Like Ulysses, all his life was a kind of journey which took him back after long detours to his native land after a time consuming search to reconciliate his spiritual affiliation with his people. He made peace with himself but also with the legends, the values, the convictions and the aspirations of his fellow imazighen from Kabylia whose cultural heritage has been forgotten and persecuted. He became an “amusnaw” or a man of knowledge whose words, written or spoken have a special meaning for a whole people. He realized very soon that his people have made him the carrier of a torch which burns for freedom and democracy in a country were rational talk must overcome obscurantism, hatred and indifference.

Early in his life, Mouloud Mammeri became very fascinated by Amazigh poetry. His first book “La colline Oubliée” or “The Forgotten Hill” was written in French. It was not any kind of hill he had in mind, since Mouloud Mammeri was born in Kabylia in 1917 in a village called Taourirt or The Hill.

In the 50s, Mouloud Mammeri was a professor of French literature at the University of Algiers. He knew that Amazigh culture has contributed a lot to the Mediterranean culture since, after all, it belongs to a region which is a crossroad of civilizations. His first essay “La Societé Berbère” or “The Berber Society” published in the magazine Aguedal in 1938 showed a vocation at its early stage.

He already had a lucid vision of hispeople: a critical witness of the Amazigh society that he wrote “persists butdoes not resist”. The place of the Amazigh culture in the modern world was one of his earliest concerns. While surrealism was predominant in his first writings, like in “The Forgotten Hill,” soon he was backto earth with “Le Sommeil du Juste,” “L’Opium et le Baton,” “Le Banquet,” “Le Foehn” and “La Traversée.” At the same time Mammeri published essays on Amazigh literature. The publication of “Chants Berbères de Kabylie” by Jean Amrouche in 1937 was so emotional for him that he tried to get the original text ofthe book in Tamazight; he will preface the re-edited version of the book published in 1989, a book that he will never see because by that time he had already left us.

After the independence of Algeria, he thought for some time that the end of the tunnel for the persecution of the Amazigh culture was near. He had new dreams. He tried to persuade the Department of Education to implement the teaching of Tamazight in the system. Once more, he was denied because according to some officials of the same department “Berber is an invention of the Pères Blancs” (as the French catholic priests were called in Algeria). The rebuttal of the language of his ancestors by these officials pushed Mammeri to a kind of crossing a desert. It was hard to swallow that while French, the language of French colonialism in Algeria for 130 years, can have free ride while Tamazight was denied existence. To add injury to prejudice, it was obvious that at the same time these same officials were celebrating the teaching of the language of Moliere to their children; in public they were showing a hate-relationship with French culture and French colonialism.

In the late 60s, Mouloud Mammeri developed a new transcription of Tamazight with Latin letters, a new approach different from the one introduced in 1894 by Professor S. A. Boulifa of the University of Algiers. Historically, Tamazight is one of the rare languages that has its own alphabet called Tifinagh; early scripts of Tifinagh were recorded in North Africa more than three thousand years ago. We can also add that there are speculations that Latin is a language of Egyptian origin and therefore of north African origin even if it has been subject to many modifications by the Greeks and the Etruscans.

With his new transcription of his mother tongue, Mammeri wrote a new grammar (Tajerrumt ) and elaborated a lexicon of modern words; both were published in France because Tamazight was forbidden from being even shown in public in Algeria. Around the same period, he contributed to the writing of the French-Touareg lexicon with Jean Marie Cortade.

In 1969, Mammeri published in Tamazight the celebrated “Les Isefra de Si Mohand” or “Poems of Si Mohand,” a folk hero and poet of Kabylia which will be re-published seven times.

Mammeri became director of the CRAPE (Centre de Recherche Anthropologic Prehistoric et Ethnographic), which became under his leadership an ideal research center for Algerian and foreign students. The CRAPE Transactions on Prehistoric era and Anthropology became an internationally recognized publication in academia. All the success of the CRAPE could not help it to survive when an article written on cultural anthropology in the same transactions became the target of the political system in place that is denying one more time the existence of Berber history. The CRAPE was shut down. It was a great loss. No center of that dimension has ever seen life in Algeria since the date of its closing.

