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Krim
Skip forward to present days, I would like to see Amazigh culture and language more present in our education system, I would like to see one day the King give a speech in Amazigh, that's the least he can do. My aunt used to have her daughter sitting next to her when the king gave a speech, she revered the monarchy but couldn't understand a word he was saying, shouldn't a king be adressing his people in a language they can understand ? My remarks are just common sense, there is nothing vindictive in what I'm saying.
Dear Chelhman,
I just want to point out that not just your aunt who did not understand, but more than 70 % of the population who did not understand. My parents who speak just darija were not able to understand.
Illiteracy was and is the major problem. If your aunt and my parents did have the chance to go to school, they could have learned more than one language or at least one official language, required for any society relying on communication and information for its progress.
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Jexingo
Chelhman, I'm chelh too and I really don't care about learning amazigh at all. Let's just say that I'm one of those berbers who don't give too much a damn about the history of my grand grand grand grand ... parents. I beleive they weren't muslims before the arabs came in and I feel sorry for them that they died before hearing about Islam. That history stops right there.
Instead of wasting time and efforts into translating stuff into some 2000 years old language, I think we should rather spend that money to improve our educational system or invest it in the economy some way or the other. Chelman, only the jews have succeeded in reviving such an old language and it took them a whole lot of fighting. I consider ur demand to hear an Amazigh speech by the king as an extremely silly statement. Chelhman, I would say that the king has so much more important things to deal with.
U talked about Belgium, let me tell u of Kurdistan and specifically the part of it that takes place in Northen Iraq. Everyone has heard of the Mossad excellent relationship with Jalal Talibani. The amazigh question is a zionist creation just like the kurdish question. It is encouraged by the enemies of the muslims to create further divisions inside the muslim society.
Chelhman, since u are a sussi and like to go to the buttom line, maybe the flemish are not considering the king anymore but u can be sure that the beard invasion will surely support the king to put an end to an Amazigh revolution.
Chelman please don't talk about things u cannot comprehend. If u want to talk about Algeria, then state all the facts or shut up.
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Krim
Generally we go to fast in critisizing others. A behaviour which is at the heart of the critics we are trying to adress.
Sorry, I am just talking to myself.
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Krim
Does Kouider have a meaning ?
Thanks
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chelhman
As promised I'm opening this post so that we can discuss the Amazigh question in Morocco I would just like to comment on the "Christopher Columbus "reference..There is no way to compare his discovery of a New World to the Maghreb....Before the arab invasion, as you call it, Morocco had a culture and related history, it was not a wild Continent inhabited by local indians only...A lot of history has been preserved and respected, even I ( non moroccan ) know about the Berbers and their language..I am sorry some of the culture has been replaced by Islam , but never forgotten, nést pas ?
So lets be grateful for that, at least...
As my alias shows, I am amazigh, Soussi to be exact, as I said in the previous post I deplore the fact that the Amazigh history has been obliterated from the history books in Morocco. Recently I took an interest in the matter, I've combed the web to try to find some information of who we were before the Arab invasion, I wanted also to know how our language was like before the muslim era. The amazigh language is full of arabic words, but how did we speak before that...etc, my research was a mere historical curiosity. I found next to nothing. The very few information I found was from jewish imazighen who kept some records of what life was like, their interactions with other tribes and so on.
Officially, it's like there was nothing. As I said in another post, it reminded me of the arrogant sentence in european history books : "Christopher Colombus discovered America", really ?! So there was nothing there before ? the natives were part of the local fauna ?
Skip forward to present days, I would like to see Amazigh culture and language more present in our education system, I would like to see one day the King give a speech in Amazigh, that's the least he can do. My aunt used to have her daughter sitting next to her when the king gave a speech, she revered the monarchy but couldn't understand a word he was saying, shouldn't a king be adressing his people in a language they can understand ? My remarks are just common sense, there is nothing vindictive in what I'm saying.
However, I do not share the berberist vision, but for pragmatic reasons, I'm Soussi we always look at the bottom line :
I live in Belgium where I can see first hand how regionalist demands can ruin a country's economy. In Belgium, there's an old feud between Flemish and Walloons, the Flemish have been despised, their culture treated with contempt, economically they were weak, the monarchy was always francophone. In the last 30 years, the table has turned, Vlaanderen (Flemish region) has become the country's economical powerhouse. So they started settling their scores with the rest of the country. They have managed in the last 15 years to break up every national institution and regionalize it, from education to the military. The last thing left is the social security system, but they began the dismantling 3/4 years ago, soon they will be nothing left but a separation of the country, since they don't share anything with the other regions except the monarchy but even the king has been the target of the Flemish press.
We now have a federal gvt and three regional ones, we have the biggest concentration of ministers in the world, since you need 4 ministers of everything. The budget negociations are a haggling circus, the country is deep in debt, if it wasn't for the european institutions on Brussels soil, it would be bankrupt.
Now apply that to our country. It would be untenable. So as a Soussi, I look at the bottom line, we can not afford to sink into regionalist squabbling. But the monarchy better start taking the Amazigh question seriously, otherwise the more it's delayed the more the berberist will get impatient and turn this into a political sine qua non. Do not forget one important thing, Imazighen weigh heavy, and I mean really heavy in our economy, if this question gets too hot and some populist manages to unite them, we'll become Belgium.
Lastly, another reason I do not share the berberist vision : our country is subjected these past few years to an islamist pressure, this is by far the biggest threat I see, it requires of the Moroccans to stay united, not to get distracted by regionalist demands. If we don't keep our eyes on the ball, the beards will use that to swoop in.
