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Arabization and Its Discontents: The

Rise of the Amazigh Movement in North
Africa
Bruce Maddy-Weitzman
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Amazigh Movement in North Africa, The Journal of the Middle East and Africa, 3:2, 109-135
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Arabization and Its Discontents: The Rise of

the Amazigh Movement in North Africa
Downloaded by [Tel Aviv University], [Bruce Maddy-Weitzman] at 23:20 18 December 2012
BRUCE MADDY-WEITZMAN
The Berber-Amazigh identity movement has emerged in recent

decades in North African states, demanding official recognition
of linguistic and cultural rights and challenging the hegemonic
narrative of history propagated by ruling elites who advocate the
full Arabization of society and the reduction of Berber culture to
folklore status. In recent years, the movement has gained a mea-
sure of linguistic and cultural recognition from North African
states. This hard-won legitimization has in turn given the Amazigh
movement new confidence to press its demands. The events of the
Arab Spring have contained an important Amazigh dimension.
With the needs of North African states now even more acute, and
given the political and social discontent bubbling up from below,
the Amazigh identity project is clearly entering a new era, one that
poses both new opportunities and new challenges, particularly in
the face of increasingly influential Islamist movements.
KEYWORDS Amazigh, Arabization, Berber, ethno-nationalism,

identity movement
North Africas native Amazigh (Berber)-speaking communities comprise

approximately 20 million persons, concentrated primarily in Morocco (an
estimated 40 percent of the population) and Algeria (approximately 20 per-
cent), with smaller communities in Libya (approximately 8 to 9 percent),
Tunisia (approximately 1 to 2 percent), and Egypts Siwa oasis (20,000), as
well as one million traditionally nomadic Touareg Berbers who reside mostly
in Mali and Niger. These communities have largely been subsumed over the
last eighty years by nationalist movements and postcolonial state-building
BRUCE MADDY-WEITZMAN is principal research fellow at the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle
Eastern and African Studies of Tel Aviv University and author of The Berber Identity Movement
and the Challenge to North African States (University of Texas Press, 2011).
109
110 B. Maddy-Weitzman
projects that have prioritized the Arabization of public life and the fashioning
of modern national identities. Both Western modernization theorists and the
first generation of Maghribi nationalists, inspired by notions of Islamic reform
and Arabism, surmised that Berber culture was merely a residue that could
and even shouldbe consigned to the realm of state-sponsored folklore fes-
tivals.1 However, even as usage of the Berber language, which until recently
had been almost exclusively oral, steadily receded in the independence era
and Berber communities became increasingly integrated into wider econ-
omic, social, and political frameworks, Berber culture could not be easily
reduced to insignificance. After all, in the words of anthropologist David

M. Hart, this culture formed the basis of the whole North African edifice.2
The Amazigh, or free man (pl. Imazighen; in the Berber language, Tama-
zight) movement has emerged in recent decades to demand official recog-
nition of linguistic and cultural rights and challenge the hegemonic
narrative of history propagated by ruling elites. Hence, the Berber question
has now become a part of the overall social, economic, and political
challenges that confront North African states today.
BACKGROUND: LANGUAGE AND IDENTITY IN NORTH AFRICA
Language has been a centralperhaps the centralfactor in the develop-

ment of modern ethno-national identities and their accompanying nationalist
movements. This was certainly the case for Arab nationalism: the Arabic lan-
guage was heralded by generations of nationalist thinkers and activists as the
nations eternal glue; its modernization, standardization, and dissemination
as the language of state were understood to be central to their political pro-
jects. Secular nationalists in the Arab-speaking eastern Ottoman lands and
Egypt believed that Arabic, the language common to the majority of both
Muslims and Christians, could serve to transcend confessional, tribal, geo-
graphical, and historical differences and help forge integrated nation-states
and a common regional order. For believing Arab Muslims, Arabics special
status as the language in which Allahs message was revealed to Muhammad
made it unassailable. Local dialects notwithstanding, the standardization of
the language and the Arabization of both the educational system and public
life in general over the last half-century can be considered successes, even if
1
For the Moroccan states efforts in this regard, see Aomar Boum, Dancing for the
Moroccan State: Ethnic Folk Dances and the Production of National Hybridity, in North
African Mosaic: A Cultural Reappraisal of Ethnic and Religious Minorities, ed. Nabil Boudraa
and Joseph Krause, 21437 (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2007).
2
David M. Hart, Scratch a Moroccan, Find a Berber, Journal of North African Studies 4,
no. 2 (Summer 1999): 2326.
Arabization and Its Discontents 111
politically, Arab nationalism has proven to be a doctrine that has largely

