Playing against fellow finalist Croatia in the group stage then overcoming Belgium, Spain, and now Portugal on their road to the semifinals, The Atlas Lions have been one of the game’s storylines

The only goal in the game was scored by Youssed En-Nesyri right before halftime while Morocco continued to defend its goal with a solid wall of players ready to curb the Portuguese attacks.

The Amazigh flag of the Amazigh people who represent most of Morocco being waived in Qatar.

Morocco will face the winner of England-France on Wednesday and has now become Africa’s first World Cup semifinals.

The Atlas Lions have already defeated European giants Belgium, Spain, and Portugal at this World Cup, as well as holding Croatia to a goalless tie in their first game.

For decades, Morocco and Algeria’s relationship has been marked by hostility, and over the past few years, the level of verbal attacks has escalated to the point that there were actually concern these actions could escalate the conflict into military confrontation between the two powers. Morocco and Algeria’s land border has already been closed since 1994. Algerian airspace was closed to Moroccan flights, and Algeria refused to extend the contract for the gas pipeline, which transported gas to Spain through Morocco. 

What is the reason behind the animosity between the two neighboring countries? What are the implication of this conflict? And how can this Cold War come to an end?

Morocco and Algeria have a lot in common. While both countries share almost the same language, culture, and religion, we can longer pretend that the conflict is just between the two regimes, it is time to admit that this tension is influencing how people from both countries think about each-other. The new generations are being influenced by the propaganda and fake news from social media from both parties. While we can’t say that propaganda is  propagated by both governments but pro-government media on both sides routinely denigrate and mock other country’s major problems and focus on each other’s domestic failures and internal affairs. And while there are groups professing and promoting brotherly sentiments between both people it is obvious that this is changing as people from both sides accuse each other of stirring conflict. 

In 2019, the four nations of North Africa recently put aside their disagreements and joined forces in an effort to have the traditional Amazigh couscous recognized as a UNESCO world heritage dish.

How Does Algeria See The Conflict?

• Decades ago, the Moroccan King Hassan II made territorial claims in Algeria. In 1963, he launched a military invasion on the nation. As a result, hundreds of Algeria’s ill-equipped men were killed. Even though the war was short this conflict has had a lasting impact on Algeria’s military and political institutions.

• From Algeria’s perspective, The Moroccans are suspected of aiding organizations that Algeria just labeled as terrorists. These include the Islamist Rachad and the Amazigh separatist Movement for Kabylie’s Self-Determination (MAK) 

• For a long time Morocco claims what is referred to as Western Sahara as an integral part of its territory and In 1975 Morocco organized what it calls a Green March which resulted in its taking control over Western Shara. Something that resulted in another era of tensions and obviously reminded Algeria of Morocco invasion over a decade ago. The fear of Moroccan expansion became a significant element in Algeria’s decision to accept the independence of Western Sahara because Algiers believed it would help curb Moroccan irredentism, even though Morocco would drop its claims to areas in Algeria in 1972.

• Algeria and Algerians accuse and criticize Morocco’s established relations with Israel so the United States can support Morocco in its claim over “Western Sahara”. It is important to note that Algeria is hostile to Israel and does not have any diplomatic ties with the country. 

How Does Morocco See The Conflict?

• Morocco claims that “Western Sahara” has always been a part of Morocco and accuses Algeria of interfering in its internal affairs. Morocco also suspects that Algeria wants a window to the Atlantic Ocean and uses “Western Sahara” as an excuse to achieve its personal goals. 

• Algeria seeks to destabilize Morocco since it support the Polisario Front financially and militarily. The Polisario Front is an armed group that battled Morocco for sovereignty of Western Sahara from 1975 until 1991. 
• Morocco also blames Algeria for the conflict in the region since Algeria was the one that closed its borders, cut diplomatic ties with Morocco, closed its airspace and decided not to renew the gas pipeline agreement that transported gas to Spain through Morocco. 

• The United States’ recognition of Morocco’s soveinegty over Western Sahara has reignited the conflict between Morocco and Algeria. All these moves have angered Algeria, both because of its support for the Sahrawis and its hostility to Israel.
• Morocco accuses Algeria and Spain for aiding the leader of Polisario, someone Morocco consider a war criminal. 
• Algeria’s rulers continue to argue  that they support the right to self-determination while it continue to ignore the Kbayli region’s attempt to self determination.

