?"I will not speak your language"... Why do Moroccan Amazighs refuse to speak Arabic
“I will only speak to you in my own language”; What if you were told this sentence? What would be your reaction? In fact, we have to expect anything in a time of increasing levels of racism, populism, and extremist rhetoric; But what if the matter is not motivated by doses of racism, but rather by a "spontaneous" behavior emanating from a person who is madly in love with his mother tongue?
But, is attachment to the mother tongue, to an extent that does not accept negotiation, racism? Perhaps this may happen to some Amazighs in southeastern Morocco, so do we also consider this “spontaneous” behavior really racist? Are the Amazighs in the margins of Morocco really fanatical, as we can hear about them among their traditional opponents who believed in the idea of “Arab nationalism”?
Saeed: We did not accept the history of "Arabization".
Blood does not turn into water for Said (28 years old), an Amazigh activist, as he believes that "the Amazigh relationship with blood and soil still resists the siege, and resists these value shifts that are taking place in the world. Whoever hears this will think that it is a reference to the past, but it only reflects a loud appeal within the framework of what is known as 'cultural security'. Modernity does not kill any language unless its people assassinate it and exaggerate its value and anthropological importance." Sociology and semiology. None of us saw reality in isolation from the extensions of language. Here, Saeed goes on: "Nevertheless, there are many questions about this way in which the Amazigh language is almost receding today. We do not forget, of course, that the national history of the Amazighs has been subjected to horrific falsification."
When Said spoke to us, he insisted not to go too far, and decided to mention the example of the Amazigh tribes that fought French and Spanish colonialism to liberate Morocco. It means that the Moroccan linguistic policy has been damaged due to the political sensitivities that harbored some kind of grudge against the Amazigh culture.
Today, our interlocutor says: "The Istiqlal Party (the largest Moroccan party historically), has domesticated its violent stance towards the Amazigh language, and has become one of the most vocal defenders of it. I mean, whoever believes that the Amazighs by defending their identity are racists, is taking a position outside of history. Yes, when I am in my town Tinghir, I only hear Amazigh, and this makes me feel stable, but at the same time we fear that other languages will become equally flourishing in these traditional Amazigh regions. Here is Tamazight and we would like to teach it to guests who wish to do so.”
There is no problem for Said in speaking other languages with those who do not speak Amazigh, as they also communicate in dialect in their daily life, and "this reflects the richness and diversity in us as Moroccans," as he put it. Then he goes on to say: "We want others to learn our language, so we can communicate with them through their language to correct all the inaccuracies about us, and this is how we can endear them to our culture and our language. As for refusing to communicate with them in a language other than Amazigh, this is something that only a few of us attend."
What about the speaker of a language other than Amazigh; Why does he implicitly insist on making my culture and language whiter, and he ?promises me the one who is required to speak exclusively in his language
According to Saeed, the problem is not with society, or with the Moroccan who does not speak our language but shares the same fate, whims, desires and dreams, but with the state that betrayed most of its promises. This weakness experienced by the Amazigh language in the public space and in public policies is an inevitable result of the late pace in implementing the official character of the Amazigh language (which the 2011 constitution brought). We now find Amazigh families, including children who speak only Arabic, because the societal contexts in some regions do not encourage speaking the language of the ancestors.
Saeed concludes: "The Amazigh in this situation is required to adapt to the new context, while when we ask the visitor to adapt to our language, they see it as racist and arrogant, although we do not demand that by force, or force anyone to learn our language, but rather we try to integrate him in order to transcend the boundaries of the language. Some see this as racism, although I do not know the standards that this scholar thinks of."
Lahcen: We are just fortifying our Amazigh language
Hassan (25 years old) does not hesitate to admit that he prefers to speak Amazigh rather than any other language, because he feels a sense of belonging, according to him, before adding in a broken Amazigh accent: They ask me to speak Arabic, why would I have to make that effort to appear in the language of the other? What about the speaker of a language other than Amazigh; Why does he implicitly insist on making my culture and language whiter, and he promises me the one who is required to speak exclusively in his language? Yes, sometimes I only communicate in Tamazight. This impedes the process of communication, but I only fortify my culture and language, and protect them from extinction. I do not see any sense in keeping our language confined to the family and the "tribe".
