The Berbers

What do we mean by Berbers? Berbers are a North African ethnic group living in a geographic belt from the westernmost part of the Maghreb, Morocco, in the east as far as western Egypt with a significant diaspora in Europe, mainly in France but also in Spain and Italy, and to a lesser extent in North America and elsewhere. Berbers are also known as Tamazight, Imazighen (singular Amazigh), and by a host of other names specific to particular groups such as Shawiya or Chaouia and Kabyle. Berbers are one of the oldest ethnic groups of North Africa, a fact supported by archaeological findings dated 25,000 years old and by linguistic evidence showing a separation of the Berber language from the proto-Indo-European family over 10,000 years ago. Berbers are the only surviving descendants of the original indigenous inhabitants of North Africa, known as Imazighen, and occupying the region since prehistoric times.

Berbers live mainly by the Mediterranean coast and in the inland mountains and plateaus of the region – the Rif mountains of northern Morocco and northern Algeria, the Middle Atlas mountains, the Saharan Atlas mountains, and the Aurès mountains of eastern Algeria. Berbers also used to inhabit the Sahara region of southern Morocco, Algeria and Mauritania, but they have been largely Arabized and Islamized by Arab invaders, to the point that today little is left of their specific identity. Berbers speak one or another variety of the Berber language from the Afro-Asiatic language family, which is the oldest known language in North Africa and which is thought to be more than 5000 years old.

2. Historical Background

Berber history remains obscure before Contact. A diverse array of languages with different glottochronological dates has led to conjectures that Berber groups migrated into North Africa before the arrival of the Semitic traders in the second millennium B.C., or that groups moving out of the Sahara made an early move back. Long periods of settlement and migration marked by a succession of cultures suggest the mixing of waves of migrants and intruding groups as pointer peoples moved across the Saharan gateway. The origins of Berber cushions in the Sahara are equally obscure; for the origins of the Berber cushion in North Africa are equally obscure. These are central issues in the Berber debate: the early origins and what languages they first spoke, the effects of migration of pointer migrants, and the development of Berber groups into the early kingdoms of the Berbers before their expansion from the Mediterranean coastal plain to the Atlantic and south into the Sahara. Berber prehistory continues to be marked by debate.

A patchwork of peoples divided by status, landscape, and ethnic identity, Berber kingdoms have flourished in North Africa. But contact with Semitic and then Latin establishes the written history of the Berbers; Berber heathens and then Christians and then dispersed into the Muslim question; Berber Christianity founded and then moved Christianity into the staunch defence of Berber paganism. However disputed, Berber history is hardly short: rafts of less than three centuries separate the appearance of the Berbers in written records from the emergence of the Berber kingdoms of the first millennium A.D. That early prehistory continues to be controversial but marked less by absence than by debate. It is the contact with Semitic and then Latin that writes Berber history and attaches the groups and then their divisions to the desert and the mountain. The notice of the Berber names alone yields no answer to the question of the origins of the Berbers.

2.1. Origins of the Berber People

Early writing systems from the Berber world provide evidence that the Berber people, indigenous people of North Africa, spoke Berber languages prior to the Phoenician colonization. Through assessment of vocabulary and similarity, some scholars propose an earlier homeland for the Berber languages in Europe, later replaced by Celtic languages, or even the Caucasus region, each hypothesis being discussed. Despite gaps of reliable evidence, many take a Berber homeland to be the Saharan zone, based on the proximity of today’s Berber speakers and the sparse evidence of ancient neighboring Pharaonic Egypt and Classical Greece. The Berber people, or Amazigh, were masters of the inland and Saharan routes, recent evidence indicating that they ruled the Saharan routes. First at the service of the Phoenician cities and then colonized and dominated by Rome, Berber countries came under the effect of both colonization and Romanization during more than three centuries. The Berbers remained dependent and agrarian for their parts, left to the Romans the Saharan center and its trade; demanded by the trade for the exportation of Roman products and for the importation of the Saharan wealth, slaves, ivory, Saharan animals, the Berbers contributed little to the Sahara. Having imbibed Roman and Phoenician products and colonial incorporation, their trade began to collapse after the fall of Rome and the sack of Carthage by the Vandals. The Berber Kingdoms of post-Roman times, established in the current Tunisia or on the coast, are often considered Variegated and ephemeral. Failing to unite with the inland allied Berber tribes against colonization, sometimes on the contrary treating with colonizing Byzantium or invading Arabian cities during the Arab conquest, these kingdoms collapsed under the pressure of the latter before collapsing under the devastating violence of the accompanying Berber tribals.

2.2. Berber Kingdoms and Dynasties

Berber Kingdoms and Dynasties. From the seventh century B.C., the Berbers established independent kingdoms and dynasties in northwestern Africa, but fell gradually under the influence or domination of foreign empires and settlements. After the arrival of Islam in the seventh century A.D., Berbers became Muslim and contributed massively to the general Islamic civilization. During that period, they established some influential dynasties in the Islamic world.

Berber states were established in Morocco at various times in antiquity, notably by the Berber kingdoms of Mauretania and of Numidia, as well as by the settlement of the Phoenicians at the end of the first millennium B.C., the Punic Empire that ruled for a long time over the coastal cities, and the Romans in several sites of the interior. These foreign strongholds controlled commerce but did not disrupt the Berber way of life in the internal regions, divided into tribes and clans, which endured throughout history. It is by choosing to settle in the interior, in the upstream regions, that the new conquerors were effective in imposing order and influence. Berber tribes often revolted against foreign domination, as in the famous revolt of Ibn Yasin against the Almoravid Empire, and the brigandages organized by the Kharijites, notably in the 8th and 9th centuries.

