August 30... International Day of the Amazigh Flag
On August 30 of each year, the Amazigh people celebrate the International Day of the Amazigh Banner or Flag, which brings them together under the banner of a common identity. The flag was officially adopted during the first conference of the “International Amazigh Congress”, CMA, which was held in the Canary Islands in 1997.
On August 30 of each year, the Amazighs of the world celebrate the International Day of the Amazigh Flag in the country of Tamazgha, a flag that is known to be the identity, culture, history, and glory of all the Amazighs of the world wherever they live or travel.
This Amazigh flag, with its three well-known and famous colours, blue, green, then yellow with red in the middle, is found in all demonstrations, celebrations, seminars, and especially protests. It is also raised high in many sporting events, especially football matches. This knowledge is also not absent from all the stages of the struggle of the Amazigh movement and the demonstrations of civil associations and Amazigh human rights organizations.
Referring to the colors of this Amazigh flag, we will find that they have pure symbolic overtones and meanings. Blue represents the sea and ocean and the inhabitants of the coast, green represents nature and the green mountains and represents the inhabitants of the plains and mountains, while yellow represents the land and the desert.
It was officially adopted for the first time by the World Amazigh Congress, a non-governmental organization that includes Amazigh activists from North Africa and the Sahara, which aims to defend Amazigh political, economic, social and cultural rights and constitutionalize cultural identity.
However, the idea of this science appeared many years before the “Tavira” conference in the Canary Islands, on August 30, 1997, specifically until the end of the sixties and the beginning of the seventies of the last century.
These designed the Amazigh flag
Many sources indicate that thinking about a “science that unites the Amazigh” began in the 1970s by the “Berber Academy” in France, which is an Amazigh association founded in 1966 by professors, academics, artists and journalists, most of them from the Algerian Kabylie region, including Mohand and Bedouins in Saud. Tawoos Amroush, Mohamed Arkoun, Abdelkader Rahmani, and Mohannad Saeed Hanouz.
The same sources indicate that one of the academy members, the Amazigh activist, Youssef Madkour, was the one who ordered the sewing of the first 400 Amazigh flags in 1969, which were initially square in shape, before the former head of the “Rally for Culture and Democracy” party, Said Saadi, intervened to suggest The flag should be rectangular.
Other sources also indicate that the Algerian intellectual, Mohand Waarab Bassoud, was the one who produced the Amazigh flag in 1970 and displayed it for the first time before members of the Amazigh Academy in Paris. It was agreed to adopt this flag as a symbol of the Amazigh cause, but it was not very popular in that period. Because of the blackout practiced by the government media in the Maghreb countries.
In addition to the establishment of the Amazigh flag, the “Berber Academy” association worked during that stage, and through its interest in Amazigh symbols, to revive the Tifinagh letter, which is the ancient Amazigh writing language.
During the Amazigh Spring demonstrations in 1980, which followed the banning of a lecture by the writer Mouloud Mammeri, activists carried the Amazigh flag for the first time, which was unknown at the time, and which ended with the Algerian state recognizing Amazigh as a national and official language, based on a previous recognition of the Amazigh dimension, as a comprehensive component. among all Algerians.
This flag did not go beyond the borders of the Kabylie region, to the point that the Amazighs thought that it was a flag that belonged to the Kabylie region in Algeria only, but its official adoption by the Amazigh Congress to represent the Amazighs of the world on August 30, 1997, made it known and circulated in all countries, especially in recent years, especially with the spread of Internet and social networking sites.
Although “the beginning of the spread of knowledge among intellectuals and activists accompanied the beginning of the internationalization of the Amazigh issue in international and international circles, at the beginning of the founding of the World Amazigh Congress in 1995.”
With its adoption as the official flag of the Amazighs, it began to bear three colours, and cultural associations began to use it during their activities and conferences, which strengthened its credibility and the consensus of the Amazighs around the world.
Meaning of the Amazigh flag
Frequent definitions of books related to Amazigh history, and even blog posts by those interested in Amazigh culture, confirm that the colors chosen by Muhannad and the Arabs of Saud symbolize specific dimensions, such that he did not choose them arbitrarily.
Al-Hussein Bouaqoubi, a university professor and researcher in Amazigh culture, confirms that the colors of the flag symbolize the geographical area of “Tamazgha”, that is, the areas where the Amazigh peoples live, extending from the Atlantic Ocean to the Siwa Oasis in Egypt and from the Mediterranean to the Niger River in West Africa.
According to Libyan Amazigh activist Madghis Oumadi, the blue signifies the coasts of the Maghreb region, and the green symbolizes the Amazigh mountains, while the yellow indicates the sands of the Sahara, where the Tuareg Amazighs reside, while the red symbol known to the Amazighs reminds of the blood of the fighters who fell in defense of the cause.
The activists affirm that the Amazigh flag has a cultural and identity nature that unites all Amazighs wherever they are, and embodies the values of “freedom, equality and social justice.” On every occasion, they reaffirm that their four-coloured flag does not conflict with the national flags of every North African country.
Between acknowledgment and criminalization of Amazigh science
Raising the Amazigh flag often raises the ire of the authorities in North African countries, which are inhabited by tens of millions of Amazighs. In 2019, the Algerian authorities arrested dozens of protesters and charged them with raising the Amazigh flag in the demonstrations of the popular movement that hastened the end of the rule of President Abdelaziz Bouteflika.
In Morocco, the Public Prosecutor cited it in a judicial session as evidence of guilt against some of the detainees of the Rif Movement demonstrations that took place in the city of Al Hoceima in northern Morocco in October 2016.
Hussein Bouaqoubi, a university professor and researcher in Amazigh culture, considers that “the Amazigh flag is raised in events that sometimes disturb the authorities, such as demonstrations of a protest nature, as happened in 2011, or in what is known as the events of Al Hoceima, but Morocco has not issued any clear and explicit decision to prevent the raising of the Amazigh flag.”
After decades of oppression and denial, the "flag of Tamazgha" was widely spread in Libya after the fall of Muammar Gaddafi, as the revolutionaries raised it during the revolution and today it is flying high in the Amazigh regions, especially the Nafusa Mountains.
The Moroccan academic explains that "the Amazigh flag does not compete with the national flag and is not a substitute for it. Rather, it is a flag of my identity that symbolizes a specific culture and language that brings together those belonging to the Amazigh race."
Today, the Amazigh flag has crossed the borders of North Africa and the Sahara, as it is raised in global demonstrations by the Amazigh communities, as is happening in a number of European countries and Canada.
Source: websites