Jalloul Garki, like other Tunisian Berbers, spent a long time wishing he could speak Berber in public. That all changed on 14 January 2011.
Some 18 months after the revolution, Jalloul Garki, General Secretary of the Tunisian Association for Berber Culture, took to the stage at the 20th Tamazrat Festival. He welcomed the audience with the Berber greeting ‘Azul Amaqran.’ Attendees then heard Berber poems by a Libyan poet from the city of Nalut, describing the Berber villages across Libya to Morocco.
Some 18 months after the revolution, Jalloul Garki, General Secretary of the Tunisian Association for Berber Culture, took to the stage at the 20th Tamazrat Festival. He welcomed the audience with the Berber greeting ‘Azul Amaqran.’ Attendees then heard Berber poems by a Libyan poet from the city of Nalut, describing the Berber villages across Libya to Morocco.
Jalloul Garki, like other Tunisian Berbers, spent a long time wishing he could speak Berber in public. That all changed on 14 January 2011.
Some 18 months after the revolution, Jalloul Garki, General Secretary of the Tunisian Association for Berber Culture, took to the stage at the 20th Tamazrat Festival. He welcomed the audience with the Berber greeting ‘Azul Amaqran.’ Attendees then heard Berber poems by a Libyan poet from the city of Nalut, describing the Berber villages across Libya to Morocco.
Berber has been suppressed by two former presidents, Habib Bourguiba and Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, who backed ‘Arabization,’ says Garki. For around 200,000 Tunisians who speak Berber, according to official statistics, the festival is a magnet.
Lassaad, Chairman of Heritage Preservation Association in Tamazrat, located in the Matmata Mountains in southern Tunisia, agrees that the festival is a landmark event. Until now the gathering was “bound by Ben Ali’s authorities to celebrate modestly without crossing red lines,” he says.
The red lines he refers to included raising the Berber flag, singing in Berber and writing on banners using Tefnaq letters, used in Berber.
Garki’s story is similar to that of Hadi Henchir, a Berber activist from Yafran, a village in the Nafusa Mountains in Libya. While in Tamazrat, Henchir told Garki and his friends about the “suffering of Berber in Libya,” describing how they were prevented “from speaking their own language”. He dubbed Gaddafi’s policy towards Berber as ‘existence denial,’ citing Gaddafi’s view that Berber were of Arab origin.
The parallels between Garki and Henchir’s experiences reflect the story of the Berber in Tunisia and Libya. Ruling regimes followed a policy of Arabization. This was conducted openly, through both education and geography, especially in Tunisia where more than 100 Berber villages were renamed with the word ‘Jadeeda’ (‘New’) added to their old names, such as Matmata Jadeeda and Zraoua Jadeeda.
Despite being pursued since 1980, this policy, did not lead to ‘Arabized Berber’ in Libya and Tunisia, partly because of Berber’s staunch adherence to their identity.
This ‘resistance,’ as Henchir describes it, took the form of speaking Berber throughout subsequent generations in the Nafusa Mountains, the largest center of Berbers in Libya. The Nafusa Mountains are a Berber name that was officially revived after the fall of Gaddafi’s regime which had replaced it with the ‘Jabal al Gharbi’ for decades.
Shielding the Berber identity was not limited to preserving the language and names of villages; twenty years ago, a group of Berber activists launched an annual festival to preserve the Berber heritage in Tamazrat, or ‘Tamzra’ in Berber.
Today, after the fall of their respective regimes, Garki and Henchir call for Berber heritage, culture and language to be freed from prevailing stereotypes. They demand an end to “accusing Berber activists of treason.”
However, Berbers in Tunisia and Libya have one central demand. They want formal recognition of their existence and their language as a second official language – in addition to Arabic. They also seek acknowledgement of Berbers’ rights in the next constitution.
Head of the Tunisian Association for Berber Culture Khadija Ibn Saidan has some other ambitions for the post-revolutionary nation. These include the recognition of Berbers as an essential component of Tunisian identity; the preservation of Berber customs and the maintenance of the architecture of Berber villages, with a view to including them in the UNESCO World Heritage List.
These demands were first articulated in Khadija in a press conference held to declare the foundation of her association in April 2011. The demands remain intact even after she and her organisation have been subjected to scepticism, distrust and the accusation they are fomenting ethnic conflicts.