failed to deliver on its promise.3
Nationalist movements in North Africa largely shared the Arab national-
ist doctrine being propagated to the east. Beginning in the 1930s, the ideolo-
gues of Algerias national movement proclaimed its central pillars to be the
Arabic language, Islam, and territorial nationalism, rejecting a century of
French colonialism. Moroccos nationalist elite had a similar Arab-Islamic
orientation. Upon achieving independence, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and
Libya all officially defined themselves as Arab. They joined the League of
Arab States; later formed the Arab Maghreb Union; and declared Arabic
the sole official language, Islam the state religion, and the Arabization of edu-
cation and public life a top priority. Educationally, ruling elites directed their
history curricula toward the east, linking their societies roots to the rise
of Islam and its spread across North Africa beginning in the late seventh
century.
Notwithstanding this common trajectory, North African states differed in
key respects from their fellow League members to the east. The radical
pan-Arabism espoused by Egypts Gamal Abdel-Nasser and the Baath Party,
which promoted the political unification of an imagined4 Arab homeland
stretching from the Ocean to the Gulf, never attracted Moroccans, Alger-
ians, or Tunisians, no matter their political views. Moreover, notwithstanding
Nassers support for the Algerian struggle for independence and overall sym-
pathy for North African independence movements, both Algeria and
Morocco literally had to become Arab after independence, importing thou-
sands of teachers from the east to teach a standardized version of Arabic to
replace French as the language of education and administrationan Arabic
that differed sharply from the North African unwritten dialectical Arabic
(darija) spoken in daily life. State Arabization policies notwithstanding,
French remains even today an essential language for higher education and
white-collar employment. And now, the question of the Berber languages
appropriate place in society is on the public agenda as well.
3
For a sampling of scholarly treatments of the origins and evolution of Arab nationalism,
see Sylvia Haim, ed., Arab Nationalism: An Anthology (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1962); James Jankowski and Israel Gershoni, eds., Rethinking Nationalism in the Arab
Middle East (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997); Rashid Khalidi et al., eds., The
Origins of Arab Nationalism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1991); Yehoshua Porath,
In Search of Arab Unity, 19301945 (London: Frank Cass, 1986); Adeed Dawisha, Arab
Nationalism in the 20th Century: From Triumph to Despair (Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univer-
sity Press, 2003); Paul Salem, Bitter Legacy: Ideology and Politics in the Arab World (Syracuse,
NY: Syracuse University Press, 1994).
4
In the sense used by Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities, rev. ed. (London and
New York: Verso, 1991).
BERBERS
Who are the Berbers? Put most simply, they are North Africas original
natives, the population encountered by the regions various conquerors
and self-proclaimed civilizers: the Carthaginians, Romans, Byzantines,
Vandals, Arab-Muslims, and Europeans. (Of all those who came to North
Africa over the course of recorded history, declared a 2007 Amazigh move-
ment manifesto, only the Jews came in peace!5) Social organization was tra-
ditionally tribal, while linguistically, the Berbers spoke varieties of a single
unwritten language classified today as Afro-Asian. Today, there are three pri-
mary Berber dialects in Morocco, rooted in three distinct regions: (from
south-southeast to north) Tashelhit, spoken by roughly 8 million persons,
and Tamazight and Tarrifit, each spoken by approximately 3 million persons.
Tamazight is also the generic term used to denote the Berber language as a
whole. Neighboring Algeria has two primary Berber dialectsTaqbaylit,
from the Kabylie region, spoken by 5 million persons, and Chaoui, from
the Aures region southeast of Kabylie, spoken by 2 million personsand
four smaller ones. The country is also home to a variety of Touareg dialects.
Throughout history, Berbers encounters with more powerful forces
have produced a variety of responses, ranging from resistance and retreat
to embracing and assimilating into the new order. For modern-day Amazigh
activists and intellectuals, an emphasis on Berber agency, particularly in the
pre-Islamic era, has been central to identity-building efforts. For example, a
modern-day calendar developed by Berber intellectuals in Paris marks 943
BCE as Year One; this was the year, they determined, that Berbers as a
collective entered onto the stage of history with the founding in Egypt of
the Pharaonic Libyan Dynasties by Sheshonk I, a member of the
Libico-Berber Meshwesh tribe, which penetrated the Nile Delta from the
desert to the west. Berber Hellenic kingdoms in the third and second centu-
ries BCE, which were eventually subsumed under Roman authority, also
receive considerable attention in Berber history, and their leadersSyphax,
Massinissa, Jugurtha, Juba I, and Juba IIbelong to the modern-day
pantheon of Amazigh luminaries, especially Jugurtha, who led a war of resist-
ance against Roman rule. Ironically, Romanized Amazigh in subsequent cen-
turies also make up part of the pantheon of heroes, including the playwright
Terence (195=185159 BCE); the orator and philosopher Lucius Apuleius (ca.
123=5180 CE); and Septimius Severus, the first African-born Roman emperor
(r. 193211 CE). Modern-day Berber memory workers also note that the
mother of St. Augustine, one of the great church fathers who lived and
worked in Byzantine North Africa in the fourth century, was a Berber.
Perhaps the most heralded Berber icon from this period was Queen Dihya,
5
Plate-forme: Option Amazighe [Platform: The Amazigh Option], January 13, 2007,
http://www.amazighworld.org/auteur.php?auteur=Groupe%20Option%20Amazighe.
better known as the Kahina, who led the resistance to Arab Muslim conquer-
ors at the end of the seventh century. Berber agency would continue to be
expressed in a variety of ways within an Islamic milieu during the thousand
years of Islamization of North Africa that preceded the arrival of French
colonialism in the nineteenth century. Indeed, the great dynasties of Western
Islam from the eleventh to the fourteenth centuriesthe Almoravids, the
Almohads, and the Marinidsare generally labeled Berber Islamic
dynasties.6
Overall, then, Berbers have historically straddled multiple worlds, being
part of the other with whom they were engaged in one form of accommo-
dation or another while also being distinguished by particular attributes of
their own.7 Inevitably, given the generally unfavorable power relations
between natives and conquerors, this collection of tribal groupings was
branded by the Greeks and Romans as Berbers, a derogatory term derived
from barbarians. The Arab-Muslim conquerors quickly adopted the term,
and it stuck. Not surprisingly, modern-day militants reject this stigmatizing
term imposed from the outside and prefer to call themselves Amazigh.
A word of caution is in order: one must avoid an overly simplistic,
dichotomous view of Berberness vs. Arabness. Ethnic identities are
especially mutable and malleable; when they do become relevant to a con-
flict, they are often instrumentalized by one party or another to advance con-
crete interests. In this case, Berber-Arab differences throughout history have
been socially enduring but nonetheless muted.8
Forty years ago, the distinguished scholar Ernest Gellner, who conduc-
ted fieldwork among Berber Moroccan tribes in the Atlas Mountains, wrote
that in his heart, the Berber knows that Allah speaks Arabic, and modernity
speaks French.9 Gellner believed that the inexorable processes of moderni-
zation and national integration would eventually subsume the Berber tribes,
and with them the Berber language and, in essence, their collective identity.
To be sure, Gellner was correct in pointing to the nefarious effects of the
complex processes of economic and political integration that have occurred
throughout the region on the Berber language and Berber quotidian life. For
example, the percentage of Berber speakers in Morocco has probably
dropped by half since the French Protectorate was installed exactly one
hundred years ago.
6
For a fuller discussion, see Bruce Maddy-Weitzman, Berber=Amazigh Memory Work,
in The Maghrib in the New Century: Identity, Religion and Politics, ed. Bruce
Maddy-Weitzman and Daniel Zisenwine, 5071 (Gainesville: University of Florida Press,
2007).
7
Michael Brett and Elizabeth Fentress, The Berbers (Oxford: Blackwell, 1996).
8
Lawrence Rosen, The Social and Conceptual Framework of Arab-Berber Relations in
Central Morocco, in Arabs and Berbers: From Tribe to Nation in North Africa, ed. Ernest
Gellner and Charles Micaud, 15573 (Lexington, MA: Lexington Books, 1972).
9
Ernest Gellner, Introduction, in Arabs and Berbers (Ibid.), 19.
What Gellner did not anticipate was the durability of Berberness and
its adaptability to changing, albeit threatening times. Indeed, it was the
decline of the Berber language, spurred by state centralization and Arabiza-
tion policies, that helped spur the emergence of the modern Amazigh ident-
ity movement, which aims to renegotiate the terms of the Berbers
accommodation with the nation-state, Islam, and modernity. The central
demands of this movement are recognition of the existence of the Amazigh
people as a collective, as well as of the historical and cultural Amazighite of
North Africa. The most immediate and concrete manifestations of that recog-
nition have been the demands to make Tamazight equal to Arabic, enabling
it to become a modern, written language, and to begin redressing the margin-
alization of the Berbers through corrective educational, social, and economic
policies. Moreover, the movement challenges the fundamental national
narratives of various nation-statesAlgeria and Morocco, in particular.
The rise of the Amazigh movement has been part of a more general
trend. Ironically, the ever-accelerating processes of globalization, which some
thinkers heralded as the harbinger of the long-awaited postnational age, are
also generating an intensified politics of identity marked by ethno-cultural
assertion by formerly marginalized minority groups, combined with a demand
for the democratization of political life. For some groups, such as the Kurds,
this tendency has reached a critical mass, morphing into full-fledged national-
ism. Berberists, who are keenly aware of the Kurdish issue, are not, and may
never be, in the same position, but they too have achieved a measure of rec-
ognition and self-definition that was inconceivable a generation ago.
THE COLONIAL ERA
How did this come about? French colonial policies had contrary effects
some intended, others not. While acting to reify Berber-Arab differences,
with some success, they also initiated complex processes of territorial unifi-
cation and national integration, processes that were further reinforced by
the national movements that arose in opposition to colonial rule and the
independent states that these movements eventually established.
Algeria
The Algerian nationalist movement started to gather steam in the 1930s, a
century after Frances initial conquest of the country. An essential component
of the nationalists rejection of French domination was the articulation of a
modern Algerian identity based on territory, Islam, and affiliation with the
Arab world. This formula, articulated by salafi-minded reformist ulama
(Muslim scholars trained in Islam and Islamic law, and thus qualified to
interpret it) led by Shaykh Abdul Hamid Bin Badis, rejected the path of
assimilation advocated by the evolues, the narrow stratum of

French-educated Algerian white-collar professionals epitomized by Ferhat
Abbas. Abbas would eventually despair of the prospects of reconciliation
under French rule and join up with the independence movement.
As James McDougall has shown, the question of Berber identity was
very much on the mind of the Algerian salafi reformers.10 At least part of
the reason was the concurrent assertion of Kabyle Berber specificity within
the Algerian national movement. For the first generation of Kabyle Algerian
nationalists, all of whom were educated in the French system and possessed
a middle-class background, there was no contradiction between nationalism

and Kabyle Berber identity. For example, in a speech attacking the Italian
occupation of Ethiopia in 1935, one nationalist leader picked up the slogan
lAfrique aux Africains (Africa to the Africans) while simultaneously
emphasizing the historical continuity of the Berbers in their resistance to
foreign rule and assimilation.11 For Berber culturalists ever since, opposing
assimilation has not precluded being steeped in French language and culture
while also emphasizing fidelity to the Berber language and communal village
traditions that could and should underpin the political culture of an inde-
pendent Algeria. Since 1945, supporters of Kabyle Berber collective imagin-
ing within an emerging Algerian national identity have been recruited from
among Francophile intellectuals, including Christians. Thus began the
amalgamation of modern Berberism and supporters of the French language,
adding a further complication to Algerias subsequent language war.
Morocco
In some respects, Moroccan Berber realities and experiences under colonial-
ism resemble those of Algeria: the division into distinct geographical areas;
the tribal nature of traditional society; the importance of Islamic Sufi-centered
brotherhoods in social and religious life; strong resistance but also occasional
accommodation to the French colonial power, which sought to play the
Berbers against the urban Arabic-speaking elites to strengthen its rule; and
active participation in the nationalist struggle for independence.
Frances historic mistake in 1930 was to issue a dahir (royal edict)
intended to place the Berber populations outside the jurisdiction of Islamic
law. In doing so, it ignited a nationalist reactionpushing the Berber but-
ton in a way that could not be ignored by highlighting the Berber-Arab
dichotomy in religious terms.
10
James McDougall, Myth and Counter-Myth: The Berber as National Signifier in
Algerian Historiographies, Radical History Review 86 (Spring 2003): 6688.
11
Gabi Kratchowil, Die Berber in der historischen Entwicklung Algeriens (The Berbers in
Algerias Historical Development) (Berlin: Klaus Schwarz, 1996), 43.
Still, France cultivated the Berbers, even setting up a school in the

