Left Wing Moroccan Politician Criticized Over Anti Amazigh Stance

Examining the publication in which Omar Mahmoud Benjelloun rails against festivals celebrated by the Imazighen in southern Morocco—a text I shared yesterday—reveals that Wahhabi religious thought serves as the starting point for this political figure affiliated with the Federation of the Democratic Left.

He did not criticize these events for security, social, economic, or even ethical reasons, but rather for religious motives tinged with ethnic and colonial considerations. These stem from the ideological frames of reference of the national movement, whose positions have always emanated from purely Salafist and nationalist viewpoints.

First: The accusation of paganism leveled against Amazigh festivals

At the outset, our interlocutor informs us of “the appearance of unknown pagan rituals in southern Morocco.”

Notice how this discourse likens festive celebrations to pagan rituals. Indeed, it draws its concepts from Salafist religious thought, which proscribes “paganism” and considers it polytheism. Certain Salafist extremists even go so far as to condemn practitioners of these rites to death, according to well-known jurisprudential considerations.

In this regard, I ask myself: what difference is there between Omar Mahmoud Benjelloun and the Salafist preacher El Hassan Kettani, who heaps opprobrium on everything Amazigh, including the Amazigh New Year?

Second: Associating Amazigh culture with foreign and colonial influences

Omar Mahmoud Benjelloun claims that the practice or promotion of these “pagan rituals” takes place “in the name of ethnic and cultural promotion imposed by foreign influences for thirty years.”

This left-wing figure, formerly a member of the Party of the Vanguard and currently of the Left Alliance, is recycling the very same rhetoric peddled by the national movement in the name of a Salafism that has combated all forms and manifestations of Amazigh culture since the 1930s.

Consequently, he views Amazigh festivals in southern Morocco as externally imposed ethnic promotion bearing exogenous influences—a clear suggestion that those who incited the Imazighen to celebrate in this manner are none other than French colonists (historical colonialism).

This is clearly an explicit accusation leveled against the celebrating Imazighen, assimilating them to a continuation of traitors who, according to this logic, have been executing foreign colonial agendas for thirty years.

Did not their “nationalist and Salafist” ancestors, who negotiated the spoils, already accuse the forebears of today’s Imazighen—who were then entrenched in the mountains fighting—of being traitors under the pretext that colonialism had issued a dahir in 1930?

Third: From cultural celebration to accusations of secessionism

Omar Mahmoud Benjelloun was not content with accusing the Imazighen of paganism, ethnic promotion, and foreign or colonial influences; he went further by attributing separatist tendencies to them.

The end of his publication indeed states:

“The neo-colonial separatist trend, in its dying version, operates by cloaking itself in a cultural guise.”

Thus, this Left Alliance activist completes the circle of accusations forged by the Salafists of the national movement as early as the 1930s, subsequently taken up by Islamists who never cease launching the exact same grievances against the Imazighen.

From a festival of joy, dance, and jubilation practiced by the Imazighen for centuries across the four corners of the Kingdom, this cultural rite is metamorphosed under the pen of this left-wing actor into a condemnable pagan heresy, or at the very least a repugnant custom promoting an “Amazigh ethnicity” that he abhors and fights. It is even portrayed as a colonial legacy aimed at fracturing the Moroccan nation by entrenching separatist tendencies.

All this because young Imazighen celebrated a historic, rooted Moroccan Amazigh festival by dancing, playing music, performing theater, thriving, and injecting cultural and economic vitality into their regions, before breaking their daily routine to return home happy and serene!

Such is the face of extremist religious thought when it takes root in the minds of certain left-wing figures to the point where they can no longer distinguish the dialectical materialism theorized by Karl Marx and his successors from the beliefs of the heirs of Pan-Arab nationalism, who erected pre-Islamic Arab heritage into a religion while proscribing Amazigh heritage.

Fourth: The Left and the Amazigh language between rhetoric and practice

Yet Omar Mahmoud Benjelloun returned in a new media appearance to assert that the fundamental dossiers defended by the Left have always been that of the Moroccan Sahara and that of the Amazigh language.

I shall not enter here into the labyrinth of the Left’s defense of the Moroccan Sahara’s identity, but I will dwell for a moment on the methods of its defense of the Amazigh cause.

When I speak of the Left, I am not targeting all the currents and activists who sincerely believe in progressive values; I count among them friends who defend the Amazigh language and embrace the theses championed by the Amazigh movement.

I am referring here to that segment of the Left that has managed, since 2016, to secure a few seats in the House of Representatives.

I therefore pose the following questions:

What has this Left, to which Omar Mahmoud Benjelloun belongs, actually contributed to the Amazigh language and culture?

Has it ever raised its voice to demand, for instance, that Akhannouch’s government effectively implement the laws promulgated since 2019?

Has it formulated proposals aimed at generalizing the teaching of the Amazigh language, both vertically and horizontally, across all educational establishments?

Has it demanded the expansion of programming on the Tamazight television channel alone, or fought in Parliament to generalize the Amazigh language across all national audiovisual channels and radio stations?

What has this Left done to convince us, as the author claims, that it was the only one to have fought for the Amazigh cause? What has it concretely achieved?!

Fifth: The parliamentary record of the Left on the Amazigh dossier

In a study carried out by Ahmed Arehmouch, an Amazigh activist who closely monitors the government’s implementation of organic laws, it is attested that the new Left—in whose ranks Omar Mahmoud Benjelloun militates—did not table a single oral or written question in Parliament concerning the Amazigh language between 2021 and 2026.

Out of a total of 129 written questions and 67 oral questions, not a single question can be found originating from this Left to which our author belongs!

Furthermore, all the private members’ bills originating from the parliamentary groups in the Lower House during the 2021-2026 legislative term bear no trace of this Left: of the three proposals submitted, not one can be attributed to its ranks.

How can one therefore claim that the struggle for the Amazigh cause was the exclusive preserve of the Left?!

Sixth: The necessity of self-criticism and a revision of ideological frames of reference

What I expect from this Left in particular—since other progressive sensibilities display constructive positions—is that it undertake self-criticism to rid itself of the illusions of Pan-Arab Salafism, that heritage of nationalism whose roots are anchored in the Christian Middle East.

It is vital for this faction to adopt universal human rights values, foremost among which are pluralism, diversity, and the recognition of the cultures and languages of peoples, and then to campaign for these values and their effective consecration within state institutions: in education, the media, administration, and the judiciary.

Failing this, if the Left persists in clinging to its outdated Arab-Islamic frames of reference—which run counter to genuine leftism, human rights, and the emancipation of peoples—it will remain bogged down in its myths and ethnonationalism. Nothing will then distinguish it from the Islamists save for the label, the substance remaining identical: hostility toward the Amazigh language and culture.

Arabic version | French version