Morocco World News
Fez, April 20, 2012
Diversity is richness. I have always admired the diversity in the Moroccan culture. I love how everything is different and yet so much alike. What I don’t like are the divisions that are based on such differences that should not minimize or trivialize who we are or anyone else, but sometimes they do.
In Morocco, we can never speak of a pure race or ethnicity, everything is fused and intermingled. Even those who claim to be pure Amazigh or pure Arab are not only wrong but usually negligent of the fact that we live in a country that has a history of centuries of intercultural marriages.
“Are you an Arab or an Amazigh?” I really don’t like this question that I’ve been asked countless times by many people in direct and indirect ways. Does it really matter which one I am? If I’m an Arab or an Amazigh, what difference would that make? Would you treat me any different? better or worse?
I believe this categorization of people is ridiculous, and it distracts our sights from the beauty of us as diverse as we are; a fusion or a merge or whatever you would call it. We spend so much time spotting differences and putting barriers between “us” and “them”; whoever “us” and “them” are.
Since I was a child, I have always been categorized as an Arab and have been raised on “Arabic pride”. I never understood why I was referred to as a “pure” Arab though one of my grandmothers was a “pure” Riffian, which basically means Amazigh. That didn’t make any sense to me. In fact, if I’m a “quarter” Riffian then I am not purely an Arab, as alleged.
Among the indirect ways of inquiring about my ethnicity is when someone tells me that I look like a Riffian or that I look like an Arab and sometimes there is a huge confusion between the two. I noticed that if the one who asked considers himself/herself an Arab, they would be very glad, and sometimes relieved, if tell them I am an Arab too. When I am asked by an Amazigh, they always seem to get disappointed when I say I am an Arab, but once I mention my Riffian grandmother, a smile or a nice comment emerges as if that makes a huge difference of who I am to them. In both cases, the way they deal with me changes depending on which side I take or choose to refer to.
I understand that as human beings we need to belong to a specific community with specific characteristics that can determine who we are and that distinguish us from the rest. There is no problem in being an Arab or being an Amazigh, the problem is when we see the other as inferior to who we are. “Inferiorizing” and “othering” the other can lead to serious problems of stigmatization, essentialization and all forms of intolerance.
The last time I was asked that question: “Are you an Arab or an Amazigh?” I replied: “Well, in fact I’m a Moroccan.” That has become my answer ever since. I am an Arab and an Amazigh, and I do not necessarily have to speak Tamazight to be one. I love the diversity in my background and I am so proud of my Arab and Riffian origins. If only we can stop labeling and categorizing each other based on our ethnicity, and focus instead on what makes us closer and similar. We are all Moroccans, whether Arabs or Amazighs, “pure” or mixed (though I don’t believe in purism). Let us go beyond all this and work together for a better tomorrow, for a better Morocco.
Nidal Chebbak is a Moroccan graduate student in Cultural Studies Master Program at Sidi Mohammed ben Abdellah University. She earned her Bachelor degree in English Studies in 2009 after completing a research paper on Advertising Moroccan Women in Moroccan Magazines. Currently, she’s working on her MA thesis entitled European Women through the Eyes of Moroccan Travelers 1612-1922. She is Morocco World News’ correspondent in Fez.
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commentator2012
December 9, 2011 at 4:31 am
Nidal,
Well said, however Moroccans are not only a mix of Arabs and Berber. We also have iberian and hebrew origins, A result of interfaith and interracial marriages. When I am asked I reply: I am a moroccan, I am not Arab, I am not berber, I am not Iberian and I am not jewish. I am all of the above and proud of it.
Have a great day
Amine
December 12, 2011 at 7:08 am
We can’t do away with any element of the Moroccan society.Otherwise, we will lose our identity and therefore we will nolonger be Moroccans. As I say each time the light is shed on this issue, what makes ue Moroccans, what makes us special, what makes our country gorgeous is diversity, so I find it hard to imagin a Moroccan if one of these elements is missing.
Soufiane Sayhi
January 16, 2012 at 6:48 pm
I totally agree with you but let me say that I am an Amazigh from the south, exactly from the high Atlas mountains. All people of my small village speak only Tamazight and they understand no other language than Tamazight, it is their native language. I can also say we are purly Amazigh and I guess we should distinguish between rural and urban places. I wonder which city you are born Ms Nidal, because we all know that people traveled from rural areas to big cities for different reasons and people are mixed that we are unable to point to anyone as bening this or that. I agree that you can’t answer whether u are Arab or Berber but for me as being born and grown up in a place where I guess arabs never lived in, I am a pure Amazigh ( ofcourse I am Moroccan because I belong to this land). The question is why this language ( Tamazight ) or why these people or these areas where they speak this language were marginized for years and years under the arab rulers !! why many parties fight in order to not make this language recognized ?