2.3. Colonial Impact on Berber Societies

For all these reasons, the colonial presence, at least in the beginning, did not cost the French the cost of heavy fighting against resistance and movements of refusal, at least before the 1930s. Why? Because the Berbers had understood that if their society was to be preserved intact, it was necessary to make common cause with the French colonists against the Arabization undertaken by the dynasties of the Sherifian Sultan, too committed to their role as holy sovereigns, respecting the Islamic religion in the strictest sense of the term. As a result, the high plateaus of the Muslim berberophone tribe of the Kabyles, as well as the valleys of Morocco from Al-Hoceima to Tarudant, were spared, and became privileged sites for the establishment of colonial military bases. Then the Berbers had offered little resistance to the work of establishment. It was out of the question to oppose the French presence in these regions so long ago, and often voluntary lands desired to be free of the royal yoke in order to find some rest after centuries of taxing a heavy toll of blood on the part of the Sultan or his governors.

Conversely, the Arabs of the valleys of the south and the north had made the blood flow abundantly in the streets of Casablanca in 1907, Ahaggar in 1911, and Fez in 1911, but even more in the Medina of Algiers in 1830. From the colonial point of view, this policy was still a bad choice, even dangerous, for the political and social unity of the Berbers was never so strong as when they merged with the colonial sovereign, who became a formidable ally against the royal arbitrariness. The military task of the colonial administration was therefore reduced to the task of a simple policeman, contenting itself with a few petty interventions. This relative quiescence was nevertheless very short-lived, since the Berber entrepreneurs resuming control of public life after 1914 made incessant efforts to assuage their needs, and the Arabs were more determined not to let them do so without at least endeavoring to disturb their plans.

3. Linguistic Diversity

Tamazight and Other Berber Languages As previously noted, for several decades, Morocco’s Berbers and their supporters have pushed for the policy shift that finally materialized in the constitutional recognition of Tamazight in 2011. It is instructive and significant that the state has recognized only one of the varieties of Berber languages spoken in Morocco—namely Tamazight, the language of the Zayanes and other northern Berber groups, and because it is also the most widespread of the Berber languages, its very choice deserves scrutiny. Tamazight could be said to be the language of only a portion of the Berber speakers in Morocco. Many Berber-speaking Moroccans feel that Berber identity is inextricably related to the specific dialect they speak. For these reasons, many people reject the use of the more general term “Tamazight” or “Berber” for the language that they speak. The Berber Branch of the Afro-Asiatic Language Family comprises such languages as Tachelhit, Tarifit, Ghomara, Senhaja, Tamazight, and Tasoussusit. These languages are spoken in Morocco and in a few northeastern regions of Algeria from the Kasbahs to the town of Ouazzane. Their mutual intelligibility is often described as being low, as interlocutors may be reduced to exchanging individual words from their respective dialects. Language Preservation Efforts The preservation and promotion of language use in private and public spheres remains one of the foremost challenges for Berber ethnic groups. Berber identity cannot be expressed or experienced without a language, and the languages spoken in Morocco are becoming increasingly marginalized. While the 2011 constitution recognizes both Arabic and Tamazight as official languages, the language designated official is only Arabic, and most Berber speakers highlight the muted status of Tamazight in various media, in academia, and in government policy, as well as the limited Tamazight-language broadcasts.

3.1. Tamazight and Other Berber Languages

Linguistic diversity is one of the keys to understanding Berber identity. Berber languages, collectively referred to as “Tamazight” by speakers, belong to the Afro-Asiatic language family, specifically to the branch commonly referred to as “Berber” or “Tamazight”. Because of the diversity of the Berber speech area and internal migration processes, there are numerous varieties of Tamazight and therefore dialects. The most commonly cited major varieties are the following: the Shilha language of the Western Moroccan regions; Central Tamazight spoken in the Atlas Mountain regions of Morocco; Eastern Tamazight spoken in part of Eastern Morocco; Middle Atlas Tamazight, classified as a transitional dialect between Central and Eastern Tamazight; and Tashelhiyt or Tachelhit associated with the Tashelhit/Tachlkit variety of Shilha. These can be found in the Berber societies of modern Morocco.

The dictionaries of some of these dialects were elaborated as early as the beginning of the 18th century and published by the earliest missionaries in the region and later by emigration contexts. Specialized current studies of the Berber Academy and other associations, as well as extensions of Berber studies in Moroccan universities have succeeded in forming standardized dictionaries that facilitate the unity of the Tamazight language and the consonance of all the dialects in the Berber language. Work is also underway in Algeria, Libya, Mali and Niger.

3.2. Language Preservation Efforts

More than any scholar’s technical curiosity, the preservation of archaic dialects has thus motivated studies of Berber linguistics. The documentation of Berber languages is therefore primarily founded on the urgency of linguistic preservation — that is, of producing technical studies, grammars, and dictionaries, which may be used by increasingly rare dialect-surviving native speakers. A second, related, reason for the urgent effort regarding Berber studies is the resurfacing of language politics in the home countries of dialect-shrinking speakers. In these contested, post-colonial environments, and frequently in diaspora settings, ethno-linguistic Berber revival movements challenge the idea that Berbers, as minority peoples, should abandon their languages and pharmacopoeial traditions and assimilate to the surrounding Arabic-speaking lowland populations. As well, these movements argue for the further support of, and the wider social uses of, the declining Berber dialects — and, as in the case of Central Atlas Tamazight, also for the teaching and promotion of Berber as a national language in Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia. In response, diasporic and home-country Berber dialect-speaking communities have, over the past several decades, rapidly transformed existing scientific resources into practical educational materials. These include elementary school manuals, learning CDs and smartphone learning apps, and printed dictionaries, which serve both learners and translators, especially from international institutions working in the home countries of Berber speakers.

