After Spain missed three penalty attempts and went down 3-0 in the shootout, Paris Saint-Germain defender Hakimi scored with a Panenka penalty. Morocco also set the record by reaching their first quarterfinal, being the only African country to do so. 

For the first time and after defeating the 2010 world champion, Morocco will play in a World Cup quarterfinal. If Morocco defeats Portugal, the Atlas Lions would become the first African nation to reach the semifinals. 

Spain tried to score its way to a win over Morocco. It made and executed a significant number of passes. All of those passes, however, did not result in any goals. Spain was unable to score even after a 30-minute extra-time. Morocco, on the other hand, advanced to its first-ever World Cup quarterfinal eliminating Spain after its players missed all three of their penalties. The North African Amazigh team now has the opportunity to advance even further in this World Cup. They will not be overshadowed by their opponents in the following round, and they might yet go to the semifinal.

The North African team had only surrendered one goal in the tournament, and their defensive strategy proved key in defeating Luis Enrique’s team. Although Spain had a monopoly over ball ownership, Morocco didn’t look troubled by Spain’s seeming domination of the game. The teams’  failure to score throughout regular and extra time ensured the game proceeded to penalties where Morocco excelled.

Morocco and Spain’s long standing historical, geographical and political conflicts heightened the mood, but it was the Moroccan supporters’ spectacular display of color and noise that enabled their team to make the game so difficult for Spain. 

With yesterday’s win, Morocco has become now the fourth African nation to advance to the quarter final in the history of the FIFA World Cup, after Cameroon, Senegal and Ghana.

So, it is crystal clear that Islam does not support any segregation between people. Unfortunately, this is not the case in all Muslim societies. For example, in Morocco Imazighen; Berbers; are still suffering from language racism.

Though Imazighen; Aborigines of Morocco and other states in North Africa; are known for their open mindedness and serenity, they always objected culture abuse. And as they do not have any complexities, Imazighen are predisposed to lead a harmonious life in total coexistence with people of different faiths, races, and languages as far as their identity is respected. Unfortunately, in Morocco Arabs are not yet ready to accept the difference. Their belief in unilateral state and disdain to amazigh language and culture dates back to the Islamic invasion of Morocco.

This unilateralism is reflected through the Arab pedigree scholars who proclaim that the origins of Imazighen go back to Yamen; as the case is with all the imperialists. For example, French politicians also did the same thing while preparing to occupy Morocco and propagated that Imazighen are of European origins. Fortunately, any person armed with a modicum of history rudiments, or even a minimum of critical thinking would know that North Africa ,as many other places of the globe, knew immigration from and to different other places. Therefore, the claim that Berber’s origin is Arab, from Yemen, is self-contradictory.

As far as the disdainfulness is concerned, Mosa Bnu Nosayer; The head of Arab invaders to Morocco; preferred to stay with his army in Tunisia and considered Imazighen as laboratory mice to invade spain. He delegated Tarik Bnu Zyad; an Amazigh leader; to break into Spain and report to him about strengths and weaknesses of the Spanish army thus he can act accordingly. All Moroccan students learned at schools that Tarik Bnu Zyad is a Muslim amazigh leader who “opened” Iberian Peninsula. Almost all Moroccan students were taught Tarik’s harangue to his Army. The question that strongly poses itself is why were not we taught about his end? The simple answer is that instead of being glorified for what he did to Arab caliphate, he was convicted of stealing the booties and was tortured to death. Another form of Hatred and sadism toward Imazighen is reflected in Bnu Nosayer’s deeds who tears the ears of all Berber leaders he defeated as a reminder for them to never try to conflict Arabs.

Arriving to the modern history of Morocco, the late king, Mohamed the fifth, signed on May 30, 1930 a decree that “organizes justice in tribes of Amazigh conventions”. The protocol of Morocco in that time to the present is that all decrees signed by the king are named “Royal Dahir”, except the aforementioned. The Arab activists of national movement propagated that the decree aims to separate Arabs from Amazigh people and to evangelize Imazighen as a procedure among others for this separation. And in their attempt to attach all what is colonial to Imazighen, they intentionally falsified its name for “Dahir albarbari”, meaning Amazigh decree, in a total violation of the protocol. Not only this, but they also convict any free Amazigh who struggles for his cultural rights of trying to revive the 30 May Dahir and to separate Imazighen from Arabs.