The Problem In Simple Terms:

While the issue of Western Sahara may appear to be reason for the conflict, the true basis of the conflict is the competition for regional leadership in North Africa and an unsolved colonial-era land issue caused by both France and Spain. 

The Big Picture And Potential Risks:

Morocco and the United States enjoy strong economic and diplomatic relations in addition to Morocco being an old US ally. Morocco also has established relations with Israel. It is also worth noting that the relations between Morocco and Iran are non existent. Algeria on the other hand is Pro Russia, anti Israel and has cordial relations with Iran.

Why does Algeria’s friendly relations with Russia and Iran matter? It matters because the two countries (Russia and Iran) constitute a threat to both Israel and the United States which is something that is not good specifically for Algeria and North Africa in general as it possible for all four super powers ( The US, Russia, Israel and Iran) to race to to build military bases in North Africa. The equation then becomes; Russia, Iran and Algeria, Vs US, Israel, and Morocco. What some Moroccans fear is North Africa becoming another battle ground for all these military powers. 

How Does This Affect The Amazigh People From Both Sides?

Algerian and Moroccan people are so similar that it is impossible to tell them apart. However, political, and ideological differences between these “brotherly” countries have taken a toll on their relations. Recently, there have been a number of disputes on social media regarding Couscous, Architecture, and other issues regarding historical events. In response to Algeria’s soccer team new training outfit, which was introduced by the manufacturer Adidas last week, the Moroccan government has accused Algeria of “cultural appropriation.” 

The Moroccan government and Moroccans themselves argue that the geometric design imprinted in the Algerian outfit which is typical in Moroccan “Zellige” mosaics, represented cultural appropriation and accused Adidas of cultural theft.

Moroccans and Algerians are also fighting over Couscous and people from both sides claim that it is purely theirs. Disputes of over architectural sites and wether they their design and pattern is Moroccan or Algerian are trending on social media as well. 

Solution:

Whether a specific architecture is Moroccan or Algerian , whether Morocco has more rights to claim couscous, It seems that the only reason individuals from both sides argue about these issues is because they are Arabized. Couscous is neither Moroccan nor Algerian. We can also say it is both Moroccan and Algerian because Couscous is An ethnic Amazigh food. Since these aspects are Ethnically Amazigh, it is obvious that they would be found in most North African countries. Maybe when both countries go back to their roots and embrace their Amazigh identity, they won’t be fighting about whether something is Moroccan or Algerian because they will then know that it belongs to the Amazigh people.  The solution may be simplistic but one thing is undeniable, The troubled relationship Between Morocco and Algeria has prevented the region’s integration, which might have significant advantages for both parties.

[dropcap]A[/dropcap]mazigh people (Berbers according to Romans) are the aboriginals of North Africa from The Siwa Oasis in Egypt to the Atlantic Ocean including Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, Mauritania, Mali, and Niger. Despite all the different attempts from different invaders to exterminate Amazigh identity from North Africa, the natives still preserve their own culture and language, with all its dialects to the present time. Arabization is a new form of oppression they still resist. Oppressing people differs from country to another. Tamazight, which includes all the dialects of the Amazigh language, was also repressed and even banned from use in institutions and in public spaces. In the past seven years, the Moroccan constitution was the first to acknowledge the Amazigh language in North Africa. Yet, it is still not really in use in official documents, on signs and so forth, the situation is even worse in other countries.

As for Amazigh music, diverse Amazigh musicians can be found performing worldwide. Bombino band and Tinariwen from Mali, who belong to Tuaregs, the nomadic Amazigh in the Desert are few well-known examples. Their music is a mixture of African rhythms and sounds influenced by rock-and-roll and blues. However, when it comes to North Africa mainly Morocco, we find that Izenzaren band contributed a lot to this music by embracing universal rhythms and topics.

