من هو ابو هريرة

عاشوراء 1 | مظلومية الحسين أم تضحية المخلص ؟

It is absolutely imperative

It is absolutely imperative that we protect, preserve and pass on this genetic heritage for man and every other living thing in as good a condition as we received it.

Morocco is indigenous Amazigh

Morocco is indigenous Amazigh women unite against Islamists and Arab elites

MOROCCO'S INDIGENOUS BERBER PEOPLE ARE STRUGGLING TO MAKE THEIR VOICES HEARD DESPITE THEIR ANCIENT AMAZIGH LANGUAGE WINNING OFFICIAL RECOGNITION IN 2011. (FADEL SENNA/AFP/GETTY IMAGES)

In North Africa, Berber women have banded together to fight political Islamism, polygamy, child marriage, and impunity for perpetrators of domestic violence.

Their ancestors in ancient Carthage worshipped goddesses and venerated female warriors, queens, prophetesses and poets, but today the indigenous women of North Africa?s Amazigh or ?Berber? people say their matriarchal traditions and native language are under threat from Arab elites and burgeoning Islamism.

In Morocco, home to the largest population descended from the region?s original inhabitants, activists blame the dominant contemporary Arabic culture as well as imported religious extremism and ideologies aligned with Islamic State. ?Women?s groups always speak of ?the Arab woman? but we are not Arab women ? we have an Amazigh culture, language and identity which has nothing to do with the Arab woman from the Middle East,? Amina Zioual, President of The Voice of the Amazigh Woman told Women in the World.

Feminist activists ? Amazigh means free men or ?freeborn? ? argue they are ?doubly oppressed? for being female and indigenous, and are usually ignored by Arab feminists. So they have banded together to fight for recognition of their rights in the face of ?Arabization? ? official government policy since independence from France more than half a century ago ? political Islamism, persistent polygamy, underage marriage, and impunity for perpetrators of domestic violence.

Morocco?s first official Amazigh women?s association is pushing for access to justice, health and education. It says Berber women are members of an ethnic majority ? there are no official figures but some estimates put the Amazigh population as high as 70 percent ? yet are treated as a minority by a political regime privileging the Arabic language and conservative Islam.

?We created our group because the Amazigh woman ? who typically speaks her native Tamazight, not French or Arabic ? is not listened to and is even marginalized by the system in Morocco,? says Zioual.

?We have been in all the countries of North Africa for 3,000 years. We are oppressed by our government. They are always talking about Arabs but we are fighting to rewrite the history of Morocco.?

Outside of the southern Mediterranean, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Libya are typically assumed to be homogenous Arab-Muslim majority nations, where French is often also spoken because of the colonial past.

However, Amazigh groups insist there are around 25 million Berbers in North Africa, including two-thirds of Moroccans because they are descended from original inhabitants who predated the Romans, the Arab Muslim conquests beginning in the 7th century and later French colonizers.

?We want to debunk the common myth that Morocco is an exclusively Arab country and challenge our forced assimilation,? says The Voice of the Amazigh Woman on its online platform, highlighting its official United Nations? recognition as an indigenous people.

?The government wants to classify us as a minority people. We are more than 67 per cent of the population but there is a political program of ?Arabizing? the population so that Arabic is the predominant mother tongue.

Amina Zioual, President of The Voice of the Amazigh Woman.

Even if most Berbers have been Muslim for many centuries, Amazigh women want secularism, tolerance and religious diversity to be accepted too. ?We are not all Islamic or Arab ? we are also Jews and Christians and non-believers and we want a Morocco that is multi-cultural and where everybody can feel at home,? says Zioual.

The Voice of the Amazigh Woman prioritizes servicing poor indigenous women living in remote areas outside the big cities. These vulnerable groups are excluded because they are overwhelmingly illiterate (more than 70 percent of Moroccan women in country areas cannot read or write and the figures are much higher for Amazigh women) and they don?t speak Arabic or French. ?Amazigh women are at the receiving end of all the violence Moroccan woman in general suffer,? says Zioual. ?But then they are further marginalized because they cannot communicate in their language with government agencies, hospitals and the justice system where Arabic is almost compulsory.?

Following a sustained campaign, the Amazigh succeeded in 2011 in forcing the government to recognize their mother tongue Tamazight as the second national language. ?Unfortunately the reality is that this has not been put into practice,? explains Zioual.

Profiled in a new book Feminists of the Arab World, by French journalist Charlotte Bienaime, The Voice of the Amazigh Woman counts secular and religious, veiled women, Muslims and non-believers among its supporters.

Despite most Amazigh women today being Muslims, feminists claim their culture?s traditional interpretation of the religion of the ?invaders? did not involve men having multiple wives or women being considered as their chattels.