Mammeri was a persecuted man and he always managed not to show it in public: after all, he was a “Free Man,” an Amazigh.

In the spring of 1980, while just anyone from the Middle-East or Europe canbe invited to Algeria to talk about almost anything, M. Mammeri was one more time denied the right to make a presentation on Kabyle poetry in the city of Tizi-Ouzou, the heart of the Kabylia region. The local population saw that as an outrageous act of censorship, and soon the whole region was in ebullition to vehemently denounce this act of denial of the existence of the Kabyl language. Such an act will have repercussions in the whole country for years to come. It was this incident that opened a window to the rest of Algeria, a sign of a new hope for a better life; a sign that mediocrity, intolerance, exclusions, lack of freedom should not have their place in modern Algeria.

Mammeri, the skeptical and independent humanist, the man who never made a judgment about anyone, found himself under fire from a certain media which used just any kind of tricks in order to discredit the man and his vision. Even his nationalism was questioned by certain “journalists,” hiding behind other causes, but who did not know the man, his activism in the MTLD (an underground political organization of the 50s which already was calling for the independence of Algeria), and his suffering during the French-Algerian war. He never talked about it. Only those who fought with him knew the facts. His open letter in the newspaper Le Monde to answer those who targeted him was a lesson on the dignity and commitments of the profession of journalist: “only truth should prevail in their articles, not lies”, he said.

In 1982, Mammeri found some kind of niche in France where, with some of his former students, he discussed the idea of creating a center of the same dimension as the CRAPE. However, it was in Paris at “La Maison des Sciences de l’Homme et l’Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales” that Mammeri received a cheerful welcome to continue his research. He founded with his good friend Pierre Bourdieu a center for research on the Amazigh culture known as “Centre d’Etudes et de Recherches Amazighes” and together published the review Awal or word in Tamazight. He found an ideal place to do research on his own society and his people, something that never stopped burning in his heart.

He dedicated his time to revive the Amazigh culture fromits ashes. No, the fire will never stop burning. His “Poemes Kabyles Anciens” published in 1980 were a robust reference to North African culture which has often been a victim of biased historians. While the culturalidentity of the Imazighen from Kabylia was beautifully narrated in “Poemes Kabyles”, other books like “L’Ahellil du Gourara” about the Imazighen of the southern region of Oran and and “Les Dits de Ccix Muhend U Lhusin” confirmed one more time his love and dedication to traditional life in Algeria. All his publications were beautiful contributions to universal culture.

It is, in fact, this universal perspective that became the focus of another one of his books “Le Banquet ou la Mort Absurde des Azteques.” Mammeri had a passion for history and truth; he is the man who wentto visit the roman vestiges of Rome, looking for traces of Jugurtha, the amazigh king who valiantly fought the roman legions. He narrated: “After being defeated, Jugurtha was thrown in the Latonies, a kind of underground cell used as a prison in Rome. I visited it. I have read the name Jugurtha among other names of enemies of Rome of that time. They thought that Jugurtha was going to die from starvation but it was not the case, so they forced a slave to strangle him. I always wanted to write a play called Jugurtha because he was the most magnificent of our freedom fighters.”

Mouloud Mammeri never wrote this play because of a car accident. On his way back from Morocco where he drove to participate to a conference, he was, according to the official version, killed by a tree that fell across the road. We may never know what really happened the day of his farewell to the man who loved so much Tamazgha , the ancestral land of millions of Imazighen.

He left us at a time where all the ideals he fought for all his life started slowly to become reality in Algeria. He can leave now. His work will be the main reference for many generations to come and the fire that he started in our hearts will never stop burning. Qim di Talwit a Dda Lmulud.

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Claude Lefebure wrote that it was at the teacher’s college that “as if he came out of hypnosis, he suddenly felt “Amazigh.” According to Brahim Aqdim, the president of the Mohamed Kaïreddine Association, he was treated as a “dirty Arab” in the French school and as a “dirty Shluh” in the Moroccan Arabized school. Perhaps that explains his early and very passionate search for an identity.

