Idir in concert in Bondy, France, for Fête de la Musique, 2008. [Photo by Suaudeau, licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.] Current Analysis Mourning the Loss of the Berber Troubadour Idir For nearly 50 years, Idir’s music has resonated deeply with his Kabyle listeners: His lyrics not only recall the power of their ancestral traditions, they also serve as a reminder that Kabyle resilience transcends the ages. His music and his novel musicality completely revolutionized Kabyle song, br Nabil Boudraa • 7 min read
MER Article Protest Camp as Counter-Archive at a Moroccan Silver Mine Eight years ago, residents of Imider in Morocco's rural southeast shut down a silver mining company's water pipe on a nearby mountain to protest the damages to their health and livelihoods. This direct action turned into the longest sit-in protest encampment in Moroccan history. Perched on a rugged Zakia Salime • 13 min read
MER Article Center-Periphery Relations in Morocco In Nador, a regional capital located on the Mediterranean Sea at the eastern end of the Rif Mountains in Morocco, coffee shop talk often turns to the relationship with the capital city, Rabat, a five-hour car ride or a nine-hour train or bus ride to the west. Nadoris are sensitive about their status David McMurray • 13 min read
MER Article Festivalizing Dissent in Morocco The website of Morocco’s National Tourist Office, a government organization, advertises the North African country as a land of cultural festivals and moussems (traditional fairs honoring a saint). According to the Ministry of Information, about 150 such festivals take place each year. The Ministry o Aomar Boum • 10 min read
MER Article States of Fragmentation in North Africa Nearly 50 years after independence, the North African states of Algeria and Morocco face challenges to their national unity and territorial integrity. In Algeria, a Paul Silverstein • 18 min read
MER Article Amazigh Activism and the Moroccan State When primary school students in the major Berber-speaking regions of Morocco returned to class in September 2004, for the first time ever they were required to study Berber (Tamazight) language. The mandatory language classes in the Rif, the Middle Atlas, the High Atlas and the Sous Valley represent David Crawford, Paul Silverstein • 13 min read
MER Article Algerian Insurrection In the past ten years of political crisis, Algerians have been wary of public protest. Terrorized by relentless violence and impoverished by structural adjustment, they have repeatedly given the impression that what they want most is the chance to get on with their lives quietly. Despite the cancell Heba Saleh • 6 min read
MER Article How "Berber" Matters in the Middle of Nowhere In the High Atlas valley of the Agoundis, less than 100 kilometers from Marrakesh’s international airport, the lives of Berber-speaking farmers move in what seems a timeless rhythm. Men manipulate intricate stone canals, drawing water to steeply terraced plots of barley. Women in bangles and bright scarves lash huge David Crawford • 14 min read
Current Analysis The Kabyle Riots Ten days of rioting, beginning in late April, in the Algerian Berber-speaking region of Kabylia have led to the death of scores of demonstrators—all killed by the security forces' gunfire. As ever in Algeria, there are no definitive figures. The military-backed authorities put the death toll at 42, Heba Saleh • 7 min read
MER Article Rebels and Martyrs A Kenza a yelli / D iseflan neghli / F Lzzayer uzekka / A Kenza a yelli / Ur tru ara (O Kenza my daughter / We have sacrificed our lives / For the Algeria of tomorrow / O Kenza my daughter / Do not cry) —"Kenza," written by Lounès Matoub in 1993 for the daughter of assassinated Kabyle journalist a Paul Silverstein • 6 min read
MER Article Berber Associations and Cultural Change in Algeria It was another hot August night. Several hundred villagers, for whom this was the third of four late-night weddings in a row, watched with jaded interest as first women, then men, occupied the dancing space -- a circle carved from a dusty village square, around which women spectators sat on Jane Goodman • 13 min read
MER Article Berbers in France and Algeria When the summer 1995 bombings in France brought the Algerian civil war across the Mediterranean, many began to recognize the permeability of political, social and cultural boundaries between the two countries and the extent to which the 1.5 million post-colonial immigrants and their mostly binational children in France functioned Paul Silverstein • 19 min read
