Algeria was the world’s largest wine exporter until the 1960s.[a] By a huge margin—more than the next six largest exporting countries (including France, Italy, and Spain)—combined. Then it collapsed.
What happened?
1. Under French colonialism from the 1830s, the Algerian wine industry grew, though the regime was often brutal.
2. Then, from the 1950s and 1960s, a decade of war for independence from France and internal civil wars disrupted the industry. Upon independence, Algeria became a one-party state, and a coup established Houari Boumédiène as leader.
3. “Boumédiène imposed Arab socialism as the state ideology and declared Islam the state religion.”[b]
On the socialist side: “along with the expansion of state industry and oil nationalization, Boumédiène declared a series of socialist revolutions, and strengthened the leftist aspect of his administration.”[b]
On the Islamist side: The emboldened ” Islamists chillingly laid out the threat farmers faced: ‘Cut one grape, and we cut your throat.’ The result was that by 2000, Algeria’s vineyards were reduced to 140,000 acres from a high of 875,000 acres at independence.”[a]
Lesson? Once again, bad politics and bad religion are the death of the good life.
Sources: [a] “The Withering of Algerian Wine.” [b] “Houari Boumédiène.”