Western society," said one concerned mother.
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