Unity in diversity or diversity in unity?

Since the “Agadir Charter” of the Amazigh associations proclaimed, on 05/08/1991, the formula “unity in diversity”, this has become one of the central principles of the Amazigh movement, and a slogan of its own, adopted by all its currents, factions and associations. And like all principles and slogans around which there is consensus, this idea (“unity in diversity”) has turned into a truth that everyone accepts as a self-evidence that admits neither discussion nor question. But with a little analysis of the meanings and content of this principle/slogan, we will discover that it is contrary, in many respects, to the goals and demands of the Amazigh movement itself, which raised this principle to use it in defending its demands.

The background of the principle and its fate:

— This principle/slogan does not express a spontaneous and positive initiative, resulting from a position that would translate the convictions and choices of the Amazigh movement. That is, it is not an action, but a mere reaction against the other, the “non-Amazigh”, opposed to Amazigh demands, who accuses these demands of threatening national unity. That is why this principle, as a reaction to the action that rejects Amazigh and excludes it because of the danger it represents to unity according to the authors of this action, is a defensive position addressed to those who reject and oppose Amazigh to reassure them by showing that the latter, even if it falls within the framework of diversity contrary to unity, does not pose a danger to this unity, because recognition of this diversity, that is, recognition of Amazigh, will be exercised within this unity, according to its conditions and within the scope of its limits and constants.

— This principle assumes as an accepted matter, to establish the legitimacy of diversity, that diversity is the first, natural and original given. As for unity, it is something built at a later stage, to frame and regulate this diversity and have it practiced within the limits and conditions of that unity. Which is incorrect, as we will show later.

— This principle implicitly endorses the position opposed to Amazigh, which holds that recognizing the diversity Amazigh represents threatens the unity that Arabism and Islam represent. That is why this principle defends diversity first, as an entry point and condition for defending Amazigh second.

— This principle entrenches the popular idea, common among the transformed Moroccans, that is, the counterfeit Arabs, that the Imazighen form a minority demanding recognition as a part (minority) of the multiple and varied components of Moroccan identity.

Despite all these reproaches, it must be acknowledged that proclaiming this principle/slogan (unity in diversity) in August 1991 represented great boldness and a great challenge given the context hostile to Amazigh at that date, and the hegemony of the single Arabist tendency that denied any diversity and plurality in identity, culture and language in Morocco.

But with the passing of days, and with the expansion of the Amazigh movement in quantity and quality, this principle came to impose itself, not only on the Amazigh movement that was behind its appearance, but even on the opponents of Amazigh who rejected any linguistic and identity diversity in Morocco outside the single Arab-Islamic one. Thus today the principle of “unity in diversity”, which the Amazigh movement created to defend with it the legitimacy of its demands before those accusing it of division, fragmentation and partition, has become a principle adopted even by the parties that only yesterday were hostile to Amazigh and saw in it a threat to unity and a revival of the lie of the “Berber Dahir”; they even brandish it, as a principle indicating moderation and the middle way, against those they call “Amazigh extremists”, and call on them to abide by this principle to preserve unity within diversity. One can say, regarding many official statements on recognizing Amazigh, that they repeat, one way or another, this principle, until the “plural identity” of Morocco, which is the other formula derived from this principle, has become a postulate not discussed, and turned into a constitutional “truth” after paragraph 2 of the preamble of the 2011 Constitution consecrated it, describing the national identity as “one and indivisible, forged by the convergence of its Arab-Islamic, Amazigh and Saharan-Hassani components, nourished and enriched by its African, Andalusian, Hebraic and Mediterranean tributaries”.

If Arabist and official parties adopt this principle (unity in diversity) and use it even against a part of the Amazigh movement, it is because it does not demand more than recognition of Amazigh as a part (only a part) of the varied components of the collective identity of the Moroccan people, with full respect for unity, which Arabism and Islam implicitly represent, as a precondition for recognizing this Amazigh component (part).

What is prior and original, unity or diversity?

This calls for correcting this principle and reconsidering it, not because its content makes Amazigh a mere part of the whole, but because it rests on an idea that is mistaken from the start, contrary to the truth of Amazigh’s situation and the reality of diversity in Morocco.

