The Berber Question in Algeria

The Berbers of Algeria have a tradition of political resistance and struggle to regain control of their cultural identity that goes back to the days of the French colony, as outlined above. The context in which they operate is also largely a product of French policy, and within that context, the Berbers tend to be constantly at odds with state authorities.

Continuing a policy that originated in Morocco with the dahir of 1930 (explained above), in 1949, the French administration attempted to pass a law in Algeria that would have given an important role to Berber customary principles alongside Islamic law.27 The French policy generated suspicion among the Arabs that there was an active plan for evangelizing the Berbers and Berberizing North Africa.28 The policy's legacy, in the post-independence era, is a lingering atmosphere of mistrust and animosity between Arabs and Berbers. In response, successive Algerian regimes have pursued policy that has had only one objective: the de-Berberization of the country.

Antagonistic sentiments between Berbers and the Algerian government became explosive in the "Tamazight Spring" of 1980. Riots were set off when a renowned Berber writer, Mouloud Mammeri, was barred by local Algerian authorities from giving a lecture on ancient Kabyle poetry at the University of Tizi Ouzou. The censoring of Mammeri provoked a strong reaction by the Berbers of the Kabyles, who accused the government of repressing Berber culture. Following the cancellation of Mammeri's lecture, Berber students demonstrated in Algiers and throughout Kabylia, calling for freedom of expression and for recognition of the Berber language and culture. The protesters were violently dispersed by the police and a number of students were arrested. In Tizi Ouzou, students voted in favor of a strike and occupied the University.29

On 20 April 1980, at one o'clock in the morning, the government launched a military operation to retake all the occupied institutions of Tizi Ouzou. Berber students and workers became the victims of widespread repression. Amid rumors that 32 people had been killed during the government onslaught, the Berbers called a general strike first in Tizi Ouzou and then in the entire region of Greater Kabylia. The government reacted by blocking roads and isolating the region from the rest of the country.30

Between 21 and 24 April, the populations of surrounding Berber villages joined the protests in Tizi Ouzou, building barricades to confront the police and government troops. Violent clashes took place between the Berber demonstrators and the police. After government troops subdued the demonstrators, many students, workers and activists were arrested. Under sustained pressure from a highly mobilized Berber community, all those arrested during the four days of rioting were released from custody. In hopes of putting an end to the uprising, the Algerian regime took a number of measures to alleviate certain hardships, making promises to support Berber culture, including the creation of university chairs of Berber Studies. However, these promises largely were deceitful and went unrealized.

Following the bloody clashes in Tizi Ouzou (the capital of Great Kabylie), the Mouvement Cultural Berbère (MCB--the Berber Cultural Movement) gained considerable momentum, not only against the state, led by the Front de Liberation National (FLN--the Algerian ruling party), but also against the rising tide of Islamic fundamentalists. The MCB, founded in the late 1960s, has remained the primary ideological counterweight to Islamism.31

In August 1980, the government organized a one month seminar to take stock of the Berber situation. An elaborate project was designed for the advancement of all aspects of Berber culture, the first such democratic experience to have taken place in Algeria since independence. The plan was sent for review to the FLN Central Committee, whose annual meeting was scheduled for September. Once official contacts took place between the FLN and the MCB, however, the government progressively reasserted its authority to uncontested rule. None of the numerous promises made in 1980 were kept, and by 1981 the status quo ante was virtually reestablished.32

While demonstrating its potential as the most significant opposition force in Algeria, the MCB successfully gained considerable popular support throughout Kabylia and the area surrounding Algiers, the capital. During the 1980s, the movement succeeded in inspiring resistance to the regime and even rebellion in other parts of the country. The MCB demanded that Berber identity and culture be respected and officially promoted. They also specifically demanded, among other things: the official recognition of the Berber component of Algerian identity; the promotion of the Algerian popular culture, be it Arabic or Berber; and the official recognition of Berber language (Tamazight) and colloquial Arabic as national languages and their teaching at all levels of education.33

The Berber demands laid out in 1980 had actually originated in 1967, the year in which the Berber Academy was established in Paris to alphabetize the Berber language. The demands of 1980 thus represented deep-seated and profound grievances associated with political disillusionment with the Algerian state and ideological disaffection with Algerian society. The Algerian state was buttressed by its tripartite bases of power located in the FLN, the army, and government bureau
cracy, which had effectively destroyed autonomous political life in the country's post-independence history. Centralized authority had led to a generalized sense of political alienation among many segments of the Algerian population, including the Berbers. The ambiguous mixture of Arab and Berber cultures had created a confusing national identity which was confounded further by government policies regarding language use.

Resentment and distrust of the government continued to simmer after the Tamazight Spring, which became understood as perhaps the most momentous political event to take place in Algeria after independence. It had opened the way to an international awareness of the Berber question throughout North Africa, and it led directly to further shocks against the state.

