Libya Horra! Libya Tadeft! Libya Free!

Nothing interesting really I can come up with, I am for the moment just happy for Libyans to have toppled the 42years infamous regime of Colonel Gaddafi. They paid the high price for this victory and I am sure they will make all what is needed to make it worth. A new era has begun for Libya. Long live to the sons and daughters of Omar Mukhtar!

As Tunisian-Egyptian with Libyan origins, I send all my congratulations to Libyans and pray Allah for granting his Paradize for all the Martyrs.

الله أكبر
عاشت ليبيا الحرة
ⵍⵉⴱⵢⴰ ⵜⴰⴷⴻⴼⵜ

 

Reviving the Amazigh (Berber) Identity in Tunisia: because we are all Amazigh

Walk in the streets of Tunis, in the streets of Monastir or Bizerte, and listen to the people: people talk in Arabic, mostly, some in French and if tourists are around, in German, Italian or English. And unlike in the streets of Algeria or Morocco, you will never hear anybody talking in Tamazight (berber language). You might then conclude that unlike Algeria or Morocco, Tunisia is a pure Arab country. You’d be wrong.

Now walk nearby the mountains (Sidi Abdel Rahman mount, for example), wander in the small villages hardly reached by the hectic life of cities, walk in the cities a bit far from the centralized power, in Gasserine, in Tataouine, walk and watch the elder ladies: some wear thistypical square-patterned cloths kept tied by silver ornamental pins (‘Kholla’), and have around their necks ‘Rihanna’ (long chain made of big round silver rings as links) with ‘Khomssa’ pendants (Hand of Fatima), some even have tribal facial tattoos,  and all of them, when they talk, use words slightly different from those used in the big towns.  They don’t say ‘Ana’ (I, me), they say ‘Yeney’, the ‘Q’ is pronounced ‘G’. It seems Arabic but at least 30-40% of the words are not Arabic. What are they? They are Amazigh.

Go to the weddings, you will see the ancestral Berber costumes, the Berber jewellery (such as the ‘Kholkhal’, massive anklets), the music played strangely seems the same as in Kabilya or Northern Atlas. Amazigh, again. And if you are not yet convinced look out for Tunisia’s History: from Hannibal to Ibn Khaldoun, from Carthago to Djerba, the Amazigh presence is everywhere.

Tunisia has a strong Amazigh heritage. Systematical genetical survey show that 98% of the Tunisian population is of Amazigh origin. Every part of the culture and traditions show that we are in an Amazigh country, at the only striking difference that here, almost nobody talks Tamazight: but then why did the language almost disappear while all the rest stayed quite unchanged?As if the Imazighen where everywhere in Tunisia, only that they are mute.

Like in Algeria, Morocco and Libya, Tamazight was the native language of this country that our ancestors where calling ‘Ifriqya‘ (does it remember you something? Yes, from that word comes ‘Africa’). Like in these other countries, Arabic arrived in Ifriqya together with Islam: but unlike people sometimes say, it was not a massive invasion of Arab populations. Arab population that settled in Tunisia were never more than 2-3%. Arabic and Islam integrated the culture of Tunisia and became part of every Tunisian’s life and identity (after all, Tunisia is an Arabic name, given by Arabs that, when they arrived in Ifriqya found its inhabitants so generous and with such a strong sense of hospitality that they called this land the land that ‘twannass‘, meaning the land where you feel like surrounded by your family/friends), but Tamazight and Amazigh culture stayed also a vital part of this identity, and would not disappear. So to say, Tunisians are Amazigh people, that throughout History constituted a mixed Amazigh-Arab-Islamic identity. Arab-Islamic culture is vital to understand Tunisian identity, but so is Amazigh culture. They are like two sides of the same coin. A peaceful Tunisian would be a person accepting the both sides if their culture and the impregnation of Islam on these both sides.