Middle Atlas Mountains in Ifrane to train the sons of local notables in admin-
istrative duties in the French school. However, for this newly emerging elite,
there was no contradiction between Berber identity and Moroccan national-
ism. And yet, as in Algeria, urban Arab nationalists remained suspicious of
any collective Berber action. For modern-day Berberists, the killing of Liber-
ation Army commander Abbas Messaadi in 1956, apparently on the order of
Mehdi Ben Barka of the Istiqlal Party, was one of the greatest crimes of the
liberation struggle and the opening shot of the Istiqlals bid to marginalize the
Berbers in an independent, Arab-Islamic Moroccan national state. Ben Barka

would later split from the Istiqlal and establish the secular left-wing National
Union of Popular Forces (UNFP) in opposition to the monarchy, a move that
would eventually cost him his life. His views on the retrograde nature of Ber-
ber identity remained constant. He once told an interviewer that the alleged
Berber problem was simply a residue of the cultural politics pursued by the
Protectorate regime: Le Berbe`re est simplement un homme qui nest pas alle
a lecole (The Berber is simply someone who hasnt gone to school).12
INDEPENDENCE
For all of the differences between Algeria and Morocco at the moment of
independence, the two countries ruling elites had essentially the same orien-
tation toward their respective Berber communities: successful state-building
and national integration, in their view, required subsuming heterogeneous,
mostly illiterate, tribally organized speakers of unwritten Berber dialects
under the rubric of Arab and Islamic identity. The primary linguistic fault line,
as far as state elites were concerned, was not between Arabic and Berber, but
between Arabic, the official national language of both Morocco and Algeria,
and French, which was widely employed in the government, commerce, and
education sectors. Arabization became a declared priority, although its
implementation became extremely contentious, especially in Algeria.
Ironically, both countries witnessed a gradual increase in the
self-conscious manifestations of Berber culture and the demands of Berber
groups, even as the number of Berber speakers declined in the decades after
independence. One reason was the Berber activists concern with preserving
cultural and linguistic traditions perceived as being under siege. No less
important was the fact that the performance of the new states was deemed
highly unsatisfactory, both materially and psycho-socially, by much of their
12
Jean and Simonne Lacouture, Le Maroc, a lepreuve (Morocco: The test) (Paris: Editions
du Seuil, 1958), 83; also quoted by El Khatir Aboulkacem, Etre berbere ou amazigh dans le
Maroc modern: Histoire dune connotation negative, in Berbe`res ou Arab? Le tango des
specialists (Berbers or Arabs: The Tango of Specialists), ed. Helene Claudot-Hawad (Aix-en-
Provence: Non Lieu=IREMAMM, 2006), 127.
rapidly growing, increasingly youthful populations. Even though Berber

speakers could be found all across their political spectrums, the states failure
to acknowledge and validate Berber identity, expressed through language
and culture, created a particular form of alienation for many people within
the Berber communities.
Algeria: 19621988
The relationship between the postindependence Algerian state and signifi-
cant portions of its Berber community proved from the outset to be far more
adversarial and overtly politicized than that in Morocco. Algerias first presi-
dent, Ahmed Ben Bella, had returned from exile proclaiming, Nous sommes
des Arabes (We are Arabs). The ruling National Liberation Fronts (FLN)
formula for nation-building, designed to overcome Algerias massive illiter-
acy and social, ethnic, and geographical fragmentation, insisted on a uniform
national identity that was based on the hegemony of the Arabic language and
a revolutionary, anti-imperialist, and anticolonial single-party regime aligned
with so-called progressive forces in the Arab world. These principles were
clearly and repeatedly articulated in foundational texts, including the Char-
ters of 1964 and 1976 and the 1976 Constitution.13 The translation of this
vision into reality produced a strident policy of Arabization directed at the
predominance of French in Algerian life, while also opposing any notion
of equality between the Arabic and Berber languages. State Arabization poli-
cies in the 1970s included efforts to Arabize (taaroub; literally, becoming
Arab) the Algerian media and educational system through the high school
level, with the goal of entirely Arabizing university-level education by
December 1980. Given the shortage of teachers trained in literary Arabic,
thousands of teachers had to be imported, mainly from Egypt,14 many of
whom were sympathizers with the Muslim Brotherhood, whose deep-seated
sensibilities included an ingrained belief in the superiority of the Arabic lan-
guage over all others, including French, dialectical Arabic, and, of course, the
Berber dialects. For the sizeable portion of the Kabyle community that was
French-educated and even secular, this trend was anathema.
Kabyle otherness and the accompanying tensions with the ruling FLN
were first expressed in the 19621963 revolt by mostly Kabyle dissidents who
had participated in the FLNs war for independence but were now distraught
by their marginalization. Kabyle cultural productionin poetry, music,
and storytellinggathered steam in the 1970s. The New Kabyle Song
13
Salem Chaker, Berbe`res Aujourdhui [Berbers Today], 2nd ed. (Paris: LHarmattan, 1998),
12324.
14
Information conveyed to me by Algerian students of that generation (2009, 2010).
phenomenon, which Jane Goodman has analyzed so cogently, was one part
of this cultural flourishing.15
Growing tensions between state authorities and Kabyles were occasion-
ally put on public display at football matches involving Kabylies beloved JSK
squad.16
LE PRINTEMPS BERBE`RE (THE BERBER SPRING=TAFSUT

IMAZIGHEN)
The now-mythic Berber Spring marks the most important challenge to date
of the FLNs hegemony over political and cultural life. The six weeks of pro-
tests and strikes in Kabylie were preceded by a controversial government
decision in December 1979 to speed up the Arabization of the educational
system, from the primary school level all the way to university-level studies
in the social sciences and humanities. The last-minute cancellation of a
poetry reading by the Kabyle intellectual luminary Mouloud Mammeri lit
the spark of the protests, which were eventually harshly repressed. But the
crackdown and subsequent trials of activists were hardly the end of the story.
For the first time since independence, a counter-discourse to the Algerian
states official state-building formula emerged, propagated by autonomous
popular associations and organizations.17 From that point on, the regimes
Arabization efforts foundered, and both civil-national actions by Kabyles
(focused on reforming the Algerian state in the direction of greater freedom,
democracy, and human rights), and ethno-cultural ones began to gain
new force, although they did not burst into public view until the end of
the 1980s.
Morocco: 19561990
Unlike Algeria, where the Kabyles constitute roughly two-thirds of all of
Algerias Berbers, Morocco has three large and distinct Berber communities,
located in the south, the Middle Atlas Mountains, and the northern Rif region,
which gives them more weight but also impedes efforts to promote a com-
mon modern Amazigh identity.
As was true in Algeria and elsewhere, the educational system assumed a
key role in the nation-building program. Developing and implementing
appropriate linguistic policies were integral steps in the process. When it
came to Berber identity and the Berber language, there was hardly any dif-
ference, at least on the declarative level, between the monarchys orientation
15
Jane Goodman, Berber Culture on the World Stage (Bloomington: Indiana University
Press, 2005), 4968.
16
For details, see Maddy-Weitzman, The Berber Identity Movement, pp. 7778.
17
Chaker, Berbe`res Aujourdhui, 60.
and that of Moroccos main political parties (the Islamic, modernist Istiqlal
and most of the more secular left-wing parties). Primary school textbooks
in the newly independent Morocco stressed that Moroccan history began
with the arrival of Islam at the end of the seventh century and the establish-
ment of the Idrissi Sharifian dynasty a century later. Berbers were presented
as the long-lost cousins of the Arabs: the Berber language was said to be
related to Arabic, the Berbers origins were placed in Yemen, and authors
claimed that Islam had liberated the Berbers from their primitive state. These
themes had existed for a thousand years in Arab-Islamic discourse seeking to
root the origins of the Berbers within the Islamic community. For Moroccos
urban Arabic-speaking elites engaged in statebuilding and nation-building,
this version of history was quite valuable, in that it justified the continuation
of their privileged status in the new national hierarchy. The monarchy,
although more conscious of the need to balance the needs and wishes of dif-
ferent segments of society, including its Berber components, endorsed this
approach as well, at least partially. Writing in 1968, the kingdoms official his-
torian, Abd al-Wahab Benmensur, succinctly laid out his preferred vision for
the future of Berber dialects in Morocco. A national Arabized education sys-
tem and the expansion of the transportation system would result, he said, in
the disappearance of the Berber language within fifty years, to be replaced
by standard and colloquial Arabic.18 Mohammed Abd al-Jabri, one of the
leading scholars of Arab-Islamic thought of his generation, an active figure
in the left-wing UNFP, and a fervent advocate of Arabization, expressed a
similar view. The Berber language and colloquial Moroccan Arabic, he
declared, were merely local dialects and were therefore unworthy and
incapable of serving as a national unifier and providing the means of achiev-
ing radical social and cultural transformation. Moreover, Jabri was of the view
that the Berber dialects, in particular, should be destroyed entirely, and to
that end, he advocated their banning from schools, radio, and television.19
Ironically, Jabir himself originated from a Berber family from the Tafilalt
region.
Meanwhile, Morocco joined the League of Arab States in 1958; in 1961,
Morocco was officially defined as an Arab and Muslim state, Arabic was
declared the sole official language, and an Arabic Leaguebacked institution
to promote the Arabization of the educational system was opened in Rabat. If
the advocates of Arabism, whether of the more traditional Arab-Islamic or
more secular-leftist-Arab nationalist variety had any complaints, it was that
matters were proceeding at too slow a pace.
18
Gilbert Grandguillaume, Arabisation et politique linguistique au Maghreb [Arabization
and Linguistic Politics in the Maghreb] (Paris: Maisonneuve, 1983), p. 127.
19
Gabi Kratchowil, Die Berberbewegung in Marokko [The Berber Movement in Morocco],
(Berlin: Klaus Schwarz Verlag, 2002), pp. 21215; Aboulkacem, pp. 12829.
Berber responses to Arabization policies generally passed under the