We have said that this principle assumes as a postulate that diversity is the original, first and natural given. As for unity, it is something built afterwards to regulate and organize this diversity. And we understand well the reasons for regarding diversity as a prior natural given, because presenting it as a natural and non-cultural given (that is, independent of the human being’s voluntary intervention) gives legitimacy to the demand for recognition of Amazigh starting from recognition of diversity, which cannot be denied because it is a natural, primary and original given.

And although the priority of diversity over unity seems self-evident, raising no debate and needing no proof, like all false and deceptive self-evidences, that is not the case: the opposite is true, that is, unity is the first, natural and original given. As for diversity, it appeared at a stage later than this first unity. How so?

History proves that North Africa (the land of Tamazgha) to which Morocco belongs was, since the most ancient times, a single homeland for a single people, the Amazigh people, belonging to a single collective identity, the Amazigh identity drawn from the same homeland that is North Africa, and using a single language, the Amazigh language, and then its twin Darija, as two languages born in the same homeland, to distinguish them from the foreign languages that spread in North Africa… The objection does not hold that awareness of the existence of an Amazigh people was absent among the inhabitants of this region, who formed diverse tribes with a tribal identity awareness more than they formed a single people with a single identity; and that the Amazigh language was diverse varieties more than a unified language… This objection does not hold because what matters is the origin that was and still is one and unified: all the inhabitants of North Africa belonged and still belong to the same homeland, which is North Africa, even if they were diverse tribes or multiple countries as is their case today; and all the Amazigh varieties are united by the unity of grammatical and syntactic rules, which are like the DNA that gives a language its unity and determines its identity and specificity… There was thus, and still is, a prior original primary unity, represented by the homeland, the people of this homeland and the language of this people, with the resulting collective identity of this people, whose source is this homeland and this language. So there was no diversity, neither at the level of the land and homeland, nor at the level of the people living on this land, who always remained the “Berber” people, as they are called in Arabic writings after adopting Islam and learning the Arabic language, nor at the level of their Amazigh language born in this homeland… So everything was Amazigh, land, people, language and collective identity. There was thus a prior first original unity, the Amazigh unity.

As for diversity, it appeared only at a period later than the establishment of the natural, original and primary Amazigh unity, and resulted from the mixing of new peoples with the Imazighen, who migrated to the land of North Africa bringing with them their culture, identity, language and beliefs, such as the Jews around the second millennium BCE, then after them, especially from the eighth century BCE, other trading or invading and occupying peoples, such as the Phoenicians, Romans, Byzantines, Vandals, Arabs and Turks, then the Europeans in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. And all these peoples, whether those who settled permanently in the homeland of the Imazighen in North Africa, such as the Jews or some Arab groups, or those who left it like the Romans and Europeans, left some traces, strong or weak, ethnic, cultural, linguistic and religious (except for what concerns identity), which enriched the ethnic, religious, cultural and linguistic diversity of Morocco within the original unity that Amazigh represents, as we saw. Diversity, therefore, contrary to what the principle of “unity in diversity” assumes, is not primary but is something later than the Amazigh unity, which is the first given.

The sound way of dealing with unity and diversity:

How, then, can the pair “unity” and “diversity” be dealt with in Morocco, now that it has been proven to us that Amazigh unity is the original, fixed and first given, and that diversity is the later, changing given?

The treatment will be based not on the principle of “unity in diversity” but on the principle of “diversity in unity”. How so?

Cultural, linguistic and ethnic diversity, and even religious, is a fact and a reality in Morocco and all Amazigh North Africa, and cannot be denied or eliminated; it must therefore be recognized and practiced, but within the Amazigh unity that is the fixed origin. This means that all elements of diversity must be used and practiced in a way that enriches Amazigh unity, strengthens it, entrenches it and preserves it, and not the reverse, as is happening now in Morocco and all the countries of Amazigh North Africa, where diversity is used to impoverish Amazigh and weaken it. The best example is the use of the Arabic language, through the national and identity sex change called the Arabization policy, to exclude Amazigh and marginalize it.