Amazigh language began to almost disappear from Tunis only in the two last centuries, when the French domination, like in other parts of North Africa, needed a way to constitute populations in nations and blocks rather than in tribes, because it was easier to handle: imposing an uniform identity and language was the easiest way to break regionalism and build nationalism. Amazigh was banned, and Arabic and French were imposed, nomad tribes were forced to settle. After independance, the dictatorial regimes, following the French example to impose its law over the countries, continued the same path and criminalized the use of Tamazight, while leading a huge ‘arabization’ campaign through schools, administration, etc. The unluck of Tunisia compared to Morocco, Algeria and Libya, is that in this small country without big geographical relief, where most of the population was already living in towns near the sea, and with much fewer nomads, the cultural genocide worked much better than in the neighbouring countries. Indeed, one can say that big part of the preservation of the Amazigh culture in Algeria, Morocco and Libya is due to the difficult access to the mountains of Kabilya, Atlas and Nefoussa. And the job began by the French was finished by Bourguiba, certainly the most ‘francophile’ of all Arab dictators, and consolided by Ben Ali brutal dictatorship. Bourguiba and Gaddafi could certainly be ‘awarded’ as the biggest mass eliminators of Amazigh culture; after all didn’t they try shortly in 1973-1974 to form a Tunisian-Libyan Union called ‘Arab Islamic Republic’ (ironic, isn’t it, to refer to Islam for a man like Bourguiba that was not even observing Ramadan and wanted to force Tunisians to follow his example?).

The denial of Amazigh identity of Tunisia policy is so harsh that there isn’t even official statistics of the remaining number of Tamazight speakers in Tunisia: we talk sometimes about less than 100’000 people, sometimes less than 10’000. But the worst part of it certainly arrived through schools: ideological versions of History tought to children make it possible that in an Amazigh country, if you ask to the definition of the word ‘Amazigh‘, many are unable to give it, and many hear that word for the first time. A real national drama, if you consider socio-linguistic studies that show that about 60% of the Tunisian population had within the four preceding  generations Amazigh locutors in their family. If nothing is done now, Tamazight will simply disappear from Tunisia.

The New Tunisia, free from dictatorship is still looking for putting the right words on the aspirations of Tunisians: the new constitution has to be written. Preliminary drafts show that Tunisia is defined as a country of “Arab identity”. It would be a big mistake to not include the Amazigh Identity in the Constitution and not recognize Tamazight as an official language together with Arabic. Since the end of Ben Ali regime, we see a whole new activism in Tunisia of young Tunisian Amazigh, that want to follow the Moroccan example, where Tamazight entered in the constitution. Associations begin to form and to protest. Social networks are used as a platform to coordinate actions. Tunisia needs to revive its Amazigh culture. Tunisia needs to recognize what it is: a mixed Amazigh-Arab-Islamic identity.

European journalists think its an Arab Spring, but inside of it, there is a strong Amazigh flavour. After all, didn’t the Tunisian revolution start in Sidi Bouzid, a town named after a local saint, a purely Amazigh tradition?

Comparing Obama’s speech on the Middle-East with his Cairo Speech

The communication with the Arab and/or Muslim World looks like being a conundrum for the Western World. The way George W. Bush adressed some issues related to the Arabs/Muslims is maybe the perfect example on what to not say to them. Obama speeches were always clean of the obvious mistakes of his predecessors and this 2011 speech on the Middle-East was even cleaner. The 2009 Cairo speech was actually so brillantly written that it really raised hopes in the Middle-East for a change. But alas, from 2009 to 2011, these high expectations were disappointed, not only because of Iraq and Afghanistan wars or the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but also because of the attitude towards the Arab dictators facing street protests: the support to the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt came too late, only when it was clear to the US that they can dump their dear allies (Mubarak, Ben Ali, Gaddafi,…) because they were already almost toppled.

Thus, it is in this mindframe of scepticism that most of us, Arabs, listened to this Middle-East Speech. We kind of all had our “checklist”: some were waiting how Obama will mention Bahrain, some others how is he to address about Israel and Palestine, etc. None of us was really waiting for anything interesting and special to be said, most of us were just looking for a renewed confirmation of a new form of the good old hypocrisy: same old routine, only covered with more elegant words than his predecessors would have used.