radar. The Association Marocaine de Recherche et dEchange Culturel
(Moroccan Association of Research and Cultural Exchange; AMREC), founded
in 1967, was the first Berberist cultural association in Morocco. Activists in
AMREC and other Berber associations were mainly intellectuals who had been
previously affiliated with secular left-wing political organizations but had
become disillusioned with their pan-Arabist and Third Worldhomogenizing
modernist orientation, which left no room for Berberness. But the climate
for Berberist activity was not propitious. Indeed, the absence of any reference
to Amazigh=Berber identity in AMRECs name demonstrated the prevailing

hesitation to openly and defiantly defend Berber language and culture. Over-
all, intellectual and political proponents of Arabization, as well as many
academic experts, had little cause at the time to doubt that Berber identity in
Morocco was being reduced to the realm of the merely exotic.
THE NEW BERBERISM
Algeria
With the collapse of the one-party state at the end of 1988 and the sub-
sequent violent confrontation between Islamists and security forces during
the 1990s, modern Kabyle Berber identity came into its own, offering an
alternative to the equally noxious national security state and radical Islamists
while representing both national and ethnic particularist dimensions. By July
1989, 154 cultural associations had been established in Kabylie alone and
existed in just about every large village. Associations were established in
other Berber-speaking regions as well, including the Aures, Mzab, Jebel Che-
noua, among the Touareg in Ahaggar-Ajjer, and among Berber communities
in Algerias major cities of Algiers, Constantine, and Oran. Two parties com-
peted to represent the Kabyle agenda during these tumultuous years: the
revitalized Front des Forces Socialistes (FFS) Party, led by Hocine Ait Ahmed,
one of the last of the historic FLN chiefs, which promoted a primarily
national vision of a democratic pluralist state; and the smaller and newer
Rassemblement pour la Culture et la Democratie (RCD) Party, headed by
Said Saadi, which was more militantly secular. The RCD became more sup-
portive of the militarys crackdown against the Islamists in subsequent years,
while the FFS promoted a policy of dialogue with the Islamists.
Meanwhile, Algerias linguistic and cultural politics remained almost
entirely Arab-oriented, at the Kabyles expense, at least until the mid-1990s.
The regimes main priority was to compete with the Islamist opposition on
the playing field of Islamic values and principles, leaving alienated Kabyles
on the sidelines. The revised 1989 Algerian constitution reaffirmed the status
of Arabic as the countrys sole official language, and the FLN-dominated par-
liament passed a measure in late 1990 that insisted that official institutions be
fully Arabized by July 1992, and all institutions of higher learning by 1997.
For good measure, the law forbade the importation of computers, typewri-
ters, and any other office supplies that did not have Arabic-language capabili-
ties and threatened to close businesses that employed French in the
advertising or labeling of merchandise.
Kabyle Berber artists were physically attacked by Islamists during the
years of civil war, not strictly for being Berbers, but for being symbols of a
decadent, evil culture that the movement had promised to eradicate. The fact
that some of these artists were militantly opposed to the Islamists made them
even more inviting targets. One in particular, the militant singer-activist

Lounes Matoub, became a martyr and icon among the Kabyles after his
1998 assassination, for which the authorities, whom he so detested, were
blamed even more than the Islamists.
Meanwhile, fall 1994 marked a milestone in the contentious history of
Kabyliestate relations. Three widely observed general strikes were conduc-
ted in support of the longstanding demand for official recognition of
Tamazight and Berber culture. Even more impressive was the extended
school strike throughout Kabylie, which involved 700,000 students and
stretched between September 1994 and March 1995. In response, the Alger-
ian authorities acknowledged the legitimacy of Amazigh identity for the first
time through the establishment of the Haut Commissariat a LAmazighite
(High Commission of Amazighness; HCA). In an official announcement,
the state charged the HCA with the rehabilitation of Tamazight [culture] -
. . . one of the foundations of the national identity, and the introduction of
the Tamazight language in the systems of education and communication.20
This program was carried out during 1995 in a number of districts, beginning
with curricula for the fourth year of elementary school, although the entire
matter was plagued by limited resources and a lack of will among the autho-
rities. The following year, the Algerian constitution was modified to recog-
nize the Amazigh component of Algerian identity alongside the Islamic
and Arab ones. While representing a step forward, this gesture fell well short
of official constitutional recognition of the Amazigh language and thus was
not received favorably in Kabylie. Moreover, the passage of a law in 1996
compelling the sole use of Arabic by Algerian governmental and civil institu-
tions and in all commercial contracts indicated that the regimes priorities had
not fundamentally changed.
At the turn of the new century, Algerian society in general and the
Kabyle region in particular was profoundly alienated from its rulers, a state
of affairs succinctly expressed in a phrase that became part of the political
20
AmazighiteCommunique De La Presidence, issued by the Embassy of Algeria,
Washington, DC, April 23, 1995; for an analysis, see Annuaire de lAfrique du Nord 34
(1995) (Paris, CNRS Editions, 1997), 58390.
lexicon: la hogra, namely, the contempt that the unaccountable authorities

showed toward the public. In the spring of 2001, this alienation burst out in
Kabylie in an unprecedented fashion in what quickly became known as Le
Printemps Noir (Black Spring; Tafsut Taberkant). The unrest, which lasted
until early July and eventually spread beyond Kabylie, resulted in the deaths
of between 100 and 200 persons at the hands of the security forces, who used
indiscriminate force to put down the upheaval, including widespread
beatings, torture, and extrajudicial killings.
Spearheading the Kabyles protests were new grassroots groups,
eventually known as the Mouvement Citoyen des Aarchs (Citizens

Movement of the Tribes), a hybrid name if there ever was one. The Aarchs
movement sought to combine a modernist, national democratic agenda with
a specific Kabyle orientation that befitted its social basis rooted in the villages
of Kabylie. Even the name by which the movement was commonly known,
Aarchs, and its manner of conduct derived from Kabyle political traditions.21
At the outset, the mobilization and articulation capacities of these new
groups were extremely impressive, culminating in a huge mass march on
Algiers to demand the establishment of a truly democratic regime in Algeria,
the recognition of Tamazight as an official language alongside Arabic, and
the acknowledgment of Amazigh identity as an inseparable part of the
Algerian collective. The mass march ended in scattered violence provoked
by the authorities, and the hopes that the event would spearhead a broad
movement for democratization, the rule of law, and respect for Algerias
plural character dissipated. The entire structure of the Aarchs movement
proved to be extremely unwieldy and ultimately unsustainable, and the
authorities eventually regained control of the region after years of quasi-civil
revolt.
Part of the governments strategy was to tender constitutional recog-
nition of Tamazight as a national but not official language in 2002. The
legal acknowledgement by the Algerian state of its Berber component was
a historic breakthrough, but containment of Berberism remained the regimes
policy. President Abdelaziz Bouteflika declared in 2004, I dont know any
country in the world where two official languages coexistignoring the
examples of Switzerland (which actually has three official languages),
Belgium, and Canada, at the very leastand Algeria will never have any
other official language than Arabic.22
21
See the outstanding report of the International Crisis Group on the events, written by
one of the leading authorities on modern Algeria, Hugh Roberts. International Crisis Group,
Algeria: Unrest and Impasse in Kabylia, Middle East=North Africa Report, no. 15 (June 10,
2003), http://www.crisisgroup.org/en/regions/middle-east-north-africa/north-africa/algeria/
015-algeria-unrest-and-impasse-in-kabylia.aspx.
22
Bouteflika ebranle la Kabylie, [Bouteflika Shakes Kabylia] Souss.com, October 6,
2005, http://www.souss.com/bouteflika-ebranle-la-kabylie/.
By 2007, the state had outlasted the Aarchs movement. Its grassroots
character, which had been so important in mobilizing the population
in 2001, turned out to be a serious liability, as the movement failed to
institutionalize and centralize itself behind a recognized leadership and
coherent program. Moreover, the authorities had played the game they knew
best: co-opting, manipulating, offering partial concessions, and so on and had
effectively isolated the Kabyle question from larger Algerian concerns. The
teaching of Tamazight remains effectively limited to schools in the Kabylie
region and is absent from classrooms in other Berber-speaking regions and
the countrys main cities, including Algiers, despite substantial numbers of