I watched a documentary a few days ago on the genesis of the civil war in Algeria, it described with testimonies from former FIS and GIA members, the way they infiltrated the algerian society.
I imagined for one moment the possibility of that scenario in our country, I felt a sense of panic.
I want better recognition of our culture and language but not at the price of handing out our country to those savages.
To finish my thought, I'd say we are a multicultural society, let's recognize all of them, contempt breeds rancour, if I'm asked by an outsider what I am, I say I'm a Moroccan, that's all he/she needs to know, we don't air our dirty laundry.
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Krim
http://www.cme-energy.com/about/bios/Belguendouz.html
Vous êtes algerien donc.
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gabriella
I would just like to comment on the "Christopher Columbus "reference..There is no way to compare his discovery of a New World to the Maghreb....Before the arab invasion, as you call it, Morocco had a culture and related history, it was not a wild Continent inhabited by local indians only...A lot of history has been preserved and respected, even I ( non moroccan ) know about the Berbers and their language..I am sorry some of the culture has been replaced by Islam , but never forgotten, nést pas ?
So lets be grateful for that, at least...
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Yani
Hi everybody;
I'm back from a fairly long break. I see that the debate is strong thanks to some old folks and new ones...
To add to this debate so dear to my heart...I have a berber blood in me too, so goes the saying in most answers! The wealth of Morocco, as a country and North Africa as a Region comes from the different ethnic groups that intermingle and form independentcountries! Morocco. Algeria...
To say that things should go back to square 1 and start over giving power to the natives is a nothing but nice rethoric and would end up to the proponents reflecting their unwillingness to go forward and ultimately proving their ignorance of the actual reality; be it political, economical...
In short, As Moroccans, it's nice to be able to trace one's roots back to wahtever they are or might be, but it's wise to have this instinct of moroccanity to preserve a sense of unity!
Language is a unifiyinfg factor, of course religion too, but let's be realistic...religion is so politicised these days that you don't know the beleiver from the demagogue! So That makes it a personal matter, in my view!
I do share the view of those who advocate the use of the native, dialects in schools and the media...it's a far fetched idea to have the King; esp this one, give his speech in those dialects since he's not keen on giving speeches even in arabic...but I'm sure the media does that for him...
Speaking of this King, who made many a change ever since he got to his father's throne, one of the main changes that might have hurt the Amzigh question is his marriage! Historically, and you guys can trace this back as far as you want,the King made sure he married at least an Arab and an Amazigh! e.g Hassan2 and abdallah had different mothers, one arab, one amazigh; M6 and Rachid the same thing...that created a certain balance in reflecting the demographics....M6 seems to have broken/ to break that tradition, for lack of a better word! Good or bad...I'm sure that's debatable...But it has also settled the question that We're Moroccans with mixed bloods in us and there's no dissecting that!
Relief;
Would you please include the source of your copy/paste passage, I'm curious to know more...Thanks.
Cheers
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ecogest
tu cherche koi au juste?
Dommage que de tels sujets soient ouverts par des personnes qui ne cherchent, implicitement ou explicitement, que la division des peuples. ils se prennent pour des gens de savoir mais en fait ils sont manipulés par des forces sionistes.
un conseil: avant de dire des conneries(genre invasion arabe....) je te propose de feuilleter correctement l'histoire et tu trouveras à plusieurs reprises que les magharibas étaient des bergers analphabètes et l'islam venait éclaircir leurs cerveaux. et si tu as zapé cette partie de l'histoire, ça ne m'étonne pas car c'est ça en fait l'objectif des sionistes. je te propose aussi de lire " les protocoles des sionistes". tu comprendras par la suite leur stratégie....
j'ai appelé déja sur un post à l'unification mais apparemment ce genre de discours ne t'intéresse pas. et en plus depuis que je suis sur yabiladi j'ai jamais vu un pseudo genre "arabman". Pourquoi cherches-tu à te distinguer des marocain(e)s avec ton pseudo "chelhman"?
Cordialement
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Yani
Chelhman;
Reading your responses, What I understand from Ecogest's response is that he refers more to ppl like Kouider rather than you!
Now, this is my response to
Mr.Kouider;
Lots of things are hard to catch in this period of time, including your sensed anger at approaching this issue! Granted, your passionate about your beliefs and that's great, but don't be rigid!relax and read carefully! and if you have to quote me, at least do that accurately! "erasing all over", these are not my words, but no biggie! I guess you missed my reference to berbers as the natives!
What I don't catch is your gratuitous use of words such as Identity and Basic rights...My mom is berber, from Souss, and I am proud of that! she speaks Arabic and taught us arabic and also taught us to beleive in the berber Identity and rights...but that a battle most moroccans are fighting, get it, moroccans! ...now that I am spending some time researching the heritage, culture, dialects..., professinally, I regret not having learned at least one dialect while growing up.
Before you attack,instinctly,and keep repeating big words, do something...It's not by barking at the government, ours, that you'll get things done,OR may be you can! I prefer another approach! and don't misunderstand me here, I am with you in what you say, but I chose to act rather than preach and verbally attack some Folks, who are, to my surprise, defending your cause! Just because their approach and take on the issue is not similar to yours, Does NOt make them Wrong or less proud of their berber heritage.
Now, if you have some references for me to use, I'd gladly and thankfully use them. I can use all the help I can on this subject! If you decide to insult me,however, then your failling your cause and you missed everylittle point I tried to make!
Cheers;
Yani