Novel - The Return - by Lemon Amspreeth (2/2)
Language and style:
Although events, with their sequence, interdependence, and surprises, are an essential and important element in novel writing, what gives these events beauty, suspense, and more realism is the way they are written and written, given that the novel is not just telling of events that occurred, but rather it is art, creativity, creation of beauty, and excitement of feelings of sublimity. Satisfaction and admiration. This is what we feel and realize when we read Buddy's memoirs, without having any other choice, because the writer is the one who imposes this feeling and perception on us.
If we know that written production in Tamazight is still in its infancy, practiced by “resistors” and “fighters” who are obsessed with the love of Tamazight, and in the absence of school learning for Tamazight writing, then everyone who writes a text in Tamazight is in fact an advanced writer about his time, that is, the school time of Tamazight. As for whoever writes a novel, he will be a creative writer and an inspiring genius. This is true of Mimoun Amspreth, and other pioneers of the Amazigh novel. Without An example of this indirect ban on the use and writing of Tamazight is this article itself. Neither the state nor anyone else prevented me from writing it in the Amazigh language, especially since it concerns the Amazigh language itself. Why didn't I write it in Tamazight? Let's skip the issue that I did not study it in school and do not know how to write it correctly and properly, and we are content with the issue that when I write it in Amazigh, and without anyone interfering to prevent me from doing so, a question arises about where it will be published (not all platforms accept the publication of Amazigh texts) and who will read it. The answer is: a few of the “resistors” and “fighters” who have strong will read it. Thus, we remain in the circle of “voluntarism” that cannot significantly change the situation in favor of Amazighism in the face of the existence of the state. What Amazighism needs today is not the strong will of its lovers and defenders, important as that may be, but the will of the state. This is the vicious circle of Amazigh: There are no readers to whom I can address Amazigh writing, which prompts me to write in Arabic about Amazigh itself. As a result, Amazigh writings, such as the novel, remain without critical follow-up in the Amazigh language itself, which does not contribute to the development and expansion of Amazigh written production. The evocation of the state, regarding the issue of writing and reading the Amazigh language, means that the subject of the Amazigh language is, in its depth, a political issue, linked to the absence of the political will of the state for a serious, real and unified teaching of the Amazigh language, so that not only the language of the “resistors” and “fighters” will remain among its defenders, but The language of the state, which it undertakes to defend and impose through its institutions and administrations.
school supplies, they create, with their passion for An example of this indirect ban on the use and writing of Tamazight is this article itself. Neither the state nor anyone else prevented me from writing it in the Amazigh language, especially since it concerns the Amazigh language itself. Why didn't I write it in Tamazight? Let's skip the issue that I did not study it in school and do not know how to write it correctly and properly, and we are content with the issue that when I write it in Amazigh, and without anyone interfering to prevent me from doing so, a question arises about where it will be published (not all platforms accept the publication of Amazigh texts) and who will read it. The answer is: a few of the “resistors” and “fighters” who have strong will read it. Thus, we remain in the circle of “voluntarism” that cannot significantly change the situation in favor of Amazighism in the face of the existence of the state. What Amazighism needs today is not the strong will of its lovers and defenders, important as that may be, but the will of the state. This is the vicious circle of Amazigh: There are no readers to whom I can address Amazigh writing, which prompts me to write in Arabic about Amazigh itself. As a result, Amazigh writings, such as the novel, remain without critical follow-up in the Amazigh language itself, which does not contribute to the development and expansion of Amazigh written production. The evocation of the state, regarding the issue of writing and reading the Amazigh language, means that the subject of the Amazigh language is, in its depth, a political issue, linked to the absence of the political will of the state for a serious, real and unified teaching of the Amazigh language, so that not only the language of the “resistors” and “fighters” will remain among its defenders, but The language of the state, which it undertakes to defend and impose through its institutions and administrations.