Zioual points the finger at the imposition of harshly patriarchal customs from the Middle East, particularly in recent decades. ?The active marginalization and oppression of women has come from Arab countries ? it is the Arab male who has this culture,? she says of escalating pressure on women to be heavily veiled, and the enduring practice of ?repudiation? (instant male-pronounced divorce), polygamy and an unwillingness to punish men who beat their wives.

?But in our culture the woman is queen,? she said. ?We never experienced polygamy until the arrival of Arab culture. And now the problem has been aggravated with the arrival of the Islam of Daesh (Islamic State) which has penetrated regional areas? ? a problem Zioual says the Moroccan government too often turns a blind eye to.

Morocco was recently severely criticized in a Human Rights Watch report for its abysmal treatment of women victims of domestic violence.

Although Western nations sometimes hail Morocco as an example of ?moderate Islam? when it comes to women?s status, around 10 percent of marriages involve girls under 18, and in rural areas they can be as young as 13.

Moroccan law allows a girl?s guardian to ask a judge for an exemption. The penal code also allows rapists to escape prosecution if they marry their victims, leading to horrifying cases of abuse, particularly in conservative country areas where families pressure girls to marry their attackers to avoid the social opprobrium and reduced marriage prospects for those known to no longer be virgins.

The Voice of the Amazigh Woman cites the 2012 case of a 16 year-old girl Amina Filali, who drank rat poison and died after being forced to marry and live for several months with the man who raped her. A woman who wants to divorce her husband meanwhile faces a legal and social minefield, while the procedure is relatively easy for men. ?Since 2004 in Morocco, a man is not supposed to repudiate and divorce his wife and take another spouse without her unforced permission. But the reality is most women don?t know they have these rights or can?t exercise them,? says Zioual.

?With this government presided over by an Islamic political party there is always the pressure to put an Islamic reference into all the laws. But as a feminist movement we denounce all these changes to the civil code and the penal and family code.?

For Zioual a pressing problem in today?s Morocco is that ?everything is seen through the Islamic prism.?

?Twenty years ago in regional areas you could go out without a veil or a headscarf, and you could wear a skirt or pants. But that doesn?t exist anymore in the provinces ? it is either the headscarf or the jellaba that are obligatory.

?This is all imposed by religion but also by the culture in our media, and on the radio. There have been radical changes and they have been pushing this for 50 years since Independence (from France).?

Women are sold the lie that in order to enter paradise they must be veiled and obey men, says Zioual. ?Most Moroccan women are illiterate, and don?t have financial resources. They depend on their husband so they tend to obey this culture that tells them not to ask for anything, whether it is schools, hospitals or roads. They are told if they are you are calm and placid they will go to paradise.?


The association?s next project is to lift the voter participation of Amazigh women in local and national elections. It has worked closely with Spain?s Catalan Agency for Development Cooperation in trying to make young girls and women aware of the importance of finishing school and not marrying until the legal age of 18.

Women in regional areas like the Atlas Mountains are educated about their legal rights when it comes to marriage and divorce ? and the importance of obtaining official papers when they wed, to avoid being thrown out later by a husband taking the ?back door? to polygamy or marriage with an underage girl. ?We have a problem in the family legal code which indirectly encourages men to take minor wives,? says Zioual.

?There are some regions where men and women are married by Imams without having official papers. Then when the man doesn?t need his wife anymore she has no proof of the marriage. Men have taken advantage of the practice to remarry with minors or to be polygamous. We are pushing for women to be able to officialize these marriages.?

Asked why she decided to found the association, Zioual, a married banker with a daughter, says she experienced firsthand the sense of exclusion and discrimination in elementary school when she realized she did not speak or understand Arabic like most of her classmates. ?Injustice and violence pushed me to work in different human rights and women?s groups, but the particular needs of Amazigh women were never discussed so we were obliged to found our own association,? she said.

?I will always be a feminist because when you live in Morocco and you see everything a woman must submit to, you automatically become feminist.?

Follow Emma-Kate Symons on Twitter @eksymons

From : NTimes

Auteur: EMMA-KATE SYMONS 
Date : 2016-03-28 

The Empire Without Borders

Berbers: The Empire Without Borders

The Berbers and the Bushmen are among the oldest people on earth.

Berber Versus Mazigh & Etymology of Imazighen:

The perplexed term 'Berber' is shrouded with mystery, just as the Berbers themselves. Regardless of whether some people like or dislike the use of the term 'Berber' the name had entered the international vocabulary and therefore it will be used here when writing in English. The matriarchal name 'Tamazight', albeit more popular in its recent masculine and patriarchal form Amazigh, is gradually becoming known to the outside world.

This is not to say that there is anything wrong with using the term Berber, just because it was mistakenly associated with Greek barbarous and the negative connotation it conveys – as it existed long before the Greeks and the Romans, and also was used by the Ancient Egyptians and the Berbers long before them. There is no doubt that the etymology of the name 'Berber' was altogether misunderstood, and it never meant 'barbaric' or 'savage' simply because the Romans used it to describe the Ancient Egyptians whom we all know were far more advanced and civilised than both the Romans and the Greeks.

