Recent events have meant that an important Libyan minority, the Amazigh, are putting the writing of a new Libyan Constitution – the first since former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi was ousted – at risk. The Amazigh say they will boycott the election of a committee that is supposed to draft a new permanent constitution for the country. This is because they feel that the committee is not representative enough of the Libyan people and therefore should not be voting on the new Constitution’s articles.

Recent events have meant that an important Libyan minority, the Amazigh, are putting the writing of a new Libyan Constitution – the first since former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi was ousted – at risk. The Amazigh say they will boycott the election of a committee that is supposed to draft a new permanent constitution for the country. This is because they feel that the committee is not representative enough of the Libyan people and therefore should not be voting on the new Constitution’s articles.

Along with other minorities – such as the Tuareg and the Tibu and some civil society groups representing, for example, women’s rights – the Amazigh “object to the fact that the drafting committee will vote on the constitution’s contents, saying that a consensus of members – rather than just a majority – should be required to decide on cultural and other issues affecting them,” Middle East Online wrote earlier this month.

And part of the reason that the Amazigh are opposed to this kind of committee where, along with other minorities, they have only been allotted two seats, is because it also lowers the chances that the Amazigh language will become one of the official languages of Libya.

Under Gaddafi, the Amazigh culture was suppressed and this included the Berber language. In fact, many Amazigh readily acknowledge that their time under Gaddafi has made them particularly conscious that they must have their culture protected by law. And as many Libyans have noted, the Berbers also played an important role in the Libyan revolution that ousted Gaddafi- they deserve to be listened to. 

The Amazigh calls for a boycott started with the recent passing of electoral law for the Constitutional Assembly, which would draft and vote upon the new Libyan Constitution. When Libya’s General National Congress posted a note on its Facebook page asking for opinions as to whether the Amazigh language should made an official language of Libya, the High Council of Libyan Amazigh released a statement in which it called upon the 15 Amazigh MPs in the General National Congress to withdraw from the Congress as well as for a boycott of the proposed elections to the Constitutional Assembly.

As one blogger at Foreign Policy explained it: “The High Council of Libyan Amazigh have announced their intention to boycott the Constituent Assembly elections, unless their members are given veto power over issues that directly affect their heritage and rights in the constitution. The Amazigh say the six seats (two each) are merely a symbolic move that has no actual weight or power to protect and safeguard their rights and heritage which suffered from persecution under Qaddafi”.

Four Amazigh Mps subsequently resigned.

There are some things that cannot be decided by the Constitutional Assembly alone, the Amazigh say.

“This issue requires a lot of thought,” says Sanaa al-Mansouri, a Libyan media figure who presents shows in both Arabic and Amazigh. “Like Arabic, the Amazigh language has a right to be considered an official Libyan language. This is the only way that Libya’s Amazigh will get the same rights as Libya’s Arabs.”

And it’s hardly a new topic, al-Mansouri says.  Ever since the Gaddafi regime ended, Libya’s Amazigh have been asking for this.  If the Amazigh demands were not considered seriously then possibly the Amazigh would want to declare autonomy, al-Mansouri speculated.

Looking at discussions on social media it seems that in general Libyans respect Amazigh right to use their own language and they consider it a source of Libyan pride as well as a symbol of cultural plurality. However when it comes to classifying Amazigh as an official national language, personal and political alliances start to play more of a role.

“For decades, the Amazigh suffered under Gaddafi and before that, the monarchy,” says political analyst Abdul Azeem Bashti. “There were no Amazigh-speaking media outlets and Amazigh could only learn their own language at home. They usually went to schools that taught in Arabic only.”

Because of this the Amazigh desperately want to make their rights constitutional so that nobody can ever renege on them again,” Bashti explains. “For me, I don’t see any problem in that. It would ensure the rights of our brothers, the Amazigh.”

Bashti thinks it may even be a good idea to open Amazigh-language schools as well making Amazigh courses available to Arabic-speaking students – this would help to introduce the Berber culture to Libyans who might have no knowledge of it.

The one area where Bashti does counsel caution is in how the Amazigh language should be described, should it become enshrined in the Libyan Constitution. It can only be a national language, he says, not an official one. This is mainly because if Amazigh becomes an official language then it would involve a lot more technical problems, such as the changing and translating of all official papers.