What I was personnally interested in was in fact the difference between the Cairo speech of 2009 and this speech of 2011 on Middle-East, not in terms of the content itself, but in terms of the form, the strategy of communication. Although the latter was pronounced from the White House, it is quite obvious that it was prepared with the intention to address to the Arab World. The decision to not hold this speech in front of an Arab audiance in an Arab country proves there is a hesitation to face directly Arabs, as there is no certainty on the welcoming it would have had (after all Clinton was boycotted in Egypt by youth and hooted by Tunisians to the point she had to cancell her speach in Tunis). As the changes go in the North African and Middle Eastern region, the”West” adapts its communication.They are totally aware the Arab revolutions were the occasion of multiple  failures in communication and decisions, and that this caused a great damage on the trust the Arab and Muslim World have on them. Not only they want to restore that trust (surprisingly they seem to think that regaining it needs only to adapt the way of speaking, instead of admitting it needs a complete change of policy, what will apparently never happen), but also they are in high need of understanding the new Arab references.

The main differences between the two speeches are:

1. The Storytelling: in Obama 2009 speech, there were very few of the “storytelling” US rethoric is normally full of (emphazing arguments with an example of a person’s life story), besides the very brief mention to his own story linking him to Africa, while in the 2011 Speech, many mentions were done: Rosa Parks, Muhammad Bouazizi, Wael Ghonim (indirectly, by mentionning his position at Google), some Israeli father whose son was killed by Hamas starting a peace NGO. The Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions certainly made realize to Obama, Clinton and their team how important will be now the ordinary people of the Arab World. Instead of talking about elites, refering to great places or figures of History, the ‘normal’ people (including women) that achieved great things with almost nothing were mentioned. The storytelling, that ensured Ronald Reagan with a great popularity in his country as a president and was so to say the standard of communication of George W. Bush (and Nicolas Sarkozy), is a very classical technique to reach the very general audiances: (over)simplifying in talking with images instead of building a consistant chain of arguments.
2. Erasing American references: only with the “told stories” one can see that they refer all but one (Rosa Parks) to Arabs. But the shift goes beyond this. In 2009 speech, there was a point about stressing on the fact that Islam was part of American History, about the fight for civic rights of African Americans, about the Cold War, etc, while in 2011 speech the direct references to American History are completely erased (except for the reference to the American Revolution where Patriots refused to pay taxes to a king). Even the cited locations were chosen to fit to the Arab perspective (Cairo, Benghazi, Sanaa). In two words, we are moving here from speeches where we talk about “American values to export” to speeches where we talk about “universal values”, that happen to be shared by America as well as by other parts of the world, worth fighting for, although America didn’t create these values. US want to give a more “modest” image of themselves, they don’t  anymore commit the mistake to pretend they are  bringing democracy/peace/hope as global leader (although Hillary Clinton in the few words preceding Obama speech expressed her views about the need of an American strong “leadership”). On the contrary they emphazise on the fact that these values are wanted and activelly won by the Arabs themselves. Americans want now to endorse the more “neutral” role (in surface only of course) of those who will just propose help (economical, G20, technological, etc) and let free the Arabs to decide if they want that help or not (of course it is just a very hypocrit way of presenting things).
3. Avoiding religious references: of course, 2009 was technically a speech to the Muslim World, while 2011 is a speech on the Middle-East, but no one will deny how much entangled are Middle-East and Islam. 2009 was not only refering to Al-Azhar, the Quran or Obama’s own Christianity, it was also speaking the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in terms of Jews and Shoah, Muslims and Christians. In the 2011 speech, he prefered to talk Israel-Palestine in terms of frontiers, security and official mutual recognition, Bahrain in terms of Iranian strategic political interest, and Arab revolutions in general in mentionning freedom, economy, technology, information. The only explicit references were made were the “region that was the birthplace of three world religions” and the Muslim/Copt violence in Egypt and the offered solution to take the Iraqi “multi-ethnic multi-sectarian democracy” as an example (what a strange idea by the way to take this as an example). In erasing the reference to religion and particularely to Islam, it is quite clear that the United States want to enter in a new phase of their relation with Arabs where they can close the Islamism/extremism/Al-Qaeda chapter. In a way, by saying that Al-Qaeda was against democracy, that it lost its revelancy in the region, that more has been done in six months of civil unrest  than in decades by terrorists, but also by not referring to the recent choice  of a new head for Al-Qaeda and denying the Ossama Ben Laden’s posthume message praising Arab revolutions, US call for having the right to “move to something else”: US wants to make known that they want to make politics, business (a lot of business in fact), partnerships; they don’t want anymore to be seen as the oppressor of Muslims around the World. As if there was any chance that Arabs could forget the military support of Israel anyway (clearly mentionned in the 2011 speech).
4. Adopting Arabic rethoric: the only concession done to arabic language in 2009 speech was the opening “Salam Aleikom“. In 2011, there is a will to “speak the way Arabs speak”. Some linguistic specifities of the Arabic language are adopted. For example, the repetition of terms, very classic in arabic, but avoided as much as possible in english is clear in a sentence like “Square by square, town by town, country by country” (unfortunately for Obama, his advisors do not seem to have noticed the similarity that each Arab will notice with Gaddafi murderous speech “Zenga zenga, bit bit, dar dar“, meaning “street by street, house by house, room by room“). Another flagrant example is the sentence (actually the answer to the non-asked question) where he says: “Bin Laden was no martyr“, the word martyr being extremely often used not only in Islamic lexical field, but also in general Arab’s (for example, the people killed on Tahrir Square, regardless of their religion, are referred as martyrs by Egyptians), while it is totally absent from previous American official speeches. Adapting arabic rethoric is a way of looking “more familiar”, or “more comprehensive”.