Amazigh; furthermore, Kabyle radio and television are closely monitored.
Morocco
The last decade of King Hassans rule was marked by important incremental
political, social, and economic changes, as Hassan sought to maintain stab-
ility and prepare his succession while Algeria imploded next door. The
Berber question was significantly affected by this new approach. In August
1991, Berber associations issued the Agadir Charter for Linguistic and Cultural
Rights, calling for the refashioning of Moroccos official narrative and social,
cultural, economic, and linguistic policies to reflect the countrys Amazigh
character. Three years later, the arrest and conviction of Amazigh activists
for promoting Berber identity embarrassed the Moroccan leadership and
led Hassan to partially embrace Moroccos Amazigh heritage and pledge that
Moroccos dialects (lahjat), including Tamazight, would henceforth be
taught in Moroccan schools, since there is not one of us who cannot be sure
that there is in his dynasty, blood or body a small or large amount of cells
which came from an origin which speaks one of Moroccos dialects.23 In
doing so, he hoped to contain and limit the potential for ethnic tensions that
could threaten to destabilize the country.
For all of the symbolic value of Hassans speech, the state did little to
advance the status of Berber culture during the remaining five years of his
life. At the same time, and as had happened in Algeria at the end of the
1980s, the gradual liberalization of the public sphere increased the degree
of competition between a newly assertive Amazigh movement and an
increasingly active Islamist current. Indeed, far more than the Berberists, Isla-
mist movements were increasingly making their impact on the Moroccan
public sphere, albeit in a largely nonviolent manner, in vivid contrast to
the mayhem occurring next door in Algeria. And, as in Algeria, the Islamists
23
The full text of the speech was published in al-Alam (Rabat), August 22, 1994. A partial
version in English can be found in Moroccan RTM TV, August 20, BBC Monitoring, Summary
of World Broadcasts, Part 4, The Middle East, August 23, 1994: 1920.
saw the Amazigh culture movement as posing a threat to their own program
for renewing and deepening the Islamization of Moroccan society. Ensuring
the primacy of Arabic was integral to their program.
The big push forward for Amazigh identity came following King
Mohammed VIs ascent to power in 1999. As part of a concerted strategy
to counterbalance a resurgent Islamist movement and maintain palace
hegemony over an increasingly liberalized political system, the king
embraced the Amazigh movement as an integral part of Moroccan nation-
hood. Responding favorably in 2001 to the lengthy Berber Manifesto issued
a year earlier by more than 200 Berber intellectuals, Mohammed VI partially

adopted its demands. These included the introduction of Tamazight into
Moroccan schools (begun in 2003), the expansion of the Amazigh presence
in the audio-visual media, and the recognition of Amazigh culture as an
important component of Moroccan national identity. To be sure, the king
also took care to confirm the centrality of the Quran and its sacred language,
Arabic, in Moroccan life. The regimes efforts to strike a balance between
the Arab-Islamic and secular Amazigh currents was epitomized by the
palace-influenced decision to employ a modified form of the old
Libyan-Berber Tifinagh script (still used by Touareg groups) in teaching
Tamazight, instead of the Arabic script, as demanded by the Islamists, or
the Latin script, as preferred by most Amazigh activists.24
The ten years between the kings 2001 Amazigh Dahir, which laid
down his new policies in law, and the 2011 Moroccan constitution, which
made Tamazight an official language of the country alongside Arabic, was
a period of ups and downs for the Amazigh movement. The program for
teaching Tamazight in the schools was deemed by most observers to have
been a fiasco, symbolic actions like giving newborn children Amazigh names
were blocked by state authorities, and illiteracy and poverty remained
especially high in the rural Amazigh regions. At the same time, Amazigh acti-
vism spread to campuses and even rural areas; in the media sphere, an
Amazigh television channel broadcasting six hours of programs a day was
established after much delay. All of these changes served as a backdrop to
the events of 2011.
THE ARAB SPRING AND THE AMAZIGH MOVEMENT
The so-called Arab Spring opened up new possibilities and opportunities

for the Amazigh movement in Morocco, Libya, and Tunisia, and among the
Touareg in the northern region of Mali. At the same time, the challenges
increased as well, particularly with regard to the growing strength of political
24
Bruce Maddy-Weitzman, Ethno-Politics and Globalization in North Africa: The Berber
Culture Movement, Journal of North African Studies 11, no. 1 (March 2006): 7183.
Islam. Of course, circumstances vary widely across North Africa and the Sahel
(the land of Tamazgha [the name given by activists to the traditionally
Amazigh-speaking lands mentioned here, as well as the Canary Islands], in
the parlance of Amazigh activists). Moreover, the violent confrontations in
March 2012 between the Moroccan authorities and Rifian Amazigh protestors
highlighted anew both the diversity of Amazigh responses to state actions
and the continued difficulty of achieving a critical mass of active support
and solidarity among Amazigh of other regions of the country. At the same
time, the events of the last sixteen months amply demonstrate how develop-
ments in one place can and do reverberate elsewhere. This is as true for the
Amazigh movement as it has been for other ethnic, social, and political
forces in the Middle East and North Africa. The rising importance of social
media and other forms of mass communication have obviously enhanced
this trend, but these technologies are not responsible for it alone. More gen-
erally, in its effort to fashion a modern ethno-cultural collective identity out
of the older building blocks of societies, the Amazigh movement is part of a
more general trend that challenges states hegemonic, Arab-centered
nationalist policies.
Morocco
While mild compared to the upheavals in the rest of the region, the Moroccan
February 20th Movement, which included many Amazigh associations and
young activists,25 raised the alarming possibility of Morocco going down
the same road as so many other Arab states. Unlike his counterparts, how-
ever, King Mohammed VI was sufficiently proactive in his response as to
regain the initiative and buy much-needed time. To be sure, the highly pub-
licized constitutional changes that were drawn up by a blue-ribbon com-
mission and then overwhelmingly ratified in a July referendum were
mostly cosmetic, leaving the preponderance of power in the hands of the
palace. Regarding the Amazigh question, however, the changes were
historic. The new constitution, the king had promised, would enshrine
the Amazigh component as a core element and common asset belonging
to all Moroccans.26 And so it did. Tamazight was explicitly recognized as
an official state language, notwithstanding strong opposition from the
25
The president of the World Amazigh Congress Federal Council, Brahim Benlahoucine,
was injured in clashes with the police during a February 20th Movement march in his home-
town of Tiznit on May 29, 2011. See Le Monde Amazigh=al-Alam al-Amazighi=Amadal
Amazighi 132 (June 2011): 11 Tiznit had already been the scene of considerable unrest at
the end of 2010.
26
See Moroccans for Change, King Mohamed VI Speech, 3=9=11 (Full Text [video clip],
http://moroccansforchange.com/2011/03/09/king-mohamed-vi-speech-3911-full-text-feb20-
khitab/?blogsub=confirming#subscribe-blog.
subcommittee that fashioned the first draft of the language recognition

