Despite these observations also made by Marcais and Andre Julien, both historian specialists of North Africa, these official historians have preferred to write about the amazing fable of the Arab presence in the Mediterranean basin rather than leaving the history book with blank pages.
]]>The AWC sends its most sincere condolences to the families of the innocent victims and to the Norwegian and Danish peoples and expresses their deepest sympathies.The AWC also wishes to express its total solidarity with the inhabitants of Imlil shocked and overwhelmed by this terrible tragedy.
We call on public opinion not to make amalgamation between the peaceful inhabitants of Atlas and their tolerant Amazigh culture, and followers of Islamist terror from elsewhere.
This horrific attack attributed to members of the radical Islamist nebula, means that Morocco remains plagued by Salafist ideology despite its imposing security apparatus and despite official speeches on the so-called “tolerant Moroccan Islam”. In Morocco, obscurantist Salafist ideology circulates freely in schools, universities, mosques and some media. At the same time, the educational system closes the door to diversity, falsifies the history of the country and draws its civilizational references from the motherland of Wahabism, Saudi Arabia. Under these conditions, it is logical that citizens face an “identity crisis” and become easy prey to Daesh. As a result, Morocco, like the other North African states, harvests and will continue to harvest for a long time the bitter fruits of their hypocrisy.
To get out of this impasse, the governments of Morocco and other North African countries must imperatively break with the Arabo-islamism and draw from the depths of the indigenous history of this region, the springs of their identity, while opting resolutely for the path of modernity and progress.
In any case, the states of North Africa but also their partners, especially European ones, are responsible for the dramas and the desolation that Islamist terrorists regularly provoke. It is therefore up to everyone to assume their responsibility and act sincerely and comprehensively against Islamism and its sponsors. The AWC also calls on democratic forces and civil society organizations on both sides of the Mediterranean to become more involved in the fight against this retrograde and mortifying ideology.
Paris, 8/12/2968 – 20/12/2018The AWC Office
]]>For decades, incessant waves of immigrants from the south have been trying to reach the European Eldorado by all means. In recent years the migratory movement seems to be accelerating and nothing seems to stop it, not even the fear of death. The repeated dramas, particularly in the Mediterranean, have prompted some European NGOs to set up rescue boats at sea.
But what can the Aquarius, the Sea Watch, the See Fuchs, the Lifeline or the Open Arms whose capacity is limited to a few hundred seats do against tens of thousands of migrants? Especially since, once rescued, no European state wants to welcome these migrants. In a shameful and self-indulgent way, governments refuse the berthing of humanitarian ships while pushing them to other coasts. Europe is closing and raising its walls while at the same time entrusting with payment to states on the southern shores of the Mediterranean that are not concerned about human rights, the task of blocking migrants in North Africa. In other words, neither European governments nor NGOs offer acceptable and sustainable solutions to migration issues.
As far as we are concerned, we know that what drives the citizens of the southern part of the world, and particularly from Africa to exile, it is socio-economic misery, the deprivation of rights and fundamental freedoms, repression and violence in all its forms. And this chaotic situation that stifles everyday life, finds its origin in the dictatorial and corrupt systems, the continuation of the looting of the resources of the poor countries by the rich countries and the support brought by them to the dictatorships of the third world. Northern countries and especially European countries are therefore largely responsible for migration from the south to the north.
Therefore, if we want to significantly slow down this massive immigration, it is essential to favorise the conditions of a free and decent life in the countries of origin of emigration and for this purpose, it is imperative and urgent to:
– put an end to the spoliation of the resources of poor countries,
– Stop all support to dictatorships,
– Condition effectively the bilateral and multilateral relations to the respect of a process of construction of the state of right and if necessary accompany these states in this process,
– Condemn and sanction diplomatically and financially the wrongdoing states of serious violations of human rights and fundamental freedoms,
– Support systematically and firmly defenders of rights.
In the end, it is a question of ensuring that the inhabitants of the countries of the South are not sentenced to exile and can enjoy, as everywhere in the world, the right to work and live in their country.
Bayonne, Basque Country, 25/08/2018
The President, Gustave Alirol
Regions and Peoples Solidarity, federation of regionalist political parties and progressive autonomists, brings together the Occitian Party (Occitania), Unser Land (Alsace), 57-The Mosellans Party (Moselle), the Breton Democratic Union (Brittany), the Partitu di in Nazione Corsa (Corsica), Convergencia Democratica de Catalunya and Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (Catalonia), the Basque Nationalist Party, Abertzaleen Batasuna and Eusko Alkartasuna (Basque Country), the Savoy Region Movement (Savoie).
The Amazigh World Congress is an associate member.