I see the 2011 speech on the Middle-East as being a “grammatical contortion”: US diplomacy makes moves that are unnatural to them, not because they are taking a new orientation with us, Arabs, but because they think that if they want to continue to pursue the goals they always pursued in the region (oil, Israel and capitalism), they just have to make it a bit more subtly. With this Obama speech we officially entered in the era where the United States understand Arabs are not just parameters to adjust and fine tune, but a whole part of the world with 400 million people with real personal expectations and real intention to be sovereign. Let’s be clear: that’s only plastic surgery. If there was any real consideration to Arab aspirations, a word would have been adressed to the aspirations of the people living in the most repressive country of the region governed by a medieval feodal system, Saudi Arabia, and more firm positions would have been taken to condemn what happens in Syria and Bahrain.

Mimmicking our way of building sentences and arguments and using our own references is not enough and will never be; in fact it is even almost a bad idea from an American perspective for it makes it even easier for us  to detect where exactly there is hypocrisy,emptiness or offense. It is as if President Obama tried to cook for us a couscous or any other Arab dish and really thought we won’t be able to make the difference with our own cooking. The thing is, sadly for Americans and luckily for Arabs, very, very few of us were fooled by this new way of addressing us.

Dying of thirst in the middle of the Sea: a history of indifference

As war goes on in Libya, the flow of refugees to the neighbouring countries doesn’t stop. Estimations are difficult to do, but we know that besides the massive number (nearly one million) of foreign workers who left Libya at the beginning of the conflit and already went back to their country (let it be in Subsaharian Africa, North Africa or Asia), more than 150’000 Libyans crossed the frontiers with Tunisia, Egypt or Niger (for example nearly 40’000 Libyans have been quickly “absorbed” by the South Tunisian population , most of them hosted and provided in essential needs in Tunisian families although they are themselves in need, with such a fluency that even the International Organizations and the NGOs were amazed of the solidarity of the local population). A few thousands fled to Europe, generally through the Italian island of Lampedusa with their boats from Mistrata or other local ports. Men, women and children take board in overcrowded boats that sometimes fail in crossing the Mediterranean Sea and sink.

The sadest of these stories was reported by the guardian two days ago, about a boat that left Misrata with 72 refugees on board that came to visual contact with a NATO aircraft carrier, supposed to be the french Charles-de-Gaulle, and that made several attempts to drag attention (including a phone call to a Erithrean priest in Rome that alerted the italian coastguards that launched an alarm to urge any vessel in the neighbourhood of the boat of the refugees to rescue, following the law o the Sea that applies as well to military ships). Although these signals to the aircraft carrier and the two military planes/helicopters passing over the boat at low altitude, no help was given to the refugees. Ater the fuel tank emptied and the food and water stock finished, the boat drifted backwards towards Libya, and meanwhile 61 from the initial 72 people on bord died of hunger and thirst.