Right after the independence in 1956, Morocco’s first constitution came out to incarnate another endeavor from the so called national movement activists to dissolve the Amazigh identity stating that the official language of the state is Only Arabic. Right at that time, a general census conducted by the state revealed that Imazighen make a proportion of 85% of Moroccans. Hence, this large proportion of Moroccan population continues to suffer cultural and language discrimination. According to the new constitution, correspondences; schooling; TV broadcasting; lawsuits; etc. must all be in Arabic. And to enact that, the ministry of interior stopped broadcasting a TV program in 1979 as the presenter Omar Amarir allowed his guest to speak Tamazight. The worse is depriving parents from giving Amazigh names to their newborns while excusing Turkish and names from other cultures.
The Amazighophobes in Morocco are still recognizing Tamazight as a threat to their existence. Therefore, they depict it as an atheist language since Islam is revealed in Arabic. And some ideologists even spread falsehoods and claim that Arabic is the language of god and heaven.

Depicting the status of Tamazight in Morocco does not refute the harmony, coexistence, and shared love between both Arab and Amazigh flocks. Thus, the depicted hatred and cultural abuse is only shown from the ideologists.
In conclusion, I would like to call For Moroccans of different spectrum to stand against any ideology. I would also call for Arab ideologists to put their complexes and hallucinations behind and cooperate to build a Morocco for all Moroccans, a Morocco of mutual respect and coexistence regardless of culture, language, faith, or gender.

By Azzeddine Diouani

When I was pursuing my studies at the University of Mohammed First in Oujda and the University of Sidi Mohammed Ben Abdellah in Fez, It bothered me to hear labels such as “we Arabs” used by both teachers and students (I know that you would jump to the conclusion that I am just another chauvinist preaching chauvinism and racism; read the remainder of the essay before adopting such a simplistic approach) to refer to all the students the class consisted of. Most of the time, I, with my arms crossed, remained silent not because I was afraid to speak my mind but because my classmates would have taken me, mistakenly, for a chauvinist, a fanatic, and a Berbersit. This taught me that the Moroccan people are so ignorant of their history and that they tend to adopt the tabula rasa attitude before the arrival of “Arab Muslims” is in fact inconceivable.

Some of the commonsensical views put forward have been that since Moroccans speak Arabic, (they think Darija is a dialect of Arabic) it follows that they are Arabs. This is a common sense view. Speaking from experience, speaking for Amazigh language is sufficient to win one the label of a chauvinist. What this means is that if you ever dare to say that Amazigh and Arabic should be treated equally, you are running the risk of preserving some space in the ladder of chauvinism. Worse still, some single-minded “professors” are still thinking that Amazigh is a threat to our national identity. A friend of mine told me once that one of his “feminist teachers” was accustomed to saying: “In case the Amazigh dialects are promoted, the country will be divided”. This is a very old argument used against the promotion of Amazigh. In lieu of empowering students and sensitizing them to the marginalized issues, it seems that common sense views turn out to be a deeply rooted philosophy in teaching. The fact is that Imazighen (Amazigh people) have been denied their BASIC RIGHTS, though they were the first to defend the country once the protectorate was implemented.

Even if one claims to be of Arab origin, it is not fair to deny him/her that right. In the same way, it is not fair to deny Imazighen their rights on the grounds that such a step is going to fragment the Moroccan nation. Imazighen are not chauvinistic because they don’t insist that Morocco is an Amazigh country (though this cannot be denied), nor are they naming everything Amazigh to exclude their fellow Arabs but the ideas established by the so called the nationalist movement DO. Why is Morocco referred to as an Arab country? Is not this a falsification of our national history? Who is the chauvinist here? Why is our national football team, for example, referred to as Arab? Who is the chauvinist here? Why is Morocco a member in the Arab league? Why is exactly Arab and not north African or Muslim?

