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SAID LEGHLID
Amazigh Poetry:
Oral Tradition and Survival of a Culture
Imazighen, also known as “Berbers,” were the first inhabitants
of North Africa before countless civilizations came and went.
Imazighen underwent a revolving door of power struggles
throughout history. Barbary, as the region was known, was too
harsh an environment to conquer. All civilizations that moved
through Morocco had one common denominator: They were not able
to change the cultural resolve of the Amazigh heritage with its
unique oral tradition. This tradition existed as a culture with
artistically defined distinctions. It deserves to be protected
as a potentially full-fledged language in due time in history.
Berbers
fell from the sky, an array of etymological controversial
interpretations that account for anecdotal fibs. All colonial
interpretations of a subordinate culture were subject to skewed
political perceptions, blatantly in cases where resistance to a
colonizing power was fierce. Efforts to dilute, assimilate, and
eradicate Imazighen failed in many cases. Imazighen were not
aliens from another planet, and their cultures were not just
blips in history.
The origin
of the word "Berber" is unknown. The closest historical
approximation comes from differing uses of the word at varying
times in history. Terms like Barbar, Beriberi, and the oldest
word, Berberis or Barbarus – Greek for "foreigner" – were used
to refer to the tribes that were the first inhabitants of North
Africa. Regardless of terminology, Imazighen did not like it,
yet were permanently associated with the word Berber. Today, the
term "Berber" is used by those less familiar with the history of
North Africa. It is becoming more of an insulting word to
Imazighen, the speakers of the Tamazight language. Many would
like to see it go with the colonial powers that failed in
understanding its culture.
Let it be
known that the word for Berber is "Amazigh," and the word Berber
should cease to exist like those colonial powers that had long
left Morocco. Amazigh, the singular form, and Imazighen, the
plural form, refer to the original inhabitants of Morocco.
Tamazgha is the movement that wants to ensure that Imazighen of
North Africa get their cultural identity recognized. The
geographical existence of Imazighen stretches from the Siwa
region of western Egypt to the Canary Islands, sixty miles off
the coast of Morocco.
Morocco has
the largest concentration of Imazighen in North Africa. Morocco
was a choice for a succession of multiple invaders:
Phoenicians, Romans, Vandals, Byzantine, Arabs, and French.
Amazigh stands for two of humanity’s most cherished words:
Freedom and nobility.
On the
surface, Amazigh people have been resilient sprouters and
growers of a cultural identity. If given a chance, they would
like to rewrite their own authentic history.
* * *
At the
heart of a forgotten Amazigh Kasbah in the desert of southern
Morocco where I was visiting my uncle years ago, I stumbled into
a treasure trove. I had no idea of the value of the treasure,
and I would have never taken the time to understand and discover
its cultural value and its vast intellectual capital. I came to
learn accidentally that my Amazigh oral heritage was going
through one of the darkest hours of its struggles in history.
The nights that camouflaged its bloom for hundreds of years, and
the days that extended its heroic survival for several
millennia, might come to a disastrous end.
I heard
many female voices singing at wee hours of the summer nights I
spent at Ighrem Ne Mejrane, my mother’s birthplace. The name of
this small Kasbah was tucked away in the diaries of forgotten
cultural heritages, as was the case in countless Amazigh towns
and villages in Morocco. The history of Imazighen of Morocco was
written with the fangs of countless powers that passed through
the North African country, preventing Imazighen from claiming
their legitimate status as the original inhabitants of Morocco
and preventing their intellectual and cultural identity from
flourishing. People who took over Morocco preserved their
cultural status quo at the expense of other cultures that
existed in pseudo anonymity. This was the fateful hand history
dealt a brilliant culture: That of the Imazighen of North
Africa.
Hauntingly
beautiful minds expressed their hearts away to an obliviously
silent world where echoes of darkness were the only feedback
that bounced off their voices. I thought that was the case with
unheard voices in the middle of the night until I learned
further that those voices were part of an oral landscape that
made the culture vulnerable to the imposing interpretations of
religious wisdom and how it treated sobering voices of women
reciting poetic inspirations in the wee hours of the night.
Those voices were the fabric that wove existence of Imazighen
with fresh memories of their culture.
The
inspired voices of the women drove darkness out of shelters and
projected loud vocal lights on an otherwise sleepy eventless
Kasbah known as Ighrem in the Amazigh language. Years later,
their voices compelled me to relive those times again and again,
and make sense of some extremely important aspects of my
culture. With this essay, I hope to convey a perspective on the
rhetorical meanings of an amazing strong oral tradition gone
unnoticed and burgeoning on extinction.
(to be continued,
additional information)
* * *
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