Using diversity to enrich the first original unity of a country’s language, identity and culture is the natural behavior in all countries that respect their identity, language and culture, except in cases where a country is attached, by invasion and occupation, to the land of the invading occupier, definitively and permanently, with no return and no dispute, as in the attachment of Byzantine provinces to Turkish lands from the fifteenth century. In France, for example, there is an ethnic, linguistic, cultural and religious diversity, resulting from a long period of France’s occupation of a group of former colonies. This diversity, ethnic, linguistic, cultural and religious, even identity-related, is present in France and recognized. But it is used and directed in a way that enriches the original unitary constant represented by the French language and identity. In France many languages are taught, including Amazigh and Arabic. But the teaching of these languages does not aim to weaken the French language, but to enrich and strengthen it, and it does not result in the alienation of the French citizen and his separation from his original French identity and his sex change from his French gender to that of the holders of foreign cultural and linguistic elements; it contributes to entrenching his French identity and preserving it through his knowledge of the differences that distinguish him, as a citizen of French identity belonging, from other peoples and identities. Thus diversity is used to serve the first original unity: one French land, one French people, one French collective identity, one French language… There is today in France a call to adapt Islam, as one of the elements of diversity in this European country, to serve the original French unity by demanding a “French Islam”. This means that diversity, including the Islamic religion, is used to serve the first original unity and not the reverse, as is the case with us in Morocco and in the countries of Tamazgha in general, in a strange and anomalous way, where the original Amazigh unity is used to serve diversity, and the Amazigh constant is used to strengthen the changing, shifting intruder, that is, adapting unity to the diversity that is used to eliminate the elements of that original Amazigh unity by making those elements (the land, the people, the identity and the language) Arab and foreign to their Amazigh origin.

From “unity in diversity” to “diversity in unity”:

That is why recovering the identity and political awareness of Amazigh as a unitary system comprising the land, people, language and identity requires reversing the relation between unity and diversity, by moving from “unity in diversity” to “diversity in unity”, treating this diversity as a set of changing, non-fixed elements, used to enrich and strengthen the Amazigh unitary constant represented by the Amazigh land, the Amazigh people, the Amazigh language and the Amazigh identity… And here the Arabic language (and that is its natural place), as one of the elements of linguistic diversity in Morocco, should become one serving Amazigh unity, as an incoming language whose learning is useful for enriching the religious, cultural and cognitive formation of the Amazigh human being, like other foreign languages such as French, English, German and Spanish… And by adopting and applying the principle of “diversity in unity” (instead of unity in diversity), each element, diversity and unity, plays its full role without encroaching on any of the other elements: Amazigh will keep the role of unity, and the elements of diversity will play the role of enriching Amazigh unity, strengthening it and preserving it.

As for what happens today in the countries of Amazigh North Africa regarding the relation between unity and diversity, as it appears clearly at the level of language and collective identity, especially since 1912 for Morocco, it represents a case of real identity, linguistic and cultural colonization, which is realized when an intruder element (a mere intruder element) tries to dominate what is fixed, original and unitary. Hence the identity liberation of Morocco, and of North Africa in general, begins with correcting the relation between the fixed and original Amazigh unity and the changing but necessary diversity. A correction not in the direction of expelling and fighting the elements of diversity, but in the direction of giving them their natural roles, consisting of using this diversity to serve the original Amazigh unity.

And on the basis of the principle of “diversity in unity”, it will seem paradoxical and strange to demand recognition of Amazigh, because it is something existing as a natural and primary given, like the Atlas mountains. Demanding recognition of it and of its rights is like demanding recognition of the existence of the Atlas mountains, which are something existing as a natural given independent of human intervention. What put Amazigh in the position of a part (minority) of the elements of diversity, which (Amazigh) demands recognition of its existence as a component (only) among the other components of this diversity, is looking at it from the mistaken and inverted principle of “unity in diversity”, which the Agadir Charter promoted and the Amazigh movement adopted afterwards, and the 2011 Constitution then made official. In truth, from the sound principle that affirms “diversity in unity”, the one who can demand recognition of his rights is not Amazigh, which is a fixed, primary and original given, but the intruder elements of diversity, such as Arabic and French for example. Then it would be reasonable and acceptable for a group of Moroccan citizens, who claim to be Arabs, to demand recognition of their linguistic and cultural rights within the fixed and original Amazigh unity.

