What Is Reality?
In the Arab quarter of Oran, barefoot youngsters last week piped a bitter lament learned from their parents: "We fought for independence, we won it, we lost it two months later." In Algeria's fifth month of nationhood, their chant had almost become a national anthem.
The war-weary country has lost the European middle-class technicians and owners who were its biggest employers: all but 150,000 of 1,000,000 pieds-noirs have pulled out. Schools are closed because Algeria has lost 95% of its teachers. More than 2,000,000 Algerians, or half the labor force, have no jobs, and many of those who are still...