Henchir complains of ‘accusations of treason’ levelled at Berber activists by the Libyan political class. He says these complaints typically stem from Arab nationalist parties that defend the ‘Arabism of Libya and its people.’
Henchir underlines his affection for the late Tunisian president Habib Bourguiba, who he considers a Berber leader. He fondly recalls an anecdote from a meeting of Bourguiba and Gamal Abdel Nasser in the 1960s where Bourguiba said to Abdel Nasser, “my country extends from where couscous eating begins to where it ends,” in reference to his Berber origins.
Some 18 months after the revolution, Jalloul Garki, General Secretary of the Tunisian Association for Berber Culture, took to the stage at the 20th Tamazrat Festival. He welcomed the audience with the Berber greeting ‘Azul Amaqran.’ Attendees then heard Berber poems by a Libyan poet from the city of Nalut, describing the Berber villages across Libya to Morocco.
Berber has been suppressed by two former presidents, Habib Bourguiba and Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, who backed ‘Arabization,’ says Garki. For around 200,000 Tunisians who speak Berber, according to official statistics, the festival is a magnet.
Lassaad, Chairman of Heritage Preservation Association in Tamazrat, located in the Matmata Mountains in southern Tunisia, agrees that the festival is a landmark event. Until now the gathering was “bound by Ben Ali’s authorities to celebrate modestly without crossing red lines,” he says.
The red lines he refers to included raising the Berber flag, singing in Berber and writing on banners using Tefnaq letters, used in Berber.
Garki’s story is similar to that of Hadi Henchir, a Berber activist from Yafran, a village in the Nafusa Mountains in Libya. While in Tamazrat, Henchir told Garki and his friends about the “suffering of Berber in Libya,” describing how they were prevented “from speaking their own language”. He dubbed Gaddafi’s policy towards Berber as ‘existence denial,’ citing Gaddafi’s view that Berber were of Arab origin.
The parallels between Garki and Henchir’s experiences reflect the story of the Berber in Tunisia and Libya. Ruling regimes followed a policy of Arabization. This was conducted openly, through both education and geography, especially in Tunisia where more than 100 Berber villages were renamed with the word ‘Jadeeda’ (‘New’) added to their old names, such as Matmata Jadeeda and Zraoua Jadeeda.
Despite being pursued since 1980, this policy, did not lead to ‘Arabized Berber’ in Libya and Tunisia, partly because of Berber’s staunch adherence to their identity.
This ‘resistance,’ as Henchir describes it, took the form of speaking Berber throughout subsequent generations in the Nafusa Mountains, the largest center of Berbers in Libya. The Nafusa Mountains are a Berber name that was officially revived after the fall of Gaddafi’s regime which had replaced it with the ‘Jabal al Gharbi’ for decades.
Shielding the Berber identity was not limited to preserving the language and names of villages; twenty years ago, a group of Berber activists launched an annual festival to preserve the Berber heritage in Tamazrat, or ‘Tamzra’ in Berber.
Today, after the fall of their respective regimes, Garki and Henchir call for Berber heritage, culture and language to be freed from prevailing stereotypes. They demand an end to “accusing Berber activists of treason.”
However, Berbers in Tunisia and Libya have one central demand. They want formal recognition of their existence and their language as a second official language – in addition to Arabic. They also seek acknowledgement of Berbers’ rights in the next constitution.
Head of the Tunisian Association for Berber Culture Khadija Ibn Saidan has some other ambitions for the post-revolutionary nation. These include the recognition of Berbers as an essential component of Tunisian identity; the preservation of Berber customs and the maintenance of the architecture of Berber villages, with a view to including them in the UNESCO World Heritage List.
These demands were first articulated in Khadija in a press conference held to declare the foundation of her association in April 2011. The demands remain intact even after she and her organisation have been subjected to scepticism, distrust and the accusation they are fomenting ethnic conflicts.
Henchir complains of ‘accusations of treason’ levelled at Berber activists by the Libyan political class. He says these complaints typically stem from Arab nationalist parties that defend the ‘Arabism of Libya and its people.’
Henchir underlines his affection for the late Tunisian president Habib Bourguiba, who he considers a Berber leader. He fondly recalls an anecdote from a meeting of Bourguiba and Gamal Abdel Nasser in the 1960s where Bourguiba said to Abdel Nasser, “my country extends from where couscous eating begins to where it ends,” in reference to his Berber origins.