The other result of applying the principle of “diversity in unity”, and not “unity in diversity”, is that what threatens unity is not Amazigh, which is unity itself, as we saw, but the intruder elements of diversity, such as Arabic or French, when those elements want to impose their hegemony on Amazigh, weaken it and break its original territorial, identity and linguistic unity…

This hegemony shows in Arabism’s occupation, since 1912, which is originally an intruder and foreign element like all the other elements of diversity that appeared at a period later than the establishment of the original Amazigh unity, as already shown, of the place of the unitary constant as the identity of the state, which consequently became an “Arab” state, with Arab authority, ruling an “Arab” country that is Morocco, while Amazigh, consequently too, was turned into a mere part and element among the set of elements of diversity living under the wing of the “Arab” state, which embodies with its “Arab” identity the unitary whole. Thus Arabism, as authority and state since 1912, represents the whole and unity, while the remaining elements, Amazigh among them, represent the parts and diversity.

This is an anomalous and unnatural case at the level of the relation between part and whole, between the many and the one. And the source of the anomaly is that the part occupies the place of the whole, and the many the place of the one. Restoring the natural and sound relation between whole and part, between unity and diversity, requires moving from an Arab state to an Amazigh state (always in the territorial sense) in which Amazigh is the identity of the state under whose shade other elements, cultural, linguistic, ethnic and religious, live, representing diversity and plurality, but always within the unitary constant represented by the state’s Amazigh belonging, drawn from the state’s Amazigh land. This is the “diversity in unity” that should replace the slogan “unity in diversity”, which we have shown does not match Morocco’s Amazigh reality, as we explained.

This is the demand (Amazighizing the identity of the state so that it is in harmony with the identity of the land) that the Amazigh movement and all Moroccans must defend, so that they conform in their identity to their Amazigh land, which should be ruled by a state in the name of its belonging to this Amazigh land.

The case of “Tamghrabit”:

Just as the principle of “unity in diversity”, which the Amazigh movement invented, will be used against it by making the Imazighen a mere component and “minority” within the diversity that forms the national identity representing unity, so the concept of “Tamghrabit”, adopted by a group of Amazigh activists, has a meaning that excludes Amazigh, by eliminating the Amazigh identity of Morocco and replacing it with “Tamghrabit” as the “common” of all Moroccans, in application of its content indicating nationality, whose import is: “we are all Moroccans”, which means that we are not Amazigh (see the article: “Between ‘Tamazight’ and ‘Tamghrabit’”, by clicking here). Here “Tamghrabit” plays the same role as the principle of “unity in diversity”, which makes Amazigh a mere element among the elements of diversity serving the unity that Arabism and Islam implicitly or openly represent. “Tamghrabit” would be what unites because it is the symbol of unity, and Amazigh would be, according to the logic of “Tamghrabit”, what divides because it does not represent everyone. And so that Amazigh not be used against unity, it must be integrated into “Tamghrabit” as an element attached to it and subordinate to it. “Tamghrabit” is a new formula for expressing the principle of “unity in diversity”, which is a mistaken understanding of the relation between unity and diversity, leading to a mistaken understanding of the collective identity of Morocco, the Moroccan people and the Moroccan state, which finally results in excluding Amazigh or recognizing it, at best, as an element subordinate to Arabism (and the Islam tied to it) that represents the unifying identity, according to the defenders of this identity.

Identity between fixity and transformation:

I know that talking, as in this discussion, of the “fixed and original unity of Amazigh” and of Amazigh identity “as a fixed, primary and original given”, raises easy and ready criticisms, such as: this position is a defense of a pure identity that stands above time and history, starting from a static and metaphysical view of the question of peoples’ identity, which is transformed with the transformation of history, time and place, so that there is no place in it for fixity and continuity in the same state.

The idea of “transformation” has also become a popular self-evidence since Marxism stressed the dialectic of transformation that marks everything in this universe, natural, human or social. Hence speaking of fixity contradicts the law of dialectical transformation, which is the only fixed thing as a law applying to all phenomena, holding that nothing is fixed and everything changes.

