“The sentences of Hirak protestors were recently confirmed in appeal by the Casablanca court, reaching up to 20 years of prison on the ground of ‘conspiracy against State’s Security’. The Hirak movement occurred in the Rif, claiming the end of an economic blockade and social discrimination affecting the Amazigh regions. Five years after the Arab Spring, known as the ‘20th February movement’ in Morocco, the (under)development of the Amazigh regions remains a big issue. The popular mass protest spread in Algeria, where similar conditions are experienced by the Kabyles. These events underline the inherent connection between recognition of identity on the one hand and socio-economic inequalities on the other. Properly named Amazigh, Berber is the dominant ethnic group in Morocco and an important one in Algeria, despite the countries’ identification as “Arab”. Ultimately, questions of identity and process of Arabization in both Morocco and Algeria could be hardly understood without acknowledging their colonial past [1].”
Similarly to Algeria, Morocco’s notion of national identity is the result of a long process of colonial and post-colonial legitimisation of power. Contemporary national identity is, in reality, the legacy of a social division imposed by the French colonial state, between Arabs and Amazighs on the one hand, and Muslims and non-Muslims on the other[2]. Despite two different types of colonial rules enforced by the French colonisers – assimilationist vs associationist[3] - both Algeria and Morocco suffered from an arbitrary division on the ground of ethnicity, created to establish a policy of divide-and-rule.
Following a long struggle for independence, the two states had the important task of preserving the integrity of their respective territories. As colonial rule did little to create a shared identity, Algeria and Morocco’s first objective was to gain legitimacy through the shaping of national identity[4]. Both former Moroccan Sultan King Mohammed V and Algerian President Ahmed Ben Bella imposed a collective identity enshrined in Islamic and Arabic roots, disregarding the Amazigh population, the first inhabitants of Morocco before the arrival of Arabs and Islam in the 7th Century.
In fact, the Arabic and Islamic roots were the two main features of political and social distinction between the colonists and the natives. In the Algerian colony, Muslims had to give up Islam to become first-class citizens, emphasising Islam as a symbol of resistance during post-colonial time. For their parts, Amazighs were deemed to be favoured and associated to the colonial state regarding their more secular customs, sometimes detached from Islam. Following the independence, their distinct legal customs were suppressed under Islamic laws and unification against the colonial state resulted in Islamisation and Arabisation of the national identity, reaching the demands of the Arab nationalists.
Yet, this post-colonial unification contributed to large inequalities between ethnicities, as it had an impact on the economic and social development of the Berber regions and their inhabitants. Significant claims were made to decrease Arabisation in order to include the Berbers and Kabyles as part of the collective identity, especially concerning their language and culture in the educational system.
On March 1980, strikes occurred in Tizi Ouzou and the Kabyle districts of Algiers, known as the “Berber Spring” [5]. Thousands of young Berbers in Algeria, joined demonstrations for the official recognition of their language, as part of the Algerian national history and identity. It was not until the end of the violent Kabyle protests, called “Black Spring” in 2001, that former President of Algeria Abdelaziz Bouteflika officially recognised the Tamazight as a national language through a constitutional amendment. In Morocco, the process has taken longer due to the complicated composition of the population, as the Berbers are divided into 4 major groups (Rif, Braber, Shluh and Soussi) and those groups are further divided into tribes.
On August 20th, 1994, King Hassan II of Morocco announced the teaching of Tamazight in middle-school following international pressure by the Human Rights Commission of Vienna[6]. The rise of the Arab Spring in February 2011 incited a movement in Morocco. Their revindications concerned a larger recognition of Amazigh culture and language, alongside wider political rights. This movement was judged too significant to ignore considering the geopolitical context, and King Mohammed VI of Morocco was constrained to answer to the political demands. A new Constitution was enacted on the 30th July 2011, recognising the “Berber components” of the country[7].
The claim for identity recognition reveals a deeper struggle for economic, social, and political rights. In 2016, the death of a Berber fish vendor, Mohsen Fikri, who saw his merchandise confiscated by a policeman, unleashed the anger of thousands of Berbers in the Rif region of Morocco. The Hirak movement was born and spread throughout the whole country as well as in Algeria, claiming the end of an economic blockade affecting Amazigh regions[8]. Protestors also called for equality and the end of social discrimination, particularly in regard to employment and education. For example, illiteracy and unemployment rates in the Rif region of Morocco are higher than the national average, affecting almost half of the population. Despite infrastructure projects led by the state, the number of health facilities in the region remain fundamentally low. Access to water and electricity is disparate, as 13.3% of the population have access to clean water in rural areas compared to 91.4% in urban areas[9]. Berbers protest the discrimination experienced at the hands of the elite governing class, who are out of touch with the reality, especially following the sentencing of protestors.
Despite new participatory mechanisms enshrined in the new Constitution, civil rights and freedoms remain controversial in Morocco and impact the whole population regardless of their ethnicities. Yet, the Amazigh population has a long history of inequalities behind, that it aims to engage in despite a complex domestic context.
From colonisation to post-colonialism, collective identity in Morocco and Algeria has always been dynamically negotiated and reimagined in interaction with political, social, and economic dynamics. Indeed, questions of identity are often indicative of profound political, social and economic (in)stabilities and (in)securities.
Sources:
[1]Jonathan Wyrtzen, Colonial Legitimization-Legibility Linkages and the Politics of Identity in Algeria and Morocco, Yale University, European Journal of Sociology, Vol. 58, N°2, 2017, pp. 205-235
[2]Ibid
[3]Ibid
[4]Jonathan N.C. Hill, Identity and instability in Postcolonial Algeria, The Journal of North African Studies, Vol.11, N°1, March 2006
[5]Jonathan N.C. Hill, Identity and instability in Postcolonial Algeria, The Journal of North African Studies, Vol.11, N°1, March 2006
[6]Perspective monde, Reconnaissance des revendications berbères au Maroc,Faculté des lettres et sciences humaines, Université de Sherbrooke, Québec, 20 août 1994
[7]Preamble of the Moroccan Constitution of 201
[8]Reda Zaireg, Rif Crisis Reveals Failure of Development in Morocco, 2 January 2018, Orient XXI, https://orientxxi.info/magazine/rif-crisis-reveals-failure-of-development-in-morocco,2197
[9]Nadia Lamlili, Tensions à Al Hoceima : les chiffres des inégalités sociales qui expliquent la grogne marocaine, 25 mai 2017, Jeune Afrique, https://www.jeuneafrique.com/441734/politique/tensions-a-al-hoceima-chiffres-inegalites-sociales-expliquent-grogne-marocaine/