Despite the diversity of Berber dialects, and despite the political challenges and the technical difficulties facing these language-preservation efforts, it is important to emphasize that Berber languages — especially Central Atlas Tamazight, as one of the major dialects — can be taught and learned, and that they can be used for both everyday interaction and semi-specialized and scientific discourse across a wide range of domains, including education and media transmission, especially at the level of primary education (through print, audio, and digital media) and also news and storytelling on television channels, through subtitles from and translators into Arabic and French.

4. Cultural Practices

4.1. Traditional Music and Arts In some ways, Berber cultural practices are responsible for the resilience of contemporary Berber activity. Music, festivals, dance, the decoration of everyday objects — these are some of the artistic fields which contribute to the transmission of Berber identities. Berber music is rich, famous for its variety of rhythms, and diversity of instruments. In fact, the Berbers have been celebrated for their music for as long as anyone can recall. The Berbers of North Africa have developed a rich diversity of poetic themes, most often expressed in song. The Berber artist is rarely isolated, and musicians are often accompanied by dancers, who give life and vigour to public celebrations. Each Berber group has its own universe of rhythms, songs, and instruments. No other North African culture has quite the same variety of instruments, styles, or subjects. Berber music accompanies the most remarkable moments in life, such as birth, circumcision, marriage, weaving, sowing, shepherding, harvesting, and mourning. It also accompanies the moment at the end of life, when the spirit journeys to another world. Among the Berber groups, at almost all the festivals, such as the spring festival, weddings, and so on, we find traditional dances performed by men as well as women, and these dances are accompanied by music. These festivals are often the occasion for fighting (mock), especially for men. These friendly fights are not only followed for their violence, but also for the manner of the performers. The men show their courage and virility, while the women admire their strength and nobility. 4.2. Festivals and Celebrations The Berber calendar is punctuated by a number of rites tied to death, life, and the guardian spirits of different agricultural activities, which are celebrated by all members of the group concerned. For the Kabylie and the Chaouia, the most important celebrations are Yaâou, Bouneguene, and Achoura, which correspond roughly to the Berber New Year and two National Festivals. For the Shebka, the Kasbah, the Bni-Ali, and the Rharous, the most important celebrations are Bouimouss, Bouhauthane, the Arif women, the Mules Bachedel, and Boufig. These celebrations are often periods of rest and gathering of family and friends. In summer, the entire community congregates at El-Maâta to celebrate the Festival of Trez. The important festivals of the Berbers are religious in character and concern earth fertility. Culinary traditions, accessing the table, tasting meals, and renewing an age-old kinship link are, throughout the country, almost identical. The Berbers of eastern Morocco can be distinguished in terms of the products that they eat.

4.1. Traditional Music and Arts

Berber traditional arts are historically practical and do not have decorative value. Berber art appears through necessity; Berbers have always made all their belongings, used to make their lives better, or beautiful such as tents, rugs, clothes, silver jewelry, baskets, etc. Art is manifested in Berber culture by utility objects whenever they are made by man or woman. The woman weaver of rugs and carpets, the man blacksmith making tools or weapons are both artists giving beauty to their work. The artist gives himself a break to admire the exquisite shapes and decorations designed by every Berber craftsman: the weavers who often work in compositions with colors chosen but mostly wild in some Berber villages, the man who shapes the beaten copper into designs to please the eyes as well as to serve utility, all these Berber artists are creating borrowed art, borrowed because such art is considered derivative. Borrowed Art! Yes, but not produced in straightjacket, rather produced in an environment of freedom where everything is sometimes spontaneous. Berber craftsmen today make their living by mass-producing decorative artifacts to please tourists (haiks or burnous for example are hand-made but they are meant for tourists and not the traditional Berber families anymore). Were the carpets originally made to cover the floor or to decorate the walls of tourist hotels or European homes? The answer to that question lies in both time and utilities used by Berbers to make them (wool has been replaced today by synthetic fibers). Remember that Berbers once made utility carpets but they are producing decorate carpets today. Utility became decoration.

Music traditionally occupied a great place in Berber life. When meeting every evening, Berbers especially youth danced and sung. Vocal music is generally accompanied by percussion instruments and wind instruments. Quenching any thirst for social, and artistic activity, music spontaneously created in a festive situation is one of the oldest means of expression within every Berber community where a certain number of collective and individual activities in an economy governed by necessities originated. The musical heritage of Berber arts, like plastic works, persists today. It has no fixed form, a techno-pop or techno-melody composition charm, where the tempo produced by the drum is at the strict service of the naked melody and words expressing taken emotions or topics. What is new relative to old Berber melodies is the absence of any accompaniment other than the tempo focused on rhythm.

4.2. Festivals and Celebrations

Berbers (or Amazighs) have a long-standing history and rich cultural tradition that are unique from other groups in North Africa, including language, oral literature, music, dance, medics, astronomy, and art. Most importantly, they have a way of living together in a world made safe by their own laws and customs, where each man has a place in the family and community. Celebrations and special occasions enrich the life of the people, allowing for expressions of joy. Often, these occasions bring together people in celebration, feasting, and dancing.

The Berbers commemorate important dates all the time. Some of these dates are religious, such as the commemoration of the Prophet’s birth, or other significant events. Others are related to the seasonal cycle, such as the sharing of the harvest or the marriage of the almonds. The Berbers also commemorate the birth, circumcision, marriage, and death of different family members. Each occasion has its own food, drink, music, dance, dress code, rites, and rituals. Regardless of the occasion, these festivities are times of celebration and joy. ‘Funerals’ are not excluded; far from them.