The NATO investigation is going on. Regardless of the details it will reveal, the conclusion will forever stay the same: 72 people escaped for saving their lives from the madness of war and 61 of them ended dying because of the indifference of those who were mobilized to protect them, because although they clearly saw them and have clearly received the signal of their presence, somewhere, the decision to not rescue them was taken. Let it be a dysfunctional  procedure or not, it is very likely that the ship’s company didn’t intend to let the refugees die but just weren’t keen to endorse the responsability of these 72 people. One can imagine they might well have thought the boat would have easily reached Lampedusa or any other Italian shore, letting to the staff on the ground take care of welcoming the refugees; in consequence they reached the conclusion that they can avoid dealing with a boat full of refugees. At every stage of the concerned hierarchy, then, there wasn’t the will – or the courage – to endorse the responsability of the migrants. Were simply the members of the staff of the aircraft carrier “afraid” to become a plateform used by Africans to reach Europe? After all, indifference to dramatic situations is sometimes no more than a shunning, a strategy to avoid the answers to the questions we fear.

If it is to be stated that, indeed, the aircraft carrier envolved in this event was the french Charles-de-Gaulles, it would become extremely revelant. France called for a freeze of the Schengen Agreement in order to close their frontiers to the Tunisian migrants given 6-months visas by the italian authorities, and the denial of assistance to the 72 refugees escaping Libya would be simply the continuation on sea of the official new French policy towards migrants. If the refugees were to be saved by the Charles-de-Gaulle, in stepping on the aircraft carrier, according to the International Law of the Sea, they would be considered as under the French law; in short France would have been forced to welcome the refugees, given the fact they cannot send them back to their country at war (a war to which France is participating). By letting the refugees on the Sea, thinking they’d continue to Lampedusa, they certainly hoped that the migrants would be welcomed by the Italian authorities. The question that remains would then be simple: were the members of the staff fully responsible of the decision of ignoring the refugees, or were they told/forced to ignore them?

Is there a future for Israel in a democratic Middle-East?

When I try to go back to my childhood memories, it seems to me that although I am Egyptian-Tunisian, I knew about Yasser Arafat much long before than about, say, Habib Bourguiba or Jamal Abdel Nasser. It is not even very surprising when you think of it, there is not one single thing in the world that unites Arabs (people, not elites) like the idea of that free country that once was, called Palestine. The Palestinian cause is kind of transcending our frontiers (in Arab countries and inside the diaspora); most of us felt emotionnaly and intellectually implicated in the Intifadas even before thinking of our own national causes.

One of the very common frustration of the Arab citizen we are is to be forced to see our own countries ruled by dictators all more or less openly collaborating with Israel – the oppressor of the Palestinian people. The corrupted elites of the Middle-East and North Africa allowed Israel to benefit of an auspicious neighbourhood to prosper while they benefited in return of exclusive and lucrative business opportunities or technical support by the Mossad. Each of us pronounced at least once the simple sentence “El Hokam al-Arab ahanoona” (“The Arab rulers humiliated us”), and each of us knew the supreme humiliation was always to watch, helpless, the Israeli giant killing day by day men, women, children, freedom and hope (supported and sponsorised by  “Mama Amerika“). The one and only time of my entire life – more than 29 years now – that I cursed myself for being Egyptian was when, during the Gaza attack on civilians of 2009 by the Israeli army, Egypt (well… Egyptian officials driven by an American agenda) blocked the tunnels linking Sinaï to Gaza strip used for food and weapon supplies; the tears of shame were bitter.

When the current wave of popular freedom began to shake the Arab world, and especially when Egypt was freed from the Mubarak oligarchy, one of my very first thoughts went to Palestine: now that we are not forced anymore to watch our elites making of the 85 million of us passive accomplices of the Israeli savage repression on Palestinians and the denial of their humanity, will Israel be weakened and will it change something for the Palestinians? Will Israel consider in making steps towards an acceptable treatment of Palestinian revendications?

A couple of days after the February 11th, I saw an amazing video on youtube of 3 million Egyptians gathered on Tahrir Square chanting “Al Quds (Jerusalem) we are coming!“. The video of a peaceful crowd claiming their solidarity for Palestine don’t even need any comment or explanation to be powerful:

The protests in Egypt in front of Israeli Embassy became frequent, and the growing feeling is that there is no space anymore for the impunity of Israel. That’s from the people’s side, but what from the new Egyptian authorities? Well, we have only a transitory government, but it seems that it took the full measure of the popular demand on the deals of Egypt with Israel. The first relevant fact was when the government announced that the gas supply to Israel with an underestimated price will be revised. Egypt supplies almost for free 40% of the gas Israel uses and the pipeline bringing the gas to Israel and Jordan is often targeted by vandalism. On the night of April 27th, the pipeline was damaged once again, and the gas supply had to be interrupted, causing Israel to begin to consider the need of self-sufficiency, if in the future they have to forget about the Egyptian gas. The news was very favorably welcomed by most of the Egyptians.