After passing his baccalaureate as an independent candidate, he attended the Faculty of Letters and the Ecole Normale Supérieure (The Higher Teachers College) and in 1968 he graduated with a License in history and geography. He then taught for two years (1968-70) in a high school in Ra- bat before attending the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes in Paris.

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While in Paris he also attended Lionel Galand’s course on Tamazight at Langues’O. Back from Paris he started teaching at the Faculty of Letters and became an active member of the AMREC, an association devoted to the promotion of Amazigh culture.

Ali Sadki Azayku was an avid reader of history. He was interested in the true history of Tamazgha, not the one taught in Moroccan schools and which only starts at the advent of Islam. As he started to understand the true history of his land and his people, he also started to write. His writings were a key element in the identity awareness of the Moroccan Amazigh. He wrote in the newspapers and in the Amazigh magazine ran by Ouzzin Aherdane, the son of Mahdjoubi Aherdane, leader of the Peoples’ Party. It was one of his articles in this magazine titled “For a true approach to our national culture” that cost him 12 months in prison and made the Moroccan authorities close the magazine for good.

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Offered to retract his writings, Ali refused and became the first Amazigh activist to be thrown in prison. His stay in the Moroccan prison of Laalou helped Amazigh activists strengthen their resolve but most importantly, it had a great impact on the poet that he was. His poetry expressed the sorrow and hardship of life (his and that of his own people) and at the same time an immeasurable passion to live and fight. out of prison, with the help of his friends he regained his former job and continued to write about Amazigh culture .

In 1988, he published Timitar, a collection of 33 poems, followed by Izmullen in 1995 that he wrote entirely in prison. the reknown Ammouri Mbark and other Amazigh singers sang many to the board of IRCAM, where he was expected to continue his fight for the Amazigh identity.
Ali Sadki Azayku died on september 10th, 2004, and the Amazigh people and their cause lost in him one of the most respectable figures. he was 62, and he left two children, Tilila and Ziri.

While it would look like an easy match for Spain, they got defeated at the Battle of Anwal and were pursued by the angry Rif tribesmen all the way to the coast. Despite using all technological marvels of the day including mustard gas the Spanish did not manage to defeat the Rif irregular forces under the command of Muhammad ‘Abd al-Karim al-Khattabi  known in Rif as Mulay Muhand).

As a result of the battle, 13,363 Spanish were dead including their General Silvestre and another 7,000 were wounded, led to major political crises in Spain at the one of the most severe defeats ever suffered by a European colonial army .

[dropcap]I[/dropcap]nternational Women’s Day is an annual celebration of the respect, honor and appreciation towards women across the world. In recent years, the annual event has gained decent recognition, giving a chance to celebrate achievements in the women’s movement and to inspire further progress through both local and international action.

On this occasion, the Amazigh World News team would like to take this opportunity to congratulate all women across the globe including the Amazigh women of Tamazgha/North Africa, to whom we owe so much.

We also want to assure that we will continue to defend Amazigh women’s rights, try to help them in their daily struggle for a better life, work to promote their role in society, and create a suitable platform that helps them to actively participate in civil society, political leadership and economic development.[ads1]

In 1947, he was assigned in Taourirt Moussa and became a school principal in 1952. Feraoun was one of the most prolific francophone writers of his generation. His works all describe Kabyle peasant life. Le Fils du pauvre (1950; “The Poor Man’s Son”) is a semiautobiographical story of a Berber-Amazigh youth struggling against poverty and hardship to achieve an education and self-advancement.

The portrayal of the simple life in the mountains is filled with nobility, human compassion, and a love of family and native soil. La Terre et le sang (1953; “Earth and Blood”) deals with an émigré whose life in France is burdened by the sequestration of his proud countrymen and with the importance of nif (“honour”), the basis of all traditional morality and the source of the sense of self-worth, dignity, pride, and community. Les Chemins qui montent (1957; “The Upward Roads”) carries forward in more bitter tones the themes of the resignation, resistance, and endurance of the fellah (peasant) faced with the realities of colonial society; it also deals with the strictures placed on the youth and the narrowness of choices available to them.

Feraoun’s devotion to Kabyle culture is also evident in a collection of portraits and sketches, in a translation of 19th-century Kabyle poetry, and in his journal. Through his works he achieved his goal of discovering the voice of “an indomitable people of flesh and blood.”