Celebrations bring together the family and, beyond it, the neighbors and the whole village. A few of these celebrations are unique to Berbers while others can be found among several Berber regions, but both have their differences. Each region is able to enrich and beautify the dress for the occasion. Some celebrations are characterized by a specific dish that we do not find during other occasions, creating perpetual renewal. Other than that, every group takes great care to embellish the decoration of the festivities or the food. Gathered in an atmosphere of joy and brotherhood, people wear their new clothes, embroidered with bright colors and bedecked with silver jewelry.

4.3. Culinary Traditions

Berber cuisine is closely associated with their traditional lifestyle and homes. Its basics are made of natural and local products that are mainly cultivated and processed in the traditional way. Berbers consider traditional food to be the foundation of their identity. Berber dishes are mainly based on cereals and their derivatives, vegetables, dairy products, and animal proteins (meat, fish). Couscous is the ballast of Berber diet. This dish is prepared by steaming the granular semolina or wheat and by processing it in many ways according to different occasions, holidays, and region ethnic groups. Couscous is served every Friday at midday when Berber people go to souq and mosque. Outside Marrakech, it is prepared every day in some Berber families. The storage, preparation, and consumption of couscous are endowed with symbols that testify to their importance in the daily and festive life of the Berber people. The Berber women have traditionally prepared the couscous, with the wedding day symbolizing their initiation ceremony.

Bread is also among the main aspects of Berber diet. Bakery ovens are usually at the centre of village life. Freshly baked traditional bread is served every day for breakfast and is used by men to wipe their lips when participating in the main meal at midday. Olive oil, jam, and caramelized milk are usually spread on the bread for breakfast, and honey for special occasions. For Berbers, eating and sharing bread, the most sacred, the most fragile, and the most noble of food is an indispensable element of social and cultural life. The custom is to break bread together and not to eat alone. It is considered to be even humiliating to turn your back on someone. Butter, olives, and cheeses are also served daily with bread. All kinds of sweets are traditionally served on certain occasions: for marriages and new births, just like during the holidays. These sweets are made from flour and semolina, oil, milk, sugar, honey, eggs, nuts, sesame, and incorporating sugariness. They are baked, grilled, or boiled.

5. Religious Beliefs

5.1. Islam and Its Influence The vast majority of Berbers profess Islam, whose essence thus modified also animates the daily life of Berber individuals. Islam has deeply influenced many aspects of Berber life, and most of Berber culture is interwoven with Islam. Through the centuries, Muslim society has exerted an enormous pressure on the various groups of Berbers who were compelled to convert to Islam and Arabicize. Conversion to Islam reflects political submission to Muslim power, while Arabization (in different degrees according to the situation of the various regions) almost always ensues in more advanced stages of the process. However, the tremendous hubbub of exogenetic religious manifestations seldom managed to disrupt the continuity of indigenous beliefs, which, in general, resisted the overwhelming phenomenon of Islamization, essentially because Islam offered no alternative to the repressed native religions. The Berbers have then absorbed and adapted Islam. The Berber is a Muslim and professes the precepts of Islam; he is incorporated, socially and politically, into the Muslim community, although this cannot erase the unique persistence of the collective peculiarities of Berber ethnicity, distinguishing him from the other Muslims.

5.2. Pre-Islamic Beliefs and Practices The rural Berber is attracted more by magic, charms, and the uncertain promises of native saints than by the established fundamentals of orthodox Islam; he prefers the novelties of Sunday meetings and the sanctuaries of native saints to the pillars of Islam, as practiced in the towns. He often doubts the validity of an unbending Islam in which prohibitions abound. The rites of visitation of the cemeteries considered a holy act, do not deviate from the core of Islamic worship. Saint veneration is widespread among the colonial and pre-colonial Berbers.

5.1. Islam and Its Influence

From the advent of Islam to date, the history of the Berber people in North Africa, especially in Morocco and Algeria, has been intimately linked to their adherence to Islamic beliefs. Islam established itself as the state religion, and Berber adherence to Islam was compulsory, which further established the Arabs’ political authority in the region. Opposition to this authority, expressed by many Berber clans, was interpreted as heretic, paganish, or revolutionary, ever since the appearance of the Ideology of Shi’a Contempt: “the kaghan had said that they were far superior to all the Shi’ah who followed that rabble and allowed cause in the five prayers addressed to a mummified corpse rather than to God, and no tomb can trump his voice.” True believers of Islam were certain that the Saharans were idolaters.

In a similar way, during the Jihad of the West celebrated by Ibn Tūmart and Abd al-Mumin, this Islam was forced upon the Berber tribes, who were not yet wholly Muslim, with threats and penalties. Rebellion against Almohad authority raised suspicion of disbelief and paganism. Berber tribes who disagreed with the Almohad administration began to be branded kharijites, without any justification, detection of the most blatant elements of unbeleif being used as the legal reason for the initiation of armed conflict. Ibn Khaldun, too, assesses the Almohad Empire in this way: “The kharijites increased in number among the Berbers of the Maghreb. The rulers in that region attempted, by means of the sword, to seize this vainglory for themselves, in order to turn it into wealth and riches, while these people were completely overwhelmed by the burdens and taxes. From this friction they were driven to violate the law, and to rest in the work of Ibn Ghawz, humiliated men who followed Amwar’s appeal.”

