Notes on the Berber Cultural Claim (BCC) in modern Morocco

1. Multilingualism in North Africa as a Historical Feature
In a previous study (Elmedlaoui 2001-2003-2006), I adduced and defended two major sociolinguistic hypotheses concerning North Africa. According to the first one, a functional multilingualism is rooted in North Africa since the early entrance of this area into the historical period under different successive denominations.
According to the second, the different terms and moods of either a complementary coexistence, or a competitive relation between any set of the languages which happen to deal with each other in that area through a given period of history, have always been a function of the battery ideological values in interaction in that period within the wider space of the Mediterranean geopolitical world, rather than a function of the different ethnic rapport de force.
As far as the historical knowledge can go back, the Berber linguistic family remains the more ancient linguistic entity which ensured a continuous, but evolving presence in North Africa. But, throughout the historical period, all the other languages that acquired, each at a given period, some degree of international power and recognition (Phoenician, Punic, Judo-Aramaic, Greek, Latin, Arabic, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and English) have always been easily accepted and established in a given relevant sociolinguistic function (learned culture/religion, trade/diplomacy, etc.) in North Africa.
Already at the late antiquity, for example, the Greek language was so anchored in North Africa, as a language of the learned society, that the Berber king and historian, Juba II of Mauritania (north-western Africa), wrote many books in that language. Nevertheless, Greeks have never had any colonial presence in this part of Africa.
Nowadays, though Moroccan Arabic or one of the three or for major varieties of Berber constitute the mother thongs of Moroccans in every day life, Moroccan literature continues to be written in many languages. Thus, if the overwhelming use of Arabic in writing, but also of Berber to some extent, could be related, in part, to endogenous ethnic factors, as could the use of French, but also of Spanish to some extent, be related, in part, to exogenous colonial factors, the more and more substantial use of English could only be related to the international status of this language nowadays, and to the weight of the utilitarian, symbolic and ideological values it conveys. Hence, for example, "The First National Forum for Moroccan Creative Writers in English" took place on March 04 2001 at the Faculty of Letters - Oujda –Morocco (See my 2001 report on the event "Oujda conference of creative Moroccan writers in English sees participation of many former grantees". Newsletter. N° 6 (Spring, 2001; p. 7). Moroccan American Commission for Educational and Cultural Exchange. Rabat.).
The final question the previously mentioned study concludes with, a pragmatic question, is the one that the following paragraph states:
“Education, which can be undertaken only in a/some given language/s, was intended in the past to be a social means devoted essentially to ensure the reproduction of the main ideological foundations which underlie the prevailing socio-cultural terms and values. Nowadays, additional functions are assigned to this institution. It is believed also to be a social means of mobilizing human and natural resources and potentials in order to achieve the socioeconomic development, considered as an ultimate value per see. To what extent, then, do concerned officials and political partners in Morocco, and in North Africa in general, try seriously to have at their disposal relevant specialized diagnoses, expertness, valuations and studies, when managing the sociolinguistic field in order to readjust it to any educational planning necessary to achieve the desired socioeconomic development, and/or to any new cultural cohesion and socio-political balance?”


2. The ideological and socio-political significances of the Berber Cultural Claim

Among the different cultural and ideological streams which animate the Moroccan thought to different extents and degrees, depending on the historical conjuncture, the Berber claim dimension, confined in modern Morocco since the mid-sixties of the last century to the only cultural space, acquired from the mid nineties on an increasingly marked socio-political contour. Late King Hassan the 2nd’s call in 1994 for rehabilitating the Berber language could be considered as an official cue for the Moroccan State to take the new relevance of that parameter into consideration in setting any new deal or socio-political balance appropriate to the new condition of the post-East-West polarization, under which Morocco had and still has to define its own new internal and external general policy.