Lahcen says, in his statement to Raseef22, that those who consider Tamazight as a dialect only and not worthy of learning are the ones who take a projective and racist stance. Rather, he tries to break our psychological bonds with our language, and simply wants to destroy our right to belong. He says to me in principle: If you do not speak Arabic, or Darija, then do not continue, and I say the same thing, unannounced, from my point of view. Like others, I would like my culture to become a vital element in all my daily details. I would like, consequently, for everyone to absorb this culture. I do not deny any other culture, and I respect all cultures. Moroccans' lack of proficiency in Amazigh is an educational problem, and before that it was an ideological one.
He who considers Amazigh as a dialect only and does not deserve learning is the one who takes a projective and racist position. Rather, he tries to break our psychological bonds with our language, and simply wants to destroy our right to belong
Lahcen believes that the dilemma transcends linguistic boundaries, since it is a defense of the continuity of the Amazigh language. He says: "I have no problem with the Arabic language or any other language, but I like that insistence on speaking my language. It is not my fault if the other party in the communication process does not know my language, and it is not my fault that I do not speak his language fluently. There are indeed Moroccans who only know Amazigh only: Is their stigmatization also correct with racism? It seems that the situation perpetuates clear discrimination against the Amazighs in public spaces, let us count, for example, the number of officials who make statements in the Amazigh language." Oh, they are very rare at a time when Tamazight is a constitutional language.
Zahra: Love for Amazigh women is not racist
Zahra, an Amazigh activist in the Amazigh cultural movement within the multidisciplinary college in the city of Errachidia, a city with a majority of Berber tongues, does not consider "the lack of communication with non-Amazigh as racist, as much as it is jealousy over a culture that they are trying to castrate and fertilize other languages in order for it to be an inevitable destiny on the horizon of all Moroccans. We know that the Amazigh language has been hijacked by ideological and political groups and has been thrown into labyrinths that harm the Amazighs "Because of fallacies and misunderstandings, they call us 'chauvinists', even though all ethnic minorities in the world defend their ethnic and cultural rights in order to be recognized. The interesting thing is that in Morocco we are not a minority, and our motto has always been unity in diversity."
The High Commission for Planning (an official institution) stated earlier that about a quarter of the Moroccan population are the only ones who maintain speaking Amazigh.
The speaker, who hails from the Amazigh city of Guelmima, did not deny, during her interview with Raseef22, that "sometimes I ask someone to communicate with me in the Amazigh language, and not to communicate with me in another language. This is madness, but it is a purely psychological work that gives me a feeling that I do not want to escape. I feel that I speak letters that resemble me, and words that reflect me and simulate everything that is going on inside me." Zahra adds: "Amazigh is all I know. It pains me very much this analogy that was arbitrarily set for the Amazigh language in the daily life of Moroccans. For example, Amazigh has become an official language according to the 2011 constitution, along with the Arabic language, and we see the letters of Tifinagh on facades, buildings, signs... etc. However, its presence in the diaries of Moroccans in general is still faltering."
Zahra says with a clear burn in her voice: “It makes us angry that the Moroccan state has broken all its promises, and even the integration of the Amazigh language lessons into the educational system has stagnated, and has not witnessed development despite all the slogans. This situation threatens our language with extinction and fading, which generates an emotional reaction in us, not always stemming from sanity and discipline, but it satisfies us; it is not to communicate in a language other than our language.” The language dies when it loses its natural speakers, so how did this language continue to this day when it is not taught? Simply because the ancestors created a communication system that can only be done through it. But today, with the Internet, the load is on us young people.
It is not a matter of denying other languages, according to Zahra, and it is not a matter of a belief in ethnic or linguistic superiority, but rather a protectionist strategy only. That is why the spokeswoman says: "When we carry the Amazigh flag, this is not separation or transgression of our Moroccan identity (belonging to Morocco), or the Moroccan values that are inherent in us. We consider this diversity to be the origin of the open identity of the Moroccan self.
