Intercommunity Violence in Ghardaia between Heavy Fire and Compromise. Meanings and Mechanisms

The city of Ghardaia in Algeria has experienced violent incidents,in recent years. As a result, this resulted in a deep fissure in the social fabric that had proved far from homogeneous, while the two religious communities of the local society, the Sunni Arab Maliki and the Ibadi community had coexisted for centuries in good intelligence. It can be seen from the course of events that the issue is far from being a simple conflict between the parties concerned; and we can not deny the involvement of a third party, namely political power and this through local authorities. In this tripartite equation, the precarious calm resulting from an interindividual and inter-communal compromise remains a subject of debate. From there we could apprehend the related meanings of discourses advocated by the actors of both parties, both at the individual and collective level. It is a question of exploring the places of confrontation and its observation following the verbal exchanges as well as the speeches marked, the paths taken by the two communities, in order to reach a compromise based on concessions previously considered as intangible principles. Also, the interventions of the security and political authorities to try to fill the differences and to bring closer the visions give rise to an analysis because by their responsibilities in the preservation of the security of the goods and the people, bring various justifications to guarantee an existence while maintaining the compromise in order to preserve the economic and political interests of the Mozabites.