King Mohamed 6th took his cue from his father, Hassan the 2nd on this point, precisely by creating the Royal Institute for the Amazigh Culture on October, 17 2001 (‘Amazigh’ is the new endogenous name for ‘Berber’ in Morocco). The creation of the RIAC, and the incorporation into it of the main range of the activists and leaders of the BCC movement did not prevent however this movement from continuing, from inside as well as from outside the RICA, to be an active agent in the ongoing socio-political action in Morocco. For example, the radical bipolar socio-political controversy that arose between the Islamic Movement trends and the BCCM in winter 2002 on the issue of deciding which script (Tifinagh, Arabic or Latin) to use officially in writing Berber, illustrated the eagerness of the ideological divergence that opposes the BCC movement, considered as a whole, to the different manifestations of the Islamic Movement, considered also as a whole. In addition, the traditional firm and overt rejection by the latter, until the big politico-cultural turn of the May 16 2003 terrorist attacks in Casablanca, of any translation of the Koran into Berber traditionally considered as ill intentioned from the religious point of view, is another illustration of that ideological divergence on the one hand, and of the politically high significance in nowadays Morocco, of any major action undertaken of achieved by the BCC movement on the other hand, since that very translation has been issued and passively “accepted” immediately after the May 16 2003 terrorist attacks in Casablanca.

On the other side of the spectrum, the reciprocal animosity that opposes the BCC movement to the tenants of the different forms of the Arab Nationalism ideology, parties as well as intellectual institutions, learned societies or individuals, which all used to dub the tenants of that movement more or less overtly as “Liautey’s grandchildren” (in reference to Marécahl Liautey (1854-1934), the first French Protectoral ‘Résident Général du Maroc’ at the beginning of the last 20th century. See the weekly Annahar; n° 69. March 19 2004 for such a denomination), is also currently expressed through many Berber journals (Agraw Amazigh, Amadal Amazigh, Tawiza, among others) as well as through the famous March 1st 2000 manifest called “the Berber Manifest”. A concrete sample of the manner that animosity is also currently expressed at the other side (i.e. the ‘arabist’ side), can be found in the above mentioned issue of the weekly Annahar, under the alarmist and provoking page-one main title: “The war of Berbers against Arabs”.


3. What Kind of Institution the RIAC Institute is?

The RIAC (Royal Institute for the Amazigh Culture) has been institutionally created in Morocco on October 17 2001 by a Royal ‘dahir’, known then as the “Ajdir Dahir”, after the Middle Atlas Berber symbolic locality of “Ajdir”, where King Mohamed 6th promulgated it before all the delegates of the Nation. This political action was considered as a response to the Berber Cultural Claim Movement which began to acquire an overt political contour by the mid nineties of the 20th century, most of all by the launching of the Berber Manifest (March 1st 2001) which constituted so to speak a political version of the Agadir Manifest (August, 05 1991).

According to Chapter 3 of the ‘dahir’, the RIAC institute should fulfill its tasks of competence, as defined in Chapter 2, namely by performing the following:
1. By collecting data related to the different manifestations of the Amazigh culture (...),

2. By conducting researches and achieving studies on the Amazigh culture (...), and by encouraging researchers and experts in the field,

3. By enhancing the artistic creativity in the field of the Amazigh culture (...),

4. by exploring the scriptural expressions liable to ensure a widespread easy learning of the Amazigh language;
5. By elaborating curricula and programs appropriate to initial and/or continuous trainings which target the (future) pedagogical staff of educators and teachers of the Amazigh language (...),

6. By helping universities creating centres devoted to conduct research on the Amazigh language and culture and to promote that language and culture in accordance with the 116th clause of the National Educational Charta,

7. By exploring methods appropriate to encourage and consolidate the Amazigh language position within the public space of information and communication,

8. By tying links of scientific and cultural cooperation with relevant institutions; nationally and internationally.

According to the same dahir (Chap. 7), the “annual programs” the different relevant research centers of the Institute are called to elaborate in order to carry out their above respective tasks, should be previously approved by the Administrative Council.

Up to now, i.e. according to the above elements and articles of the dahir, the Institute’s profile and features seem to conform to the standards of an “academic institution of research”, for which the so called AC (Administrative Council) stands for a kind if a senate, so to speak. However, despite all the above mentioned battery of bylaws and legal clauses, the rather obscure way members of the human staff of that AC have been nominated for its first mandate, and the non less obscure way the research centers of the Institute have been given administrative heads and principals and supplied with human resources (researchers and administrative staff), resulted in a general human staff profile and constituency that rendered the Institute’s identity, vocation and concrete action no more self evident, to such an extent that, in his response to a relevant question put by a journalist from the journal Albayan, the new rector of the Institute expressed overtly in his recent meeting point with the press (IRCAM, Rabat, 31 03 2004) his belief that the “Institute is a very special institution where the scientific and the non-scientific interfere” (‘مؤسسة يتقاطع فيها ما هو علمـي وما هو غـيـر علمي’).


