Amazigh in the Speech of August 20, 2021

The royal speech addressed to the Moroccan people on August 20, 2021, on the 68th anniversary of the Revolution of the King and the People, aroused, as is known, particular interest among activists of the Amazigh movement. This particular interest is due to the fact that the speech:

— recalls that Morocco is “an ancient state, spanning more than twelve centuries, in addition to its long Amazigh history”. Many activists of the Amazigh movement praised this, as their writings and analyses on the subject show, stressing that the speech’s emphasis on the long Amazigh history is another official recognition of Morocco’s Amazigh character by the country’s highest authority.

— contains the phrase “Union of the Arab Maghreb”, which could be read as a return to the old name that excluded Amazigh, and that the 2011 Constitution abolished by using “Maghreb Union” and “Greater Maghreb” in its place. So that there would be no contradiction between recognizing “the long Amazigh history” and the phrase “Arab Maghreb”, which grants the Maghreb states only their “Arab” belonging, some Amazigh writers made an effort, with a certain originality in justification and reasoning, to convince that there is no contradiction at all, explaining that the phrase “Union of the Arab Maghreb” belongs to the historical context in which it was used when the “Union of the Arab Maghreb” was founded (February 17, 1989) under the name that was then given to it as its official designation. The name therefore does not refer to today’s Morocco, which removed it from its new Constitution.

In truth, the phrase “Arab Maghreb” in the speech, unless we link it to the phrase “long Amazigh history” that precedes it, has no importance at all that would deserve analysis and discussion. It has none because, whatever intentions may be attributed to it, it does not in itself represent a real problem at all. What constitutes the real problem in the speech for Amazigh, and makes the phrase “Arab Maghreb” a problem too, is the phrase “long Amazigh history” of the Moroccan state that appears in the speech, and that defenders of Amazigh received with much acclaim and praise, as already noted. Why is this reminder, within the royal speech, of the long Amazigh history of the Moroccan state a problem for Amazigh?

If we stop at the phrase “its long Amazigh history”, detached from what precedes it, as some Amazigh activists did, we can only commend and welcome it, because it is a clear recognition of the Amazigh history of the Moroccan state. But if we place the phrase in the context of the paragraph in which it appears, as the rules of discourse analysis require, it will carry another meaning and another purpose that may not please those who welcomed it and saw in it a recognition of the Amazigh history of the Moroccan state. Let us read the paragraph so that we can understand its words and phrases in relation to one another: “Morocco is targeted because it is an ancient state, spanning more than twelve centuries, in addition to its long Amazigh history…”. What do we observe, what do we understand and what do we conclude?

— Recognizing the long Amazigh history of the Moroccan state is nothing new, nor even of great importance. Why? Because even the fiercest Amazigh-phobes, who reject Amazigh and fight it, admit that Morocco was Amazigh in its ancient history. The proof is that the authors of the history syllabuses of the period just after independence, who were masters of Amazigh-phobia since they were men of the “National Movement” or its pupils, acknowledged in the history lessons they set that “the Berbers are the first inhabitants of Morocco”, as everyone knows. Their history can therefore only be a history of the “Berbers”. I draw attention here to the fact that the discussion of the phrase “its long Amazigh history” is not a reply to the royal speech that contains it, but to some of those who claim to stand for Amazigh and who saw in that phrase an important “breakthrough” for Amazigh.

— But what determines the meaning and purpose of this phrase is not the phrase itself but what precedes it, namely “spanning more than twelve centuries”. The Amazigh history of the Moroccan state, if it is long, is long for the period before twelve centuries ago. That is why the phrase “its long Amazigh history” comes detached from what precedes it, to distinguish this Amazigh history from the history that begins twelve centuries ago, with the use of the word “in addition”, which indicates that the history of the twelve centuries is added to another, different history, the Amazigh history. What is understood from this is that the long Amazigh history has no continuity in the present, but stopped more than twelve centuries ago, so that another, non-Amazigh, history began. That is why, if the text had said, without mentioning “twelve centuries”, that “Morocco is an ancient state with a long history”, without even using the word “Amazigh”, that would have been better for Amazigh than the present text, which mentions the Amazigh history but as an independent history prior to the history of the last twelve centuries.