On 15 March 1962, Feraoun as well as five of his colleagues were assassinated by a commando of the Organisation armée secrète (OAS), an extremist organization of the French settlers in Algeria.

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“Languages Matter!”

Tamazight language matters!

Languages are the most powerful instruments of preserving and developing our tangible and intangible heritage. All moves to promote the dissemination of mother tongues will serve not only to encourage linguistic diversity and multilingual education but also to develop fuller awareness of linguistic and cultural traditions throughout the world and to inspire solidarity based on understanding, tolerance and dialogue.

Among the list of recommendations made to the Member States by the declartion of this International day one reads:

(a) create the conditions for a social, intellectual and media environment of an international character which is conducive to linguistic pluralism;

(b) promote, through multilingual education, democratic access to knowledge for all citizens, whatever their mother tongue, and build linguistic pluralism; strategies to achieve these goals.

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The 21st of February is celebrated as World Mother Tongue Day. The UNESCO, which hopes to make people conscious of the importance of the mother tongue, declares in its latest publication Education in a Multilingual World (2003), that the most suitable language for teaching basic concepts to children is the mother tongue.

Indeed, the UNESCO declared this as early as 1953 in its report The Use of Vernacular Languages in Education. Yet, as the world modernized, the smaller and weaker mother tongues started dying. The schooling system, the media and the jobs all demanded the languages of power – the languages used in the domains of power i.e. administration, government, military, commerce, education, media etc. – which had to be learned by people in their own interest. As globalization increases, languages die.

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The 21st of February reminds us that, despite this inequality of power between our mother tongues and the languages of power, we must not give up hope. We must be conscious of the significance of our mother tongues, which give us identity; which are repositories of culture and which, in the final analysis, make us what we are.

[dropcap]N[/dropcap]orth Africa, including Algeria, Libya, Morocco, Egypt, Tunisia and Sudan; are often referred to as part of the Arab world, or as Arabic countries. Although many of these countries have been, “Arabised,” since the Arab/islamic conquests in 632AD, the native people of North Africa are not at all Arabic.

The indigenous people of North Africa are called the ‘Imazighen’, or ‘Amazigh’, meaning ‘free born’ and often use the feminine pronoun ‘Tamazight’ to describe themselves. Within Imazighen culture, women are hugely important members of society, with many historical and religious figures being female. For example the Tamazight warrior queen Dihya, who defeated the armies of the islamic conquest repeatedly during the seventh century. Also the goddess Tanit, the moon goddess, associated with fertility, creation and destruction.

Not only were the Tamazight not ethnically Arabic, they didn’t speak Arabic either. Their own language, and the consonantal alphabet, tifinagh, are far older and totally unlike most languages. Despite this, many Imazighen have been prevented from using and teaching their language ever since the  Arab/islamic conquests. For example, under the rule of  Muammar Gaddafi, Tamazight language in Libya, as well as its culture, was brutally oppressed. In his pursuit of complete Arabisation of Libya, Gaddafi consistently and aggressively oppressed all ethnic minorities, outlawing the teaching of any other languages or cultures except Arabic.  Those who continued to teach their own language and culture, risked life imprisonment, torture and execution.

It is estimated that over 20million people speak Amazigh, or one of its variations. Many of them are based in Algeria where it has been a national language since 2002, an official language since 2006, and where 13million of Algeria`s 39million people are Amazigh.

In Libya, Amazigh is still not recognised as an official language, despite protests from its people. However Amazigh activists are working to build schools, and train teachers so that Amazigh children can learn about their history, culture and language, outside the confines of their own homes. In a country where this was once impossible, this is a huge victory for the Libyan Imazighen, and hopefully one of many to come.

[author title=”Amina Elmansouri” image=”http://www.amazighworldnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/amina-1.jpg”]Aspiring writer and journalist[/author]

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[dropcap]J[/dropcap]une 27th marks the 63 years anniversary of the assassination of Abbas Messaadi, Amazigh leader and one of the founding members of the Moroccan Army of Liberation before his controversial assassination in June 1956 that would ultimately trigger the 1957 Rif Revolt.

