Birds of a feather

Algerian novelist Boualem Sansal has written a new book, Le village de l'Allemand (The German's Village) which was inspired by a real village in Algeria 'governed' by a former SS member, a naturalized Algerian citizen who had converted to Islam. In researching Nazi Germany and the Shoah (apparently never mentioned in Algeria, unless as a sordid invention of the Jews), Sansal was struck by the substantial similarity between Nazism and the political order in Algeria and many other Arab and Muslim countries.

These similarities include: a one-party state, militarization of the country, brainwashing, the falsification of history, exaltation of the race, a Manichean vision of the world, a tendency to claim victimhood, constant assertions of a conspiracy against the nation, racism and anti-Semitism, glorification of the supreme leaders, etc. If Islamists come to power, things will get even worse. Says one of Sansal's protagonists, "When I see what the Islamists do here and elsewhere, I say to myself that if they ever come to power, they'll outdo the Nazis." Needless to say, Sansal expects his book to be banned in Algeria. For more details, see the translation by John Rosenthal of an interview with Sansal that appeared in the Le Nouvel Observateur.