As illustration, if two people (let’s call them Mohamed and Masin for the time being) have helped in solving a particular mathematical equation, it is logical to reward both of the two; otherwise, what is the point of rewarding Mohammed and ignoring Masin? That is exactly the kind of logic promoted by single-minded people. One is rewarded while the other is denied his right because he is not Arab. He must be included as an Arab if he is to be accepted. Human beings have been accustomed to protect received ideas. They would resist any new ideas. History is full of examples.

You would say, perhaps, that Islam and Arabism are interrelated. Hence, one cannot exist in the absence of the other. This is nonsense. Islam is a religion, but Arabism is a racist ideology. Was Mohammed preaching Islam or Arabism? The answer is definitely going to be: Islam and this, or any other religion, has been integrated into Amazigh culture without questioning who we are. I know, for example, that the way Moroccans practice their faith is very different from the way people in the Middle East practice the same faith. From this, there emerged what we call the Amazigh Islam (a brand of Islam that has been influenced by the particularities of Amazigh people). There is nothing on earth that says you should adopt Arabism before converting to Islam. Islam doesn’t say that whether we like it or not. Islam stresses good manners; anything else is of no use.

Returning to chauvinism, the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English defines the term as: unreasonable belief that the sex to which one belongs is better than the other sex. In the same way, the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary suggests that chauvinism is

“an aggressive and unreasonable belief that your own country in better than all other”. Inherent in these two definitions is the idea that chauvinists believe, irrationally perhaps, that they are superior to other peoples (female Vs male, Amazigh Vs Arab), or else their countries (France Vs Morocco) are superior.

Taking this understanding into account, the question becomes: Do Imazighen (Amazigh people) think of themselves as superior? For the single-minded, the answer is a big yes. However, once one closely examines the idea, one concludes that this is not understandable because Imazighen are not asking for a “special treatment” in their home land; rather they would love to see (among other things of course) linguistic democracy being established as inseparable part of their reality.

When at university, I used to frequently join campus discussions. I felt extremely sympathetic with a Marxist group but the kind of culture roaming in the Marxist-minded students had no room for Amazighness. What has Max got to do with Arab nationalism? Although Marxists are opposed to “nationalism”, as far as my knowledge is concerned, such an idea has not caught the attention of mainstream Marxist thinkers, they have adopted Nassirism “blindly”. Was that a coincidence?

Normally, the spirit of the Moroccan left has to adjust to the Moroccan environment provided that Marxism is context-specific, meaning that each brand of Marxism stems from a particular context (linguistic and cultural specificities). Nevertheless, when one skims through what the Moroccan leftists write, one gets the impression that the Moroccan Left is like a branch of a tree whose roots had grown, for some reason, in Syria or Egypt. It is a fake copy of what has been dominant in the East from the time of Nassirism up to the moment, with varying degrees. The reason for this is that the Moroccan left never ever recognized the Amazigh either as a people, language, and culture or as an essential component of Moroccan identity. Even when the idea was raised by some people who have been thinking outside of the box in Marxist groups, trade unions, political parties, it met with harsh criticism.

The paradox is that the monarch whom the leftists assume is a very backward looking person (because he represents the bourgeoisie in their opinion) has proven to be more open to Amazighity than the Moroccan left which claim to be “progressive”!!!. If only

Arabic is worthy in the view of the Moroccan left, then “leftism” is no longer a liberating tool but an oppressive  ideology. There has been, to my knowledge, an important shift in the attitudes of the Moroccan left; still, having previously read some leftist-minded writings (and listened attentively), it is my view that there is a long way ahead of us to go. The liberating discourse should include a more inclusive language. There is, in my opinion, no room for justifying the old fashioned ideas blowing from the east except for the alien individuals

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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.

