Ethno-politics and globalisation in North Africa: The berber culture movement*

Maddy‐Weitzman, Bruce

doi:10.1080/13629380500409917

Cited by 28 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 1 publication

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…The issue of language rights is the most public forum through which the national debate over Morocco's Amazigh identity has occurred (Errihani 2007;Gellner 1969;Maddy-Weitzman 2006Montagne 1973). Demands for recognition and inclusion of Tamazight have figured prominently in all of the movement's official documents, including the Agadir Charter and the Berber Manifesto (2000).…”

Section: Linguistic Rights Minority Rightsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Imaginative geographies of Amazigh activism in Morocco

Cornwell

Atia

2012

Social & Cultural Geography

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This paper analyzes the geographical imaginations of Amazigh activists, the indigenous people of North Africa. Situated at the crossroads of post-colonial theory, indigenous language rights and national narratives of inclusion and exclusion, the paper discusses the Amazigh movement in Morocco. The issue of language rights is particularly important to the movement and this is reflected in the paper through an emphasis on Tamazight script choice and perceptions of the Institut Royal de la Culture Amazighe (IRCAM). IRCAM is the government entity charged with the standardization of the Tamazight languages and the implementation of Tamazight instruction in Moroccan schools. Debates over the role of IRCAM and the choice of an official script for Tamazight language instruction form an important area of contestation within the activist movement. Despite activists' differences in opinion on these key issues, the imaginative geographies they articulate through these debates share similar visions of national Amazigh identity. These imaginative geographies re-imagined the Moroccan nation by asserting that all Moroccans are Amazigh while continuing to produce a transnational imaginative geography of 'Tamazgha,' a greater Amazigh land across all of North Africa.

show abstract

Section: Linguistic Rights Minority Rightsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Imaginative geographies of Amazigh activism in Morocco

Cornwell

Atia

2012

Social & Cultural Geography

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Berbers straddled multiple worlds, always part of the other and engaged in one form of “accommodation” or another with stronger, more advanced civilizations—from Roman to Byzantine to Islamic to Modern times (Maddy‐Weitzman, ). Overall, before the Arab conquest of Morocco, the Berber people were invaded by the Phoenicians, the Romans, the Byzantines and the Vandals, and the Carthaginians.…”

Section: Berbermentioning

confidence: 99%

Language Policy and State in Morocco: The Status of Berber

Zouhir

2014

Digest Mid East Studies

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Moroccan society has had a long tradition of multilingualism. It is socially and linguistically diverse, and its cultural makeup is one of the richest in North African countries. Its strategic location at the crossroads of Africa, Europe, and the Middle East has made Morocco open to a variety of linguistic influences. Morocco has been invaded by Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Greek, Romans, Vandals, Byzantines, Arabs, Spanish, and French. All these civilizations have deeply influenced Moroccan language policy and cultural diversity. The cultural and linguistic context of Morocco is characterized by the significant use of Arabic, as well as the presence of Berber, French, Spanish, and English. Berbers are the indigenous populations of Morocco and have existed in North Africa since time immemorial. Despite its complexity, the language policy of Morocco reveals an overarching monolingualism, with the hegemony of Classical Arabic as the only official language of the country. Recently, however, language education policy in Morocco has attempted to accommodate multilingualism. The linguistic situation of Berber has taken a new twist as it has been incorporated into the realm of Moroccan schools. The new Moroccan constitution also represents a historical turn in that it has acknowledged Berber as an official language, a move that has raised several questions with regard to the real motivation behind it. Berber implementation policy was based on an entirely topdown bureaucratic model of language policy. Moroccan policymakers and the state seem to be aware of how other dramas are playing out in Morocco and around the world as theories of multiculturalism and effects of globalization are influencing their decisions. However, this language policy encounters many hurdles, from the improvisation to lack of qualified teachers. This article is an attempt to understand the intricate diversity and plurality of Moroccan language situation and the role of the state in Berber language policy. It also examines the invisible politics behind implementing it.

show abstract

“…This privileging of Arabic fuels the current Amazighiyya (Berber Nationalism) movement, including its recent achievement of obligatory Tamazight language instruction in Moroccan primary schools. See MohamedErrihani (2006) and BruceMaddy-Weitzman (2006).7 The Kutla differed from the political party it would form in 1934, with identification cards, and dues. At this time the Kutla was not open to the public; the group included only members of a young urban elite, a select few of whom formed the Zawiya.…”

mentioning

confidence: 98%

The scandal of ecstasy: communication, Sufi rites, and social reform in 1930s Morocco

Spadola

2008

Cont Islam

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Modern Islamic reformists in Morocco condemned ecstatic Sufi trance rites as heterodox spectacles. But if the heterodoxy of these rites remains self-evident, the still common reformist critique of spectacle begs historical explanation. This article proposes that a main theme of post-1930 nationalist reformism in Morocco was communication and its containment. In this period, new reformists -"Young Moroccans" and "New Salafis" -fixated upon the power of ecstatic rites to connect and coalesce the urban underclasses and to elicit recognition from the colonial state and an emergent global audience. Just as new reformists sought to use technologies of mass communication, including the newspaper and camera, to speak to and for "the People," they chafed at the global renown these same media lent to public Sufi spectacles. Examining Moroccan print media in 1930s Fez, I show that anti-Sufi critiques were primarily neither doctrinal nor anti-colonial; new reformists aimed, rather, to domesticate the popular connective force of ritual as well as the enhanced power of these picturesque rites to speak for the nation.Keywords Islamic reformism . Sufism . Modernity . Communications media . TechnologyThe cult of these saints has given rise to two of those unpleasant fraternities, under which are united almost all the low classes of Morocco -taïfas -madmen and neurotic persons, who work themselves into a frenzy by a succession of songs, dances, and religious cries, ending in a paroxysm of religious ardor, which enables the Aissaoua to eat all sorts of horrible things, the Hamadsha to receive the heaviest weights on their heads, and Droughiyin to slash their skulls with hatchets.

show abstract

Ethno-politics and globalisation in North Africa: The berber culture movement*

Cited by 28 publications

References 1 publication

Imaginative geographies of Amazigh activism in Morocco

Imaginative geographies of Amazigh activism in Morocco

Language Policy and State in Morocco: The Status of Berber

The scandal of ecstasy: communication, Sufi rites, and social reform in 1930s Morocco

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About