21 Aug 2023
Behind Mohammed VI’s push for a more Amazigh Morocco
Amazigh identity, culture and language have been promoted by the state in recent years, a reversal of past policies.
When Mohammed Gazouli was a child, he remembers being made fun of for speaking Tamazight, the Amazigh language, in school.
“I felt alienated. Our identity was persecuted,” Gazouli told Al Jazeera. “Expressions of folklore were just for certain occasions.”
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/8/21/behind-mohammed-vis-push-for-a-more-amazigh-morocco
But now, Gazouli himself is a primary schoolteacher in the Atlas Mountain town of M’rirt – where he can teach Tamazight, which has been gradually expanded across Morocco in the past 20 years.
On June 1, Morocco’s Ministry of Education restated its commitment to expand the teaching of Tamazight in primary schools across the country over the next six years. Nearly a month earlier, Yennayer, the Amazigh New Year, was recognised as an official national holiday by the royal court.
The Amazigh (Imazighen) are the Indigenous people of North Africa. As Arab armies made their way into North Africa in the seventh century, many Imazighen people, also known as Berbers, assimilated into Arab culture, religion and language. Imazighen tribes wanting to preserve their identity sought refuge in the mountains, mainly in the Atlas and Rif regions of Morocco.
Amazigh couple in traditional Amazigh wedding attire. Photographer: Ahmed Adnan Alsharateha.
An Amazigh woman in traditional Amazigh wedding attire [Ahmed Adnan Alsharateha/Al Jazeera]
Today, everyone in M’rirt speaks the local Tamazigh dialect, and Imazighen like Gazouli are proud to see their culture on a national stage.
“Now you can express your Amazigh identity without the slightest reservation or shame,” Gazouli said. …