Ahmed Ben Bella

But there is the tendency to, and it was in the 1960s, to name children after fallen heroes, and even those who are still alive.

So you had quite a number of Nyerere's, Nkrumah's, Hamed Sekoture, even Ben Bella.

Even Hail Selassie, I know a few.

And Kenyatta.

But you had real journalists, but they were told what questions to ask.

And then he would say, he would give the same kinds of responses that I have just said, "Steak frites do not end, end up with national ambition." At the time of the Algerian War, uh, somebody forgot to ask a question about Ben Bella.

So he said, "Did I hear..." Sa- he suddenly looks up and says, "Did I hear somebody ask a question about Ben Bella?" And then he gives the response, but he turns and reads a response that had already been written for him, and sometimes by him.

Uh, and so it was the kind of s- of, of style.

So appearances were important.

especially on the college campuses, high school campuses, elementary, we need a consortium of individuals who are willing to stand their ground, stand on the courage of their conviction, and fight for what they know to be right.

We need that, because this country is sorely lacking in this, and when you look at all the different revolutions that happen all across the world, not just in America, but all across the world, whether it's the Algerian revolution with Ben Bella, not so much in his, but with the Bolshevik revolution, with Lenin and Stalin, the Cuban revolution with Castro, the Chinese Revolution with Mao, they always went after the youth.

the youth to get their minds and be able to subject themselves to this certain way of thinking because they know that if they have these youth, they have 50, 60 years of this type of mentality growing and metastasizing.

So it's just a matter of us getting to you guys before they get to you guys and be able to impute patriotic values, values that are uplifting, ultimately godly values that is going to be beneficial for us and all of mankind ultimately.

And I find this story so amazing because...

The first Algerian president, Ahmed Ben Bella, also fought for France in World War II.

And so it shows you how in these years, many colonized people still believed that they were going to go fight for liberty against Nazi Germany.

They were sufficiently invested in France to go do that, despite the colonial violence that they had been witnessing.

France formally recognized Algeria as an independent country on July 3rd, and Algeria celebrates July 5th, 1962 as its Independence Day.

Algeria's first president was FLN leader Ahmed Ben Bella, but his time in office was short as he was overthrown in a June 1965 military coup led by Houari Boumediene.

Over time, Algeria started to liberalize and promote Arabization, while also relying more on oil and gas exports.

But an economic recession in the 1980s caused social unrest and led to the formation of new political parties.