Host:
Amazigh Association of Colorado
When:
May 6th, 2017
Where:
3550 Fedral Blvd, Denver, Colorado
Reservations:
Free Entry
Program:
Lectures, Dinner, Amazigh Music and many more…

1.Lucius Apuleius
(c. 123/125 – c. 180) was a Numidian prose writer and philosopher who lived under the Roman Empire in North Africa, remembered most for his bawdy picaresque novel, the Metamorphoses, otherwise known as The Golden Ass (Asinus Aureus).

2.Terence Terentius Afer
(born c. 195 bc, Carthage, North Africa [now in Tunisia]—died 159? bc, in Greece or at sea), was one of the greatest comic dramatist of the Roman empire, the author of six verse comedies that were long regarded as models of pure Latin. Terence’s plays form the basis of the modern comedy of manners.

3.Saint Augustine of Hippo
Saint Augustine, also called Saint Augustine of Hippo, original Latin name Aurelius Augustinus (born Nov. 13, 354, Tagaste, Numidia [now Souk Ahras, Algeria]—died Aug. 28, 430, Hippo Regius [now Annaba, Algeria]), feast day August 28, bishop of Hippo from 396 to 430, one of the Latin Fathers of the Church, one of the Doctors of the Church, and perhaps the most significant Christian thinker after St. Paul. Augustine’s adaptation of classical thought to Christian teaching created a theological system of great power and lasting influence. His numerous written works, the most important of which are Confessions and City of God, shaped the practice of biblical exegesis and helped lay the foundation for much of medieval and modern Christian thought.

4.Averroes, (Ibn Rushd)
Averroës, also called Ibn Rushd, (born 1126, Córdoba [Spain]—died 1198, Marrakech, was a North African jurist, a physician, an astronomer, and a prolific writer whose commentaries on Aristotle became a major source for understanding the work of that thinker in the 13th and 14th centuries. A common theme throughout his writings is that there is no incompatibility between religion and philosophy when both are properly understood.

5.Armen Firman (Ibn Firnas)
Armen Firman also known as Abbas Ibn Firnas (810–887 A.D.) was a polymath: an inventor, physician, chemist, engineer, Aviator, Andalusian musician, and Arabic-language poet of Amazigh descent, Armen is known as the earliest developers of aviation science and the principles of flying.

If you have suggestions for other notable Amazigh names, please let us know in the comments so we can do a follow-up post and we can continue to exalt these inspirational people and share their incredible stories. 

“According to the 2016 data” Morocco is ranked best for “Argan oil.” – a speciality and a unique ingredient that’s been at the heart of Moroccan Amazigh cooking, medicinal purposes and traditional beauty for hundreds of years.

According to the researchers, some countries have been left out because they either could not fit it in, or there was not enough data on it.

While in prison, Kikuyu scholar Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o famously rejected English, the colonial language of Kenya, as a medium for his creative writing, and later committed himself to writing solely in his native Gikuyu after writing Decolonizing the Mind. Along with English, Ngũgĩ continued his decolonizing praxis by renouncing Christianity and his colonial name. His theory and example inspired an essential conversation in African Studies regarding the problem of colonial vs. indigenous language use. Yet this conversation has so far failed to move beyond the issue of European colonial languages, ignoring or even indigenizing the colonial dominance of Arabic in North Africa.The Amazigh (pl. Imazighen) are the indigenous people of North Africa, a region internally calledTamazgha, but often known as part of the “Arab world.”  The Amazigh language is Tamazight, and is the mother tongue of tens of millions of people in Tamazgha and the Amazigh diaspora. Since Arab invasions in the 7th century C.E., Arabic has been a colonial language in Tamazgha, although the process of Arabization was dramatically accelerated after North African countries became independent of European colonialism in the 20th century. Arabization, under the thin guise of decolonization, supposedly sought to reduce the use of French in “post-colonial” North Africa, but in actuality targeted the indigenous Tamazight language for discrimination.