By the late 1970s, post-independence Algeria had apparently demonstrated how autonomous economic development could take place free from the hegemonic control of the global capitalist system. There was still, at that time, an economically viable socialist bloc with which to trade. By the mid-1980s, however, the global market was thrown into upheaval by collapse in the prices of oil and natural gas, Algeria's main exports. The debacle led to the breakdown of the Algerian model of development and the failure of state socialism, which had been the operant ideology to that point. Economic deterioration led quickly to social unrest, and Algeria witnessed continuous rioting throughout the late '80s.34

Unlike earlier events, such as the Tamazight Spring of 1980, or the Algiers Casbah riots of 1985, the "Black October" riots of 1988 proved very difficult to control. By the time order was restored, hundreds had been killed and thousands injured in six days (6-11 October). The scope, destructiveness and loss of life rocked the Algerian state to its foundations.35 The riots highlighted several issues. First, the bloody event featured the wide rift between a predominantly youthful population and the old FLN establishment. Second, it revealed an unexpected vulnerability in the economic and political structure of the regime.36 Third, it showed that "autonomous social forces, long regarded as either impotent or subservient to state control, emerged with incredible vigor, if not vengeance, to challenge the hegemony of state power. Workers, farmers, students, Islamists, and Berberists all rose in violent protest of their continued condition of marginality and subordination."37 Finally, it suggested that after three decades of authoritarianism, a radical change in the political structure was needed urgently.

After the rioting was suppressed, the Algerian regime once again initiated reform measures to rebuild the confidence of the population. On 3 November 1988, a national referendum was passed to amend fourteen of the constitution's 199 articles.38 In another plebiscite, on 7 February 1989, further constitutional amendments were mandated. One important amendment was to institutionalize political pluralism to permit representation by all ideological tendencies. "Although there were significant constraints--for example, the associations may not have overtly religious or regionalist platforms--the new frameworks opened the way for a controlled multiparty system to develop."39

Most important of all was an amendment to allow two significant political and social forces, the Islamists and the Berberists, to challenge the FLN regime. In national elections held on 12 June 1990, the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) won a majority of the votes, demonstrating a major bipolarity in Algerian politics--Islam versus secular society and government.40 The FLN refused to permit the FIS to take power, and Algeria has been in turmoil ever since. The Berbers have been caught in the middle. Some 11,000 people have died in the violence of the past three years.

All that has transpired since the 1988 riots, especially the government's efforts to cope with the revolutionary FIS, contributes toward developing the present context in which the Berbers are subjected to hostility and physical attacks by both the government and militant Muslim fundamentalists. The Islamists are strongly opposed to secular Berbers whom they accuse of being atheist-materialists. In the early 1980s (when the revolution in Iran was still a very recent event), the Islamists did not have a sufficiently strong organization to threaten the Berbers, except in Algiers. By the end of the 80s, however, the Islamists' popularity had begun to soar throughout Algeria, especially after the 1988 riots. The rise of Islamism as a popular movement was a threat to the Berber cultural movement for two reasons.

First, the FIS called unequivocally for combatting and destroying the Berbers. For example, in 1990 a leader of the FIS called for a jihad against the Kabyles and declared that the only means to get rid of the Berbers was to Islamize and totally Arabize the country.41 Another leader complained that whenever he wanted to go from one side of Algeria to the other he had to cross "Europe" (meaning the Kabyles), which irked his Islamic feelings. He called overtly for eliminating the Berber culture.42

The second reason for the Islamists' attack against the Berbers reflected the policy and attitude of the Algerian regime towards the Islamists themselves. After supporting Islamists in the 1970s, the Algerian government found itself threatened by them later, and in attempting to play one enemy off the other, allowed the Islamists to acquire considerable strength against the Berbers. The Berbers therefore face two threats simultaneously--the Algerian government and the Islamist revolutionaries.

Due in great part to its myopic policies, the Algerian government has brought the state into conflict with disaffected democratic opposition groups. These include the two main Berber opposition parties, the Front of Socialist Forces (FSF), led by Ait Ahmed, and the Assembly for Culture and Democracy (RCD), led by Said Saadi. Both parties have a strong Berber constituency.

Saadi, who represents the smaller but more strident of the two groups, addresses his followers in the Berber heartland of the Kabyles in their own language. In recent interviews given to the foreign press, Saadi has issued warnings that amount to thinly-veiled threats. He says that, given the government's abdication of its duty to protect its citizens, Algerian Berbers have no choice but to take control of their own lives. He warns of the futility of dialogue with Islamists and claims that opponents of fundamentalism have already formed "armed groups" and "self-defence vigilante cells."43 In late 1993, after armed Islamists attacked several Berber villages (the Berbers resisted fiercely), Saadi admitted that the "resistance movement" brings with it the danger of civil war. But he said: "we can no longer spend our time burying our dead."44 Berber nationalists say that they have suffered repression for many years and that the government refuses to recognize Berber identity, leading some to expect a full scale Berber uprising against the government in the near future. Meanwhile, the assault by Islamists against the Berbers has reached the proportion of full-scale war. As this article goes to press, there has recently been a series of armed attacks unfolding in the Berber regions of the Kabyles and Shawiya (the town of Batna, in particular).

Fourth World Bulletin • Fall 1994/Winter 1995

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