From independence to the Algerian revolution... the complex relationship of the Mozabite Amazighs with
the regime and their Arabists neighbors
Saleh Qazoul used to go to Algiers, to participate in the activities of the Algerian movement, due to the poor participation of the Ibadi sect in it, in the Ghardaia region.
Qazoul justifies the weak participation of the Ibadhis at the beginning of the Algerian movement, telling: "Fear was still possessing them because of the events that the region went through in 2013 and 2015, known as the Ghardaia events." Clashes broke out between the Ibadhi sect and the Maliki Arabists, and resulted in the arrest of a number of Mozabite activists (from Residents of the Mzab Valley), including Hajj Ibrahim Auf, and Kamal Eddin Fakhar.
He adds that after Fekhar's death on May 28, 2019, the participation of Ibadis in the Algerian movement became weaker, for fear that they would meet the same fate as their "teacher", whose condition deteriorated in Ghardaia prison after he went on hunger strike for two full months, before he was transferred to a hospital and died. in it.
Qazul narrates that "the fears of the Ibadis at the beginning of the movement were represented in the repetition of the Egyptian scenario, that is, that the Islamists would take over the reins of power, and the same thing that happened in the black decade would be repeated," that is, the years of bloody fighting between the authorities and the Islamists in the nineties of the last century.
However, the current scene does not at all herald the existence of a future for Islamists in power. He says, "I am participating in all the rallies that take place on Fridays since the beginning of the movement on February 22. At the beginning, I used to see Islamists trying to ride the movement. But now they have completely disappeared."
The demands of most Islamists currently do not differ from the general demands, which are the "departure of the gang" and the purification of the country from its faces, and the release of all prisoners of conscience, whether outside or inside Ghardaïa.
Gradual events
At the end of 2013, sectarian strife broke out in the province of Ghardaïa between the Ibadi Amazighs and the Malikite Arabists (Shaabna).
Ghardaïa or Taghardaït is located in the north of the Algerian desert, 600 km south of the capital, and it has been inhabited for more than 3 thousand years BC, and the evidence for this is the Amazigh inscriptions on the rocks. It includes 7 palaces (cities), and it contains many religious landmarks such as mosques, chapels, archaeological places, an old market for commercial exchanges, and mineral water baths, which makes it a tourist area par excellence.
The Algerian authority allocated subsidies to citizens in each state, distributed by the local authority (the municipality). In Ghardaia, the one responsible for that at that time was a Mozabite Ibadi, which made the Arabists protest that he had distributed unfair housing, and clashes occurred that resulted in more than 25 deaths on both sides, and a large number of wounded.
Meanwhile, there was an engineer named Saleh Abouna, who lived a stable and secure life with his three children, but his interest in human rights prompted him to document what was happening in Ghardaia, so he filmed videos and posted them on YouTube, which received wide spread and local and international follow-up. Likewise, he wrote reports on what was happening in Ghardaïa and sent them to the media and national and international human rights organizations.
All of this made Abouna pursued by the security forces because the video clips showed the collusion of the police with the Arabists. In one of the videos , policemen appeared next to the Malikite Arabists, as they assaulted the Ibadi. Amazighs And the displacement of some of them from their homes.
Who are the Mozabites?
Ibadi history researcher Saleh Bahmani told that the Mozabites in Algeria are the inhabitants of the Mzab Valley, i.e. the province of Ghardaia, which includes seven cities built on hills overlooking the Mzab Valley.
The Mozabites are Amazighs who speak the Mozabite language (one of the Berber dialects) and follow the Ibadhi sect. Thus, their identity is composed of two elements: an ethnic-cultural element, which is the Amazigh language, and a religious element, which is the Ibadhi sect. They make up about 1% of Algeria's population.
Bahmani adds that the Mozabites are known for trade, and almost every city in Algeria is devoid of a Mozabite merchant, and they impress the Algerians because of their economic success and style of architecture, but this brought them a kind of jealousy and envy on the part of some.
This jealousy, in the researcher's opinion, is fueled by their belonging to a non-Sunni sect, unlike the overwhelming majority of Algerians.
Bahamani points out that the Mozabites have their own mosques and schools, but this does not prevent them from praying in other people's mosques, just as they do not prevent others from praying in their mosques or studying in their schools.
And he adds: Because of the persecution they have experienced throughout the ages, they do everything they can to preserve their society and prevent it from dissolving within the large group, and they only marry each other, so that their identity and sect are not lost.