Why limit our rejection of colonial languages, if we are to do so, to only European languages? Arabic has been used in an at least as destructive and anti-African a manner as French, English or any other European language in Africa. Just as Ngũgĩ describes the schism and alienation created by repressive language policies in a colonial school, an Amazigh writer does the same:
You are not even able to speak Arabic, he told us… ‘You are savages. How will I ever manage to civilize you when I have to start from scratch?’…I was already considering how I was going to tell my parents who were unable to understand the teacher’s language. Should my parents see me suddenly deny the patrimony of my ancestors and my mother tongue? It would be far better to disappear along with that language. (Almasude, originally Oussaid 1989).
These discriminatory policies and practices still continue at the expense of an indigenous African language that is degraded and disparaged in comparison to the supposed prestige of Arabic. Despite this, Arabic is granted the status of “African” even while it acts as a colonial language, imposed by those who identify as “Arabs” in North Africa. Within scholarship about African languages, as well as African Studies in general, many seem to have forgotten that European colonialism is not the only form of colonialism to affect the continent.

Although Arabization policies were implemented to create a false unity of the supposed “Arab” people of North Africa, this imposition of a foreign language and identity on Imazighen has created alienation and supported colonial entrenchment in the region. Today, Amazigh parents who want to register their children with indigenous names are routinely rejected, a policy that has beencriticized by human rights organizations. Children are often still physically beaten for speaking their mother tongue in school, as is the case in many other African countries where only colonial languages may be spoken in school. Despite theprominent role of Imazighen in the revolutions in Libya and Tunisia, painfully dubbed the “Arab Spring,” Tamazight continues to be excluded as an official language in these countries.  There is a ban on Tamazight in the Moroccan Parliament after Fatima Tabaamrant, an Amazigh MP, asked a question in her native language in a bold action reminiscent of Kurdish MP Leyla Zana. Islamist opposition to Tamazight and the use of its indigenous script, Tifinagh, continues in Morocco.
Does it matter whether the language of dominance is French, English, or Arabic? Certainly not to the children who are forced to reject their ancestors and mother tongue, children who are told they must learn that language in order to be civilized.
Given the colonial nature of Arabic in Tamazgha, and its imposition on the indigenous people, there are significant reasons that Africans ought to reject the use of Arabic in favour of their indigenous language. When we do this, we participate in decolonization by supporting the survival of African languages in opposition to the policies of former or current colonial powers. Decolonization is not a metaphor; to decolonize our minds and unsettle Arab hegemony in Tamazgha, we must recognize and fight against continuing linguistic repression.

Source: thisisafrica

The history of the Berber people in northern Africa is extensive and diverse. The Berbers are a large group of non-Arabic tribes, related by language and culture, inhabiting areas stretching from Egypt to the Canary Islands as well as regions south of the Sahara such as Niger and Mali. Archaeologists have traced their origins to the Caspian culture, a North African civilization that dates back more than 10,000 years. Berber-speaking people have lived in North Africa since the earliest times and are first referenced by the Egyptians in 3,000 BC under the name Temehu. Phoenician, Greeks and Roman texts also make reference to them. Since prehistoric times, Berber lands have been a crossroad of peoples from Africa, Europe, and the Middle East. The Carthaginians, Romans, Vandals, Byzantines, Arabs, Turks, Spaniards, French, and Italians have invaded and ruled portions of the Berber homeland. The Berbers have never experienced a unified political identity. There have been many Berber kingdoms and cultures existing alongside one another in various regions of North Africa and Spain, but never a unified “Berber empire”. Throughout the centuries, Berbers have mixed with many ethnic groups, including Arabs, and because of this, they have come to be identified more by linguistics instead race. Their language is one of the oldest in the world and belongs to the African branch of the Afro-Asian language family, along with ancient Egyptian.

Although never formalized beyond local cults, the Berbers had a rich mythology and belief system structured around a pantheon of gods. Many of their beliefs were developed locally while some were imported or later influenced by contact with other African mythologies, such as the Egyptian religion along with Phoenician mythology, Judaism, Iberian mythology, and the Hellenistic religion during antiquity. The most recent influence came from Arab mythology, when the Berbers were converted to Islam during the ninth century. Today, some of the traditional, ancient, pagan Berber beliefs still exist within the culture and tradition, especially in Algeria, where older cults survive to varying extents.