Regions and Peoples in Solidarity – 42 Carrièra Picot / 42 rue Picot-Tolon / Toulon-Occitània Tel: 06.25.45.27.05 – Internet: www.federation-rps.org – E-mail: [email protected]
]]>Several analysts have asked themselves this question about the non-use of “Arab” numerals by those who are supposed to have invented them. These became known to Europeans via the famous mathematician of Pisa, Leonardo Fibonacci in the 12th century. He found himself in a Kabyle city where he attended school. It was indeed here, at Bugia, that the young Fibonacci, whose father had a trading post in the city, had to learn mathematics at the feet of his then master, Sidi Omar.
Fibonacci, intelligent and quick-witted, immediately noticed a big difference between the digital symbols used in Bugia, and those used in Europe. In addition, there was another unknown symbol used by these Kabyle traders on the other side of the Mediterranean: the zero.
The discovery of this number would revolutionize all mathematical science, and would allow Fibonacci to become famous all over the world, especially because of the discovery he made by developing what are now known as the “Fibonacci Sequence”.
One of the peculiarities of these numbers, unlike those developed by Europeans and Hindus, lies in the meaning and accuracy of the angles contained within these symbols. The symbol of the number zero, being round, contains no angle. While that of the number “One” contains an angle, that of the “two” contains two angles and so on, up to the symbol of the number “nine”. The symbols were not chosen at random, but drawn by ingenious minds. This meaning is totally absent from other numbering systems.
However, to return to our interrogation, it is curious that the Arabs, who are supposed to have invented this system, did not keep it. They opted for another system, imposed by the Hindus, followed by the Persians before being adopted by the whole of the Middle East. The Hebrews and Greeks, for their part, chose to use alphabetic letters as their prefered numbering system. Moreover, there are apparently no old existing manuscripts containing these figures, which the European give paternity to the Arabs.
Abassid documents clearly include Hindu figures. The only traces of these figures called “Arab” are actually in North Africa, among the Berbers (Amazighs). And their discovery in Vgayeth(Bugia) is not fortuitous. It is more reasonable to say that these figures are actually of Kabyle origin than anything else.
After being adopted by Leonardo Fibonacci, these numerals had trouble settling in Europe, before they imposed themselves over time. But it would be the Church which would have imposed them officially, after the clergy’s noted their facility of use and their definitive installation in the very important commercial exchanges with North Africa.
By adopting them officially, they simply baptised them “Arabic numerals”. That’s how Kabyle numbers became arabized.
The Church, like many in those times, and until today, is purposely considering North Africa as Arabic. It is quite curious to see that the whole world uses the so-called Arabic numerals, except the Arabs themselves who have chosen Hindu figures. What is their origin, and why do not the Arabs use them?
What is the most curious aspect is that it is the Europeans who insist on claiming the numerals to be Arabic. There seems to be a real conspiracy against all that is Amazigh and particularly against Kabyle.
For decades many African countries are under the control of armed dictatorships, supported, condoned by the West. They deliver their country to the plundering of multinationals, apply the edicts of the World Bank, holding the vast majority of their population below the poverty line. Europe has nothing to do with that?
The Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs), imposed by Europe to developing countries, are ruining local producers. The price of cotton, cocoa, peanut is subject to stock market speculation in London, Paris or Frankfurt. Western trusts are hogging hundreds of thousands of hectares, reducing the peasants to the state of near serfdom. Europe has nothing to do with that?
The CFA franc currency of fifteen Africa’s sub-Saharan countries, most of which are stagnating in poverty, is linked to the euro and these countries must file their financial reserves in the coffers of the European Central Bank via the French Treasury. Europe has nothing to do with that?
Europe intervenes militarily, politically, economically, monetarily, in the government of African countries, because its own prosperity depends on it, and all the disastrous consequences for the Africans should be attributed to fate? The only culprits would be those who sell the promise to escape hell? With this sham that lulls the public and that hides the crimes against humanity perpetrated by a ferocious colonial interference, decked moreover by humanitarian tinsel.
In the case of France, as its interference in Francophone Africa is pervasive, pernicious and multifaceted, as it is at the forefront in the war on “illegal immigrants”. This is called wanting their cake and eat it too.
Translated from http://survie.org
]]>Secular and democratic, Kabylia always finds itself at odds when faced with political, linguistic, identity, religious, and even economic choices of the government. In retaliation and racism, Algerian dictators left it at the mercy of the penitents of the Islamist resistance movement, highway banditism and insecurity. Among all the regions of North Africa, Kabylia alone accounts for a macabre record of terrorist attacks by Islamists, who represent an overwhelming majority of foreigners there. For example, from 14 to 21 August 2011, seven people died and over fifty were injured in seven separate attacks. Kabylia, representing only 2% of Algeria’s surface area and 20% of the Algerian population, is experiencing the presence of 30% of the Algerian army. Ironically, this massive presence of the army contributes nothing to the security of the area.