s, this equipment through fictional writing. The absence of Amazigh teaching - I mean serious and real teaching, not false formalism - is what makes Amazigh written production not yet out of the "transitional stage" from oral to writing, with all the accompanying experimentation and continuation of the oral presence in many Amazigh writings that do not differ This is the oral except in the fact that it is written in letters and not uttered in sounds. “But when we read the writer Mimoun Amspreth, we get the impression, but rather a conviction, that his writings are neither a “beginning” nor a “transitional stage” for Amazigh from oral to written, but rather a writing that highlights Amazigh as if it were a language in which writing has been practiced for centuries, as a complete and complete language. , capable of expressing all situations, events, feelings and ideas steeped in abstraction, as a language that is no different from the languages that produced a rich and elegant cultural and literary heritage. […] And the Tamazight in which he writes represents the abstaining plain: it is easy because it is a well-known and circulated Tamazight, but at the same time it is difficult because no one - as it seems - is able to use it in writing in the same wonderful and wonderful way. This is what I wrote (click here) in October 2015 about a collection of his nonfiction texts (he released these stories in 2023 under the title: “Black Water”) and poetry.
In order to bring the reader closer to this beautiful and wonderful style in which Maimon Amspreth writes, I transfer into Arabic, in the following, excerpts from the novel, as examples expressing the writer’s narrative style, with what this transfer requires of “betrayal” of the original Amazigh text, which is not devoid of any translation :
When Badi arrived in Belgium for the first time, the first thing that caught his attention, as a prominent difference between the inhabitants of this country and the inhabitants of Taghazout, was that the former are governed by the “clock” while the latter are governed by the “sun.” In order to express this difference in the perception of time, the writer says: “The inhabitants of this country do not perform their work according to the position of the sun in the sky: even if the day is short (as in winter), the “hour” forces it to be long. . They deduct from the night and increase during the day, like those who deduct from the width to increase the length! In the late hours of the night, you find them filling the metro tunnels: those who get off, those who ride, they trade like ants in its tracks. No one cares about the other, no one looks at the other, no one knows the other” (p. 9). “In Taghazout, life is not divided into sections as in Belgium: a section for work, a section for music, a section for play… What is fragmented in Belgium is an integrated unit in “Taghazout” (p. 10).
- In his first meeting with the nationalists, the writer says, on the tongue of “Badi” in a vivid description of these: “They speak with conviction and burning, their eyes burning as if they were on fire, and in their throats bitterness and persistence” (page 23).
Speaking of jihadists and extremists, he says about them in an expression that summarizes what they aspire to achieve: “They do not consider themselves children of the earth, but rather children of heaven. The earth narrowed them down to the point that they wished to ascend to the sky or bring the heaven down to the earth so that this heaven would be their land, a land not made of dust: the land of true religion, where people are no longer the same people, living by themselves and for themselves” (page 48).
Buddy, as he contemplates the young sheep growing and the robe plant growing, noticed that people, after they no longer practice cultivating the land, see nothing of life (what is alive) except its end, that is, what is ripe and ready for consumption, and they do not see how it arrived to maturity. The writer expressed this by saying: “In Belgium, lamb is not life (what is alive), it is only a lump of meat. Grasshopper is not a plant that grows, it is only food. In Belgium, eyes only see the last stage of life. In “Taghazout” we see life from its beginning to its end” (page 70).