Generally speaking the term "Berbers" was used by foreigners (or aliens some would say) to describe the native inhabitants of North Africa, while the Berbers call themselves Imazighen. Likewise, its etymology of  "Free People" or "Freemen" has neither etymological basis nor historical foundation, and it was merely a superstitious conjuncture that somehow gained widespread popularity amongst both Berberists and European scholars, probably after it was introduced to them by Berber Leo Africanus, without questioning its authority or explaining how it came to have this bizarre etymology. Which part in the term 'Imazighen' that says 'free' and which part that means 'people' remain to be explained. The only etymology that can be concluded so far is "noble", as in Tamaheqt majegh ('nobel'). Noble they are, no doubt; but free is far from true. Freedom starts in the mind, then magically manifests in the real world.

Imazighen is the plural form of the masculine singular Amazigh or Mazigh, while 'Timazighin' is the plural form of the feminine singular Tamazight. This means that the recent use of the term 'Amazigh' to describe a group of people (as in the Amazigh of Libya) is incorrect because the term is singular; and therefore the correct form to use is the plural form: the Imazighen of Libya. The popular and masculine form used almost world-wide, namely "Amazigh Language", does not exist; violates the sacred Tamazight; and seemingly is heading towards threatening the very base on which it was based – the matriarchal nature of the Berber society. Tamazight by itself means exactly that: 'Berber language'. For some unknown reason there seems to be the alien tendency to abandon the original matriarchal form Tamazight and ultimately all its associated forms!

'Tamazgha', meaning the 'land of the Imazighen' (or North Africa), was also invented by activists to describe what the Berbers have always prescribed as Thamorth, ('land, town, country'). Terms like 'Amazighity' (mixing the English suffix -ty with  Berber a-Mazigh-) and 'Imazighenautes' (the Berber geeks of the internet) give the amusing impression that things are getting complicated.

Some might say this should not pose a threat, so long as modernisation is applied to illuminate (rather than integrate then eliminate). But nature has already taken care of this process in a natural way. TEK ('Traditional EnvironmentalKnowledge') is continually modernising all aspects of human existence in one complete system we know as evolution – with the free 'will' to steer one's destiny.

This extensive TEK knowledge of indigenous People's heritage and accumulative wisdom, which modern scientists now seek for new insights, insures cultural continuation and inspires new inventions of material types, smart tools and even new human societies altogether; encompassing all aspects of human's existence. Yet despotic democracies, in contrast, emphasise only one single aspect on the expense of all other aspects including the desecration of nature, policing indigenous principles, impoverishing people, and even feeding the earth with toxic waste. This transitional expression will not succeed in evolutionary terms, because it violates long range perspective with which nature sees her future offspring thriving as ever!

The Berbers' mentality, their cheerful attitude to life, their customary egalitarian justice and tribal council of the elders (of both female and male transparent members of the society who lead by example), and all the good, unique elements that distinguish Tamazight society from the 'warring' ideals thriving in neighbouring and far distant countries may all become affected by, if not infected with, the new cultureless direction towards which the Berber society may one day find itself led to –> something the Imazighen of today ought to be concerned-with right now, rather than shortsightedly endure in decades to come. If the Berbers loose their unique sense of identity, as a Berber, one may no longer wish to remain a Berber, simply because there will be none in essence.

To take away from indigenous people their pride, then deprive them of the values at the heart of their existence, rather than preserve their priceless world heritage, goes against all human ideals allegedly reverberating across the moral world. The Berber Tuareg of the Sahara were also brought under the hammer in recent decades when they were forced to perform some patriarchal con-sessions to abandon a number of Tamazight matriarchal institutions including the "sacred matrilineal naming system".

"If the only tool you have is a hammer, I guess every problem has to look like a nail."

Estimated number of Berbers in North Africa: 38 million

Berber Origins & Fake Genealogies

Berber Origins & Fake Genealogies:

The Berbers’ supposed Iberian, Cretan, Canaanite or/and Yemenite origins are wholly unfounded, if not colonially impostored to divide and ruin, as anthropologists and historical linguists are increasingly pointing to the native nature of the Berbers. Regarding Ibn Khaldun's widely-quoted Berber ancestors, Olwen Brogan points out that his genealogies are “as artificial as are most similar genealogies.” While specific Oric Bates states that ”The literary opinion generally current among the Arab writers acknowledged several lines of descent for the various groups of Berbers, each group being referred to an imaginary, and usually eponymous, ancestor.” 

