The roots of anti-Amazigh hatred deeply anchored in Algeria
On May 1, 2025, Mohamed Lamine Belghit, a history teacher in Algeria, declared on Sky News Arabia that “Amazigh culture does not exist” and that it is a “Franco-Zionist creation”.
On May 3, the Dar-El-Beida court near Algiers ordered Mr. Belghit's arrest and pretrial detention for “undermining national unity and disseminating hate speech and discrimination”. The Congrès Mondial Amazigh / Amazigh World Congress (CMA) could have congratulated the Algerian justice system for its response to this racist anti-Amazigh act, if this justice system were not hypocritical, as it primarily aims to protect the stability of the Algerian state rather than the Amazigh people of this country.
Furthermore, the CMA is surprised that the Algerian authorities are not prosecuting the many Algerians, individuals, organizations, and even elected officials, who daily make negationism and racist anti-Amazigh remarks. When members of the government, including the head of state, as well as leaders of pan-Arab political parties publicly declare their devotion to the "Umma Arabia," the Arab nation, they are expressing the sacredness of the ties that unite them with the Arab peoples of the Middle East, a racially motivated position that artificially connects Algeria to the Arab-Islamic world, without any consideration for the millions of Amazighs in that country.
The Arab-Islamic ideology that seeks to eradicate Amazigh identity in Algeria is deeply rooted in this country after decades of forced arabization, distorted teaching of history, the imposition of Islam, and practices that exclude all things Amazigh. For example, to this day, Amazigh first names are banned, and parents who nevertheless wish to give their child an Amazigh first name must wage a long battle against a hostile and intimidating administration and justice system.
Currently, hundreds of Amazigh people, the vast majority of them Kabyles, are in prison for defending their language, culture, way of life, or simply publicly expressing their views on the social project they desire. Thousands more are threatened, monitored, and their movements restricted. Festivals, meetings, cultural activities, and demonstrations are banned in Amazigh territories (Kabylie, Mzab, Aurès, etc.).
It took half a century of popular struggles and the blood sacrifice of the Amazigh people for Tamazight, the Amazigh language, to be recognized in the Algerian Constitution. And while this language has been official since 2016, its teaching remains optional and limited to Amazigh-speaking regions, and only partially. After promising its widespread adoption throughout the country by 2021, the government postponed this deadline to 2038, but without any action plan being adopted to achieve this goal.
The recognition of Algeria's Amazigh identity is a fiction, primarily due to the state's anti-Amazigh policy. If the Algerian government sincerely wishes to combat Amazighophobia, it must begin by itself ceasing its contemptuous practices based on racist Arab nationalist and Islamist ideology toward Tamazight (people, history, culture, language, and civilization).
Paris, 1/05/2975 – 12/05/2025
The CMA Board.