Many prehistoric peoples considered rocks to be holy, including the Berbers. Second century Latin writer Apuleius, along with Saint Augustine, bishop of the Hippo Regius (ancient name of the modern city of Annaba, in Algeria), both remarked on rock-worship among North Africans. The Greek historian Herodotus wrote of their sacrifices:

They begin with the ear of the victim, which they cut off and throw over their house: this done, they kill the animal by twisting the neck. They sacrifice to the Sun and Moon, but not to any other god.

The megalithic culture may have been part of a cult of the dead or of star-worship. The best known rock monument in Northwest Africa is Mzora (or Msoura). It is composed of a circle of megaliths surrounding a tumulus. The highest megalith is longer than 5 meters (16 feet). According to legend, it is the resting place of the mythic Berber king Antaeus. Another megalithic monument was discovered in 1926, south of Casablanca and was engraved with funerary inscriptions in the Libyco-Berber script known as Tifinagh.

The tombs of the early Berbers and their ancestors (the Caspian’s and Ibero-Mauresians) indicate that they believed in the afterlife. The prehistoric men of the region of northwest Africa buried their bodies in the ground. Later, they buried the dead in caves, tumuli (burial mounds), and tombs cut into rock. These tombs evolved from primitive structures to more elaborate ones, such as the pyramidal tombs that spread throughout North Africa. The best known Berber pyramids are the 19 meter (62 ft) pre-Roman Numidian pyramid of Medracen and the 30-meter (98 ft) ancient Mauritanian pyramid located in modern-day Algeria.

Among ancient Berber and Egyptian mythology there are similar, overlapping deities. The Berbers were neighbors of the Egyptians, originally inhabiting the lands of Libya for thousands of years, before the beginning of human records in Ancient Egypt. It is thought that some Ancient Egyptians deities, such as Isis and Set, were originally worshipped by the Berbers. Osiris was one of the Egyptian deities’ paid homage to in Libya. Some scholars believe Osiris was originally a Libyan god. Berbers supposedly did not eat the swine’s flesh, because it was associated with Set, and they did not eat the cow’s flesh, because it was associated with Isis. This was reported by Herodotus: Cow’s flesh, however, none of these [Libyan] tribes ever taste, but abstain from it for the same reason as the Egyptians, neither do they any of them breed swine. Even at Cyrene, the women think it wrong to eat the flesh of the cow, honoring in this Isis, the Egyptian goddess, whom they worship both with fasts and festivals. The Barcaean women abstain, not from cow’s flesh only, but also from the flesh of swine Another one of their deities the Egyptians considered to have a Libyan origin, was Neith who is said to have emigrated from Libya to establish her temple at Sais in the Nile Delta. Some legends tell that Neith was born around Lake Tritons or modern Tunisia. It is notable that some Egyptian deities were depicted with Berber (ancient Libyan) characters, such as “Ament” who was depicted with two feathers, which were the normal ornaments of the Ancient Libyans as shown by the Ancient Egyptians.

The most remarkable common god between Egyptian and Berber culture was Amon. King of the gods and god of the wind, he was adopted by the Ancient Egyptians as Amen-Ra, by the Greeks as Zeus-Amon, and by the Phoenicians as Baal-Amon. Represented in human form, sometimes with a ram’s head, early depictions of rams have been found across North Africa dating to 9600 BC and 7500 BC. The most famous temple of Ammon in Ancient Libya was the augural temple at Siwa in Egypt, an oasis still inhabited by the Berbers. Although most modern sources ignore the existence of Ammon in Berber mythology, he was honored by the Ancient Greeks in Cyrenaica, and was united with the Phoenician god Baal due to Libyan influence.

Source: www.ancient-origins.net

Ribab Fusion is a popular Amazigh band from southern Morocco, celebrates Morocco’s Amazigh culture with everything from smooth grooves to high-energy funk, fusing the traditional sound of the single-stringed ribab with a contemporary, Afropop style.