The histories of al-Bakari and Ibn Qotaybah (who identified the Berbers with the vanquished Philistines and the giant Goliath) Ibn Khaldun calls a "mistake". So are those genealogies tracing the Berbers to Yemen, H'imir or Ber-Bin-Qis, which according to the anonymous author of Mafakher Al-Barbar (‘The Boasts of the Berbers') are false and exist only in the minds of "jahilite" (1312 AD, p. 78).

In relation to the Berbers' Canaanite origin, who adopted the language of the conquered Hamites, myth has it both Phoenix and Cadmus were the sons of Agenor, the son of goddess "Libya" by Poseidon, who left Egypt to settle in the land of Canaan; and thus one reads in Genesis (09: 22): “Ham [is] the father of Canaan” (not vice versa). Unfortunately, both sources are now deemed by science unfit to recorded history; while the science of linguistics does confirm Hamitic languages are much older than both Semitic and Indo-European languages.

It is probably because of these and similar other influences, like Oric Bates had said, “The Byzantine historian Procopius has, like  Sallust, preserved a story of African origins which reflect this tendency on the part of the Libyans to relate their remote ancestry to Asia  Minor.” 

In fact Ibn Khaldun himself, nearly 700 years ago, made it clear that people "chose" to relate their origin to Semitic ancestors because Sam had five profits when Ham had none. One can only wish prosperity for the "chosen ones", and equally hope mercy and forgiveness for the "cursed" son of Ham – the "servant of servants" Genesis says (09:25).

In addition to the above genealogies, relating our biological origin to eponymous male-ancestors, "mitochondrial DNA" genes trace all modern humans back to one female ancestor scientists called "African Eve", who lived 100,000 years ago, in, Africa.

The Massacre of the Berber Guanches of the Canaries

The Massacre of the Berber Guanches of the Canaries:

The indigenous Guanche inhabitants of the Canary Islands (west of Morocco, in the Atlantic Ocean) were also Berbers right down to the 16th century, just before they were condemned to oblivion by barbarians from medieval Europe.

Probably the most disastrous event in Berber history in relation to European conquests is the terrible massacre of the Guanche tribes of the Canaries. Unimaginable catastrophe; effected in the name of piracy.

They were completely isolated from the outside world, living in peace and tranquility, and reportedly had no contact with the outside world until Spanish conquerors broke-in to embark on their systematic genocide – a brutal job that took nearly 90 years of savage slaughter to complete.

Still worse, those 'Berbers' who hid in the sacred caves of the mountains were slowly hunted to extinction like poor animals; while the captured survivors were sold as “first-class slaves" in Europe's aristocratic markets.

Without learning much about them, or about their painful tragedy, the Guanches were forced not-only to give up their beloved pride, and see their women & children slaughtered before their eyes, but also were forced to vanish off the surface of the 'earth'.

Imagine. Imagine what it would be like had they survived to-day! Imagine what it would be like today if the Berber Guanche civilisation remained so onto the present day; a rare treasure from our prehistoric past, where anthropologists say they did not even know about the "wheel" – the wooden wheel first invented by the Berber Garaments; the brakeless wheel that goes round an empty circle; the ouroboros wheel that eats itself to infinity; and yet more wheels to spin from the merciless "wheel of misfortune" – else known as the wheel of fortune to the chosen ones.

“Unfortunately, in the case of the Spanish conquests of the sixteenth century”, notes Elsdon Best, “that nation appears never to have considered it a duty to hand down to posterity any detailed description of the singularly interesting races they had vanquished. As it was with the Guanches of the Canaries, the Aztecs of Mexico, and the Quichuas of Peru, so was it with the Chamorro of the Ladrones, and the Tagalo-Bisaya tribes of the Philippines” (Pre-Historic Civilization In The Philippines, Journal of The Polynesian Society, vol. 1,1892, p. 118).

Perplexed as it might seem, tragedy after another, the Berbers' destiny is fraught with pain and perpetual struggle against the destruction of their peaceful legacy – the untold saga of human's longest misery in history – the massacre of identity. 

Like the Arab war generals themselves had later said (in their wars against Queen Kahina) :– whenever a Berber tribe is slaughtered, another emerged from the mirage like the jinn of the desert. 

When Berber Hannibal crossed the Alps and besieged Rome, the Roman emperor fled to hide behind his city walls – for 12 years – apparently afraid to give the Berber general a fair fight. When Hannibal was advised by his war generals to end the 12-year siege and burst through the city gates (as the Romans later did Carthage), he wisely reprimanded them that 'women & children' shall never be 'collateral damage'. Commanding Hannibal declined to murder women and children because he was a man.

Hannibal even refused to be made 'dead', when he voluntarily declared the return of his soul to the lone stars; not because he was scarred of death, but because he was afraid to live a matricidal master.

No wonder a single glimpse of the Berber Gorgon's eyes instantly turns 'man' to 'stone'. The blood droplets that fell off her severed head were said to have infested the Sahara with 'serpents'.

The berBer gorGon