Memories of the events of 2013
Saleh Qazoul recalls the events of 2013, telling: "The clashes erupted because of the insecurity that the local authorities fueled at the time, as they allowed them to attack the shops of the Mozabites, in front of the police forces."
To calm the situation, the authorities demolished the historical monuments of the Mozabites and also desecrated their cemeteries, Qazoul recounts and adds: "More than 22 Mozabite youth fell in these clashes in defense of the attacks against the Mozabite neighborhoods, and this is all to pass President Bouteflika's fourth term in 2014 by intimidating the Algerian people from chaos and civil war." ".
According to Bahmani, the Algerian authorities were behind inflaming the situation in Ghardaia in 2013. He tells : "No one knows the real reason behind this, as there are many analyzes and interpretations, but it is certain that it was planned and implemented, and the video clips filmed by activists confirm this, as it reveals security men framing the confrontations." And they do nothing to stop it. They justify doing so by not taking orders."
"All my life I have been against the idea of secession, but we are fighting in a movement demanding autonomy for our region as it was living for hundreds of years before the creation of the modern state of Algeria"... The Ibadhi Amazighs of the Mozabites tell the details of their complex relationship with the regime and their Arab neighbors
"They are known for their trade, and hardly a city in Algeria is devoid of a Mozabite merchant, and they impress the Algerians because of their economic success and style of architecture, but this brought them a kind of jealousy and envy on the part of some"...the Mozabites of Ibadis in Algeria
In late 2016, on the sidelines of the provincial secretaries meeting, Ammar Saadani , the former secretary of the National Liberation Front, came out, accusing the former head of the intelligence service, "General Tawfik," of igniting sectarian strife in Ghardaia.
This statement aroused the interest of the opposition parties, and they demanded an investigation, but then-Prime Minister Ahmed Ouyahia denied Saadani's statements and supported Tawfik. After that, Saadani submitted his resignation in silence, and no one knows the real reason behind that until now.
Because of these events, the Ibadhi youth became persecuted by the security forces, and arbitrary detention became a tool for the local authorities to calm the situation in the region. Khaled Karkasha was among those arrested during these events.
Khaled was a student at the university, returning from Algiers to his city in order to spend his vacation with his family, but as soon as his feet stepped on the land of the Bani Mazab, he was arrested.
He tried a lot to find out the reason for his arrest, but to no avail. The only response to him was, "You'd better shut up." Once at the security station, he was accused of throwing stones at a state bus, and of taking part in the riots in Ghardaïa, even though he was not there.
Khaled Karkasha tells that the sectarian conflict in the Beni Mzab region is not born today or yesterday, but has existed since independence. In different years, bloody confrontations occur between the indigenous Mozabite population and the Arabists tribes arriving in the region (the Mosakin), for reasons that “seem very absurd or not so serious as to cause the outbreak of a conflict that extends for days, months, and sometimes years.” And he adds: “Here we realize that a third party is fueling this conflicts and benefit from them.
The events of recent years were likewise, in his opinion, as their ostensible cause was the unfair distribution of housing, but the real reason, of course, was different. And the dangerous thing about it, he adds, is that it included most of the cities of the Bani Mozab, and it reached the point of burning homes, killing people, and mutilating their corpses.
He refers to a sentence that was most prevalent at the time: “elect President Bouteflika for a fourth term so that the events in Ghardaia stop,” which was indeed what happened.
However, the events did not stop, but rather intensified in Ramadan 2015, and mass killings using automatic weapons became normal for Arab tribes. And here the army intervened and the arbitrary arrests began, which affected the Ibadhi youth more than the "residents".
In July 2015, after Bouteflika’s victory and after two years of terror in Ghardaia, a state of emergency was declared in the region. The security forces raided a mosque in the city center where most human rights activists pray, including Dr. Kamal Eddine Fekhar, and arrested everyone, including children, and raided homes. Activists, including Saleh Abouna, and when they did not find the latter in his home, they arrested two of his younger brothers and then released them after 36 hours of inquiring about his whereabouts," Karkasha recounts.
From Ghardaia to Spain via Morocco
Abouna recalls the events of 2015, telling "I fled outside Taghardait towards Algiers and stayed there for 3 months. From there I continued my media activity on the Internet, until I was able to cross the Moroccan-Algerian border with smuggled goods because the border has been closed for years."
He adds, "After that, I applied for asylum at the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in the Moroccan capital, Rabat, and continued my activities from there. On December 12, 2015, my little brother Ismail was arrested to put pressure on my family and me to stop media activity in exposing the crimes of the authorities." and international arrest warrants were issued against me.”
