Amazigh spring of April 20. Echo in Libya. By Fethi n Khelifa*
In April 1980, I was a 17 year old high school student in Zwara. We were young people passionate about the Amazigh identity. Our enthusiasm was inspired and nourished by the songs of Idir, Ait-Menguellet and Djurdjura as well as the rare publications that hardly reached us from time to time with the risks that this implied for whoever owned or distributed them. The reign of despotic Arabism of Gadafi denied any existence of Amazighity on earth.
ardor in terror
Kabylie was the Qibla of all followers of the Amazigh identity. A few of us, few in number, were able to visit it very discreetly. Despite the difficulties of communication and the little news we had, some of us managed to follow its news and even find out about the results of the matches of the Jeunesse Sportif de Kabylie, the JSK that we supported and of which we were our pride.
Via the radio waves of the outside media and through certain contacts with our friends abroad, we had received the news of the April 20 uprising and its aftermath. We were very proud and indignant at the same time. Proud of the heroism of our brothers at the University of Tizi Ouzou and the rest of Kabylia and outraged by the abuses of a repressed Arabist military regime; similar to what we were experiencing in Libya.
We did not grant any credit to the media of the Gaddafi regime permanently treating the events in Algeria either by the blackout or by the distortion of realities. For months, we were on the lookout for facts and repercussions of the activities of the University of Tizi-Ouzou thanks to Amazigh friends from North African countries. Much later, we were able to piece together the full picture of the April 20 uprising. Personally and for many young people of my generation, it was a real turning point. It was the beginning of a real awareness of what our rights should be in a country entirely dominated by an Arabist and tyrannical military regime. It was the major spark of our determination to continue the fight for the promotion of our identity, whatever the cost.
Duty of solidarity
This is how we celebrated April 20 every year in secret gatherings in the Amazigh regions of Libya. On the occasion of these commemorations, some of us visited Kabylie, sometimes being arrested and expelled from Algeria by agents of the military authorities.
We knew that the struggle of the Algerian people against tyranny, arbitrariness and decay has not ceased and will not cease throughout history. For us, April 80 is one of the stations of this glorious journey that the Amazighs wrote in letters of blood and light in the continuation of the struggle of our ancestors, our fathers and our mothers, from Massinissa, Jugurtha, Dyhia to the hero martyr Matoub Lounes. These benchmarks continue, to this day, to trace the history of militancy and resistance against the domination and despotism of dictatorial military regimes for a democratic and plural Algerian nation in which justice and equality reign.
Brothers of Algeria, our country, you have our support, backing and are our pride. You are not and will not be alone in your fight against one of the most despicable regimes marked by corruption, ignorance and repression which is beating down all our countries.
Together we are the same fist that will strike the military militias, the mercenaries of Arab nationalism and Islamist terrorism. We all suffer from the same ailment. Our regular commemoration of April 20 for more than three decades across all the territories of North Africa is the demonstration of our loyalty to the martyrs of freedom and the affirmation of our cohesion and determination to continue forever the eternal struggle, on each span of the territory of Tamazgha, until the restoration of right and sovereignty to the owners of this land.
We are proud and loyal to our common cause.
Tribute to the martyrs of Tamazgha. All our support for the resistance fighters languishing in the prisons of the generals' regime.
*Former President of the Amazigh World Congress, CMA. President of the Mother Libya “Libou” party
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