Let us recall, in the end, that the High Commissioner for Planning indicated earlier that only about a quarter of the population of Morocco maintain speaking Amazigh, so the Amazigh considered that their mother tongue has lost two-thirds of its speakers in the last fifty years.
Response: This post was published in the Raseef 22 forum, accusing the Amazighs of eastern Morocco of racism. The mere fact that an individual from the region answered him with the phrase: “I will only speak to you in my language.”
Before writing the post, its owner had to investigate objectivity and try to find out the reason, or at least ask the owner of this behavior, what was the motive that made him refuse to speak Arabic? So that we can find out if this person is really a racist or a victim of racism that he was exposed to previously?
The Amazigh issue, in its simple and uncomplicated sense, is the issue of a people who live in their land and not the land of others. He has a culture different from others, and history testifies to him that he did not invade a country for the love of money and colonialism, but rather fought in defense of his land. Today, however, he is being subjected to extermination on his land, and all this in the name of religion by a people who came as guests for the first time, and then applied the colloquial proverb that says "hold on until you are able." So they established their state on the land of the Amazighs by exploiting religion, of course, and urging the Amazighs to take care of the sky, because the world is mortal, while they cared about the land, so that the Amazighs, when they raised their heads from prostration, found their land attributed to the East, and their goods and daughters to the East, and they found that half of their brothers had expressed his tongue. The rest is moving towards Arabization, which is followed, of course, by the French
The right is not given, rather it is taken by force..and we are now in the process of requesting that force has not yet been used..and the pan-Arabist movement created by the Arab ideology is against you. ..And your brother is the one who learned your language and defended your rights. He is not the one who takes from you or stands against your right. We were not enemies or grudges against the Arabs. Rather, they are the ones who taught us hatred, hatred and racism. We derived it from them through their racism towards us. Who was the first in the land of his ancestors, us or them? He who has no past in North Africa has no future in it.
We learned the Arabic language better than its people and mastered its grammar that they are not aware of. There are Amazigh teachers and teachers who specialize in the Arabic language, writers and poets... Is there a single Arab who learned the Amazigh language or encouraged teaching it or tried to do so? Rather, they announced dirty campaigns against teaching the Amazigh language to their children. Your Arab neighbor lives next to your house all his life and has not learned Tamazight.. A foreigner comes in less than a year to master it in conversation and writing, which we do not know about because it was forbidden to us by the Arabs and Arab regimes. Evidence for this is the Finnish singer Stina Pharaem, after the distance, but she excelled in chanting tribal and Shawian songs in an extraordinary performance..and they still say we are racists, is it to elude us or to mock us and make us foolish..Enough, enough hypocrisy, for you are the most powerful in it.
Arabization is a barbaric act that is practiced only by mobs who know nothing about humanity and do not understand anything in linguistics.. Their goal is to change God’s creation by force from the Creator with a religious justification
The Arabs say that the Amazigh language is not a language of science, and I do not know how they drew these conclusions? As if the language of the Arabs thanks to it has been access to Mars! The Arabs are the ones who fought the Amazighs by issuing their racist fatwas and imposed restrictions on them for 14 centuries, then he tells you with all the insolence of the language of caves, and they are the ones who prevented the Amazighs from entering the school institution. This institution, without which it is impossible for any language to grow and develop, and then blame you, why is your language not a language of science? His example is like someone who imprisons a person and ties his limbs with shackles, then throws him into the sea and asks him why don't you swim?
Real racism is that you attribute our people to another people on another continent, transcending ethnic, genetic, linguistic, intellectual differences, customs and traditions.
What???.. Why do you accuse me of racism???
Is it because I am defending my land and my identity, or is it because I am against the idea of the Arabist obliteration of my homeland, or is it because I am defending the legacy of my Amazigh ancestors, or is it because I say that North Africa is Amazigh... Or is it when I say I am Amazigh and I am proud.!!!..
If this is racism in your view, then know that I will be a racist in blood and marrow