On June 2, 2017, a Moroccan newspaper close to the Moroccan authorities issued an issue in which it placed a large picture in favor of Abouna on the front page, with the headline: "The Algerian who dreamed of overthrowing the regime in Algeria and led a revolution in Morocco," in direct accusation of Abouna's participation in the events of the Rif region in Morocco.
After that, Saleh Abouna asked the Asylum Office to deport him to a third country, but there was no response, so he decided to cross the Moroccan border towards the city of Melilla in Spain, where he was arrested because of an international arrest warrant against him, and he applied for international protection on July 4, 2017, to be imprisoned. He was transferred to a prison in Madrid.
In September 2017, Abouna was granted conditional release under judicial supervision, following the actions of human rights organizations and activists. He remained under judicial control for six months until he was tried in June 2018, and a ruling was issued that acquitted him and requested that he not be handed over to the Algerian authorities.
Ghardaia events are not the first
Saleh Bahmani tells that throughout history, the Mozabites were subjected to abuses by the Algerian regime and the Arabists tribes. One year before Algeria's independence, that is, in 1961, the Mozabites were killed by an in Arabist Argelan (the official name is "Ouargla"), and most of the suggestions went that the hidden hand of France was behind the incident, to shuffle the papers after it was certain that it would leave Algeria.
He adds, "In independent Algeria, several attacks took place against the Mozabites, either at the hands of an Arab or at the hands of the Algerian regime. In 1975, during the reign of President Houari Boumediene, the homes of the Mozabites were burned and looted, and there were deaths and injuries. The matter was repeated in 1985 when many were stolen and burned." From the houses, oases and shops of the Mozabites.In 1990 (the beginning of the black decade) attacks took place on the Mozabites of Qasr Brian by Islamists belonging to the Islamic Salvation Front, which led to the fall of a large number of Ibadis.Six years later, a terrorist group killed one of the great Ibadi sheikhs with a group of Mozabites, who is Sheikh Qashar Belhadj.
More recently, in 2004, attacks took place against the Mozabites in the cities of Tigradayt and Tamlecht, without causing significant losses. And four years later, violent confrontations took place between the Mozabites and the Arabists in the city of Brian, in which at least the Mozabites lost their lives, except for the vandalism and burning of many shops, homes and oases.
Bahmani confirms that the Mozabites have suffered from the scourge of the Algerian regime, which uses double standards, especially the local authorities, who deal with clear racism against the Mozabites.
He explains that between 2015 and 2019, four Mozabites died in the prisons of the Algerian regime, namely Ben Sheikh Issa, Kdouh Saleh and the mayor of Brian Baouchi Afari, the last of whom was the well-known fighter Kamal Eddin Fakhar. "All of these died under arrest in Ghardaïa on trumped-up charges and in mysterious circumstances," he says.
Customary councils
The researcher in the history of North Africa, Mustafa Samit, points out that the Mozabite Ibadi community enjoys a distinct way of governance from the rest of the regions in Algeria. It often does not refer to the courts of official authority to resolve disputes and social problems, but rather has traditional customary courts represented in the system of celibacy, guarding, and acquittal.
Bahmani adds that most of these councils are infiltrated by the regime or run by orders from it, and therefore they do not move a finger towards what is happening to the Mozabites, and the Mozabite youth, after these events, lost confidence in these bodies, and began to believe in free struggle or activity within the frameworks of opposition parties and human rights organizations.
Ghardaïa secession from Algeria
Saleh Abouna told: "All my life I was against the idea of secession, but we are fighting in a movement demanding autonomy for our region as it was living for hundreds of years before the establishment of the modern state of Algeria within the framework of a decentralized system. However, our movement is still young and does not have a large base."
As for Bahmani, he considers that Mozabite human rights activists of all walks of life demand respect for the specificities of the Mozabite minority in their language, customs, culture, and sect, and for the local and central authorities to stop dealing with them as if they were non-Algerians.
The Arabists dominate the joints of administration, politics and security, and this is due to the Mozabites’ asceticism in political and administrative work since independence.
Bahmani confirms that "the Mozabites do not pose a threat to the authority and they are peaceful, according to everyone's testimony," but he adds: "There may be a factor that may have increased their repression in recent times, which is the oppositional Amazigh tendency that began to spread among the Mozabites, which in the eyes of the authority seems to be an unforgivable mistake." ".
Source: websites