5.2. Pre-Islamic Beliefs and Practices

The earliest evidence of Berber religion is from ancient rock carvings found in the Sahara and in Atlas mountain caves. These carvings depict horsemen and animals such as wild goats, cattle, and lions, but do not present a complete picture of Berber religious belief before Islam. Other sources state that Berber or Berber-related tribes worshiped gods such as Baal Hammon, Saturn, and Set in ancient North Africa before the advent of Islam. Temples dedicated to Belesmas practiced human sacrifice, which was also endemic during Berber-Jewish relations. It is noted that in ancient Mauretania, the Berbers honored Persephone and dedicated sacrifices to her, while her aspect “Achton” presided over the land of the dead. Accounts of the Berbers generally state that they had an abundance of temples and monuments and worshiped a multitude of gods, but still offer few clues as to these early cults, especially those of the “indigenous” tribes. The majority of these tribes appear to have worshiped the gods of nature as personifications of the sun, the moon, storms, seas, and rivers. Prehistory also saw the occasional presence of an individual “deified” king, as is witnessed by both Berber and Egyptian records. Caves also played a special role for Berber tribes, who used them both for burial purposes and as sanctuaries. From these rock-cut chambers, they extracted a substance of great importance for survival: the sodium bicarbonate known as natron. Found on the surface of the adjacent salt lakes, the Berbers used natron, particularly enriched on the shores of Lake Zarga, to preserve mummies. It preserved their meat, fats, leather goods, and mortuary offerings and may also have played a role in trade relations with the near east, where sodium bicarbonate was in demand.

The discovery of gravesite offerings as well has made it possible to reconstruct the funeral rituals of pre-Islamic Berber tribes. These humble offerings reveal the appearance of people who labored at menial tasks in their daily lives and whose primary concern while alive was food. The grave goods testify to their humble housing conditions and simple diet; they had no money, but did possess essential items like spinning and weaving implements, pottery vessels and lids, saddles, medicinal seeds, “amulets,” and daggers. Some were buried in coffins and laid face up in the same positions while others were wrapped in badly preserved shrouds. Some graves also contained body parts and appear to be evidence of cannibalism, possibly the deification of tribal chiefs or divination practices.

6. Social Structure

The social organization of Berbers is often described as segmentary. Defining sub-groups could vary in size, including “clan”, “lineage” (with common male ancestor), and “fraction” (including several clans). Combat organization depends on groupings that could be larger (such as the “tribe”), for example, during violent conflict with an external enemy. Berber kin-based organization, with its emphasis on equality among members of a group, remains “segmented” as a consequence of certain characteristics of the link between family and state as relations with central authorities are not overtly conflictual. Furthermore, the large, relatively autonomous extended family unit (with many adult males) has recently become more flexible, due to economic necessity. Families nowadays often have members living in different villages or even countries. Kinship contact is important; however, as a source of support for help to labor or food, long-term friendship based on egalitarian principles can also serve as a social safety net.

Most Berbers are patrilineal, and in many coastal areas, some live in matrilineal family organization and matrilateral cross cousin marriage. However, cross cousin marriage is particularly prevalent on the edge of transition zones between area A and B. Berbers are reputedly endogamous. Berber rules concerning confinement of women are strict, especially in the interior mountain areas. The movement of women has begun to change greatly, however, since the colonial period, especially in urban areas, where men have less control over women’s mobility. Micnarratives of a new flexibility in gender relations abound; however, women’s security has also become more precarious as relations between men and women have begun to blur. The exact degree of autonomy and mobility in the social world of women depends on village customs, family structure, and gender age relations.

6.1. Family and Kinship

The founding stone of any social structure is family. Relations of that kind are the most important, and they are defined by blood ties and the sacred duty of helping members of the family as much as possible, which is not always reciprocated. The family is a small economic and trading unit, particularly in the countryside. For Berber tribes, the family structure is based on lineage and clan as well, like in all societies with tribal origins. Primary decision-making bodies still exist at the tribal level in the Moroccan south, despite the disintegration of kinship bonds and a wider and multifaceted integration of Berbers into society as a whole. Most employment in rural areas is related to farming and livestock-breeding, activities for which only large families with high numbers can be productive, particularly during harvest season.

A family’s collective property – especially the land, house, and inheritance of cattle – means spending a lifetime protecting it and watching over it as a unity. Within family and clan boundaries, everything is taboo, and the slightest violation is severely punished. In the absence of state policing, threatening rival clans with blood vengeance is still often the way for clans to settle lawsuits against each other or any other dispute. Patrilinear descent, where the father is the common ancestor of his children, is essential to defining a lineage, just like a common totem ancestor common to the clan. Female lineages are not disregarded, as important functions within the female network pass from mother to daughter and mother-in-law to daughter-in-law. No Berber man would marry someone who was not already engaged in an alliance with the tribe some time back.

6.2. Role of Women in Berber Society

Women have always occupied an important role in the economic activities of Berber communities. Both men and women work the fields, women in charge of sowing and weeding, men of plowing maintenance and harvest. In villages, women are responsible for everyday tasks, such as provisioning of the household and preparation of meals, whereas men take care of major purchases, especially of livestock. Still today, herding is considered a man’s activity. In the past, however, the husband would wander for weeks on the mountain or the desert plains with the flocks. The woman was very commonly left alone with the children. She built the house, spun wool, milked the sheep, baked bread, carried water, fetched wood, and then when events compelled her, she would follow the male hordes on their expeditions in summer.

Among the Saharan Berbers, there are different customs regarding daily chores between the two sexes. In some communities, men take care of the household appliances; women, of the lodging and of the animals. Among the Berbers of the north, the work is famously divided. Leaving the men in their woolly dresses and agoulil in their forests, the women, children, and old people harvest and thresh stooping on the fields, clad in their simple loose homespun dresses and with their heads uncovered. Observed by early travelers, the Berber people of the south, women and men alike, are hard workers. The one applies himself to making and quitting business in the market, buying and selling died silks, straw hats, gouffas, sacks, and saddles for camels and mules.

