“WE WILL GO WHERE THEY WANT, OUR DETERMINATION IS TOTAL,” Ferhat Mehenni
Independence, a lovely, elegant name. From the mouth of a being, it honors his person as it means Freedom. The nobility of this word refers us to the refusal of subjection. Carried and shouted by a people, it is the affirmation of its identity, its personality, its culture, and its civilization. Dignity embodied.
Why do you want independence? In the most familiar and tasteless formulation, this iterative question shadows every meeting with an Algerian.
This interrogation in a curious tone, or a disapproving, aggressive, hateful or violent tone, is followed by some sentimental lamentation of desolation, feigned or real, on the precarious brotherhood between the Algerians and the Kabyle, thus posing a claim with warlike character, there where friendship between peoples is however in no way called into question.
The worst of it is this Algerianist Kabyle, who abandons the claim to independence in favor of the utopian dream of the second Algerian Republic which accepts them in its plurality (sic). Surprised by the absolute “Niet,” he left the discussion, stunned.
Independence, Freedom, concepts dreamed of and claimed by a Kabyle; they are taboo for an Algerian. The darkness of colonial slavery for the former and the light of freedom for the latter.
The accusations of secessionism, separatism, attack on national unity are all insults and anathemas which confirm by their perverse effect the merits and legitimacy of the independence claim of Kabyle.
Where is this “national unity” which would suffer from a Kabyle withdrawal? The separation of peoples from this country exists in fact with territories quite distinct on all levels; linguistic, traditions and customs, divided, above all, voluntarily by treacherously practiced policies by the junta to better control and reign over the populations of this country.
The plague of this drama is not so much this junta, playing its role, but in these Algerians, as well as these Algerian Kabyles, treated since 62 like slaves, and when they dare to get rid of their condition 57 years later, they assume the same patterns as their slave masters.
The social fear instilled by this junta for many years would even make them deny the independence of the Kabyle maquisards who fell for Liberty to whom these Algerians, Algerianists combined, dare, nevertheless, to identify with this movement of protest.
Far from attracting sympathy for their movement, they sink into desolation. In their refusal to claim Kabyle for Freedom, have they forgotten that this concept is atavistic and intrinsic to each Kabyle Individual proud of his Kabylity? That the decision to build and move towards an Independent Modern Kabyle State is the epilogue to a millennial-long fight?
The fight of the Kabyles separatists, all movements combined, is a noble act, like that of our parents and grandparents who yesterday faced French colonialism which recognized their courage and their dignity when De Gaulle did not have that contempt and disgust towards the Harkis.
Like Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a bus to a white passenger in 1955 in the USA, we refuse to cede Kabylia to the chimerical Arab-Islamic Algeria.
As said by Mas Rachid Hitouche in his intervention in April 2016, Place de la République in Paris, “This Independence – we will have it. If not, we will snatch it,” in Kabyle “Atsassed negh ati-d- nechlakh” and to conclude with Mas Ferhat Mehenni: “We will go where they (the junta) want, our determination is total.”
Vgayet, Sunday, December 22, 2019
CLKI for SIWEL
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