Izenzaren was able to be one of the leading bands of Amazigh music thanks to its revolutionary rhythms in which the moans and the groans of the wretched are voiced out. Its power is of three dimensions: the first is voicing out the suffering of the marginalized people, the second is the authentic rhythms, and the third is the spirit of the period (early 1970s) which was influenced by the Beatles. Izenzaren has a sense of adventure toward the unknown due to identity crisis which was an outcome of egocentric dominance of the State vis-à-vis the natives of Morocco and their identity. A wound that gave birth to a challenge which the traditional Amazigh poets articulated its layers, express its content, and passed it to young musicians who beautifully transformed it to touching rhythms using different instruments.

As new experience, Izenzaren came to link the youth with their Amazigh roots but without imprisoning one’s self in the past. It also came to put Amazigh identity to question. The latter was and still is at the center of its experience. Izenzaren strongly asserted the existence of Amazigh identity. By so doing, Izenzaren incorporated many different instruments such as banjo, violin, drum, guenbri or hajhouj, and qarqaba.

Amazigh music addresses all elements of life and human experience. Its major constituents are the romantic, the social, and the political. Because Izenzaren is a committed, intellectual and philosophical tongue, it was very normal that the band was elected to be the voice of the wretched in the world in general and in Morocco in particular. It called for the purification of the self and social justice.

One should note that Izenzaren members are students of the traditional school of Amazigh poets and musicians whose talents were shaped by Amazigh oral culture in North Africa. On the other hand, Izenzaren was able to transcend the traditional school and create a whole new phenomenon called “taznzart”, a transition that put them on the top of the modern Amazigh music.

Abdelhadi Igout, the head of the band, has embraced many musical instruments including banjo and violin since childhood. Instruments that he made with his own hands using simple tools, he kept telling these instruments his secrets by the shores of the Atlantic Ocean and in his neighborhood. This led him to meet many talented people who shared the same sufferings and hopes and who later formed the band which was an exception in North Africa in general and in Morocco in particular.

This experience was a clear answer to a new generation of youth in early 70s, who migrated from rural areas of morocco to big cities, and whose language was Tamazight. That youth could no longer find their prey in the traditional school because they neither shared the same symbolic code with the traditional musicians nor did they share the same vision toward the world, and probably the same was happening in Algeria at that particular time especially in Kabyle region, the area that gave birth to the international Amazigh singer named Idir.

Izenzaren is ground-breaking phenomenon that played a great role in promoting Amazigh culture and Moroccan music by embracing world rhythms and by implementing many musical instruments. The echoes of Izenzaren, the Beatles of Morocco, reached Europe and pushed them to participate in many international festivals in which they proved their outstanding talents. This explains the fact that Amazigh artists don’t lack the talent to give to the world. What they really lack is financial support as well as the institutional encouragement. Izenzaren fertilized Amazigh music and its music will surely be tattooed in the Moroccan memory for ever and ever.

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The Amazighs claim a physical presence in the Maghreb that is more than five thousand years old. Their community covers almost five million square kilometers, from the Egyptian-Libyan border to the Atlantic Ocean and from the Mediterranean coasts to Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso. Their culture, identity and civilization have long been despised and ignored by Arab governments of the region in the past, their rightful cultural claims have first being assimilated to the “colonial party”, then later interpreted as a blatant form of secessionism. But with the crisis of Arab ideologies during the Arab Spring and the beginning of the ebb of radical Islamism, these important factors favored the recognition of ethnic and cultural particularisms in North Africa and led to a renaissance of the Amazigh movement, especially in Morocco and Algeria. 

Revival of Amazigh nationalism through culture and identity

In Algeria, the most determining event which made it possible for Amazigh culture to emerge is the Amazigh violent demonstrations of April 1980 in Kabylie that were caused by the prohibition of the conference of Mouloud Mammeri on the old Kabyle poetry. This ban was the trigger for the 1980 contestation movement which is known today as the Amazigh Spring (tafsut imazighen.) However, this historic movement has imposed Tamazight as a cultural landmark after many centuries of denial and rejection, throughout North Africa.

The Amazigh militants have fought since relentlessly, for full recognition of their culture, often risking their lives, against the dictatorship imposed by the Algerian regime upon independence of the country in 1962. The demand for identity, then, imposed itself as a benchmark for all the fightings that followed, be they for democracy, human rights, the fight against fundamentalism or all the struggles against oppression and regression of the present day.