7. Berber Identity in Modern Times

Berber identity in the modern world has been characterized by increasing political mobilization, cultural renaissance, and new forms of globalization associated with migration and the internet. Throughout the 1990s and into the new millennium, Berbers have been increasingly vocal in demanding their rights. These demands began far earlier, with the founding of the nationalist party in Morocco in 1946, which recognized Berber identity, as did other parties founded during the period of independence struggle. While many other nationalist parties downplayed or denied a place for Berbers in the post-colonial nation state, Berbers in both Morocco and Algeria began creating publicly recognizable institutions in the 1960s and especially the 1980s, culminating in the formation of the Berber World Congress in 1995.

The renaissance and revival described are largely political and, as such, represent a new insistence that Berbers are not just a folk but a political group with rights. Language, culture, and identity politics come into play in stimulating vernacular cultural grounding during this process, but these forms of groundedness need not be politically all-inclusive; they may exclude the very religious and secular intellectuals who invoke them. The Berberization process is often one of breaking away from the culture generally celebrated, either through silence or mode of articulation. Certainly, the question of what “Berber” means has been increasingly raised on various levels of discourse, while also becoming a tool for all sorts of political ends, both pro and con.

The increased visibility of stereotypes, as well as the opportunities to both play and work against these images, is especially true for diasporic Berbers. Internet culture and globalization have allowed diaspora Berbers to have their own high-profile cultural celebrations. Amazigh identity is hotly debated in the diaspora as well, though certainly not in the same terms. Multiculturalist debates hinge in part on the third generation’s ease with Berber culture and change into the diaspora’s terms of understanding “Berber.” The mobilization and revival are hard-pressed to be exactly the same on both sides of the Mediterranean, given the literal and symbolic differences between the majority and minority situations which typify Berber and digital identities, respectively. While one is often overwhelmed by the massive new investments in Berber culture and in defense of Berber history and language made both in the modernity of university programs and by Berbers themselves, it is also true that the powerful fact of globalization allows for dynamic variabilities.

7.1. Political Movements and Activism

Over the last five decades, both ideologically and geographically, political movements advocating for Berber rights and culture have multiplied, creating a mellifluous diversity of people, ideas, demands, and actions. The Arabization policy initiated at the birth of independence in Algeria, coupled with a denial of Berber rights in Morocco, provoked the first Berber riots in North Africa; the February 1960 riots in Casablanca were a direct response to an official discrimination that denied Moroccan Berbers. Demands for Berber identity have increased since about 1980 and intensified after the end of the Cold War. During the 1980s in Algeria, Berber students revolted against the authoritarian regime, denouncing the concealment of Berber culture and names, the punishment or expulsion of those who dared to use them, and the lack of tolerance from Arab nationalist leaders. The discovery of the mummified head of an Amazigh princess in a tomb dating back to the seventh century BC incited a series of events that culminated in the Riots of the Berber Spring. In Morocco, on July 39, 1973, the first Berbers were present at a congress, organized by the Moroccan left, to which Burkinabais, Mauritanians, Malians, and members of the Saharan liberation movement had gathered.

In Europe, official recognition of Berber cultural associations, particularly in France, has offered expatriate Berbers a new channel of communication. The use of satellite television has also enabled these groups to communicate with each other in real time. The Internet has contributed to the proliferation of amateur sites that celebrate Berber identity. Some of these sites are of recognized religious origin, while others adopt more political, cultural, or commercial stances. In Tunisia, for example, a Berber Cultural Association has existed since 1986 and prints a publication called “Our Culture” in both languages.

7.2. Cultural Renaissance

Language is perhaps the most powerful tool of human culture. It is through language that culture is learnt, articulated, and transmitted. In many communities around the world language has become a potent marker of identity. For Berbers, the process of reclaiming a unique identity has led to not only a revitalization of language, but also the development of a cultural renaissance, much of which is tied to the development of a contemporary Berber literary tradition. During the colonial era, while foreign troops occupied much of North Africa, a number of Berber cultural activists began to write in Berber languages using Roman script. They were influenced by their reading of various works, as well as their interest in Romanticism and Wagnerian opera in particular. In post-colonial North Africa, the Arabicization policies implemented by newly independent governments did little to allay Berber cultural aspirations. On the contrary, this willful neglect of their culture merely amplified Berbers’ desire to openly express their identity through their art making, particularly the performing and visual arts. This cultural renaissance, which took root among Berbers on both sides of the border between Algeria and Morocco, was particularly acute in Kabylia. In that mountainous region, the ritual performance of ancient Berber traditions during the louh has served for centuries to reinforce local identity.

7.3. Diaspora and Globalization

One of the major challenges facing identities like Berber is how to maintain themselves and often how to invent themselves under globalizing pressures that enclose them like an ever-thicker blanket. Such an ambition is complicated by the fact that each generation must negotiate what the culture is all over again so that it may remain a living culture. However intriguing it may be, the negotiations the diaspora undertakes with the homeland about the transmission of Berber identities, particularly about the form these identities will take, are only one half, altogether too perfect an image, of the ideological exchange those who stayed and those who left are constantly maintaining around identity. The balances between them will have to be both multifarious and unstable. In Berber cases at least, we will have to refuse a usable and useful dualism between a kind of frozen-in-luggage indigenous culture and a diaspora suspicious of, if not despising it.

