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Mercury, March/April 1996 Table of Contents

by Nidhal Guessoum, Kuwait College of Technological Studies

(c) 1996 Astronomical Society of the Pacific

"It is hard to describe what it is like to be living in a society whose culture is dying," wrote Egyptian human-rights activist Karim Al-Rawi. In Algeria today, to express an idea is to invite death, and the guns make little distinction among activism, apostasy, or astronomy.

Algerian astronomy goes back over a thousand years to the times when scholars such as Al-Bitruji (known as Alpetragius in the West), Ibn-Rushd (Averroes), Al-Marrakushi, and Al- Qusuntini lived in Andalusia and North Africa. Their observations and calculations led to the design of astrolabes, the construction of time-keeping tables, and the critique of the Ptolemaic system [see "The Science of Knowing God," March/April 1995, p. 28].

As Western Europe rose to dominance, the Arab-Islamic civilization faded away, leaving only the memories of great science. In its place came ignorance and antagonism toward astronomy, the products of a widespread confusion with astrology and suspicions of a clash with religion. A thousand years after Al-Battani (Albategnius) proclaimed astronomy the noblest and most perfect of sciences, second in importance only to religion, who could have believed that Algeria would have no astronomy education whatsoever at any level?

There was the beginning of a renaissance in 1991 when a few American-educated Algerian astronomers established a graduate program at the University of Blida, 40 kilometers (25 miles) west of Algiers. The physics faculty at the time included me and two other astrophysicists, and we had assistance from the dozen permanent and visiting astronomers at the Observatory of Algiers.

The observatory was constructed a hundred years ago during the French colonial period and equipped with a couple of telescopes and astrolabes. Today, none of the equipment works properly, though there is a good collection of photographic plates dating back to the beginning of the century. The researchers there mostly follow up their doctoral work on soft x-rays, solar oscillations, galaxies, and large-scale structure; there are few team collaborations or new projects.

Worse, researchers in Algeria are staggering from a blow dealt by the authorities some 10 years ago. Because of the fall in oil prices, they told us, the country would no longer import or publish journals, books, or magazines; nor would it purchase computers or network connections. As a result, the master's students we supervised at Blida had to spend half their time trying to get copies of papers needed in their research, the other half trying to find a PC to run their Fortran programs. A PC cost eight months of my salary. Only one research center in the whole country was connected to the Internet, and only "experimentally."

And if this were not enough, another disaster fell upon us in the shape of a domestic political conflict, which quickly degenerated into civil war. I remember the day when the government declared a state of siege. I was about to give a seminar on the conceptual problems of quantum mechanics when the word came that the authorities had forbidden any public gathering. We went ahead with the lecture, and it had a "Twilight Zone" feeling throughout.

Some weeks later, a colleague was lecturing when the police came to arrest one of her students. She begged them to respect the place of learning, to wait at least until she was done with her class. They first said all right, but came back a few minutes later saying that the commander wanted the student right away. He was carried out in front of his peers and deported to the infamous desert camps, without any trial or even an accusation. He was probably known to be a member of the FIS, the Islamist party that had just won the elections.

Over the past four years, war has claimed the lives (by death or exile) of many high-level, high-quality Western-educated scientists. At Blida, Fouad Bouchelaghem, a young solid-state physics professor, was arrested and tortured to death in June 1994. The authorities informed his family of his death three months later; he left behind a wife and 1-year-old child. One of my astrophysics colleagues, Ahmed Boulares, was arrested in July 1994. His family has had no news of his whereabouts since then; he is presumed dead, probably by torture. He was a widely published scientist, and the father of five.

My second colleague went to the United States on a six-month research invitation and did not come back, and I myself got a job in Kuwait in fall 1994. My departure brought an end to the graduate program. Several researchers from the observatory also fled the country, often without any definite landing site. Astronomy, like the rest of Algerian science, culture, and education, is in total disarray.

What future, then, for astronomy in Algeria? Despite the dark picture, a scientific flame still burns within the Algerian youth. It warms my heart to remember that each year I was invited to give 15 to 20 public lectures on the universe. In 1993, a week-long celebration of science at the biggest cultural center in the country drew thousands of visitors, most under 15. Four years ago, a dozen Algerian amateurs participated in a two-week astronomy camp in Tunisia; it was supposed to be repeated in Algeria two years ago, but the circumstances prevented that. A similar camp took place in Tunisia again last August, and a dozen Algerians, mainly high-school students, attended. I gave a lecture and appeared as a guest on Tunisian television.

What help will we need from the world astronomical community after the present chaos has passed? On the educational side, we will ask educational centers such as NASA, CLEA, and ASP for copies of their materials. On the research side, Alan Batten put it best in his Mercury article [see "Chasing the Dream," March/April 1995, p. 16]: Sending old books and journals does little good. We would ask instead for complimentary subscriptions to Mercury, Astronomy, and Sky & Telescope and for invitations to spend a few weeks each year in the West updating our knowledge.

NIDHAL GUESSOUM teaches physics at the College of Technological Studies in Shuwaikh, Kuwait. He did postdoctoral work at NASA Goddard and, from 1990 to 1994, taught physics and astrophysics at the University of Blida in Algeria. His email address is niguesso@paaet.edu.kw.

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