For the Moroccan Amazighs, it all started about forty years ago with the creation of an associative network which demanded, as in Algeria, the recognition of Tamazight as an official language alongside Arabic. In 1994, after the end of the “lead years“, Hassan II dropped some ballast by launching televised news bulletins in different Moroccan Amazigh dialects. Nevertheless, it was until 2001 that Amazigh culture was officially recognized. Indeed, on that date the new sovereign, Mohammed VI, announced the creation of IRCAM, the Royal Institute of Amazigh Culture in Morocco. He entrusted the management of this state organization to a recognized specialist on the issue, Mohammed Chafik, his former professor at the royal college.

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But both in Algeria and Morocco, the recognition of the Amazigh civilization is merely cultural, not to say symbolic, in so much as most of the Amazigh areas are still poor and under developped : lacking in schools, hospitals, roads, universities, factories, etc. The youth in these areas are jobless and the women illiterate and girls uneducated. From 1950 to 1900, the Amazigh population lived off remittances of workers in Europe but now because of economic problems there, they are not able to do that anymore and Morocco and Algeria have not been able or willing to adopt new models of developments in the Amazigh hinterland to fully develop these territories and empower their inhabitants.

Aspects of Amazigh identity

There are three major themes within the Amazigh culture, defined as the “trinity,” and easily recognizable in Moroccan and Algerian culture. The three themes have transcended Amazigh culture and have been accepted as the wider identity: The importance of language (Tamazight), the pervasiveness of the tribal democratic system and kinship system (ddm), and the strong connection to the land (tammurt).

• The importance of language (Tamazight)

The most obvious theme in the Moroccan and Algerian communities of Amazigh nature is the importance of language within society. When one looks at the Amazigh people, there is a clear correlation between the relevance of language and the preservation of the culture throughout time.

The Amazigh people’s history and belief system was preserved in oral or written fashion whereby one generation would pass the history, wisdom, and laws to another. Despite having several distinct dialects of the language, the history and laws of the Amazigh people synced and survived countless invasions thanks to their native language.

When the Arab conquest occurred, the Arabs brought a similar appreciation for the essential nature of language and the role that the elderly should play in the preservation of culture. Even if one were to overlook the fact that both Arabic and Tamazight, the languages spoken by the Amazigh people, come from the Afro-Asiatic language family, both languages place a heavy emphasis on elders to ensure the continuation of the language, either through writing or oral recitation.

Though the Arabs expressed themselves in more poetic and eloquent language, it is believed that they appreciated the way in which the Amazigh people used language as a uniting factor and a preservation element of their civilization.

The relevance of language as a binding element became very apparent when the Algerain government inscribed in gold the official status of the Amazigh language in the constitution in 2016 and the King Mohammed VI amended the Moroccan constitution in 2011 to include Tamazight as a national language. A new written language was formed in neither Arabic or Latin script but an entirely new alphabet—Tifinagh— (ancient Amazigh script) to ensure the preservation of Amazigh history, traditions, laws, and wisdom.

This recognition provided the Amazigh an even greater acceptance into contemporary Algerian and Moroccan cultures. Despite the similarities, the move to recognize the language was more a political gesture than an inclusion of Tamazight into the society at large, which probably will take, in the end, more time.

• Relevance of kinship

A second theme that one must look at when comparing Amazigh and contemporary Algerian and Moroccan cultures is the idea of kinship that spawns from the democratic tribal system.

The idea of a nation-state was a foreign concept from the West that both the Amazighs and Arabs rejected in the Maghreb.  For both these ethnic groups, there is an acceptance that similarities between people are not defined by imaginary lines but rather that a given identity stems from a shared language, a shared history, and a shared religion.

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This shared definition of identity resulted in a pervasive tribal system in both Amazigh and Maghrebi cultures. The tribal system is defined in terms of economically socialist but socially democratic system that can still be found in the world-famed hospitality of the North African peoples today.

However, the idea of kinship that accepts people of different backgrounds is a relevant distinction between Amazigh and Arab culture. Even though the tribal system places an emphasis on the matriarch among the Amazighs, Arab culture prefers an influential and all-powerful patriarch. The relevance of this is that there continues to be a disenfranchisement of the Amazigh people in the laws and politics of Morocco and Algeria.

• The centrality of the land

Finally, one must understand that the idea of a homeland resonates strongly with the Amazigh people. They have a unique relationship to the land that extends beyond the physical aspect and moves into the spiritual sphere.

