The Amazigh World Assembly protests against the American television channel for treating the Moroccan football team as an “Arab” team
The president of the World Amazigh Assembly, Rachid Raha, sent a letter to the director general of the American channel Al-Hurra, due to “the editorial line of the channel and its website, which practices racial discrimination and contradicts the historical, identity and cultural reality of Morocco”.
Here is the full text of the letter :
To the honorable director general of al-Hurra TV channel
Subject : The editorial line of the al-Hurra television channel and its website practice racial discrimination against Imazighen/Berbers and contradict the historical and cultural reality of multicultural Morocco.
Azul, kind regards,
Mr. Director General
We have already, within the Amazigh World Assembly, written to local and international television channels regarding their use of ethnic, discriminatory and racist terms in their treatment of Maghreb affairs, or when our national football team achieves a similar victory to the one that recently occurred at the “World Cup in Qatar”. Unfortunately, these are the same terms that we are witnessing once again during the ongoing Africa Cup in Ivory Coast, in total disregard of the historical, geographical, even constitutional and legal realities of the country.
However, what surprised us was the persistence of the “Al-Hurra” television channel and its website in using these racial, discriminatory and reductive terms of the historical and geographical reality and the human composition of Morocco. and North African countries in general, such as: “Arab Maghreb”, “the Arab national team”, “the Arab people” etc. Your editorial line therefore contributes to perpetuating the forced ideological Arabization of Morocco and Moroccans, through the use of these racial terms, and locks Morocco, known for its cultural and linguistic diversity and its mosaic, into the “crucible of 'Arabism".
Mr. Director General,
Allow us to share with you the principle that one of the qualities a journalist must possess is to tell the “truth” and nothing but the truth. Unfortunately, your editorial line has completely failed in this area. He did not tell the truth about the historical facts revealed by the results and conclusions of years of research carried out by the scientific team supervised by two famous archaeologists, the Frenchman Jean-Jacques Hublin and the Moroccan Abdelwahed Bennacer, who proven that the origin of Homo sapiens, Europeans, Asians, Africans and Americans is found in Adrar n Ighud, 70 km from Marrakech, in the heart of Amazigh/Berber Morocco.
He also ignored the Moroccan Constitution, which recognizes the cultural and linguistic diversity of Moroccans, and which explicitly states in its preamble that Morocco is part of the “Great Maghreb” and not the “Arab Maghreb”, as you are accustomed to mentioning. in all your newsletters, and various other topics and events dealing with Moroccan and Maghreb affairs.
Therefore, we kindly ask you, Mr. Director General, to do everything possible to persuade the officials and journalists of your honorable network to correct these hurtful terms and use realistic terms, which are far from ideological tendencies and who do not encourage the bankruptcy of the "politics of Arab nationalism", to the detriment of scientific objectivity and historical truth, and to urge them to avoid the expressions "Arab Maghreb" or "Arab Spring" or "Team Arab National” (*) which are exclusionary and discriminatory terms, against the millions of indigenous citizens of Morocco and North Africa.
We believe it is right to respect the cultural and linguistic rights that the American administration defends, and to replace these expressions either with "Great Maghreb", or simply with the geographical name "North Africa", and for the team Moroccan national team, as a Moroccan-African national team, participating in the African Cup, which takes place on the African continent and not in the Arabian Peninsula or in Asia where certain Arab countries participate.
The Arabization of the Moroccan national team, which has many Amazigh/Berber players in its ranks, is considered exclusion, discrimination, falsification and distortion of facts. We therefore believe that you can abandon these racial and discriminatory terms, as you do for example on your media platform "Maghreb Voices", which we consider to be more realistic and more precise in respecting the cultural and linguistic specificity of the countries of origin. North Africa.
While awaiting your kind response, please accept our utmost gratitude and respect.
Rachid RAHA – President of the Amazigh World Assembly
The first victory for the Arabs.. Morocco reveals its teeth in the African Cup of Nations