Abbas was running a military camp in Aknoul and was assassinated in Fes in June 1956 allegedly by Karim Hajjaj, a member of the Istiqlal party. His assassination was allegedly ordered by Mehdi Ben Barka, one of the younger leaders of the Istiqlal party.

He was first buried in Fes but in 1957 his remains were transferred to Ajdir, in Rif region. the stronghold of Mohamed ben Abdelkrim al-Khattabi, against the wishes of the Moroccan Ministry of the Interior. When security forces were sent by the ministry to repatriate the body to Fes, this sparked clashes with the population in Ajdir which led to the Rif revolt

His murder was the first in a series of assassinations directed against members of the Moroccan Army of liberation and other factions competing with the Istiqlal party and the Alaouite family. [ads2]

Tribune Writer Talks with Exile in Egypt

CAIRO, Egypt, June 20-One night I met a handsome, young lieutenant in the roof garden of the Semiramis hotel. When I heard his name, I asked, “Any relation to Abd el Krim, the great Riffian leader?” “Yes, he is my father.” “Give him my warmest regards,” I said.

The next day the son telephoned. “My father remembers you well. When can you come and see him?”
Krim in 1921 organized the tribes of the Rif, the wild, hilly country back of the Mediterranean coast of Morocco, in a successful rebellion against the Spaniards. With a band of adventurers and ex-soldiers of many nationalities, Krim seized control of most of Spanish Morocco and held it until he was put down by combined French and Spanish forces in 1925. He was exiled to Madagascar. His exploits have been celebrated in songs and poems, among them Sigmund Romberg’s “Desert Song.”
Son Born In Exile
Krim’s son called for me in a late model American car. On the ride to the home where Abd el Krim now lives I asked the son whether he had a yearning to go to the Rif.
“Of course, I want to go there. I’ve never seen our home, I was born in exile,” he replied.
The car sped toward Heliopolis; turned into a tree lined, modern residential area, Koubbe Garden; passed thru a gate in a high stone wall and then stopped in a garden in front of a small but impressive palace. Here the Riffian leader and his family-there are 11 children, six sons and five daughters-most of whom are now grown up, have been living since they escaped from a French ship in the Suez Canal zone in 1947.

The French were taking them from Madagascar to another exile when they escaped. The Arab League put the palace at Abd el Krim’s disposal, and is now paying him a subsidy of around $1,000 a month to live on.
Son Is Interpreter
The lieutenant spoke French fluently and told me he had been brought up in a French Catholic school in Madagascar. His older brother, who speaks English perfectly, served as interpreter for his father.
Members of the family, but not the father, have permission to go to France. Neither France nor Spain would allow any of them to return to the Riff. It is feared their presence there might stir explosive nationalism in North Africa.

I was escorted up a few marble steps thru a double door into what once must have been a huge oval portico. It was partitioned in two by a large rug reaching from ceiling to floor. In one corner were a settee, several chairs, and a man dressed in a simple burnoose talking to two men in civilian clothes. When I was let in, the two men made their excuses and left. I was beckoned to have a seat.
Thinner, Face Sharper
I doubt that I would have recognized Krim had I met him by accident at some other place. At 72 he is much thinner and his body has shrunk. His face once broad and full, seems to have contracted and sharpened. Perhaps this is only natural, for it was 28 years ago when I saw him last.
Then he was leading the fight for the independence of the Rif. Tho he never mustered more than 25,000 fighting men, he had been successful in his operations against the Spaniards and in the preliminary skirmishes against the French.