On the occasion of the preparation for the wedding of “Tafsut” and “Massin,” the writer says, in the words of “Badi,” comparing between today’s wedding and the wedding of past years: “No one destroyed the authentic traditional wedding like the heresy of the party caterer traiteur” (page 92). “Today's wedding is supervised by people (meaning the waiters) like the “Makhzaniya” in their clothes that do not resemble those of the wedding guests, their words dry and their faces impudent like the guards of prisoners. Those invited wait for the food to be served to eat and then leave. This is today’s wedding […] In recent years, the “anthem” practiced by those who claim to be true Muslims was added, so they prevented dancing and singing and replaced them with the religious “anthem”, which is performed by singers who come from outside “Taghazout”, in Afghan clothes” (page 93 - 94). “This is how our wedding was before we became different from what we are, before today’s children turned it into a food fair, […] The wedding returned to sitting and eating, and words that fade like foam as soon as it comes out from between the lips. Since we abandoned the traditional, authentic wedding, we dried up the fountain of art, so we became nothing: we left our goods and began to borrow from others” (page 99). “… Today’s wedding is an exhibition of foodstuffs, distributed by waiters who do not speak, who do not know any of the attendees and none of these people know them. They wear uniforms like the clothes of the Makhzen men, their steps are quick as the Makhzen “mahalla” soldiers, like the ones the Makhzen used to send to punish the rebellious tribes. This new “mahalla” is what they call “Traitor” traiteur, it eliminated the solidarity that was the feature of the traditional wedding, silenced the throats (throats of singing), silenced the banadirs, and made the dancers sit, suffocating the breath of the men in their chests. […] We content ourselves with sitting, eating, listening to sounds emanating from a machine that speaks (reciting recorded songs), or to a strange “praise” that they call “the (religious) anthem” (page 101). “… Today’s wedding is an exhibition of foodstuffs, distributed by waiters who do not speak, who do not know any of the attendees and none of these people know them. They wear uniforms like the clothes of the Makhzen men, their steps are quick as the Makhzen “mahalla” soldiers, like the ones the Makhzen used to send to punish the rebellious tribes. This new “mahalla” is what they call “Traitor” traiteur, it eliminated the solidarity that was the feature of the traditional wedding, silenced the throats (throats of singing), silenced the banadirs, and made the dancers sit, suffocating the breath of the men in their chests. […] We content ourselves with sitting, eating, listening to sounds emanating from a machine that speaks (reciting recorded songs), or to a strange “praise” that they call “the (religious) anthem” (page 101). “… Today’s wedding is an exhibition of foodstuffs, distributed by waiters who do not speak, who do not know any of the attendees and none of these people know them. They wear a uniform like the clothes of the Makhzen men, their steps are quick as the Makhzen “mahalla” soldiers like the one the Makhzen used to send to punish the rebellious tribes. This new “mahalla” is what they call “Traitor” traiteur, it eliminated the solidarity that was the feature of the traditional wedding, silenced the throats (throats of singing), silenced the banadirs, and made the dancers sit, suffocating the breath of the men in their chests. […] We content ourselves with sitting, eating, listening to sounds emanating from a machine that speaks (reciting recorded songs), or to a strange “praise” that they call “the (religious) anthem” (page 101). This new “mahalla” is what they call “Traitor” traiteur, it eliminated the solidarity that was the feature of the traditional wedding, silenced the throats (throats of singing), silenced the banadirs, and made the dancers sit, suffocating the breath of the men in their chests. […] We content ourselves with sitting, eating, listening to sounds emanating from a machine that speaks (reciting recorded songs), or to a strange “praise” that they call “the (religious) anthem” (page 101). This new “mahalla” is what they call “Traitor” traiteur, it eliminated the solidarity that was the feature of the traditional wedding, silenced the throats (throats of singing), silenced the banadirs, and made the dancers sit, suffocating the breath of the men in their chests. […] We content ourselves with sitting, eating, listening to sounds emanating from a machine that speaks (reciting recorded songs), or to a strange “praise” that they call “the (religious) anthem” (page 101).
In his description of the bandir strikes during the wedding, which was held in the authentic traditional way, without a party caterer or an “anthem,” the writer says, on the tongue of “Badi”: “The strikes on the bandir for the elderly women were deep, strong, and full, as if they were not emanating from the bandir itself, but rather from the depths of the earth.” We do not only hear it with our ears, but with all our senses.” (page 100).
In his description of the lofty carob tree despite the lack of rain, he says: “The carob tree rising to the sky with its lush leaves as if mocking the drought” (143).
In his talk about the choice of the residents of “Taghazout”, who left it, to be transferred to it upon their death to be buried in it, he says: “Wherever a Taghazout dies away from “Taghazout”, his family transfers his body to be buried in its cemetery. This is what made the tombs of “Taghazout” remain “alive” while everything around them was “dead.” Taghazout is empty of its inhabitants, but its cemeteries are full. The dwellings of Taghazout are falling, but their tombs are standing. The people of “Taghazout” cannot live in it while they are alive, but they return to live in it while they are dead” (page 60)
Who reads Amazigh texts?