The Amazigh viewed the land as a symbol that not only sustained life and beliefs but provided, also, protection from the imperialistic outside world.

The spiritual aspect of the land can be found in the Moroccan and Algerian Islam (closely related to Sufism) today and that there is a strong relationship between the people in the city and the people in the mountains.  This relates back to the idea that the Amazigh people accepted those who lived in the urban areas. The relevance of this relationship between urban and rural worlds emphasizes two distinct cultures in Morocco and Algeria that coexist and share similar linguistic and societal norms.

To conclude

The history of the Amazighs of North Africa is very vast and very rich. Their culture in its Mediterranean, African, Eastern, European or international influences, is particularly distinguished by :

– an unfailing link to the land tamurt/akal ;

– with a strong sense of the sacredness of the language Tamazigh/awal ;

– of great conviviality and sharing twiza ; and

– a great sense of community ddm/tghaghart.

The idea of an Amazigh nation is built on the model of previous national movements around a people, the Imazighen, a language Tamazight, and a territory, Tamazgha/North Africa. This mythical original link between the people and the land makes them an “indigenous” people in the sense defined by the United Nations as :

“social groups with a social and cultural identity different from that of the dominant society, which makes them likely to be disadvantaged in the development process.“

The Amazigh of Morocco and Algeria have a complex relationship with language, societal norms, and the land. However, if one were to remove any one of these Amazigh cultural aspects, it is fairly likely Morocco and Algeria would have a different set of beliefs and way of life, for sure.

Follow Professor Mohamed CHTATOU on Twitter : @Ayurinu

references available upon request

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.

“Tamazight,” the pluralistic Amazigh language bloc, became official under the 2016 Constitution, and the State has since started to develop the necessary mechanisms for its teaching. One of the things that provoked discussion was the standardization of a single Amazigh language. Algeria has more than four Amazigh-speaking groups, not just Taqbaylit, which has been at the forefront of many initiatives. 

Daika Dridi wrote about this in HuffPost Algérie, “What neither Benghabrit nor Ouyahia say is that the students who are taught “Tamazight” everywhere in Algeria and including Kabylia are fleeing the courses of this teaching because they do not understand what is taught, because they do not recognize this language which is supposed to be their mother tongue. It is not really the Berber languages ​​as they are spoken by their communities that the schoolchildren of Kabylia, Mzab, the Shawi or Targi regions learn when they go to “Tamazight” class but something else.”

Abderrezak Dourari, who heads a state center for research and reflection on the teaching of Tamazight (National Pedagogical and Linguistic Center for Teaching Tamazight), talks about this pedagogical failure which, he says, is the same failure in Morocco, explaining that mistakes made with Arabization have been repeated with the teaching of Tamazight, which has become a “Re-Berberization” enterprise.

“What is the usefulness of this artificial language apart from flattering our ego? It has no chance of survival and it is this language that is taught at school,” says Abderrezak Dourari.

What began as a brilliant political victory with the enshrinement of Amazigh language teaching in the Algerian constitution has turned into a language that nobody understands, including those who created it. Dourari explains that it was political authorities like the High Commission for Amazighity (HCA) and not linguists who invented this language.

In reality, texts in “Tamazight” (official documents, advertising posters, etc.) never exist initially as “texts in an Amazigh language,” they are always translations of French or Arabic, acrobatically elaborated transcriptions using the Mammeri lexicon. Abderrezak Dourari regrets that the plural aspect of the Amazigh language bloc has been completely embroiled in a process of unification without any real reflection. The only linguistic plurality that seems to stay intact is the choice of script. This isn’t dictated by the Ministry of Education which ensures the presence of the three alphabets (Arabic, Tifinagh/neo-Tifinagh and Latin) in textbooks, leaving room for teachers to decide. This cannot be said for Morocco where IRCAM, a non-democratic body, has imposed the sole use of neo-Tifinagh. The first major network for Amazigh language teaching in Morocco was created in Rabat by a group from the Souss on November 10, 1966 (AMREC) whose action primarily targeted oral culture and literacy because of the repressive context at the time.