The regularity of the attacks and their disconcerting ease with which they are executed, the impunity of the perpetrators and the silent complicity of the Algerian authorities, itself worthy of Pinochet‘s military junta, would make one think of a dramatic upsurge in Islamist terrorist activity during the month of Ramadan (fasting). Now, even the most skeptical have come to understand that the recurrence of these deadly attacks, the proliferation of unsolved kidnappings (64 in 4 years) and the high number of devastating forest fires in Kabylia are certainly not due to chance.
Kabyle Villagers have realized that this state of latent war is not a result of a divine punishment or a curse, but that of a policy concocted by the joint staff of the Algerian army to create a climate of terror in Kabylia. Their real objective is, if not to put an end to the Kabyle spirit of resistance which ties to freedom, democracy, and respect for human rights, at least to neutralize it. Kabylia boycotted three presidential and three legislative elections since 1999. The regime seeks to gain Kabyles’ votes by all means to strengthen their positions. The phony constitutional reform before the end of the year, 2012 legislatives and 2014 presidential elections are the major stakes.
This sought participation to the elections would be sufficient for the military to put up their democratic show before foreign embassies. Kabylia presents an opportunity to bring peace and stability to the Mediterranean region; Europe and Germany would benefit in defending its right to self-determination, which was sounded as the leitmotif of the grandiose Kabyles’ march of 20 April 2011.
Following the adoption of multiple parties against the regime’s own will, as a result of pressure from the people, the votes that were more or less free unveiled a blatant gap between Kabylia and the other regions of Algeria: while the other regions had highly praised the Salvation Islamic Front (FIS) party which wanted to establish a theocratic regime based on Sharia law, the votes of Kabylia went to two rival secular parties (Socialist Forces Front, FFS, and the Rally for Culture and Democracy, RCD), whose programs provide for the separation of religion and state, and equality between men and women. In the 1990s, frustrated Islamists who were cheated out of their election victory by the army decided to lead the “jihad” against the regime and its supporters. Already infiltrated by the armed secret services, their acts of violence affected mostly innocent villagers, intellectuals and journalists. Untouched by this war, Kabylia considered it as none of its concern and remained a peace haven and served as a refuge for those who felt threatened. Kabylia was also considered as an example of cultural and political resistance to “green fascism”.
The situation changed after the inauguration of Bouteflika, brought to power by the generals in 1999. Under his impulsive leadership – probably dictated by the will of the clans in power to gain approval from middle eastern monarchies and the confidence of the western powers – there was a spectacular rapprochement between the Islamists and the regime that is essentially based on a short-sighted “deal”: the government is to promote the islamization of the country and the rehabilitation of “repented” terrorists, provided that the Islamists renounce the taking over of the power. Bouteflika saw a window of opportunity then to repeat the coup of 1962 by stirring up all regions of Algeria against “impious” Kabylia, which is hostile to the Arabization and determined to regain its own secular values that are similar to those of the western world. This is with no doubt what prompted the regime to increase the provocations that caused the spectacular events of 2001-2003, during which millions of Kabyles proclaimed before the whole world their commitment to their culture, and the secular and democratic values. The government forces opened fire at the crowd killing about 150 people. Today, the Provisional Government of Kabylia (GPK) filed a complaint with the International Criminal Court on this bloody episode. We wish to have your support and the support of Germany to lead this process to bringing justice to our murdered children.
The Algerian government has since engaged in an underhand war against the Kabyle people for whom all claims are denied, because of their incompatibility with supporting of the regime. The actions of the military misconduct, coupled with sustained terrorist violence, are intended to scare away investors and drain Kabylia of its youth who are forced to seek work elsewhere, in Algeria or abroad.
Faced with this slow death in Kabylia, the GPK calls the international authorities to
put the Algerian regime up to its responsibilities to cease its ethnocidal policy
provide support to the Kabyle people in the peaceful pursuit of their right to live in peace and according to their own values on their traditional lands. The GPK reaffirms its support for freedom fighters in Syria, Libya and South Sudan, and denounces the support of Algeria to Gaddafi. It would not be rewarding today to sign lucrative contracts with the Egyptians, Syrian dictator and other buyers of efficient computer systems to control the web.
The recent sale of high performance military weapons by Germany to the Algerian army is also a threat to the freedoms of citizens who want to get rid of tyranny. Today, everyone knows that dictators are quick at using these weapons sparingly against their people.
Today’s history imposes isolation to dictators rather than comfort.
Lyazid Abid
GPK Minister of International Relations
]]>The Kabyle writer Youcef Zirem wrote after the great march of Paris April 17, 2016:
“This is a founding day, this day will not be forgoten in the collective memory. It is a Parisian march who pushes France-Algeria relations to reports into another stage… from now on, nothing will be as before … “.
