It Can Happen Here

Abstract

Americans have been watching events in Algeria in somewhat the manner of an audience watching a play. The drama is fascinating, and it is easy to become emotionally involved, to identify with some of the characters and to despise others. But at the same time the element of detachment is there—a feeling that what is happening on the stage is after all far removed from the actual experience of the viewer. France, we tell ourselves, is not the United States, and France's troubles are not and never could be ours.

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