Mohamed Boudhan: On the Pretext for Excluding Tamazight from the National ID Card Bill

Ever since Bill No. 04.20 on the new national identity card was submitted to the Bureau of the House of Representatives on June 3, 2020—a draft law that excludes the Amazigh language from the document by providing only for the use of Arabic and Latin scripts—numerous Amazigh activists and organizations have condemned and rejected this exclusion, viewing it as state racism against Morocco’s own Amazigh identity. In response to this backlash, a so-called “security source” published a “clarification” in the online newspaper Hespress on June 15, 2020, denying that the absence of Amazigh from the national ID card under Bill 04.20 constitutes deliberate exclusion. The source stated that “the essential criterion governing the issuance of the electronic national identity card in Arabic and Latin characters lies in the reference documents and registers, particularly civil status registers and birth certificates, which are currently drawn up in Arabic and French and do not include the Amazigh language.” The source concluded that “including Moroccans’ identities in Tifinagh script on the electronic national identity card is primarily a technical matter, unrelated to any other considerations or interpretations,” adding that “transcribing personal identity details in Tifinagh script in civil registers and birth certificates requires technical and IT support, specifically the development of software applications to record and integrate identification data using the Tifinagh alphabet.” According to this “security source,” the obstacle to printing Amazigh on the new national identity card proposed by Bill 04.20 is therefore not ideologically motivated, but purely technical.

My intention in this article is not to respond directly to the statement from this “security source”—Dr. Abdellah El Haloui has already offered a decisive, rigorous, and irrefutable rebuttal on his Facebook page. Instead, I will analyze the habit—and indeed the flaw—of relying on pretexts and specious excuses to conceal ideological stances designed to exclude and oppose the Amazigh language.

If it is legitimate to delay implementing the minimal official status granted to the Amazigh language on the grounds of technical, administrative, legal, financial, or other difficulties, then it will be equally legitimate—assuming that those justifying this delay are acting in good faith—to exclude Amazigh altogether by postponing its official implementation indefinitely. As a result, it would be deprived of any genuine official presence, the very condition essential for its real promotion and rehabilitation. Why is this the case?

If I were among the decision-makers who reject the Amazigh language and oppose its use as an official language, I would always find dozens of very real difficulties to serve as pretexts for sidelining it from official affairs. To exclude it from education so it cannot be used as an official language in the future, I could easily justify it by pointing to the diversity of regional dialects, the cognitive burden on students learning three different scripts, the lack of ready-made teaching materials, the absence of budget allocations in the finance law, or simply the fact that it has never been taught before. To exclude it from national identity cards, I could easily cite its absence from civil status registers—which serve as the benchmark for personal data on ID cards, as stated by the “security source”—along with the lack of Tifinagh-compatible software and civil servants’ inability to write in Tifinagh. To keep it out of public spaces, I could easily claim we must wait for standardized terminology, which in turn could be delayed by awaiting the creation of the National Council of Moroccan Languages and Culture, set to take on this task after the dissolution of the Royal Institute of Amazigh Culture (IRCAM). To refuse expanding its presence in media and communication, I could easily cite the lack of state funding under Article 12 of Organic Law No. 26.16 on the implementation of the official status of the Amazigh language. To deny translation to and from the Amazigh language in courts under Article 30, paragraph 2, of that same organic law, I could easily blame the lack of accredited, sworn official translators. To block its use in Parliament as mandated by Article 9, paragraph 1, of the same law, I could cite the unavailability of technical and human resources for simultaneous interpretation. And to exclude it from coins and banknotes under Article 22, I could easily argue that adding a third language to coins requires larger dimensions and more metal—a technical hurdle requiring time to fix—which in turn makes it impossible to include on banknotes until the coin issue is resolved, since both represent the same national currency and must carry uniform inscriptions.

Thus, driven by a desire to exclude the Amazigh language from my position of authority as a decision-maker, whenever I wish to indefinitely postpone the implementation of any legal provision favoring it, I will never lack dozens of obstacles to block its application. At first glance, these obstacles appear real, logical, and reasonable. This lends an aura of fairness, seriousness, and common sense to the endless delay in implementing the limited official status granted to the language, effectively masking the true underlying intent: to exclude the Amazigh language and deprive it of the few rights conferred upon it by the Constitution and the law.

What does this systematic resort to such pretexts to block the implementation of the official status of the Amazigh language actually mean? It means that what is truly lacking and accounts for this deadlock is neither the absence of technical prerequisites nor a shortage of physical equipment, software, qualified human resources, or necessary budget allocations, but rather the political will of those holding decision-making and executive power. Otherwise, how can we explain that the official recognition of the Amazigh language, granted more than nine years ago, still sees its implementation postponed due to technical, financial, pedagogical, or administrative obstacles? Even assuming these obstacles actually exist and are not mere justifications, a fundamental question arises: if the state failed to account for these hurdles when it decided to grant official status to the Amazigh language in order to overcome them and pave the way for its implementation, it means it deliberately chose not to make the Amazigh language official in practice. Deciding on officialization while maintaining the barriers to it ultimately amounts to deciding not to make it official at all. This is why these pretexts are nothing more than a smokescreen masking the intent to exclude the Amazigh language and prevent its genuine official recognition. Therefore, promoting the Amazigh language—to translate its official status into reality, elevate its standing, and render it justice—requires actively opposing these pretexts, halting and eliminating them, as they halt and eliminate any real promotion of the Amazigh language and serve to justify its continued exclusion.

