Prime Minister Abdelaziz Belkhadem, speaking at a Saturday party conference ahead of Monday's start of a two-day visit by French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, said France and Algeria have "friendly" relations.
But "these relations cannot mask collective memory," he said.
Algeria is "ready," to cooperate with France "so that it recognizes crimes committed against Algerians ... The Algerian can forgive, but will never forget," Belkhadem said.
Uh oh. I don't want to jump to conclusions or anything, but given the record of Moslem fanatics in recalling even the Crusades (a Western campaign to recapture the Holy Land from Moslem conquerers) as a reason to hate America, I'd be a little nervous in Paris when the Algerians start to ponder their mutual past. (And as an aside, when no offense real or imagined is ever forgotten in some Islamist circles, how is it that so many in the West have trouble remembering 9/11?)
I mean seriously, given jihadi history, I can certainly accept that they won't forget the Algerian War, but are we to believe that the jihadis have any capacity at all to forgive? Granted, Belkhadem didn't say that Algerians would forget--just that they can forget. I'll grant the theoretical possibility of that outcome in the same spirit that I guess I could date Parker Posey.
I've often mentioned that the Moslem world has seemed to forgive France for their past slaughter of Moslems. But I may have been hasty. I guess selling out the West (again) is no protection in the long run.
Really, the path of future French-Algerian relations is all too predictable, is it not? One day in the future, in a manner that mimics their post-9/11 headline, French papers will proclaim "We are all Moslems, now." The difference between that day and the 9/12 edition of Le Monde will be that the future edition will be quite literally true.
C'est al vie, I guess.