I said, above, that whoever writes a text in Tamazight is in fact a writer ahead of his time, i.e. the scholastic time of Tamazight. And I say that whoever reads a text in Tamazight is also ahead of the same school time, because writing and reading are one scholastic process, even if someone who learns to read and write may not write and suffice with reading practice. The first Amazigh writings appeared in the seventies of the last century. Half a century later, there is still no accumulation of Amazigh written production. Why? Because there are no readers for these productions, which means the absence of demand for them. And why? For the absence of Tamazight, once again, from school. That is why the number of readers of Amazigh texts remains a few of the “resistors” and “fighters”, just like the “resistors” and “fighters” who practice writing. This is a dilemma for Amazigh: in order for it to move to the written stage, there must be a reading follow-up to the Amazigh written production. In order for this and that to be achieved, Tamazight must be taught to continue to be reproduced in written use, after its oral use has become unable to guarantee its reproduction across generations, as it was dozens of centuries ago. And the situation is that this teaching - I mean serious and real teaching, not false formalism - is absent. This continues with the absence of Amazigh writing and its reading outside of what is “resistance” and “struggle”.
Even solid will, with what it expresses in terms of “resistance” and “struggle”, and the love and attachment to the Amazigh language, which is strongly present in Amazigh writers and readers, cannot change much of the deteriorating reality of Amazigh, as long as it cannot impose its teaching. appropriately and appropriately. What we forget when we demand, proceeding from a sincere “voluntarism”, the lovers of Tamazight to use it verbally and in writing in all situations and contexts as needed, is that we are not “free” to speak, write and read Tamazight. There is a state that prevents us from practicing that speaking, writing and reading. This prohibition is not practiced directly by this state, such as suppressing anyone who speaks, writes, or reads Amazigh. Rather, this prohibition appears in the fact that state institutions do not use Tamazight, which entails that a citizen who goes to one of these institutions, such as a police headquarters, gendarmerie, or court …, to fulfill some of his purposes and uses Tamazight in his communication with the officials of these institutions, his interests for which he came may be disrupted To that establishment because those employees don't understand what he's saying if they're Dargphone. This is what compels him to use the dialect or the French. So this citizen has been prevented from using his language, only because he cannot obtain what he came for by using the Amazigh language. The same thing applies to writing: whoever writes an application in Tamazight addressed to a municipality in order to obtain a license will not receive an answer, either with a refusal or an approval. Thus, his interests will be disrupted, which will discourage him from the written use of Tamazight for administrative purposes. So he would have been prevented from this use without anyone interfering to exercise this prohibition.
An example of this indirect ban on the use and writing of Tamazight is this article itself. Neither the state nor anyone else prevented me from writing it in the Amazigh language, especially since it concerns the Amazigh language itself. Why didn't I write it in Tamazight? Let's skip the issue that I did not study it in school and do not know how to write it correctly and properly, and we are content with the issue that when I write it in Amazigh, and without anyone interfering to prevent me from doing so, a question arises about where it will be published (not all platforms accept the publication of Amazigh texts) and who will read it. The answer is: a few of the “resistors” and “fighters” who have strong will read it. Thus, we remain in the circle of “voluntarism” that cannot significantly change the situation in favor of Amazighism in the face of the existence of the state. What Amazighism needs today is not the strong will of its lovers and defenders, important as that may be, but the will of the state. This is the vicious circle of Amazigh: There are no readers to whom I can address Amazigh writing, which prompts me to write in Arabic about Amazigh itself. As a result, Amazigh writings, such as the novel, remain without critical follow-up in the Amazigh language itself, which does not contribute to the development and expansion of Amazigh written production. The evocation of the state, regarding the issue of writing and reading the Amazigh language, means that the subject of the Amazigh language is, in its depth, a political issue, linked to the absence of the political will of the state for a serious, real and unified teaching of the Amazigh language, so that not only the language of the “resistors” and “fighters” will remain among its defenders, but The language of the state, which it undertakes to defend and impose through its institutions and administrations.
Source: websites