4. How did the Tifinagh script option “win”?

How the Tifinagh script option in writing Berber overrode, officially at least, the two other competing ones, the Arabic script option and the Latin script option despite the fact that since the very beginning of the controversy till its latest moments it represented the most weakly supported option. On the basis of a background of two major academic studies (a book in French: Elmedlaoui 1999 and a long paper in Arabic), I showed, through a long journalistic paper while published in 2003 when I was still affiliated the RIAC institute as a researcher, how all significant scientific questions have been omitted from the general controversial debate engaged through 2002-2003 on the issue of the script to adopt officially to write Berber (see Modern Discussion: http://www.ahewar.org/debat/show.art.asp?aid=104891). I showed in particular how the above mentioned profile of the human constituency of the RIAC institute (cf. the last paragraph in sec. 3), in connection with the general ideological and political significance commonly assigned to any major action related to the Berber dimension (see 2nd paragraph in sec. 2), led the Administrative Council of that institute to bring, through some shadow political-like negotiations, an overt political response to the socio-educational question of the script by stipulating officially, dogmatically and categorically the exclusive option of Tifinagh script, instead of letting the relevant research canters explore all the possible solutions which rely on linguistic, sociolinguistic and socio-pedagogical diagnoses, that take into account, in any educational and cultural change, all the socio-pedagogical and socio-cultural dimensions of time, space, cost and human element.


5. Remarks on the recent Berber translation of the Koran in Morocco

As mentioned in the second paragraph of section 2 above, the overt firm rejection by the Islamic movement, before the turn of the may 16 2003 terrorist attacks in Casablanca, of any translation of the Koran into Berber, is an illustration, among others, of the ideological and socio-political divergences that oppose, in depth, the Islamic movement as a whole, under its current political expression, to the nowadays Berber Cultural movement, considered also as a whole. That previously overt principled dogmatic rejection, by Islamists, of any eventual translation of the Koran on the basis of some alleged theological grounds, and the enthusiasm the recent translation by Houcine Jouhadi (2003) created, on the contrary, among the BCC movement people, curiously including the non religious, illustrate once again the highly politically valued dimensions any major action and/or decision related to the Berber culture acquire in present days Morocco, where Islamism, as a political positioning, counts more and more seriously. Those ideological conflicting dimensions and values are yet reflected, on the other hand, even through the way, Jouhadi, the translator of the Holly Book into a variety of Berber, arranged that variety’s lexicon in order for it to convey some concepts specific to the Revelation. Another academic study in Arabic I devoted to this last point shows how ideological concerns happened to interfere with the standard questions related to translation and the lexicon in general.


6. Standardizing Berber in Morocco

Among the tasks the RIAC institute is charged with, according to its institutional ‘dahir’, figures the task of arranging the Berber language variants in Morocco (four main dialects, namely Tashelhiyt, Tamazight, Tarifit and Figuigui), till now essentially oral for the common people, in order for these variants to qualify, in the future, as a unified national standard language of school. As it has been the case with the question of the script appropriate to officially write Berber at school in particular, the prominence of the ideological concerns over any concrete relevant scientific diagnosis, put forward from the very experimental beginning step of introducing Berber to around 217 schools all over the country (i.e. the 2003-2004 school year), the non less dogmatic Manichean controversy among the BCC movement, known then as ‘one or many?’ dilemma. That means “one single handbook” (composed in an artificially and suddenly ‘standardized’ Berber) or “three modular handbooks” (Figuigui has not been considered), each for one of the commonly accepted three variants of Berber in Morocco (Tashelhiyt, Tamazight and Tarifit) as those variants have been defined, in fact, on the basis of purely lay opinion and extra-linguistic and rather socio-economic regional conceptions of what a ‘dialect’ is? On this particular point, some ethnico-regional sensibilities among the BCC movement came furthermore to interfere with the shared ideological attitudes that brought some tenants for example to consider the “unified handbook” option in teaching Berber at school as the one that conveys a status of an established language to Amazigh (the new name for Berber) instead of considering it as a mere group of different dialects.

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