Knowing the visionary views of the writer, his affirmation is actually the reality of the situation of the Kabyle sovereignty claim .
Today Kabyle independentists, leaded by Ferhat Mehenni, consolidated an important part of the battle of Kabylia for emancipation. They are at a turning point of history, which in the best case, will spell the end of servitude to a moribund Algerian state.
Today antagonisms are clear and assumed. On one side the Kabyle people and its street peacefully opening to recover his freedom. A Kabyle street definitively acquired to the ideals of democracy and secularism. A Kabyle public opinion rid forever of Islamist obscurantism. A Kabyle people who assume itself as such and practice a political culture imprinted of pacifism and humanism. A people connected solidly with its political class.
On the other side an Algerian junta at end of cycle. A dying president who will eventually take over in his grave the little pride remaining to the “Algerian”. A grossly misguided and Islamized street to defend monetary and mercantile claims. A public opinion playing hands to approach the corrupt Chiefs . A “people” disoriented that expensively pay the damaged product of his school.
Despite the ostracism and boycott by the media of the two Mediterranean shores of this historic march, the future is bright. The support shown by Bernard-Henri Lévy to this popular demonstration seems to sting to the heart the torpor of algerianist scribblers.
Translated from k24.live
]]>La Tribune: You have just created an organization with Ameziane Kezzar, Mare Nostrum (marenostrumarcadia.org), who aims to highlight Mediterranean antiquity. What is the meaning of your initiative?
MOHAND LOUNACI: Often we forget that the Mediterranean region has been subjected to Roman domination and influence, to Latin culture and Greek civilization. Or at least, it does take that into account for Western Europe, but it is not thought to include the countries of North Africa. Either voluntarily or because we still believe they are outside of history. The Mediterranean was frequented by many civilizations , and among the most important that marked the culture of this part of the world, there were the Greeks and Romans.
Europe today boasts, alongside its Christian heritage, the Greco-Latin heritage. But the Roman Empire, which lasted for many centuries, was not limited to Europe. The Empire flourished in Africa in material terms, as shown by the magnificent ruins of Timgad, Djemila or Volubilis; also on the cultural level with all African writers who have enriched Latin literature by their works. That sea which was that of the Romans, we also want to claim it as our own. Mare Nostrum, our sea. We are as much heirs of Rome and Greece as the Europeans. The number of ancient African writers who have written in Latin or Greek is quite telling. It is time for us to make Apuleius, Aulus Gellius, Augustine, but also Zeus, Apollo, Poseidon references of our culture. Thus we can participate in world culture.
You seem very attached to universalism. But one could say that what you present as universalism is that widespread feature of a people that no longer exists and whose role has been taken since by the proponents of colonialism?
Certainly if you want to talk about using “mythidéologique” (after Marcel Detienne) who wanted to make French arriving in Algeria and North African the descendants of the Romans in their civilizing mission. Now our goal is to show that we are entitled to a share of this Greco-Latin heritage, which, like it or not, is the basis of the culture of the Mediterranean humanity. The teaching of Latin and Greek in France was called “Humanities”. The Latins and Greeks show us nothing more that what were humans more than two thousand years ago: not very different from us.We are the heirs of this Libyan-Roman civilization that developed from the first century BC to the seventh century AD, as the French call themselves the heirs of the Gallo-Roman civilization. We have as much right to claim us of Greek and Roman history, literature, civilization which was that of our Roman, Greek or Numidians ancestors than Europeans. We must take our share of the spoils, from which the history of North Africa has distanced us. Hence the rapprochement with the texts from antiquity.
This link, we try to perceive it at first through myth, by adapting in Kabyle the Greco-Roman mythology. The myth among the Greeks is a story that depicts gods or heroes. It tells us the origin of the world, of gods, animals, plants and humans. But it is also a way to express the principles and values of a society in a roundabout and embellished way . It reports to the People imaginary and is transmitted orally from one generation to another in poetic texts, in works of art (statues, ceramics, temples …). All cultures have developed their own myths consisting of stories about their history, their religions, and their heroes. It is often said that the Kabyle had not myths. Why wouldn’t they have? The story of Anzar (rain god), if we do not look at it only with a folklorists point of view, is a myth. Yes, the Kabyle and Berbers generally have their myths but we must find them behind the rags that cover them since the installation of Islam in North Africa. Ultimately, our project, very daring I grant you, is to turn the attention of the Kabyle to a part of their history and their culture buried under the sands of time. Modernity is antiquity, change will come from there; for this change in perspective will we believe, give the material to produce artistic works from this re-rooting of Greek and Latin myths in African soil.
Highlight paganism and mythology, isn’t it a way to challenge dominant beliefs on which all countries of the Maghreb are built?