It is the role of an Amazigh Language Academy to preserve the plurality of Algerian Amazigh languages by taking them from those who speak them and collecting corpora for each of its varieties, so that they are taught in an effective way. This has not yet emerged. Abdelwahab Sahrawi, a specialist in Arabic and Islamic studies, said efforts should be focused on deepening academic research, before suggesting a common transcription between variants of the Amazigh language within the range of Shawi, Kabyle, Tamahaq, Tamzabt and Shelhi expression, knowing that some are concerned about consolidating the cohesion of the Algerian people. 

The president of the “Culture and Reform of the Old Qsar” association in Ouargla, Hocine Boughaba, for his part, discussed the means of preservation and promotion of the Amazigh heritage and its variants.

Mr. Boughaba said that the association has been, since its creation, a cell composed of researchers, academics and poets, responsible for the enrichment of research in the field of the Wargli-Zenatic linguistic variant.

For those interested in excellent linguistic work on Amazigh varieties check out: Salem Chaker, Lameen Souag, Amina Mettouchi, Marijn van Putten, and Maarten Kossmann.

Naturally, the colors represent different things: blue for the water of the Mediterranean sea, green for land, and yellow for the sand of the grand Sahara: the Tuareg realm. In the center is the Tifinagh 17 letter “yaz”, a symbol of the “free man.” It is colored in red, to represent the Amazigh blood spilled as a result of resistance against the colonialism and later against the oppression imposed by North African pan-Arab regimes after the so called independence.

The Amazigh flag was neither imposed nor inherited from colonialism, in fact it was purely adopted spontaneously by the Amazigh people all over the world, to challenge many colonial boundaries created to separate the Amazigh people in their land of North Africa known as Tamazgha land.

The flag was originally created by the Berber Academy (Agraw Imazighen) in the 70s, the flag was adopted later in 1998 as the official flag of the Amazigh ‘Berber’ people by the Amazigh World Congress (CMA, Agraw Amadlan Amazigh) during its congressional meeting in Canary Island.

The Amazigh flag has always been the symbol of our noble cause and fight for existence as well as a prominent icon of our unity and source of pride and inspiration for millions of Amazigh People around the world.

happy Amazigh flag day everyone!

Although, for many families, Mother’s Day is a time of celebration, appreciation, and joy. But for some others, it’s one of the most difficult days of the year. This is especially true for women facing infertility or those who have recently experienced the loss of a mother, daughter, or other loved one.

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On this occasion, the Amazigh World News team would like to take this opportunity to wish a happy mothers day to all mothers out there including our mothers in ‘Tamazgha’ North Africa, to whom we owe so much.

We also want to assure that we will continue to defend Amazigh women’s rights, work to promote their daily life and role in society, as well as create a suitable platform that helps them to actively participate in civil society, political leadership and economic development.

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New York – Moroccan court Monday confirmed the heavy sentences against more than 54 protesters and activists from Rif ‘Hirak’ movement in Morocco’s neglected Rif region on charges including attacking police forces and in some cases burning vehicles and a police building.

Human Rights Watch organization said Friday’s verdict were very shocking and court should have weighed evidence that the police tortured the defendants when it reviewed their conviction and excluded any evidence evidence of torture and forced confessions. 

“Morocco’s doubling down on vengeance against activists will come back to bite, as popular outrage to government abuses spreads across the region.” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch.

Collectively, the Rif Hirak detainees will face sentences of more than 300 years, including 20 years for four detainees such as Nasser Zefzafi and Nabil Ahmjik. 15 years for three, 10 for seven, and so forth.

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Geneva – The UN Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers, Diego García-Sayán, has canceled plans to visit Morocco.

The human rights expert was scheduled to visit the country from 20 to 26 March 2019 to examine the impact of measures aimed at ensuring the independence and impartiality of the judiciary and prosecutors, and the independent exercise of the legal profession.

In a statement issued by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights OHCHR ,  said that “The Government of Morocco has not been able to ensure a programme of work in accordance with the needs of the mandate and the terms of reference for country visits by special procedures,”.

The UN human rights office stressed that “governments are obliged to guarantee and facilitate [special rapporteurs] freedom of movement and freedom of inquiry.”

Garcia-Sayan’s visit was to examine the independence and impartiality of judges and prosecutors and the independent exercise of lawyering.