clause.27 Moreover, the new constitution required the passage of an organic
law to translate that status into reality in education and other spheres of
public life. It further emphasized that the Amazigh people and culture con-
stituted an integral component of Moroccan identity, which had been forged
over the course of the nations history alongside the Arab-Islamic and
Saharan-Hassanian components and enriched along the way by African,
Andalusian, Hebraic, and Mediterranean currents.28 To be sure, some
Amazigh activists failed to be excited by the new constitution and quickly
pointed to its shortcomings: for example, the language equalizing the status
of Tamazight and Arabic had been more forceful in the draft text, a fact that
confirmed activists deeply ingrained cynicism regarding the authorities true
intentions. For these activists, the constitutional upgrade was just the latest in
a series of pseudo-embraces of the Amazigh movement that the state enacted
in order to co-opt and neutralize it. One person termed the organic law
requirement a sea serpent designed to negate in practice the official recog-
nition of Tamazight.29 Amazigh militants, like others in the February 20th
Movement, had boycotted the constitutional referendum, although the
impact of their efforts, which the authorities sought to seriously hinder,
was probably negligible (that said, the announced participation rate of 97
percent was undoubtedly inflated). One of them, who had been deeply
involved in the drafting of the new constitutional language, told me that
he inserted both Yes and No ballots in the voting envelope, Yes for
the legitimization of Tamazight and No for the continued nondemocratic
nature of the political system.30 Nonetheless, the institutionalization of
Tamazight, along with the explicit recognition of Amazigh identity as central
to the Moroccan historical and social fabric, created a new baseline for
action. Morocco was now the only North African state, and the only core
27
Interview with one of the commission members, Rabat, September 2011. The compo-
sition of the committee opposition was mirrored by the composition of some of the political
parties, particularly the Istiqlal and the Justice and Development Party (PJD). The Istiqlal had
historically opposed anything that strengthened the Amazigh character of Morocco. But one
sign of change was that many younger members of the parties disagreed with their elders
and were amenable to the constitutionalization of the Amazigh language; interview with
Muhammad al-Batiwi, Le Monde Amazigh=al-Alam al-Amazighi=Amadal Amazighi 131
(May 2011): 4. A joint declaration by a number of other parties decrying the likely Balkaniza-
tion of Morocco if Tamazight was made an official state language was rebuked as a racist
position by Amazigh associations; see Le Monde Amazigh=al-Alam al-Amazighi=Amadal
Amazighi 133 (July 2011): 5.
28
For the French-language text of the new constitution, http://www.sgg.gov.ma/BO/
bulletin/FR/2011/BO_5964-Bis_Fr.pdf, June 19, 2011.
29
Interviews with various Moroccan Amazigh activists, Rabat, al-Hoceima, Nador,
September 2011.
30
Interview with activist, September 2012.
Arab League member state, in which Arabic was not the sole official language
and which was not defined officially as a purely Arab state.
Subsequent months witnessed a splintering of the February 20th
protest movement and a new uncertainty among Amazigh activists regard-
ing how to proceed. Many ceased their involvement in reaction to the
increasing domination of the broader protest movement by activists of
the Islamist al-Adl wal Ihsan movement. Other, more established persons
such as Hassan Idbelkassam and Ahmed Arrehmouche sought to establish
new political and organizational frameworks to represent the Amazigh
cause.
Meanwhile, the palace-initiated reform process advanced the date of
nationwide parliamentary elections to November 2011. Two months earlier,
a former government official and traditional promoter of the Amazigh cause
had told me ruefully that the color of the Arab spring is green.31 And
indeed, the outcome of the election was a clear-cut victory for the Islamist
PJD, resulting in the appointment of its secretary-general, Abdellah
Benkirane, as prime minister. In previous months, Benkirane had openly
scorned Tamazight, saying that the Tifinagh script resembled Chinese.32
For Amazigh militants, the PJD and the venerable Istiqlal party that it
replaced as the head of the four-party governing coalition were two sides
of the same coin, which favored Arab-Islamist hegemony in Morocco over
the countrys native Amazigh people. (The fact that the Mouvement Popu-
laire [Popular Movement; MP], which has traditionally represented the inter-
ests of rural Berber notables, was also part of the ruling coalition occasioned
Amazigh writer=activist Ali Khadaoui to comment that Mohamed Laensar, the
MP head and newly appointed Interior Minister, was certainly given a poi-
soned chalice (il est certain quon lui a fait un cadeau empoisonne).33 In
any case, modern-day Amazigh movement activists had long discredited the
MP as a party that served the interests of the palace, and not what they
defined as the interests of the Amazigh community as a whole. Movement
discourse would maintain a steady chorus of criticism toward the PJD on
both Amazigh and all-Moroccan grounds. Although the king was usually
exempt from direct criticism, on at least one occasion some militant
demonstrators publicly branded him a dictator.34
31
Interview, Rabat, September 2011.
32
Benkirane Declares War on the Amazigh, Le Monde Amazigh=al-Alam al-Amazighi=
Amadal Amazighi 133 (July 2011): 4.
33
Ali Khaddoui, Silence: on casse encore de lamazigh en 2012 [Quiet: Breaking
the Amazigh Again, in 2012], http://www.amazighworld.org/human_rights/index_show.
php?id=2854.
34
Les Amizighs traitent Mohamed VI de dictateur a Rabat, Demain online, http://www.
demainonline.com/2012/01/15/les-amazighs-traitent-mohamed-vi-de-dictateur-a-rabat/.
Libya
Qaddafis Libya was, on the whole, an unremittingly hostile environment for
its Amazigh minority. In recent years, internal migration from traditional well-
ing places in peripheral regions to Libyas main cities resulted in a loosening
of linguistic and cultural bonds among the younger generation. As is often
the case in other nonurban Berber-speaking settings, Libyan Amzigh women
tend to be monolingual, speaking only the local Berber dialect, while the
men tend to be bilingual, speaking both Arabic and Berber.
Qaddafis regime, which came to power in a military coup on September

1, 1969, was utterly opposed to any notion smacking of recognition of a
specific Berber identity and harshly repressed whoever dared to suggest other-
wise. Amazigh movement activists and associations thus could only function
abroad. They routinely included Libya on their blacklists of regimes,
characterizing Qaddafi as practicing cultural and linguistic genocide against
the Amazigh people.35
Notwithstanding the efforts of international Amazigh associations, it was
only with Libyas civil war that the international community became aware of
the countrys long-repressed and marginalized Amazigh community. While
an estimated 30,000 fled to safety across the Tunisian border, many young
Amazigh men took up arms.36 Their determined that battles against the
regimes forces in the countrys western highlands of Jebel Nafusa would
create a second fronta strategy that cut an important strategic road to Tuni-
sia and ultimately helped produce the conquest of the crucial Zawiyah
oil refinery, 50 km from Tripoli, that heralded the beginning of the end for
Qaddafi.
Emboldened by the sudden breakdown of Qaddafis iron-fisted rule,
western Berber communities not only joined the battle, but also asserted their
Berberness in public for the first time through publications, symbols
(including Tifinagh characters), and the media. Schools in Amazigh-speaking
towns and villages quickly introduced the language into their curricula.
Libyan opposition broadcasts from Qatar, a major supporter of the Libyan
uprising, included news in Tamazight. Long-standing tribal differences
apparently were subsumed: one Yefren resident observed, The revolution
has brought us all together. We all had our tribal allegiances before, and it
would be rare for anyone to eat from the same gasaa (shared plate) as
35
For various demarches on the subject, see http://www.amazighworld.org/human_
rights/libya/index.php; http://blog.ifrance.com/aderwi/post/23831-imazighen-in-land-of-
tamazgha-what-so-called-now-maghrib-arabl.
36
Their weapons were apparently obtained from a variety of sources that, in addition to
those captured from Qaddafis units, included the NTC, NATO, Qatar, the United Arab Emi-
rates, and Tunisia; see Derek Henry Flood, Special Commentary from Inside Western Libya,
The Nalut Offensive: A View from the Battlefield, August 3, 2011, http://www.jamestown.
org/single/?no_cache=1&tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=38275.
someone from another Amazigh town. Now Nalut, Kabaw, Jadu, Zintan, Yef-
ren, al-Qalaawe all eat in the same plate.37
The Libyan National Transitional Councils (NTC) draft constitutional
charter for post-Qaddafi Libya did away with the Qaddafi eras insistence
on Libyas unitary Arab character; while Arabic remained the official lan-
guage of the state, the linguistic and cultural rights of all components of
Libyan society were to be preserved. Although some activists were disap-
pointed that the new formulation stopped well short of making the Amazigh
language an official state language (as in Morocco),38 it nevertheless consti-
tuted an achievement for the historically peripheral and marginalized Libyan

