Arabs, The - A Living History, Part 8 - Building a Nation

(50 mins) Mahfoud Bannoune analyses the problems faced by Arabs as they constructed their new nations over the past quarter of a century and the solutions open to them. He does so by reference to his own country, Algeria, which achieved its independence in 1962, with appalling loss of life.

If old ways were obsolete and a new age had to be created in the aftermath of an eight-year war, what industrial and economic options were open to the Algerians?

Mahfoud Bannoune looks at the process of industrialisation and its effects upon a traditional farm and peasant-based economy; its effect upon the quality of day to day life as services and facilities have tried to keep pace with the rush to the cities. Today, housing, education and transport are all clamouring for attention in a state which has existed, on its own terms, for a mere twenty years. Nevertheless Algeria has created a path and has followed it, striving to remove the shackles of economic and cultural dependency as once it struggled to remove the colonisers.