This is not our problem. This is not what interests us. Our concern is to find in antiquity a way to enrich our culture and especially our language. All cultural and artistic references of Europe were built from the Renaissance by incessant gaze toward this period of human history whose intellectual and artistic wealth is undeniable. In our small scale, we do what was done by European writers of the Renaissance. The task is more difficult but very invigorating! The dead languages, Latin, Greek, will give us more life, we are convinced of it, than a folkloric search for our identity. A culture dies if it is not renewed, so is a language. Furthermore, one can not deny that there is in Kabyle culture remains of a pagan dimension. It explains all the space given to the powers of nature, the guardians, iîessasen (vigils in Kabyle, ed), the powers of the house, etc. It is for us to give back a story, or rather to give to see a historical perspective that goes back to antiquity. There is no zero point, if we look at the past, we can look to the future with more serenity and live in the present without having to justify our presence here and now.
What cultural and linguistic elements do you think that this opening to ancient times can bring to the Kabyle and Berber culture and languages?
The aim is to enrich our language with words borrowed from Greek, Latin and also to have references shared by all. If you speak of Homer to an Englishman, he will know immediately who you are talking about. We can not simply ignore all these aspects and act as if our language and our culture can live in isolation. Create references, to talk about Scylla and Charybdis, the Cyclops in Kabyle, the Trojan War, Oedipus and others. To represent them, make them live in the language that we use every day. That’s our goal. In addition, most European languages have turned to the Greek and Latin seeking the words they needed to express abstract concepts or technological inventions. Why should we overlook such a treasure, which is within our reach, and we can legitimately take our share!
The translation and adaptation are an important aspect of your project?
Yes, the translation and adaptation are essential. We translate or sometimes we transpose Greek cultural elements to Kabyle, inventing words sometimes, especially from the Greek. We send our translations on the website “marenostrum.website.org” but we have other ongoing projects, including recording songs devoted to Greek and Libyan gods (ancient Northern Africans). However, this can only be a step. To access all the Latin and Greek literature whose authors are “Berber” and texts such as Plato or Aristotle, it will be necessary one day to claim that we also need to teach Latin and Greek in Kabylia’s schools. What I say here is somewhat paradoxical, because in France they try to dismantle all this teaching of dead languages because they would not be profitable. I am perfectly aware of this fact, since I am teaching these languages in France. However French and European literature, culture, art would not be what they are without the assiduous consorting with the elders at the heart of European education. Moreover, this is not because European education treats children as raw material from which we must draw a profitability that we should follow in this error. On the contrary, the school in this country being what it is, that is to say almost nonexistent, we need the audacity to propose bold initiatives for tomorrow’s school !
Do you have lots of echoes for your project? Isn’t it a way to refuse modernity in which we are immersed in a world increasingly globalized? Would it be more realistic and effective to look toward English ?
Thanks for the advice. We will try to think about it! No, no joke. Of course we think that our idea is original. But in this world in search of meaning, finding ancient texts and understand that there is nothing new under the sun, that men are still facing the same problems, the same joys, the same sorrows, this could only be invigorating. And if, as you say, we have neither echo nor public, this is not important because selfishly we take indescribable pleasure to translate ancient texts in Kabyle. We do not seek profitability, but only to give a poetic counterpoint to this world too disillusioned!
L. S.
Interview with La Tribune in Tizi Ouzou, aug. 2011
Translated from marenostrumarcadia.org
]]>In Kabyle imaginary, awaγzen or awaγzniw is a tale monster that everyone imagines his way. Not yet present in the Kabyle artistic iconography, we can see a wild animal or an anthropomorphic being feeding on human flesh. It is often the enemy of the hero of the Kabyle tale, as Talafsa / Hydra or Tteryel / The ogress. This is perhaps here that the translation Awaγzen by ogre is inappropriate, because we hardly know in our tales of couples consisting of Awaγzen and Tteryel. However, there is Ateryel and Uteryel which is the male Tteryel. Can we then translate Awaγzen by ogre? Difficult thing to decide because we do not know the origin of these monsters Awaγzen and Tteryel and their parentage. The lack of myths relating to these creatures allows everyone to see in them what he wants. This is especially true in the case of Awaγzen which is a giant for some, for others a terrible and bloodthirsty beast; there even as we have already seen in some figures, represented as a lion. Similarly, to a lesser degree, stories lovers can imagine Talafsa as the hydra or a serpent with many heads, Tteryel in ugly woman with messy hair and sharp teeth, but subject to metamorphoses and dramatic transformations that deceive his victims.
The lack of documentation invites us to see in other Mediterranean cultures and try to understand how other peoples, including the ancient Greeks, imagine these monsters and what they think about them. This approach may help us to understand the nature of these monsters and what they represent in Mediterranean societies of the time.
