Politics & Power Quote by Ahmed Ben Bella

Revolution, Ben Bella warns, doesn`t end when the flag goes up; it just changes uniforms. The line has the blunt fatalism of someone who knows that the moment a liberation movement becomes a state, its most disciplined institution often becomes its biggest threat. His phrasing is surgical: "once the authorities agreed" implies a negotiated handover, a soft landing with old powers still half-intact, legitimacy transferred on paper while coercive capacity remains elsewhere. Then comes the punchline of history: the coup, the sudden correction by men with guns who decide the revolution has gotten too messy, too civilian, too plural.

Ben Bella isn`t theorizing from a safe distance. He led Algeria out of French rule and was himself toppled in a 1965 military coup by his defense minister, Houari Boumediene. That biography turns the quote into both diagnosis and self-indictment: anti-colonial victories often inherit colonial state machinery, and if you don`t break or democratize the security apparatus, it will eventually claim ownership of the nation it says it protects.

The subtext is a critique of post-independence romanticism. National freedom is treated as an endpoint in speeches, but Ben Bella frames it as the opening act of a harder struggle: building institutions that can withstand the military`s claim that it alone embodies the revolution. "Time and time again" isn`t rhetoric; it`s a warning label for movements that win sovereignty but postpone the fight over who controls force.