— So the source of the problem in this paragraph containing the phrase “Amazigh history” is the phrase “twelve centuries” that precedes it. Why? Because saying that the Moroccan state spans more than twelve centuries, and not ten, twenty or thirty…, means in the popular and cultural consciousness, and even the academic one, as a result of the Arabization that distorts history and falsifies the facts of the past, one thing only: that the present Moroccan state is the continuation of the state founded by Idris I, the Arab of noble lineage, as the legendary official history repeats. And if this present Moroccan state is the continuation of the state founded more than twelve centuries ago, that is, the one established by Idris I the “noble” Arab, as the official myth says, it means that it is an Arab state and not an Amazigh one. This is a clear exclusion of Amazigh, politically, in terms of identity and in history (before twelve centuries ago).

— Only now, having understood what the phrase “twelve centuries” means for the state’s identity, belonging and history, is it easy for us to understand why the speech used the phrase “Union of the Arab Maghreb”, even once. That this Maghreb is “Arab” is thus fully consistent with the region’s history and identity-belonging since the “twelve centuries”.

— Yes, it is true that the entry of Islam into Amazigh lands inaugurated a new stage in the history of Morocco. The Idrisid state, if that name must be used, should therefore have been regarded as the first Amazigh Islamic state in Morocco. The reminder that the Moroccan state spans more than twelve centuries would then mean that state, Amazigh in its identity and Islamic in its religion, and not the Arab state built on the myth of “noble lineage”, which legendary, mythical and racist history has made into a quasi-obvious truth that is not discussed.

— What is therefore understood and concluded from this recognition of Amazigh history, in the form that separates it from the history of Morocco for the last twelve centuries, as we explained, is that it is a recognition of the Amazigh existence in the past, without that meaning recognition of that existence in the present. But Amazigh’s problem is the problem of its current reality, not of its past, whether that past was glorious or backward. The recognition Amazigh needs is its written use as a language of the state and its institutions, with what that requires of compulsory and unified teaching, serious and real, in implementation of its official character, serious and real, not formal and symbolic. This is the only solution that guarantees its school and written reproduction, and that reproduction is by itself the precondition for saving it from the death that threatens it.

All the activists who defend Amazigh are aware that it is a political cause and that doing it justice needs a political decision, as shown by the fact that all the gains it has made, within the “new Berber policy”, came through political decisions. Hence many of these activists call on their peers to take part in politics to help make decisions in favor of Amazigh, with a view to truly activating its official character, and to work on its development and rehabilitation, as language, culture, identity and history. If this is true, and it is, the effect of the decisions that such participation may produce will nonetheless be confined to the field of “small politics” and will not touch the field of “grand politics” reserved to the Palace (see the article: “The Small Politics to Thwart the Arabization of Amazigh After Abandoning Its Makhzenization“).

It is known that strategic decisions in Morocco are made by “grand politics”, that is, by the royal institution, with the king’s advisers and closest aides. If we know that Amazigh has no presence among these advisers and closest aides, not in the sense of people who belong to Amazigh and speak it, but in the sense of people convinced that Morocco is an Amazigh state in its identity, we will understand why the royal speech separated two periods in the history of the Moroccan state: a long Amazigh history before twelve centuries ago, and a history that begins with those twelve centuries, as explained above. This limited recognition of Amazigh history is indeed consistent with the “new Berber policy”, which recognizes Amazigh within the limits that do not touch the state’s “Arabist constants”. There is no doubt that this limited recognition is not the king’s personal conviction, but that of those of his closest aides who helped draft the speech. That is why Amazigh’s absence, in the form I have set out, from the royal circle where strategic decisions are made, such as those relating to the state’s ideological constants, leaves it living a real political exclusion, like an orphan with no one to defend and support it.

Even so, the arrival of Amazigh’s defenders in local, regional, legislative and government decision-making posts, in the field of “small politics”, through political participation, remains an opportunity to pass laws supporting Amazigh. In future this may lead, if the balance of political forces changes in Amazigh’s favor as a result of the same political participation by its supporters, to Amazigh having a presence within the field of “grand politics”, especially since Amazigh, as is known, does not threaten the Palace’s authority, does not work to weaken it and poses not the slightest danger to it. That is why the Palace will not object to Morocco being an Amazigh kingdom with an entirely Amazigh history, as long as that does not touch the foundations of Morocco’s system of government or the powers of the king as head of state and its supreme representative, symbol of the unity of the nation and guarantor of the state’s permanence and continuity (Article 42 of the Constitution).

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