All of this demonstrates that the state remains embarrassed and hesitant regarding the genuine, practical recognition of the Amazigh language. That is why what it grants with its right hand—such as creating a dedicated institute, introducing its teaching, granting it official status, or allowing its use in public spaces—it takes back with its left by inventing pretexts to justify its withdrawal, exemplified by the technical excuses invoked regarding the use of the Amazigh language on national identity cards. Yet, to include one’s first name and surname—or even place of birth and residence—in the Amazigh language on the national identity card, it is by no means necessary for these details to be previously recorded in the Amazigh language in the original civil registry. Why is this unnecessary?

Because the official use of the Amazigh language on national identity cards, much like on coins and banknotes, remains—despite its immense importance—purely symbolic rather than functional. Genuine and ordinary official use, which is functional, consists of drafting operational documents in the Amazigh language, such as judicial police reports, adoular and notary deeds, administrative certificates, expert evaluation reports, court rulings, official summonses, and tax files. Consequently, printing first names and surnames—and even place of birth and address—in Amazigh Tifinagh script on national identity cards does not require prior entry in civil registries, especially given that Tifinagh is a phonetic script written exactly as it is pronounced. Indeed, until Amazigh script is generalized across civil registries, the legal reference for the official spelling of a name remains the Arabic and Latin scripts, with Amazigh script serving only symbolic officialization. For this reason, police officers or members of the Royal Gendarmerie, when inspecting an identity card to verify a holder’s identity, will inevitably rely solely on the Arabic and Latin spellings drawn from the civil registry. Where, then, is the problem with printing first names and surnames in the Amazigh language on national identity cards even while absent from civil registries, given that Amazigh script does not serve as the legal reference to verify a name against the original registry?

Applying the pretext advanced by this “security source” raises yet another problem: every officer responsible for identity card checks—whether police officers, gendarmes, or civil servants—would then need to be fully fluent in reading and writing the Amazigh language in order to verify identity data during inspections. This would once again delay the use of Amazigh on national identity cards, under the guise of having to wait for police officers, gendarmes, and public administration staff to complete training in the language so they can read the cards.

Had this “security source” justified the absence of Amazigh on the national identity card by citing the second paragraph of Article 31 of the organic law—which states that the implementation of Article 21 regarding the use of Amazigh on identity cards takes effect “within a maximum period of ten years from the date of its publication in the Official Gazette”—the argument might at least have seemed legally sound. However, this would have raised the following question: since the deadline is at most ten years, why not begin implementing the provisions of this article during the very first years of that period? At that point, the same pretexts mentioned above would have been invoked to justify delaying the application of Article 21. The result: pretexts are always readily available to justify a delay that itself serves to legitimize exclusion.

What is most serious about the pretext offered by this “security source” is that if excluding Amazigh from the national identity card is explained, as claimed, by the fact that the card’s data is drawn from civil status registers written exclusively in Arabic and Latin scripts, it means the card will never feature Amazigh text under Article 21 of the organic law on the implementation of the official status of Amazigh. Why? Because it is virtually impossible to revise and update tens of millions of civil registry records to add data written in Amazigh. The pretext used by this “security source” thus proves paralyzing, acting as an absolute barrier to enforcing a constitutional and legal provision concerning the Amazigh language.

This is where absurdity and contempt for the law and the Constitution lead in handling the Amazigh issue, resulting in a truly “Sisyphean” cycle: every time we roll the rock of the Amazigh language toward the summit (its constitutionalization), we let it tumble back down under “technical” pretexts, only to try pushing it back up again. During this absurd back-and-forth between climbing and falling, time works its magic—which is precisely what opponents of Amazigh have always counted on. This absurdity and disregard for the law and the Constitution reveal the persistence of a mindset that excludes Amazigh, inherited from the “National Movement” and its famous myth of the “Berber Dahir,” fabricated out of thin air to justify this exclusion. This mentality of exclusion and hostility toward Amazigh remains widespread within the apparatus of the state, its institutions, and among its officials. It constitutes a practice of ordinary racism (see the topic “Amazigh and Ordinary Racism” in the book De l’amazigheit et de l’amazighophobie [On Amazighness and Amazighophobia]) directed against the Amazigh language. This racism is termed “ordinary” because it cloaks itself in pretexts that conceal its true motives, framing the situation as commonplace and attributable to “technical” or other factors rather than a genuine intent to exclude.

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