The Greeks, with their artists, were able to put a face, shape and affiliation of each mythical being, including gods and goddesses. Don’t we say about Praxiteles and Phidias that “They saw the gods”? All what the Greeks invented with the verb, artists have illustrated and immortalized it as statues, paintings, especially on vases that were the precursor of history books and comics. The whole Greek story and “mythology” can be read on the walls of public buildings or on the surfaces of pottery. By the verb, like their Greek neighbors, Kabyles created mythical creatures, but by lack of figurative artists, they remained faceless, formless and origins.
Awaγzen in the Kabyle tale, crossed by the influences of the triumphant religion, is the image of the Kabyle himself. This monster whose sultan of Ottoman inspiration, wants to get rid to of in order to pacify the country. For that the hero, often named Ali, a good believer has to kill the monster. Awaγzen is the savage, cannibalistic being, that must be discarded.
It is as if on the side of the Kabyles, there were only Tteryel, awaγzen and talafsa,monsters still wearing Berber names, living in the forest on the margins of the civilized world of the Sultan and his faithful subjects. Even the wise old man who acts as oracle, Amγar azemni / Azemri, changed sides. He became the ally of the sultan and the builder of the hero, is is to say the enemy of the one whom the Sultan wants annihilation. This wise old man, didn’t he became the today’s Kabyle servant?
Of ancient culture and except for Anzar god of rain, Kabyles has only kept the monsters. Monsters that prevent the Sultan to sleep, the rebels who may one moment to the next to invade its towns and villages, to reverse or drive him from his throne.
Kabyle tale revisited and corrected, put Awaγzen off-culture, off-religion, one defends him all human language, we make fun of his words, it is ridiculed, we see in him a boor, a sinner, an eater of illegal meat, in fact the opposite of the Sultan and his subjects, civilized, urban, religious. Awaγzen is the native who believes in nothing, who have been drove off the plains, from farmland, wedged in his forest. It is the return to the primitive state, where he lives of acorns, gets drunk with juice from wild grape and drink to the dregs the milk of the orphan’s cow.
It is the image the Kabyle tale give of Aweγzen, tteryel and talafsa. Beings arriving on the land of North Africa before the monotheistic revelation and we are told that they are today’s filthiness. This story reminds us about this brown bear that lived in a forest in North America: every morning he went to eat some acorns dropped from two huge oaks. One day he arrived, he found the two felled trees. A few days later, he found that walls began to rise in the place of the two trees. He returned a few days later, he found people who were going back and forth, the place had become a supermarket. He looked a little surprised when a woman coming out of the store and watching him curiously, said, “Where do you come from?”
This is the fate of the indigenous before the new religions that consider as wild man anybody who did not believe in them.
Here is the story we tell ourselves around the fire in winter, in Kabylia, about Awaγzen, the genuine beings, the unchanged ancestor, who survived even the ancient deities. Awaγzen, the image of the ancestor, the one who worshiped the sun and the moon, who never knelt before the Sultan, the irreligious, the Djahel / The ignorant as some enjoy to see it .
Here is the story we call “Kabyle Tale” which is told to our children, with what we expect to educate them to obedience and to unconsciousness of voluntary servitude.
Are we still talking about Kabyle tale or anti-Kabyle ones?
In recent years, the image of awaɣzen changed for Kabyles, especially in modern poetry. Awaɣzen today, unlike that of the tale, became a phobia not to children, but to adults. Awaɣzen, nicknamed Lweḥc n Lɣaba/Forest Monster, revisited by the singer Idir in Vava Inouva is not longer the ogre that seeks to devour the old man living alone in a cabin in the middle of the forest, but rather a human faced monster which threatens the Kabyle and all it represents. A dangerous and powerful beings who could be the heir to the sultan or the descendant of Ali.
After Vava Inouva the Kabyle realized that Awaɣzen is not what he believed, what he was afraid as a child, when he suffered the fantasy of being devoured and dreamed of being prosecuted for getting eaten. The time when he took refuge, to overcome his phobias, in the arms of Ali the savior and the protector sultan. Two characters that the Kabyle child identified himself to feel safe. Those characters internalized by the kabyle child became the its landmarks, its heroes and its cultural references, the only ones able to deliver him from his fears, anxieties, better yet to save him from himself, from his parents and its environment not completely pacified, nor civilized, that is to say not completely Islamized.
The Kabyle child is “alienated” by his own stories and its own culture. Tales that have being worked and reworked by Kabyles, undoubtedly favorable the Arab-Islamism, on behalf of their masters.
This carefully orchestrated process has made the Kabyle servile, which before the danger has no choice but to identify with Ali, the hero of his stories, and therefore struggle to save religion and the sultanate of his sultan. Sultanate which became Algeria, Turkish heiress.
