Amazighs in Tunisia.. Families trying to preserve a heritage "threatened with extinction"
The Amazigh speaking community in Tunisia represents less than 5% of the population. They are part of a millennia-old ethnic group living in North Africa.
The few families still living in the mountains or speaking the Amazigh language in Tunisia are trying to preserve a heritage often ignored by national history. Lilia Blaise and Hamdi Telili went to southern Tunisia to meet families trying to pass on Amazigh traditions and customs to their children.
For 14 centuries, a dirty cultural war has been waged against the Amazigh people against their identity, which God has bestowed upon them.
His Amazigh language was marginalized, and he was prevented from teaching, speaking, and administrative dealings. Amazigh names were banned from circulation, and all of this was fabricated by religious justifications.
Tunisians are Amazigh Muslims, not Arabs. What unites them with Arabs is language only, and language does not indicate identity. For example, Argentina speaks Spanish, but its identity is not Spanish. Senegal speaks French, and its identity is African. Brazil speaks Portuguese, but its identity is not Portuguese.... The United States of America speaks English And her identity is not English. Nigeria speaks English, and her identity is not English, but African.
And more than that, it does not link them with the Arabs, no history, no geography, no culture, no customs, and no traditions, except with regard to the Islamic religion, which is a religion for the worlds and not for the Arabs. Tunisians are Amazighs, and they have a great history to be proud of
Most of the population of Tunisia descends from Amazigh origins (Berbers) and mainly from the Hawara tribe, such as Jellas, Ayyar, Salat, Farashish, Urba (residents of the lwaten el-kabli) in the north, Hammam and Nammamsha in the center and Zanata and Nafzawa in the south. The Amazigh language was the language of the state until the borders of the Almohad era, where The countries that ruled were from Amazigh families until Tunisia was annexed to the Ottoman Empire, and from there Arabization began in the state, which was reflected in the language of the people, which began to be gradually Arabised. Today, what is called the dialect appeared and was left in a small capacity in the coastal cities (Safsari), while the rest of the people preserved their Amazigh dress. (Al-Barnus, Al-Qashabiyya, Al-Kadron, Al-Miliya, Al-Khalal, ...)
In the same period, we note the Tunisian people’s preservation of the Amazigh music in the Kasbah with its Amazigh rhythms, similar to that in Algeria or Zakra, as is the case in Libya. A massacre against them and their expulsion from their land. Dr. Abd al-Wahed al-Makni detailed this incident in his book. This was the case until the beys handed over Tunisia to France, and its capabilities penetrated more in Tunisia, to areas that the Bey could not reach, so it set up administrative and public facilities and in its dealings with the people, it was before it as for their education. French or teaching them Arabic, so I used one of the two solutions, depending on the case. After colonialism, the colonial states granted rule in North Africa to Arab nationalist regimes (their thought is based on the Arabization of everything), so they worked on assigning tribes to the Arabian Peninsula and changing or distorting the names of the regions to give them an Arabic weight..., for Tunisia, Bourguiba was not national in itself, but it was under Their pressure, his concern was education, so they took advantage of his desire and ability for their goal of Arabizing minds to the extent that he was a primary teacher who had to be nationalistic thinking being in direct contact with children
Source: websites