Algeria Hides its Face (page 95-119)

The Soccer War is a book in which Kapuscinski talks about revolutions in various continents of the world in the late 1900s. His way of writing is very interesting because he reports the incident and at the same time explains how the country works and includes his personal experience and opinion. In the case of Algeria, Kapuscinski reports how the revolution went, but at the same time he described each one of the characters and informs what happened before the coup, how the politics of the country function, and the general situation of Algeria. He also makes it fun to read because he narrates it as if it were a story. I also enjoy how detailed he describes everything. He allows you to get to know the character perfectly.

Ben Bella was the president of Algeria for three years. He reached this position with help from the army (Boumedienne). This third world country was in a very bad condition and there was nothing Ben Bella could do to fix it. It was stuck in a cycle in which good men did the best they could, but when their opponents noticed that they weren't accomplishing anything they would make a coup, and then another good man raised. In the case of Ben Bella, he was stabbed in the back by one of his own, Boumedienne. Ben Bella was having difficulties. He was very stressed and began to make all the decisions on his own. The rest of the politicians didn't approve of this, so when he scheduled a meeting to make changes in the army, Boumedienne stopped him.

Power is a very difficult thing to control. Specially in Ben Bella's situation were the country is so helpless that there is nothing he can do to change it. The only way to save Algeria was to unite and work together. This way there would have been less worry on who had the power and more on education and other important matters.