Spain and France seldom have agreed on anything. But this time they formed a military alliance against Krim. It was only after extensive operations that they overran the Riff and captured him. Abd el Krim and his family were sent into exile to the French island of Madagascar.
Run Spanish Blockade
When I first met Krim, I, with a Rif guide, had run thru a Spanish naval blockade in a 14 foot launch from Tangier. We went around the Ceuta peninsula, to a point on the coast not far from the Bay of Alhucemas. To meet him now was much simpler.
“You are the one who came in the boat,” he said. His eldest son translated.
“I was your prisoner, too, for several days after having been a highly honored guest,” I said.
He remembered.
I had spent a week at Abd el Krim’s headquarters and then headed for the Spanish front. I intended to cross no man’s land under a flag of truce. My excuse was that I was carrying peace terms. It was a three days’ walk, or donkey ride, and three men accompanied me as guides.
Visits Krim’s Brother
The first night we stopped with Abd el Krim’s brother who was holding a concealed fort on Alhucemas bay. In the center of this bay the Spaniards held an island.
The brother showed me around his fortifications. There were several dug-in 75s. I had taken my leave and was more than half an hour’s walk away when the Spaniards for the first time began shelling Abd el Krim’s fortifications, and with deadly accuracy. My escort immediately attributed that shelling to me.
I must have sent some kind of signal to that island, the escort believed. My status immediately changed that of, an honored guest to that of a suspected spy. I was held prisoner for three days.
Grateful for Release
“The moment I heard they were holding you,” Abd el Krim said, “I ordered your release.”
I told Krim I still felt grateful for my being set free adding that I had felt then the odds were too big against him and he was fighting a losing battle.
“I have still not given up,” he said. “Tho I am 72 years old I still hope I will live to see my homeland again, and to see it free.”
It was Ramadan, the Moslem month of fasting. Those who observe it do not let a drop of water nor food pass their lips between sunrise and sunset. Abd el Krim was observing Ramadan, and it was still two hours before sunset. He asked whether I would like some coffee. I thanked him. As he was abstaining I could do so, too, the few minutes with him. But he insisted and called a servant to bring Turkish coffee and a glass of water.

Another Writer Periled
Abd el Krim reminded me of an incident in the early days of the Riffian war. A Spanish plane had flown around the outpost where he temporarily had made his headquarters. It made a pass as if going to strafe him and a correspondent with him.
“You remember we did not go into the shelter because I wanted you to go first and you refused to go before me,” he said. “Luckily for us that plane did not use its guns-perhaps they got jammed-for we would have been hit had they worked.”
I did not recall this incident, explaining if that had happened I would have had notion about jumping into a fox hole either before or after him. I suggested the correspondent with him might have been Vincent Sheean of The Chicago Tribune, who had interviewed him some time before I was there.
After some reflection he said, “Vincent Sheean, also Chicago Tribune. . . . Yes, yes, I think that was who it might have been.”
Asks the Questions
Many questions came to mind. But before I could get them put in form that would not be just making conversation, or put them in a way to be least offensive, he had taken the initiative and started asking questions himself.

He asked what I thought was going to happen in Morocco, in Korea . . . with Russia? How was it that a country like the United States, that had to fight for its own independence, possibly could help countries that are keeping the Arabs from becoming free? In fact, even supply them weapons to fight those who want nothing but independence?
In a recent trip thru the Arab countries that question was put to me time and again. I did not give an answer.
Strong Heart Survives
Abd el Krim said he was keeping in touch with what is going on in North Africa. He has many visitors. “I still feel optimistic enough to hope I will see my country free before I die,” he reiterated.
All the time we were talking I was impressed with a sense of real tragedy. Here was a great man, a courageous leader who had fought a big battle against hopeless odds. Yet that strong heart seems to have survived.
Something of the great spirit remained. The will still seemed unbroken. His home has now become a shrine to those Arabs fighting for their independence.
He walked with me out to the garden where the car was waiting. I noticed he still had the limp he acquired some thirty years before when he broke his leg trying to escape from a Spanish prison. We shook hands again.
Invited to Dinner
“Now remember,” he reminded me, “you promise to have dinner with me after Ramadan is over.”
I said I would if I were still in Egypt. I promised I would never come to Cairo without calling on him. As the car pulled away I could see for sure-he was smaller, thinner. And the thought flashed thru my mind, more than age has done that to that once vigorous body.

Chicago Tribune Press Service

Since October 2016, the human rights situation in Morocco has become even more alarming. Moroccan Authorities have responded harshly to the social and economic demands of the ongoing peaceful protests in Northern Rif region, using excessive force to disperse crowds and carrying out mass arrests and detentions of more than 100 protesters including Nasser Zafzafi, the protests movement leader.