The history of Berber identity — before, now and forever — is a restless history, not of museum-peoples, nor of peoples scattered in search of plenitude, nourished on referential souvenirs, but of players in a disjointed and never neutral game, in perpetual negotiation with insiders and outsiders alike, in which some Parisian youth in search of Berber authenticity knit ingenious knots of tune and fashion with traditional motifs, invoked with a yearning for authenticity and saving monolithism, along with a vehement preservationist discourse launched from holiday resorts in summer — irritatingly imposed on their unwitting models, by the malleable pop-music industry: this simple triangulation makes us naive if not naïve skeptical. In the end, we are left wondering why so many locals around the Mediterranean urgently resent the homogenizing effects of tourism.

8. Challenges Facing Berber Communities

In the present day, Berber communities are facing numerous social, economic, and political challenges. The recent revolts have opened a new window of opportunity. As the extent of control by centralized authorities and traditional elites is breaking down, local Berber demands for reform are taking center stage. Several Berber areas in Morocco have witnessed uprisings, clashing with police and calling for regional autonomy and greater political rights. Berber demands in Algeria are leading to the reactivation of cultural movements that were repressed for several decades with state policies of denial of Berber identity. Berber communities are beginning to demand the same rights for their people that other groups are securing for themselves.

However, Berber communities are still experiencing lack of political representation. Socioeconomic issues are almost the same, but have taken urgent heights. Unemployment is widespread in both Morocco and Algeria. Jobs in European markets are no longer available, and the conservative forces at the Saharan border have choked trade. The opening of borders is necessary for trade between both sides of the ridge. Reforms initiated by the Moroccan monarchy in terms of political decentralization run the risk of not being effective in Berber regions if they are not complemented by an economic investment program. Not only do Berber communities suffer because of underdevelopment, but also the fact is that most coastal urban centers have become magnet polls in the region.

Many Berbers do not have access to quality education. The teaching quality inside Berber communities is still low. Other languages are the languages of education in both Algeria and Morocco, and few schools or programs are available for teaching Berber languages. Assimilation and cultural loss are serious threats, particularly because parents are no longer able to speak Berber languages for economic reasons. Once again, this reaffirms the threat of languages dying out as they lose their social context, particularly as manpower starts coming back from urban centers after decades abroad.

8.1. Socioeconomic Issues

Berber communities, especially rural migrants living in urban centers, face a myriad of challenges, particularly with regard to access to housing, education, and employment. Growing up in a poor neighborhood is associated with diminished life chances in Morocco and other countries in the Global South. Such migrants in Morocco invariably end up in squatter settlements on the outskirts of cities. Access to basic services such as water, electricity, sewerage, and garbage collection is limited, even if residents manage to obtain a power supply illegally. Without legal land titles, migrants cannot obtain loans to renovate existing houses or to build new ones. As a consequence, urban migrants live in small, often overcrowded, sometimes dilapidated houses made of either mud, sometimes reinforced with cement, or made of cinder block. The situation of squatter settlers in the Algerian capital city appears to be even worse. They often build their houses on steep, unstable hillsides and do not have access to city services at all. Without centralized or individual pumps, residents have to carry water up the hill from river valleys far away.

Education has traditionally been devalued among Berber communities, particularly regarding girls. Education in the traditional Berber areas was centered on the ktab, a community institution that taught Islamic precepts in Arabic. Family incomes increasingly depend on nonagricultural economic activities, making girls’ help in the family field less crucial. The mounting importance of the cash economy, particularly as it pertains to the supply of agricultural produce to cities, has increased the demands of families on girls. These expectations have interfered with schooling and delayed girls’ marriages. Negative cultural specificities cannot explain the overwhelming number of Berber girls dropping out of school.

8.2. Cultural Assimilation and Loss

Cultural assimilation has been a long-standing issue that has affected Berber communities since the dawn of history. Beginning with the entry of the Arab conquerors in the 7th century, Berber culture, values, and identity have been under constant pressure. This influence became even more intense after the 14th century with the establishment of Islamic rules and practices among Berber communities. Since that time, Arabization and the imposition of Islam have muted the expression of Berber identity. The acquisition of urban ways of life and the integration of Berbers in government functions exacerbated the loss of Berber culture, even in rural areas. Since at least the late 19th century, the disintegration of the tribes and the adoption of foreign cultural models have introduced other influences. Colonial policies undermined the traditional social structure of the Berbers and imposed new forms of wealth, such as the purchase of unproductive lands. The establishment of large landowners and the reduction of many families to the status of humble agricultural laborers produced economic imbalances and the erosion of Berber identity. The creation of an elite in the seats of the colonizers who spoke French intensified cultural assimilation during the 20th century. The revolt against colonization in Algeria after World War II was, however, a reaction against this trend, reestablishing the original combination of language and Berber identity.

Linguistically, the loss of Berber language and the profound influence of Arabic, as well as the adoption of French by the elite in most areas of knowledge, are of paramount importance. Politically, the loss of traditional Berber forms of government, such as tribal assemblies, has deprived Berber identity of its original support. All these factors have served an Arabization process that has engulfed most Berbers, forcing them to assimilate into Arab culture. This has produced a majority of Berbers who, in fact, deny their Berber roots. These individuals have been deprived of religious, political, and economic elements defining the structure of Berber identity.

9. The Future of Berber Identity

What about the future of Berber identity? Berbers have not ceased to dissent, provoke, and initiate social confrontation to draw attention to their needs. Berber youth flourish in countries such as Morocco and Algeria. National public discourse relies heavily on addressing young Berber cultural and linguistic grievances. Youth were choosing to solve Berber identity-related issues by means of cultural engagement, which may help solve youth issues in the Maghreb region in particular. Diaspora Berber youth are also engaged in their culture by sending money to their relatives, going back home during the summer months, and holding cultural ceremonies such as marriages or death commemorations. It has also been documented in Morocco that Berber youth allocate part of their money to helping older generations maintain traditions.