Bigdoul
March 28, 2012 at 4:14 am
I am sorry but let’s be real for two seconds. You are far from being a pure Amazigh. How can someone be pure anything when you can find white, blacks and tanned, redheaded, blond, brunette and dark hairs, among Chleuhs, Zayanes and Rifians? There’s isn’t any purity among people besides Natives from Islands like the Aborigens in Australia. I am Chleuh from my mother and father. My mother was born in Casablanca, her father is from M’Taugga between Marrakech and Agadir, but his ancestor was from an Arab tribe settled in Beni Mellal. My father comes also from M’Taugga but his mother is Arab from Sahara. And my father learned to speak Darijja only when he moved to Casablanca. So language has nothing do with ethnicity. Someone who speaks only Tachelhit is not more a “native”, as much as someone who speak only Arabic does not come from Hijaz in Saudi Arabia. The reason why some people fights (a minority) are because they keep focusing on a chimera instead of facing real problems commons to all the Moroccans. The people who really are proud of Berber background you have them.. poets, singers, writers, parents who teach this language to their kids, even when their spouse is not Berber speaker. The culture is made to be cultivated, not to be revendicated.. Salaam
Nour
March 20, 2012 at 8:17 am
Salam Soufiane
i’m Noureddine from the high Atlas mountains, Azilal, i always say that i’m a Moroccan Amazigh because this is who i’m,and i’d like to stick to my culture and identity, it’s true Ms Nidal that we are mixed but i found myself in the middle of no where speaking Tamazight.
diversity is a gift from Alah but we shouldn’t try to eliminate other races just because they are unseen.
nadorienne
March 20, 2012 at 4:08 pm
I think ethnic background/identity is important, especially where there is a significant power differential between groups. It’s fine for Arabs to say “We’re all Moroccan, let’s just get along” but then they turn around and expect us to speak Arabic (or “Arabic” darija), they expect us to deny our traditions in favor of an “Arab” culture, they mock us for our culture and identity. For me, I’m not Moroccan. I might be a citizen, but it doesn’t matter — I don’t identify as Moroccan at all. I’m Amazigh, my loyalty is to Tamazgha regardless of the artificial and arbitrary borders of these states. I have more in common with an Amazigh from any state — Mali, Niger, Algeria, France — than with a Moroccan “Arab.”
Bigdoul
March 28, 2012 at 4:21 am
Your post stinks of mediocrity. Truth is that you can’t even understand tamashaq or Nafusi while you would have no problems to communicate with Moroccans. With Moroccans, you share the culture. We eat the same thing, while your culture is different from Kabyle or Tuaregs, or Nafusis. So if you don’t consider yourself Moroccan, you can wait to see independant Kabylia and you can move there, Morocco has no place for racists.
Tamazgha doesn’t not exist, so wether you relate to Morocco or not is purely irrelevant, you are just exposing a foreign ideologie that is working for an agenda you have no idea about. All what you are doing is servely working for your masters… if you even know who they are.
Peace
Bigdoul
March 28, 2012 at 9:30 am
Arab identity and Berber identity are IDEOLOGIES. Arabism is an ideologie which raised not too long ago under Nasser, that assume that Arabic-speakers share nationalism and same roots (which is wrong), same as Berberism assume that Berber-speakers share nationalism and same roots (which is also wrong). Truth is that among Berbers and Arabs, these two groups work under the systems of tribes. The Ichelhiyines have always consider themselves Ichelhiyens, so were the Zayanes (or Imazighen, the only group who can actually call themselves like that, since it’s their original name), the Irifiyen, etc.. same for the Arabs. And you can see today that the Arab countries aren’t united. Even between close countries such as Morocco/Algeria, Algeria/Egypt (part of North Africa), Yemen/Saudi Arabia, Lebanon/Syria, etc.. Truth is that we are ethnically speaking “North Africans”, with all the mixes it involved (Phoenicians, Berbers, Byzantines, Romans, Vandales, Arabs, Hebrew, Turks, Subsaharian Africans, etc..). In terms of language, Classic Arabic is our civilisationnal written language and Berbers writers contributed to it at great extent. But for spoken language, we speak Moroccan Arabic, Tachelhit, Tarifit, Tazayant, etc.. I don’t even consider people from Saudi Arabia as Arabs, they are themselves mixes of South Asians, Persians, Arabs, and East Africans, like the Lebanese or Palestinians are a mix of Hebrew, Arabic, Turks and also North Africans (as a matter of fact many Palestinians have Moroccans origins).