{"id":6638,"date":"2026-06-20T16:50:44","date_gmt":"2026-06-20T14:50:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mezghena.org\/index.php\/2026\/06\/20\/science-archeologie-et-presidence-la-centralisation-comme-politique-de-lavenir-en\/"},"modified":"2026-06-20T16:50:44","modified_gmt":"2026-06-20T14:50:44","slug":"science-archeologie-et-presidence-la-centralisation-comme-politique-de-lavenir-en","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mezghena.org\/index.php\/en\/2026\/06\/20\/science-archeologie-et-presidence-la-centralisation-comme-politique-de-lavenir-en\/","title":{"rendered":"Science, archaeology and the Presidency: centralization as a policy of the future"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The announced creation of a High Council of Scientists and a National Archaeology Agency under presidential authority says more than an administrative title. It reveals a way of governing: bringing knowledge, memory and expertise back into the political centre.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Science and archaeology are never neutral in a state that doubts its institutions. They touch two essential powers: producing the future and narrating the past. The first is played out in laboratories, universities, technology firms, research networks, engineering training and the social uses of innovation. The second is played out in excavations, archives, museums, conservation, historical narratives and the way a society recognizes itself in the depth of time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The announcement can therefore be read in two ways. The established fact is that the state wants to give political visibility to science, research, the scholarly diaspora and heritage. The possible reading is that it also seeks to bring these fields inside the presidential perimeter, as if the intellectual future and the material memory of the country could only be secured by rising toward the summit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The issue is not to deny the potential value of such a move. Algeria has a real scientific diaspora, dispersed skills, underused academics, immense archaeological heritage and a clear need for modernization. A serious country should mobilize its researchers, protect its sites, map its patrimonial resources, fund its laboratories, link universities to industry, develop data science, support applied research and restore the dignity of knowledge professions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The decisive question is institutional. Scientific policy cannot depend only on a prestigious council of leading figures. It requires free universities, stable budgets, transparent calls for projects, evaluated laboratories, accessible publications, international circulation of knowledge, controversy and protection of academic autonomy. Without that, science becomes state decoration. Researchers are summoned as emblems; research is not built as a system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The same applies to archaeology. An agency can be useful if it has resources, experts, protective powers and a strategy for excavation, conservation and public valorization. But heritage is not a tourist supplement. It touches Algeria\u2019s historical plurality: Amazigh, Punic, Roman, ancient Christian, Vandal, Byzantine, Islamic, Ottoman, colonial and contemporary. A serious archaeology agency must not smooth out this complexity. It must make it visible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The contrast with works of long duration is illuminating. The Sagrada Familia, despite its contradictions, shows what it means to pursue a work across generations, nourished by engineering, memory, continuity and transmission. The Voyager probes, designed for a few years and still active after almost half a century, remind us that a scientific civilization is recognized by its ability to inscribe instruments beyond the short mandate, the political cycle and the announcement effect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Africa itself sends other signals. Innovations highlighted at VivaTech around artificial intelligence, agricultural logistics, local languages and traceability show that useful technology is not necessarily the technology of showcases. It often arises from concrete problems: lost harvests, failing transport, isolated infrastructure, language needs and food sovereignty. This is where Algeria should place its effort: not only creating institutions at the top, but irrigating the territory with useful solutions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The country does not need a bureaucratic cult of science. It needs a learned society. It does not need a centralized heritage narrative. It needs a right to the complete past. It does not need to absorb diaspora talent into a national ceremony. It needs material and intellectual conditions that make people want to work with the country without submitting to its dead weight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The real test will be simple. Will these structures produce programs, funding, open data, inventories, restorations, scholarships, public results and verifiable partnerships? Or will they become two new emblems of the administrative machine, able to celebrate national intelligence while neutralizing what keeps it alive: the freedom to search, contradict, discover and transmit?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Karim Medjani<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Sources utilis\u00e9es<\/h2>\n\n\n