Yes, nothing is fixed and everything changes. But change, like fixity, necessarily has conditions and causes. If these conditions and causes are absent, their results, which are this change, are absent. This holds all the more for peoples’ identities. There are peoples whose identities disappeared definitively and are mentioned only as history, such as the Phoenician, Byzantine and Vandal identity… or turned into other new identities such as the Chaldean and Syriac identity part of which turned into an Arab identity, and the Indian identity (of the Indians of America) turned into American, only for North America and not South… The peoples whose identities disappeared are the peoples who disappeared and went extinct, such as the Phoenicians, Byzantines and Vandals… And why did they disappear and go extinct? Because their lands disappeared as homelands of their own, after other peoples seized them definitively and permanently, planting in them their own identity as a new geographical and identity extension of themselves, as happened to Roman, Byzantine and Balkan provinces the Ottomans seized from the fifteenth century, whose identity has become, since that date, a Turkish identity. And as happened to southern Iraq, which had a Chaldean identity but became, since the Islamic conquest (the Arab invasion) of this region, an Arab land with an Arab identity…

As for the Imazighen, that is, the inhabitants of North Africa, no people ever seized their land definitively and permanently. Such seizure was always partial and temporary, as with the Phoenicians, Romans, Arabs and French… There is thus no historical reason for the transformation of the collective Amazigh identity of the inhabitants of North Africa into another new non-Amazigh identity. And this is what happens with many peoples, such as the Persian, Chinese and Japanese peoples…, whose identity, for thousands of years, is still Persian, Chinese and Japanese… Why did the dialectic of transformation not affect them to make them other new identities, according to the law of dialectical change and transformation? And why, likewise, did the same law not affect the pair of Arabism and Islam as an identity fixed for fourteen centuries? Or is the dialectic of transformation invoked only to justify excluding Amazigh on the pretext that nothing is fixed?

Leaving aside the motive of the wish to exclude Amazigh identity under the pretext of transformation, as I noted, what makes many believe that Amazigh identity is not fixed is that they start from an ethnic conception of identity. Since the ethnic identity of individuals differs and evolves over time through in-law ties, marriages and mixing of lineages, it follows that Amazigh identity itself differs and evolves through the same in-law ties, marriages and mixing of lineages. This confusion between the ethnic identity of individuals and the collective identity of peoples is a grave error many fall into as a result of the spread of the ethnic conception of identity, tied to traditional Arab culture in which genealogy and family trees hold an important place. Whereas the concept of the ethnic identity of individuals has absolutely no relation to the concept of the collective identity of peoples, nations, states and homelands…

In truth, the only real transformation that Amazigh collective identity has undergone throughout its history is the appearance, since Islam entered North Africa, of transsexuals who disowned their Amazigh gender and usurped belonging to the Arab gender. But the gravity of this sex change, in the national and identity sense, showed its effect on Amazigh collective identity only when it became a public policy of the state from 1912, with the occupation state and then with the independence state, officially called the Arabization policy, that is, the policy of collectively turning Imazighen into Arabs, whereas this sex change, before 1912, was an individual choice, for religious and then political reasons (is there a difference between the two in Islam?), with no notable effect on the collective identity, which always remained Amazigh until 1912. Because the number of transsexual Imazighen, that is, in nation and identity, grows steadily as a result of the Arabization policy that the state has pursued since 1912, as I noted, this creates the impression that the collective Amazigh identity has turned into a collective Arab identity. Whereas what has been transformed is not the collective Amazigh identity of Moroccans, but only the awareness that has become false and alienated among transsexual Imazighen, making them believe, falsely and through alienation, that they are Arabs, although their alleged Arabness is false and forged, which is why real Arabs never acknowledge them as Arabs. This is the only real transformation that has touched Amazigh collective identity. And it is the sex change of a number of real Imazighen into counterfeit, unreal Arabs. And this is not a real transformation of the collective Amazigh identity as long as its source, which is the land of Morocco and North Africa, with the language specific to that land that goes with it, is still the homeland of the Imazighen and has not become the homeland of another, non-Amazigh people.

Arabic version | French version