Another significant fact we lately came aware of is that the significant entrave the Mubarak regime was opposing to arms supply to the Gaza strip will be now much reduced. On April 5th Israel has to hit with a missile a car  in Sudan, killing two men implicated in Hamas military operations, one of them presumed to be successor of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, assasinated by Israel in Dubai last year. Apparently, Sudan gets weapons from Iran that are then carried through Egypt and then through Gaza tunnels, for Iran supports actively Hamas. Without a tightly collaborating Egyptian government there is very few chance Israel can controll the weapons flux incoming to Gaza strip, and ensuring collaboration of the democratically elected Egyptian government would require Israel to stop the abuses on the Palestinian population.

Besides Egypt, the Arab turmoil is causing trouble to Israel alliances with Arab elites in more than one way. The ousted Tunisian dictator Ben Ali and his clan were closely collaborating with Israel: the Mossad was well implanted in Tunisia where they provided a logistic and technical support to repression. The Tunisian crowd found many catridges stamped “Made in Israel” on the material used by Tunisian security forces. For example on this video, a Tunisian man in the city of Ariana finds a lot of bullets where we see hebrew writings:

The implication of Israel in repression in Tunisia was also clearly documented in the documentary “Soqot Dawlat al Fassad” (“The downfall of the corrupted regime”)  broadcasted on Tunisian National TV Al Wataniya we can still watch on their website (especially starting from 15:00), including a new eclairage on the Djerba synagogue bomb attack, attributed to Islamists but apparently being the product of a cooperation of Tunisian authorities with Israeli Intelligence. Under Habib Bourguiba, Tunisia was a strong ally to the Palestinian Authority; Yasser Arafat long beneficiated from the support of Tunisia to the Palestinian cause and his wife, Soha Arafat, was holding until 2007 the Tunisian citizenship, before Ben Ali withdrawed it from her and urged her to quit Tunisian territory following an argument with Leïla Ben Ali. The ousting of Ben Ali might well be the end of the tolerance of Tunisia towards Israel.  After the Revolution, Israel offered financial incentives for the return to Israel of the Jewish community in Tunisia, causing displeasure to the transitory Tunisian government, that argues that the Tunisian Jews were peacefully living in Tunisia since centuries.

Concerning the other Arabic States, although the outcome is not yet clearly known, some indications allow to conclude that Israel cooperations with tyrants might well be lost. For example, the trade that was ongoing between the Gaddafi family and Israel, providing Libyan oil in exchange of Israeli tanks and other weapons (among which forbidden weapons currently used to mass murder Libyan population) might well to be stopped forever, given the close evolution of the Libyan conflict.

Since the unrest began to shake Bashar Al Assad regime in Syria and a few signs of a possible propagation in Jordan, Israel’s most faithfull ally in the region, it seems that once for all, Israel entered in the phase of isolation in the Middle-East. If the people take power in the immediate and close neighbourhood of Israel, it might well that the Zionist State is no more given the choice: treat correctly the Palestinian, respect their right to have an Independant State, stop their crimes against humanity, or face the massive and strong opposition of Arab States, ruled by elected governments that are under the accountability of the people.The growing unpopularity inside the Arab region of the American foreign policy (to a point that Hillary Clinton visit in Egypt and Tunisia was troubled by massive protests) and the unpopularity of American-sided candidates like Mohammad Al Baradei or Amr Moussa makes it highly improbable that Israel will ever find again within the region allies like Ben Ali, Mubarak or Gaddafi.

There was a myth not so long ago: an imaginary tale consisting of depicting Israel as being the “only democracy in the Middle-East”. Besides the fact that brutality and apartheid automatically suppresses the credibility of a country self-proclamed democratic (voting is not the only right and due of a democraty), we might well have to tell the opposite tale in a couple of years: Israel, the only dictatorship left in the Middle-East, forced to justice or to disparition.