Kahina : the Berber Jewish queen

Women in Amazigh culture hold higher status than women in Arabic, Christian and Jewish culture. In 760 AD the Amazigh(Berber) high priestess Kahina led her people against the Arab invaders. She and her people drove the Arab invaders back for a time, though she eventually lost her life in the struggle... and the Amazigh People were colonized and "Arabized."

Who was al-Kahina?: Dihya al-Kahina was a woman born into a Jewish Berber tribe in the Aures Mountains some time during the 600s CE. During her lifetime, Arab generals began to lead armies into North Africa, preparing to conquer the area and introduce Islam to the local peoples. The Berber tribes fiercely resisted invasion, and decades of war resulted. Very little is known about Dihya's family, or her early life. Her father's name was Tabat, or Thabitah. The name al-Kahina is a feminine form of "Cohen", and it may indicate that her family or tribe were cohanim.

It could also have been a title given to her personally, meaning something like 'priestess' or 'prophetess'. Her followers, and their enemies, credited her with prophesy and magical knowledge. She married at least once, and had sons. Beyond that, almost nothing is known. The Berbers of the seventh century were not religiously homogenous. Christian, Jewish and pagan Berbers were spread through the region that is now Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, and Libya. They shared a common language and culture, however, and the invasion of the Arabs presented them with a common cause, to drive out the invaders. Al-Kahina emerged as a war-leader during this tense period, and proved amazingly successful at leading the tribes to join together against their common enemy.

Her reputation as a strategist and sorceress spread, and she managed to briefly unite the tribes of Ifrikya, the Berber name for North Africa, ruling them and leading them in battle for five years before her final defeat.

Morocco's Berbers Battle to Keep From Losing Their Culture

Berbers were Morocco's first inhabitants, and today they are still the majority, accounting for about 60 percent of Morocco's 30 million citizens.

But when it comes to speaking their views, they are treated like a minority by the members of the dominant Arab culture.

"More than 40 years after independence (from France), the government still doesn't want to teach the Berber language and preserve or promote the culture, " says Ahmed Lachgar Agwilal, a Moroccan-born San Franciscan who is a representative of the Amazigh (Berber) Commission for Development and Human Rights in America.
"If you want to be Moroccan," he says, "you have to speak this language."
The government disagrees.

"Arabic is the official language of our identity, our Koran and our nation. The Moroccan citizen is duty-bound to speak his national language," says Khalid Shebal of the government's Institute for Arabization.

At the police registries where Moroccans go to officially designate their childrens' names, non-Arab names like Jurgurtha and Messina -- the names of ancient Berber kings -- are blacklisted. Only Arabic names like Hassan and Ahmed are allowed.

"To Berber militants, this is a case of trying to completely eradicate any Berber heritage," Jalali Saib, a leading activist who teaches at Rabat University, told the BBC earlier this year.

The first language of most Moroccans is some form of Berber, generally called Tamazight, though there are a number of variants. But the constitution recognizes only Arabic as the official language.

Arabic was imposed on the Berbers by the Muslims who conquered Morocco in waves of invasions beginning in the seventh century. Its influence waned a bit during the French colonial period, but after Morocco gained its
independence in 1956, it surged again. In the 1970s, the government launched a campaign to impose stricter standards for the use of Arabic in place of French in government and education.
Today, Berber activists say the "Arabization" of Morocco has led to discrimination and has marginalized their people. But the government has resisted calls for recognition of Tamazight as an official language of Morocco,
fearing that the crusade will spawn a separatist movement.

Morocco's Berbers are "people in their own country who don't exist," complains Mahjoubi Aherdan, the charismatic leader of the National Popular Movement, a political party that represents rural Moroccans, many of whom are Berber.

Even in schools in predominantly Berber areas, lessons are not taught in Tamazight but in Arabic. Government jobs are off-limits to those who speak only Berber, and Tamazight is prohibited in the courts; all legal documents must be translated into Arabic.
Television programming follows suit. One government-affiliated channel, 2M, broadcasts a mix of Arabic and French. The other, RTM, broadcasts predominantly in Arabic, with only 5 to 10 minutes a day of news in Berber.

Berber activists blame Arabization for the high illiteracy rate in Morocco - - 56 percent of its citizens cannot read -- because Berber children often drop out when confronted with teachers who speak only Arabic. They also blame it for the continued poverty of most Berbers. Fifty percent of Moroccans live on less than $50 a month, and most of the poor are Berbers.

This article appeared on page A - 14 of the San Francisco Chronicle.