Today the descendants of Awaɣzen from the tales have opened our eyes and show us the true Awaɣzen, the horrible beast that has the power, the hydra who drinks our water, the ogress who devours our children and the ogre who burns our forests.
For the advised Kabyle, the real Awaɣzen is no longer in himself, he is elsewhere. He refers to it by its name. What drives him, he who wishes to exist politically to stop hating himself, being afraid of himself, and to face the monster that inhibits and manipulate him.
Conceived by Greek artists, a giant with human form, with an eye in the forehead, hence its name, and since his image is forever fixed in Greek culture. Cyclops, because there are several, we have chosen the best known: Polyphemus, son of Poseidon, god of the seas.
Polyphemus never left the Greek literary scene, we found him even in the Alexandrian poetry, in the guise of a shepherd in love with Galatea , and whose monstrosity and ferocity transformed to a pitiful being. According to Jean-Pierre Vernant, Greeks, following a pun bringing closer Galatea and Galatia , attributed to Polyphemus paternity of the Gauls, barbarian invaders that the Greek anxiety strives to ridicule, which an unreasoning panic chases from Delphi to Asia Minor. And among the Kabyle, was awaγzen the invader? Yes, after some poems dealing with the various invaders who occupied North Africa. Idir evokes it in one of his songs:
Taginni d tiγri imeεnen – This is a sensible call
Zdat iwaγzniwen – Before the ogres
Skewn-aγ afud wer nuklal – Has killed any good will in us
Bḍan-aγ am ibawen: – They separated us like broad beans.
According to Philippe Borgeaud in his article “The boorish” in the book by Jean-Pierre Vernant “The Greek man”, the small island, where Ulysses and his companions landed, first humans to set foot on it is ” a forest island where wild goats multiply without end “(Homer, Odyssey), only inhabitants with the Nymphs, out of reach from hunters. There is here obviously neither plowing nor sowing. We are in the non-human. On the other side, within earshot, the main island, habitat of the Cyclops. Although the son of Poseidon, he ignore navigation. Close to the gods to the point they do not have to worry about, they live without planting or tilling, a life of small livestock producers. Their wine is made from wild grapes. “Lawless brutes, who have so much confidence in the immortal that do of their hands neither planting nor plowing. At home, no assembly or judge shall discuss. Each lays down the law to his wives and his children. ” (Homer, Odyssey. We are in what later, from the fifth century BC, will eventually be considered as a pre-political stage.
However Ulysses arrives at Polyphemus, an original character, far from its congeners. “He lives alone, graze his flocks, not seeing anybody.” This is the opposite of a man, a good eater of bread. But in his cave, the trays are loaded with cheese, crowded pens of lambs and goats, metal vases are full of milk. Like his peers, he made a fire. A fire that is not used for sacrifice, and seems to burn only to indicate that in this strange world we display the emblems of humanity. Pretense, making manifest the behavior of Polyphemus: the companions of Odysseus, he eat them raw, and drizzle whis milk that cannibal meal.
Polyphemus the Almighty, will be defeated, according to Philippe Borgeaud, by three devices that return each in its way to the imperatives of civilization: the pure wine of divine origin, that Ulysses offers him and from which he becomes intoxicated while devouring his meal; the olive stake (tree of Athena), polished, worked in the fire, handled at the command of a leader in the small sailors community of Ithaca, which will be blinded; verbal ruse finally (Ulysses replaced by Nobady), which forbids any social communication. He is deprived of reason, order and language ( “Nobody has done him wrong”), following his meeting with Ulysses. The boor is a violent brute, whose complaint is heard only by one god, his father Poseidon, lord of marine turbulence, which takes over and carries the wily Ulysses, before other gods from Olympus, including Zeus and Athena decide to do overcome all the monsters that have taken his path, including pretenders to his kingdom.
Does the Kabyle, like Ulysses, become a “nobody” politically, without identity, without culture and language? Relegated and unpopular, he also wants to see his Ithaca, his kingdom, his beloved country and Penelope the weaver. Did Awaγzen, which has become in the modern world the figure of the Arab-Islamic colonial state, is also afraid of being blinded by the wood of the olive tree (tree of Athena), intoxicated by wine (blood of Dionysus) and deceived by the language of Nobody, to whom he is trying to imprison in his cave of Plato, in his wild forest where the forest monster continues to terrorize Vava Inouva?
As many journeys await the Kabyle, like Ulysses, before reaching the kingdom of freedom. Some Circe, Calypso, some Polyphemus, Sirens and many contenders turning around Penelope-Kabylia, waiting, like a spider, weaving and undoing its work.
The long march has begun, announced years ago by the poet. This is what he respond to us when we are questioning the dangers lurking on the pilgrimage route:
Γurwat tiγilt, – Be carrefull on the hill,
Atan lexyal – A ghost
La d-yettxatal ! – Is stalking you!