Whether based in the Maghreb region or elsewhere, inquiring into one’s roots and going back home to visit relatives and engage in rituals and ceremonies are ways of maintaining an identity, consciously or unconsciously. Clearly, there exists today a certain Berber tradition, or at least a need for it. By practicing this tradition, however weakened it may be, these youth partake in the preservation of ethno-linguistic differences, thus implicitly reaffirming their attachment to the Berber cause.

It has been several decades now, and more recently since the Arab Spring, that Berber activists demand the preservation of Berber heritage within a more multicultural and multilingual framework in the Maghreb region. They have access to it through films, albums, and magazines in addition to other linguistic rights recognized by laws, namely, the right to learn Berber. In fact, language is a crucial factor in recognizing culture. The challenge for politicians in the years to come will be to ensure that Berber youth continue to take an interest in their tradition so that it may pass from their peers today to future generations.

9.1. Youth and Cultural Engagement

Identity is not a fixed entity; it may change meaning and significance over time. Berbers have resisted pressures to adopt Arab identity since Islam arrived in North Africa in the seventh century. Islamic identity coexisted with and complemented Berber identity throughout their long history – until the collapse of the Umayyad dynasty in 750 A.D. Then, the personal and regional power of the Berber tribes began to overshadow the political authority of Islam, and the religion started to separate from its original land-based tribal entity. With the gradual Arabization of the rest of North Africa, Berbers were increasingly regarded as outsiders to Islam, and Berber identity was gradually stripped of its religious connotations. More recent political developments have caused Berber identity to evolve again.

Berber writers and intellectuals concentrated on restoring and enhancing the original political and religious significance of the identity. The new model describes Berbers as unable to lose their character and identity, but also as nonconformists. They pledged to demonstrate that they are more authentic and exemplary Muslims than the Arabs, who conquered North Africa militarily and philosophically, forcing the Berber people to abandon their soul in Islam. But although these theories were proposed by some influential Berber intellectuals, the majority of Berber youth living in the western part of the world prefer to be influenced by the principles of modernism and globalization.

The existence and success of the Kabyle youth revolt in Algeria were a direct consequence of the denial of the Berber’s necessary cultural reconstruction: these students employed art and culture as a means of expressing their revendication through music, especially the songs of the underground group. Their revolt was ignited on 20 April 1980, by the death of activist Mouloud Mammeri, at the hands of the Algerian authorities in the Kabyle area. Their revolt was so strong, and the repression of the Algerian government was so violent, that the djemmers were forced to act in a harsh manner, killing several of its leaders.

9.2. Preservation of Heritage

As the Berbers increasingly reclaim their national identity, nearly a thousand years after their subjugation by both Arabs and European forces, there is a growing recognition of the value of the Berber cultural and social heritage. Research on Berber oral traditions has flourished, thanks in part to the founding of the Association of Berber Oral Traditions and the involvement of many of the researchers in this organization. There is also a growing interest in Berber writing. Appreciation of Berber literature has become increasingly valued in sociology, linguistics, and anthropology. A number of manuscripts written in Berber script have recently been rediscovered, confirming the long-recognized tradition of literature among Berber peoples. Moreover, the development of editorial policies that favor Berber language valorization and broader distribution of print materials in Berber script across the Berber world have contributed to revitalization efforts. The recent formation of student associations to promote Berber writing and demand publication of school textbooks in Berber have also played a central role in this renewal. Initiatives by Berber organizations to encourage students to read, study, and write in Berber as part of a conscious effort to kindly transmit the Berber cultural heritage from one generation to the next thus seem to promise a rich revival of this tradition.

On another level, multiple attempts at developing a network of museums to present and organize knowledge sharing and educational activities surrounding Berber cultural heritage are being initiated by local actors. Although demanding from both infrastructure and financing and programming perspectives, this avenue seems to have an incentive effect to gather the interest of public authorities who had previously been hesitant to invest. The riches and diversity of Berber material culture, both historical and current, provide such efforts with a project focus filled with promise. Given that film documentation of the Berbers promises to be an essential part of that projection, Berber directors are increasingly interested in developing locally based historical productions.

10. Conclusion

Based on the brief overview in this chapter, we can already draw some general conclusions about the Berbers. Without being the only pre-Islamic ethnic group of North Africa, since all the authors emphasize their presence, the Berbers are those who retained their identity longer, despite the integration and mixtures with the Arab conquerors, those who joined Islam in an opted-for or forced way, and to the black Africans of the Maghreb and the Spanish and Portuguese. They are those who resisted convert to Islam until the 16th century and the beginning of the 17th century in the case of the Berbers of the Jbel Nefusa in Libya and who, among the Jews, went into exodus to the interior of the continent or to the east.

Despite their long-term resistance to preserve their religious beliefs, nowadays their ethno-religious identity is very precarious and influenced more than ever by external factors, especially by the migrants of the last fifty years who have gone to other countries or have resisted staying in their Berber mountains in Morocco or Algeria. With them, their traditions have undergone important changes that are gradual and progressive, paying tribute to a hybrid culture where the Berber distinction is more subtle and difficult to grasp. However, for some pre-Islamic Berber-Jewish authors and of the 20th century, the longing for a Berber Jewish antiquity is fully alive. Alongside tourism, the traditional Berber cuisine or the coexistence of Judaism and Islam in some Berber towns are today the main tourist attractions on which the pre-Islamic Berber ethno-religious identity still survives.