Amazigh. However, implementation was another matter. The fact that the
draft constitutions clause stating that sharia would be the countrys prin-
ciple source of legislation aroused concern among Amazigh militants both
inside and outside Libya that their achievements were being placed in
jeopardy.39 No less upsetting was the fact that not a single Amazigh represen-
tative was named to any of the interim cabinet posts established by the NTC
in November.
The transition to a post-Qaddafi order in a country awash with
weapons, oil, and tribal interests and with a dearth of institutions or any leg-
acy of a unified national identity has proved daunting, to say the least.
Proposals emanating from the Benghazi-centered eastern region for a federal
structure (returning, in a sense, to Libyas original postindependence frame-
work) have already aroused considerable anger in Tripoli. Greater local con-
trol would obviously provide significant benefits to the Amazigh
communities in the western region, as long as they were able to properly
share in the countrys oil revenues, and as long as overall security and equi-
librium were maintained. Conversely, the absence of a central authority
opens up dangerous possibilities, as recently demonstrated in the three days
of heavy weapon attacks on the western coastal city of Zwara that
were apparently carried out by pro-Qaddafi militias seeking revenge, result-
ing in seventeen deaths and more than 150 wounded among the citys
Amazigh inhabitants. The Paris-based World Amazigh Congress (CMA),
which in October had chosen a Libyan Amazigh, Dr. Fathi Ben Khalifa, as
37
Moez Zeiton, In liberated Libya in the year 2961, August 6, 2011, http://www.
guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/aug/06/libya-berber-amazagh.
38
Thierry Portes, Le Printemps des Berbere Libyens [The Libyan Berber Spring], Le
Figaro, July 20, 2011, http://www.lefigaro.fr/international/2011/07/20/01003-20110720ART
FIG00551-le-printemps-des-berberes-libyens.php.
39
The secular Paris-based Tamazgha attacked the discriminatory draft constitution as
promoting an Arab-Islamic path for Libya in violation of the countrys ancestral identity; see
La derive du CNT: un projet constitutionnel discriminatoire [The Direction of the
Transitional National Council: A Discriminatory Constitutional Project] http://www.tamazgha.
fr/La-derive-du-CNT-un-projet.html, August 24, 2011.
its new president,40 denounced the ruling NTC for its failure to act forcefully
against the attackers and its overall indifference to the misfortune of Libyan
citizens who were Amazigh or ethnic Toubous (whom Ben Khalifa considers
Tuareg).41 He also attacked Prime Minister Abdeljalil for stating that Libyan
Amazigh were driven by foreign interests and for declaring his intent to
implement sharia law.42
Overall, the fate of Libyas newly assertive and self-conscious Amazigh
community may serve as a litmus test for the countrys future as a whole,
even if the communitys ability to shape the overall contours of the country
remain limited, and even if Berber militias do control certain assets (e.g.,
Qaddafis son, Saif al-Islam, since his capture in November, at least as this
article went to press). Its ability to maintain the newly formed trans-tribal
bonds of ethnic solidarity within the community would bear watching as well.
Mali and the Touareg: From a Berber Republic to a Jihadi State?

Notwithstanding the myriad social, cultural, and even racial differences
between North Africas urban and village Amazigh communities and the
nomadic Touareg, the bulk of whom live in the Sahel states of Mali and
Niger, the Touareg have always had a special status among the purveyors
of modern Amazigh identity: first, as the purest Amazigh community that is
least corrupted by outside influences; and second, for having maintained
their usage of the ancient Tifinagh script, which has iconic status among
Amazigh. Touareg representatives, usually based in France, have participated
in the pan-Berber CMA from its inception in the mid-1990s, and diaspora
Touareg have established a number of associations of their own. Defense of
the Touareg against Malian and Niger government repression in the 1990s
and since the renewal of conflict in 2006 was an integral part of the
40
Originating from Zwara, the forty-six-year old Ben Khalifa was one of the founders of
the Libyan Amazigh movement and had long been an opponent of the Qaddafi regime, oper-
ating from Morocco between the early 1990s and 2008, when the Moroccan authorities,
responding to Libyan demands, pressured him to desist from his activities, and the Libyans
ceased renewing his citizenship papers. He then was able to acquire the status of political
refugee in Holland. Until the fall of Tripoli, he was affiliated with the NTC; see Un an de
revolte arabe: Fathi Ben Khalifa, ou le douloureux bonheur dun Berbere revenu en Libye,
la-croix.com, February 10, 2012, http://www.la-croix.com/Actualite/S-informer/Monde/
Fathi-Ben-Khalifa-ou-le-douloureux-bonheur-d-un-Berbere-revenu-en-Libye-_NG_-2011-12-
21-749468; Le Monde Amazigh=al-Alam al-Amazighi=Amadal Amazighi 131 (May 2011): 8.
41
Libya: murderous attacks against the inhabitants of Zwara, statement by the CMA
Board, Paris, March 26April 7, 2012, http://www.libyaimal.net/spip.php?article200. The
Toubous community was represented at the CMA conference in Djerba in SeptemberOctober
2011, marking an expanded definition of Amazigh identity.
42
Interview with Fathi Ben Khalifa, Libyas Berbers Feel Rejected By Transitional
Government, November 10, 2011, http://forums.marokko.nl/archive/index.php/t-4064722.
html.
France-based Amazigh associations lobbying efforts vis-a-vis UN and

European institutions and international NGOs. Such efforts gave further
expression to the pan-Berber imagining of the homeland of Tamazgha
and voice to the Berber community most distant from modern Amazigh
stirrings.
The 2011 war in Libya served as a decisive trigger for the upheaval that
has beset Mali over the last year. Qaddafi employed Touareg and other
African mercenaries in his ultimately unsuccessful battle for survival. For
the Amazigh movement, this was extremely uncomfortable for obvious rea-
sons, and little was said about it. One notable exception was the CMAs call to
Ali Kenna, a Libyan Touareg general and commander of Libyas southern
region, asking him to abandon Qaddafis ranks and join the opposition.43
In the aftermath of the Libyan conflict, several thousand Touareg fighters,
flush with weapons obtained amidst the breakdown of the Libyan military,
moved into northern Mali. As they gained momentum, they were further bol-
stered by Touareg defectors from the Malian army and eventually gained the
upper hand, helping precipitate a military coup on March 2122, 2012, that
unseated Malis elected civilian leadership.
The Touareg National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA),
which had taken the lead in the antigovernment rebellion, proclaimed the
establishment of the new state of Azawad on April 6. This new state was
intended to be ethno-national in orientation, without overreligious coloring.
The MNLA proclamation expressed a commitment to establishing a state
based on a democratic constitution.44 The region itself is not exclusively
Touareg and indeed includes sub-Saharan groups such as the Songhai and
Fulani, who may well be opposed to a new Touareg-dominated state. By
contrast, and quite naturally, Amazigh movement organizations in North
Africa and the diaspora celebrated the states proclamation and sought to
lobby international organizations and governments on its behalf.
The euphoria of the Amazigh movement was short-lived, however, as
radical Islamist groups pushed the MNLA aside and took control of the two
major cities in the region, Bamako and Tumbuktu. There they sought to
institute a harsh version of sharia law on a predominantly Sufi Islamic
society in a program that included the destruction of historic Sufi shrines.
The radical jihadis who flocked to the region were not exclusively Touareg,
but did include members of this community. In fact, Iyad Ag Ghaly, the lea-
der of the Islamist Ansar Eddine, which fought alongside the MNLA, was a
leading figure in the Touareg rebellion of the 1990s in his pre-Salafist days.
43
Le congres Mondial Amazigh appel le General Touareg Ali Kenna Commandant de la
Region militaire sud Libye a rejoindre la rebilion Libyenne, August 5, 2011, http://www.
amazighworld.org/human_rights/cma_reports/index_show.php?Id=2498.
44
Tuarags claim independence from Mali, Al-Jazeera, April 6, 2012, http://www.
aljazeera.com/news/africa/2012/04/20124644412359539.html.
The penetration of al-Qaeda sympathizers into the Sahel has long been a
nightmare of Western defense officials engaged in the global war on ter-
ror. The Algerian regime, the mortal enemy of al-Qaeda of the Islamic
Maghreb (and vice versa), views itself as a natural leader of the
sixteen-nation Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS)
but has until now favored a diplomatic, and not military, solution to the
Malian problem.
Tunisia
There was no Amazigh dimension to Tunisias Jasmine Revolution. Indeed,
one has to look hard to find Tamazight speakers in Tunisia. Those who are
residents of the country live in a number of villages in the peripheral
south-center of the country and on the island of Djerba, off the southeast
coast.45 Nevertheless, the Jasmine Revolution inspired hope among Amazigh
activists everywhere,46 and Tunisian Amazigh activists seized the opportunity
provided by the sudden, heady transition from decades of strong dictatorial
rule to an open and contested political environment. The first ever Tunisian
Amazigh association, the Tunisian Association for Amazigh Culture, was
established and licensed by the authorities47 on July 30, 2011 under the lead-
ership of twenty-six-year-old Tunis University student Ben Khedidja Sadane,
who had in the past been stymied in her efforts to research the Amazigh com-
munity by reluctant or unwilling professors.48 Notable first-time events dur-
ing the year included the celebration of Amazigh cinema at the third
Maghreb film festival, held in Nabeul,49 and a gathering of researchers at
Centre detudes maghrebines a Tunis (CEMAT) for a symposium on Berber
language, culture, and society. A further concrete manifestation of the new
45
A booklet of aerial photos and accompanying text detailing the countrys Berber heri-
tage, published in Tunis with the seal of Folios of the National History, cites without com-
ment the World Amazigh Congresss statement that Amazigh speakers constitute 5 to 10
percent of the total population. This number appears far too high. See Numidian-Berber:
Tunisia from the Sky (Tunis: Alif-Les Editions de la Mediterranee, 2009), 35.
46
See the special section, Can the Jasmine Revolution Reach the Remaining States of
Tamazgha, including the articles by long-time Moroccan Amazigh movement activists Ahmed
Dghrini and Hassn Idbelkassam, in Le Monde Amazigh=al-Alam al-Amazighi=Amadal Ama-
zighi 128 (February 2011): 48.
47
For its declared objectives, see Sabra Mansar, Naissance de lAssociation tunisienne de
culture Amazigh [Birth of the Tunisian Association of Amazigh Culture], Tunisie Numeri-
que, July 30, 2011, http://www.tunisienumerique.com/naissance-de-lassociation-tunisienne-
de-culture-amazigh/62052.
48
Ali Chibani, Les populations amazighes croient en leur Printemps [Amazigh popula-
tions believe in their Spring], Le Monde Diplomatique, July 28, 2011, http://blog.mondedipl-
o.net/2011-07-28-Les-populations-amazighes-croient-en-leur.
49
Houda Trabelsi, Maghreb film festival celebrates Amazigh culture, Magharebia, Sep-
tember 12, 2011, http://www.magharebia.com/cocoon/awi/xhtml1/en_GB/features/awi/fea-
tures/2011/09/12/feature-03.
era came with the convening of the World Amazigh Congress in Djerba from
September 30 to October 2, and the appointment of a Tunisian Amazigh rep-
resentative to the bodys Federal Council for the first time. Such a gathering
would have been inconceivable during the Ben Ali era. The solidarity shown
to Libyan Amazigh refugees by Tunisians in general, and Tunisian Amazigh
in particular, was yet another outcome of the resurfacing of Amazigh identity
in the country.
The future of the Amazigh question in Tunisia obviously depends on the
nature of the countrys political evolution. Given the communitys small num-
bers, it could be argued that the issue hardly poses a threat to any other
group or partys vital interests, and in general, the postBen Ali interim
authorities were keen on projecting a tolerant, progressive image to the out-
side world. Nonetheless, as is true elsewhere in North Africa, the subject will
certainly remain contentious, particularly given the success of the Islamist
Ennahda Party in the October 2011 elections. Already, a TV presenter has
received death threats for expressing pride in her Amazigh origins.50 For
Amazigh militants, Ennahdas Rachid Ghannoushis insistence on the
Arab-Islamic identity of Tunisia has served as a warning that the struggle
for recognition will continue.51 One indicator of the status of this question
will be the new constitution, which is currently being drafted.
Algeria
Ironically, given the Kabyles historic vanguard role in forging a modern
ethno-cultural Amazigh identity, the Amazigh question has been one of
the least salient issues in Algeria during this past year. In the past, both
the Moroccan state and its Amazigh communities keenly followed the
dynamics of Algerian stateAmazigh dynamics. Now, the situation is
reversed, particularly given Moroccos far-reaching constitutional mea-
sures.52 In a sense, both the Kabyles and the Algerian state have been
there, done that. The memory of the horrific violence of the 1990s appears
to have left little taste for the renewal of mass protests. To be sure, Algeria
has experienced considerable unrest during the last year, and in Kabylie, in
particular, alienation from both the state authorities and Kabyle-based polit-
ical parties remains extremely high. Heavy snowstorms in winter 2012,
50
According to Ines Fezzani, the administrator of a Facebook page called Reviving Ama-
zigh Identity; see also Chibani, Les populations amazighes. On April 21, 2012, the Face-
book page organized a demonstration calling for the recognition of Amazigh linguistic
rights in front of the Tunisian Ministry of Cultures offices.
51
Congres Mondial Amazigh, Tunisie: perspectives inquietantes [Tunisia: Worrying
outlooks], October 27, 2011, http://www.amazighworld.org/human_rights/cma_reports/
index_show.php?Id=2672.
52
Et tamazight? [And Tamazight?], El Watan (Algeria), June 20, 2011; also cited in Ch-
ibani, Les populations amazighes.
which effectively left numerous villages inaccessible for weeks, provided