Ma d lεebd, – If This Is a Man,
A neglu yis-s A t-nawi. – We take him with us.
Ma d lweḥc, Meqqar a t-neg – If it’s a monster,
D imensi. – We will make it our dinner.
Extract from Imesbriden , sung by Ait Menguellet and Idir.
But before tackling the monster that lurks on the hill, should not the Kabyle kill first the awaɣzen from the tales he carries in him, the one he has assimilated, who hides in his unconscious, he continues to feed with his imagination and teach his children despite himself ?
Translated from marenostrumarcadia.org
]]>LE FIGARO. -Francois Hollande is the first French head of state to join the Commemorations of 19 March. It should say to the UN speech Quai Branly. What does this choice inspire you?
Boualem SANSAL. – If I may say something, I would advise him staying home, he made enough damage like that, I mean at the international, I have no opinion on his action in France. A few months before the presidential vote, to bow before Bouteflika is calamitous for the image of France and catastrophic for the courageous struggle that Algerians are enduring to free themselves from the colonial dictatorship of the FLN and Bouteflika, who since the 19 th March of 1962 is one of its main organizers. In commemoration that date in this condition, important for all, Algerian and French, is again choosing to support the dictatorship at the expense of the people. I say it again, especially as Sarkozy and Chirac were familiar with El-Mouradia (the presidential palace in Algiers, Ed).
Haven’t this immoral attitude done enough sadness and death in the world? Does Mr. Holland understand that it is the support, among other reasons, western governments give to Saddam Hussein, Gaddafi, Ben Ali, Mubarak, Assad, Bouteflika, sultans and emirs of the Gulf … Resulting in what we dramatically live today: the global Islamist terror?
Why is the date of 19 March discussed on both side of the Mediterranean?
It’s normal. The cease-fire does not stop the war, it amplified it if the question of the legitimacy of each and others is not proven, and if the secrets of the war are not confronted to light. Write the true story and everything will be better.
What is left of the war with France in the Algerian collective imagination?
Nothing. Algerians got out of the war the same day as Independence Day, July 5 1962. They party for seven days and nights and then they returned home, exhausted. But eight days later in June a new war called them, the Wilaya’s war . The race for the power of war lords had started and raged in all parts of the country. This war is stil going on, it only changes form. The 1990’s decade has shown how far it could go in horror, and this period almost over when Bouteflika launches a new war against the Berbers, including against the very proud Kabylia and very peaceful Mzab.
Over time, downdrafts and great military operations in the countryside, millions Algerians fled to France first, and the flow goes growing. It will take a huge dimension if, at the announcement of the President’s death, succession is not immediately settled by various intelligently centers (army, DRS, police and parallel oligarchs militias). The threat in the Maghreb and the Sahel are so great that it is possible that Algeria will explodes and gives birth to a ISIS 2. ISIS 1 is already in ambush at the eastern border and AQIM in the south. There is too much violence, hatred and sufferings in this country, accumulated since 19 March of 1962, so the black reign of Mr. Bouteflika will not end in joy. It is necessary that justice must be done.
On the algerian side, does France remains the eternal culprit?
It is the discourse of the FLN and the junta, which in tunes of strength and incantations have made a compulsory religion of it, taught in schools, imposed in daily life, but to learn a religion and to practice it does not mean to believe. Algerians are suffering in the present, that is what they see, no speech about the past will make them forget that. Those responsible for their woes, they know who they are, they suffer them day after day, and every night they dream to hang them high and short.
How to reconcile the two peoples?
The right question is: Can reconciliation be when official France supports
the Algerian government, the armed wing of the FLN, promoter of the religion of hatred of France? The people of Algeria, for its part, has publicly and definitively rejected the FLN and its evil religion at the popular revolution of October 1988. In Algeria, it is understood this way: France wants a reconciliation with the FLN (syndrome of Stockholm?), who vows her to shame and death, not with the Algerian people, who wants to be friend in the small condition that it enables him to live in France.
But the FLN is not the only one hating France, there are the Islamists. They belong together, those two, they are alike. In Algeria, we do not distinguish them, we call them “barbéfélènes”. Let us recall that Bouteflika is the president of the FLN and the friend of the Islamists, to whom he refuses nothing.
In the liberation war of the Algerians, did Islam played a role?
Certainly, but that Islam had nothing to do with today Islam. It was sort of
grandmother’s Balsam put on one’s misery and its injuries, it just accompanied the FLN, it has provided effective verses to mobilize the common people of the countryside and shantytowns. There were some crazy, but they were good fools. The Islamization of the FLN and Muslims will come Later, after independence. Traditional Islam had lived; the globalized Islam Muslims Brothers was coming, Wahhabis, ayatollahs, CIA, death freelancers … there was a large choice.