The Kabyle people and the continuous spring
"Les Amazighs sont le peuple indigène d'Algérie", a commencé ma conversation avec Amal Mohandi, journaliste algérienne et militante sociale d'origine kabyle. Amal a grandi à Alger, mais elle "promeut dès son enfance" la culture amazighe.
La résistance et la persistance du peuple kabyle est l'un des facteurs les plus importants qui ont conduit à la reconnaissance de l'identité amazighe dans la constitution algérienne : c'est son histoire.
Texte de l'épisode :
Laila : "Que savez-vous du plus vieil habitant d'Afrique du Nord ? Un podcast méconnu qui vous fera entendre des voix
Communautés oubliées ou délaissées par l'histoire et les cultures publiques, je vous emmènerai avec moi dans des territoires oubliés
De l'histoire et de ses histoires inconnues, nous entendrons leurs voix et leurs histoires qui ne sont pas basées sur des règles
Et les mythes, mais la vérité, et ce qui en découle, je suis "Laila Al-Awf" et vous écoutez un podcast anonyme.
En 2016, je me suis rendue dans la ville de Constantine, en Algérie, pour assister à un forum des femmes, et à cette occasion, j'ai été impressionnée par l'industrie de la bijouterie en argent, qui est célèbre pour le peuple kabyle et qui se vend dans toute l'Algérie. Bien sûr, je n'ai pas quitté le pays avant d'avoir obtenu des bagues en argent du patrimoine amazigh.
J'ai été surpris de voir à quel point n'importe quel symbole de l'identité amazighe était montré, à la joie de mes amis algériens.
L'anneau de l'espace, qui pour moi est un souvenir des bons jours que j'ai passés dans la ville des ponts suspendus, Constantine, apparaît comme un symbole de préservation de son identité. Parce que la seule chose qui fait vivre un peuple, c'est l'art et la culture.
Et fabriquer des bijoux et des vêtements traditionnels, comme chanter ou danser, est un art.
L'épisode d'aujourd'hui vous emmènera dans une région montagneuse amazighe au nord de l'Algérie, appelée Bilad Kabylie ou Temrant Kabylieen, une région célèbre pour ses combattants et ses magnanimités.
Certains chercheurs considèrent que le peuple kabyle suit le système matrilinéaire, et cette idée découle d'une importante légende kabyle : la reine Dehya.
Kahina ou Dihya en amazighe, est la dernière reine berbère, aurait régné entre 688 et 703 selon le calendrier grégorien.
La reine Dehya était célèbre pour sa résistance contre l'expansion omeyyade.
“The Amazighs are the indigenous people of Algeria,” began my conversation with Amal Mohandi, an Algerian journalist and social activist of Kabyle origin. Amal grew up in Algiers, but she “promotes from her childhood” the Amazigh culture.
The resistance and persistence of the Kabyle people is one of the most important factors that led to the recognition of the Amazigh identity in the Algerian constitution: this is its story.
Episode text:
Laila: “What do you know about the oldest inhabitant of North Africa? An unknown podcast that will make you hear voices
Communities forgotten or neglected by history and public cultures, I will take you with me to forgotten areas
From history and its unknown stories, we will hear their voices and stories that are not based on rules
And myths, but the truth, and what stems from them, I am "Laila Al-Awf" and you are listening to an anonymous podcast.
In 2016, I traveled to the city of Constantine, Algeria, to attend a women's forum, and on this occasion, I was impressed by the silver jewelry industry, which is famous for the Kabyle people and which is sold throughout Algeria. Of course, I didn't leave the country before I got silver rings from the Amazigh heritage.
I was surprised how much any symbol of the Amazigh identity was shown, to the joy of my Algerian friends.
The space ring, which for me is a memory of the good days I spent in the city of hanging bridges, Constantine, looks on as a symbol of preserving his identity. Because the only thing that keeps a people alive is art and culture.
And making jewelry and traditional dress, such as singing or dancing, is an art.
Today's episode will take you to a mountainous Amazigh region in the north of Algeria, called Bilad Kabylie or Temrant Kabylieen, a region famous for its fighters and magnanimities.
Some researchers consider that the Kabyle people follow the matrilineal system, and this idea stems from an important Kabyle legend: Queen Dehya.
Kahina or Dihya in Amazigh, is the last Amazigh queen, said to have ruled between 688 and 703 according to the Gregorian calendar.