Kabyles with further evidence that the state was intentionally neglectful
of the region.53 But the unrest and alienation have not congealed into
any sustained protest movement, in spite of the fact that the regimes pro-
mised measures of reform have been mostly talk. How matters will unfold
can only be a matter of speculation, but Kabyle particularism remains
significant, epitomized by the consistent large-scale boycott of national
elections in the region.
CONCLUSION
The fact that the Amazigh movements discourse and praxis is not universally
accepted among North African Berbers, let alone the rest of society, does not
by itself indicate failure, for the task of ethno-cultural movements is never
simple. Like other ethno-national movements throughout modern history,
Berbers face a daunting task of igniting a conceptual revolution among North
Africans to reawaken them to their Berber heritage and identity and make
this identity matter on a grand scale, even as it matters very much to indi-
vidual Berbers in myriad ways and contexts.54
Whether one speaks of new orders (e.g., Tunisia and Libya), regimes
that have remained in power (e.g., Morocco and Algeria), or states threa-
tened with disintegration (e.g., Mali), the social contract between state
and society in North Africa is now in the process of a highly contested
renegotiation. Amazigh groups, keenly aware of both the new situation
and the efforts and achievements of fellow Amazigh in neighboring states,
are also participants in the process, on both national and particularist
grounds. Moreover, they have registered significant achievements, reinfor-
cing their legitimacy in the eyes of governments and broader segments
of society alike.
Given the centrality of religious-based collective identities in the Mid-
dle East and North Africa and the regions lack of experience with genuine
Western-style democracy, the Amazigh movements vision for a pluralist,
multicultural, and democratic North Africa may well appear overly rosy,
if not utopian. One can hardly speak of the Amazigh current as a mass
movement. Still, it has gained a measure of linguistic and cultural recog-
nition in recent years from North African states, as part of their recognition
53
Yidir Plantade, La neige paralyse depuis plusieurs jours la kabylie [Snow Paralyzed
Kabylie For Several Days], http://www.lematindz.net/news/7355-la-neige-paralyse-depuis-
plusieurs-jours-la-kabylie.html.
54
David Crawford, How Berber Matters in the Middle of Nowhere, Middle East Report
219 (Summer 2001): 2025.
of what I. William Zartman called the need for a re-contracting with their
societies.55 This hard-won legitimization has in turn given Amazigh groups
new confidence to press their demands. Almost a century of efforts by
North African nationalist movements and newly independent states to sub-
sume Berber identity under state and Arab ethno-linguistic identity rubrics
and ultimately reduce it to insignificance have proven a failure. While
al-Jazeera promotes a virtual pan-Arab identity, this does not and cannot
replace the specific contexts and contours of individual states and societies.
With their countries needs now even more acute, and given the political
and social discontent bubbling up from below, the Amazigh identity project
is clearly entering a new era, one that poses both new opportunities
and new challenges, particularly in light of newly confident Islamist
movements.
55
I. William Zartman, Introduction: Rewriting the Future in the Maghrib, in Economic
Crisis and Political Change in North Africa, ed. Azzedine Layachi (Westport, CT and London:
Praeger, 1998), 15.

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On: 18 December 2012, At: 23:20

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Arabization and Its Discontents: The Rise of

The Berber-Amazigh identity movement has emerged in recent

KEYWORDS Amazigh, Arabization, Berber, ethno-nationalism,

North Africas native Amazigh (Berber)-speaking communities comprise

reduced to insignificance. After all, in the words of anthropologist David

BACKGROUND: LANGUAGE AND IDENTITY IN NORTH AFRICA

Language has been a centralperhaps the centralfactor in the develop-

politically, Arab nationalism has proven to be a doctrine that has largely

THE COLONIAL ERA

assimilation advocated by the evolues, the narrow stratum of

a middle-class background, there was no contradiction between nationalism

Still, France cultivated the Berbers, even setting up a school in the

Berbers in an independent, Arab-Islamic Moroccan national state. Ben Barka

rapidly growing, increasingly youthful populations. Even though Berber

LE PRINTEMPS BERBE`RE (THE BERBER SPRING=TAFSUT

Berber responses to Arabization policies generally passed under the

to Amazigh=Berber identity in AMRECs name demonstrated the prevailing

THE NEW BERBERISM

even more inviting targets. One in particular, the militant singer-activist

lexicon: la hogra, namely, the contempt that the unaccountable authorities

eventually known as the Mouvement Citoyen des Aarchs (Citizens

the countrys main cities, including Algiers, despite substantial numbers of

a year earlier by more than 200 Berber intellectuals, Mohammed VI partially

THE ARAB SPRING AND THE AMAZIGH MOVEMENT

The so-called Arab Spring opened up new possibilities and opportunities

subcommittee that fashioned the first draft of the language recognition

Qaddafis regime, which came to power in a military coup on September

tuted an achievement for the historically peripheral and marginalized Libyan

Mali and the Touareg: From a Berber Republic to a Jihadi State?

France-based Amazigh associations lobbying efforts vis-a-vis UN and

which effectively left numerous villages inaccessible for weeks, provided

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