Queen Dehya was famous for her resistance against the Umayyad expansion.
Her name means vision in Tamazight, and it is said that she had the ability of clairvoyance. Her reign began when she was 17 years old, after the murder of her father, King Tabita.
The Berbers consider their queen Dehia a symbol of the protector of their identity that has been threatened many times throughout history and today.
The Kabyle people, like many of the Amazighs of North Africa, have refused to forget their identity.
Amal: “By God, I don’t really like the word slave girls because it means they are the original inhabitants of Algeria.”
Lily: “With this sentence, my conversation started with Amal, an Algerian Berber journalist and social activist who grew up in Algiers, but is originally from Tizi Ouzou, the second most important Kabyle city that proved its courage against French colonialism.
Amal: “I am of Amazigh origins from the Kabyle region, specifically from the city of Tizi-Ouzou, and I spent and worked in Algiers, so I have a mixture of the Kabyle culture in the capital in the family home with my grandfather and grandmother. Diyala and at home, so it was very natural that we speak the Zamazigh language and grow up with that culture, and we also face it with friends, because I grew up in an environment in which they did not speak the Amazigh language.
Lily: "As I ask all my guests, I wanted to understand from Amal how the situation of the Amazighs is in her region?"
Amal: “Society’s view was a strange view of the Amazigh component by virtue of the Arabization and marginalization that this culture faced in the late sixties and seventies, and not allowing that component, which is an essential component of a national identity, to be taught and promoted in the media in schools and universities, but with the struggle of many writers and intellectuals Among the intellectuals, the Amazigh language has become an official language that is enshrined in the Algerian constitution, and there is also no discussion on this component.
Lily: “On a very important note, I have to tell you about it.
Algeria, is the only African country that recognizes its Amazigh origin and identity as a result of the insistence and activity of the Algerian Amazighs. "
Amal: “The reconciliation is further than that because we are the only country in North Africa that also marks the day of January today as the day of celebrating the Amazigh year as a national holiday and as a paid holiday. This means that today Algerians also do not have even a problem with this component of the national identity which is Amazigh ","
Leila: “January, or Amazigh New Year, is a national h Amazigh oliday in Algeria.
In 1980, the Algerian Amazigh thinker and activist, Ammar Nejadi, founded the Amazigh calendar, and decided to fix the first day of the Amazigh year as January 12, which is the day of the ascension to the throne of Pharaoh Shesheng in ancient Egypt.
According to the thinker Ammar al-Shawi, Sheshang was a pharaoh of Libyan Amazigh origins, and he was the first pharaoh of the twenty-second dynasty.
Historians actually acknowledge the rule of the Amazigh Libyans in ancient Egypt and call it the Libyan period.
That is why, in January 2021, the residents of Tizi Ouzou were surprised by a statue of Sheshonq, in the middle of the country square, which caused a lot of controversy.
On the one hand, some residents of the city complained about the location of the statue, and on the other hand, our Egyptian brothers launched an opposition campaign on Twitter, with the hashtag #Shishing_Egyptian.
We did not have the right to forget the playoff match in the 2009 World Cup qualifiers, and the story of Sheshang fell on our heads...
Let's talk more seriously, why is the issue of preserving the Amazigh identity so important? And how was identity marginalized previously?
hopefull :"Marginalization began with the French colonialism, which tried to eradicate the Algerian identity with all its capabilities, meaning the existence of the dialectic, and in Algeria, its main goal was to eradicate the Algerian identity, the Amazigh identity, and also the religious component, which is the Islamic religion. It was in the year 1830, but colonialism closed for more than 20 years until it joined the tribal region because of the fierce resistance that was in that region. Also, there is a disagreement between all Algerians, I mean, there is a goal of colonialism, which is striking unity and independence for the unity of the homeland after independence. Certainly, there was no political will that followed, because the dispute began with independence, but after independence, there was no political will that contained that conflict.The years of the nineties and the two thousand years, as I told you, after the accumulation of struggle, the Amazigh component became indisputable.
Leila: “In 1996, the Amazigh identity entered the Algerian constitution and was officially and legally recognized as an Algerian identity. But before normalization, the situation was very different…
Amal: "When we talk about marginalization, it means cultural marginalization. When we say that there was no teaching of the Amazigh language, there was no recognition of the Amazigh language. Many intellectuals were prevented from activating seminars to talk about the Amazigh culture. There was no presence of any component of this culture in the media. I mean, it was in the media." This is the kind of marginalization that the Amazighs suffered from in Algeria, as I told you in the seventies and the 1970s. We did not feel at the time that when an Amazigh person speaks, he does not feel belonging because his language and culture are not recognized. In Algeria, they are divided into tribes, to some, to what, to Tuareg, meaning all these dialects form the component or the Amazigh language.
Leila: "To some extent, the Amazighs of Algeria decided to put an end to this marginalization, and the so-called Amazigh Spring began..."
Amal: “In the year 1980, when the Amazigh thinker Walid Mamari, who worked hard to promote the Amazigh culture and even put forward a special writing in the Amazigh language with the Latin letter that is Walid Mamari, and that book became called Ma’mari, he is a writer at that time, he was preparing to organize not a conference, but a symposium in order to speak On the Amazigh culture, the regime at that time prevented it, and since then there have been demonstrations and several transgressions from the regime at that time in rebuking the demonstrators, and since then it has become a historical station in the regime’s stations for the sake of the Amazigh culture.”
Laila: “But the Amazigh spring joined a black spring in 2001…”
Amal: "More than 128 demonstrators were assassinated. As a result, this meant a great tension between the political class and the citizens of the Kabylie region, but immediately after that the system contained this issue and it became in consultations and representation by the militants and the regime, the late former President Abdulaziz, even if recognition of the Amazigh language is an official language Also registered in the constitution is the establishment of a high commission for the Amazigh language, which works to promote and write the Amazigh language.
Leila: "With all the awareness campaigns that led to the recognition of the Amazigh identity in Algeria, there is a category of Algerians who rejects the Amazigh identity."
Amal: “This is something natural that we see by virtue of the accumulations that North Africa has known from the colonial epochs since the struggle, the Romans, the Byzantines, the Romans, the Turks and the Arabs. This is for history, because when we go back to history, history means that it protects the Amazigh of North Africa, but there are certainly people who came with the Islamic conquests, people who came with the French, Spanish and Portuguese colonizations that the region knew. Force any imposition or anyone to confess, but force him to respect.”
Laila: "I wanted to ask Amal, how can we preserve the Amazigh identity?"
Amal: “There was a confession, and we passed the stage of recognition. I mean, when we pass the stage of recognition, the stage of promotion and writing remains, because we do not forget that Amazigh is the legacy of Al-Shafi’i. Everyone who carries this issue today should start promoting culture and writing it, working on practical research and serving that culture by producing in every production.” Listen and see, today we see Nidal changing from the stage of recognition to the stage of documentation.”
Layla: "Currently, how is the economic and social situation in the Kabylie region?"
Amal: “By God, the impoverished situation, given that young people go out to work and emigrate, leaves a comfortable standard of living. Let us say it is comfortable, but there remain areas that still suffer from the lack of gas, the availability of electricity, and this is not limited only to the Amazigh regions, because in remote areas in all states. As for aid, let us We say in the tribal region, especially that it is attended by every social system specific to the region, which is based on a system of consultation, because the villages are small villages, small villages, all people know each other, and all people consult each other in the service of that village. In the Corona pandemic, when the residents, I mean, they worked, I mean, wonderful initiatives in confronting that epidemic by closing the villages, imposing internal laws, imposing fines for those who do not respect the laws, and this system has existed since colonialism, meaning before colonization, the schools of the tribal region lived among themselves in consultation to respect the laws by enacting laws as well.
Layla: “A group is one of the oldest democratic systems in history and its aim is to organize economic, legal and social life. Only men who have reached the age of majority can participate in it. In most Mediterranean countries, who noticed popular systems close to the Amazigh groupings.
To conclude this episode, I wanted to ask Amal if she believes in Amazigh unity in the North African region, and the answer is…”
Amal: “By God, this means a big project, and let us say a big dream, because there were several attempts before to include the Amazighs, the Amazighs of North Africa, from the Comoros Islands to Siwa in Egypt. I mean, there are common factors in a unified history in language also that brought together the population of North Africa, but If it is followed by a political will, then this remains ink. It means just an idea today. Network work and joint action is a must in order to promote the Amazigh culture. You must move away from the demand for recognition and go to another stage, which is the service of this culture.
Layla: “I was listening to a new episode of an anonymous podcast, written and presented by “Layla Al-Awf.”
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