MOROCCO: Berber festival set against backdrop of looming recognition for its people

Record ID: 640917

  • Title: MOROCCO: Berber festival set against backdrop of looming recognition for its people
  • Date: 30th June 2011
  • Summary: (SOUNDBITE) (Berber) FATIMA TABAMRANT, AMAZIGH SINGER, SAYING: "All my life I've built my work around the Amazigh identity. Now we've achieved this change to the constitution it's great. But this doesn't mean everything is going to stop just because we have got this far. We'll carry on." DRAIN COVER SHOWING AGADIR IN ARABIC AND AMAZIGH TILT-UP FORM DRAIN COVER TO PROMENA
  • Embargoed: 15th July 2011 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Morocco, Morocco
  • Country: Morocco
  • Topics: Entertainment,Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA84WH7JGWYNTMX8HRX90ORHSLE
  • Story Text: Berber musicians gathered in Morocco's Agadir for the eighth year in a row to showcase their musical talents.
    But this year's Timitar Festival is taking part ahead of a crucial referendum for the Berber -- or Amazigh -- people. On Friday (July 1) Moroccans will be able to vote for changes in the country's constitution.
    The result of the vote could be vital for Berbers in the country, as the new constitution could make their language an official one spoken in the country.
    For those taking part in this year's colourful show, they're keen to introduce Amazigh music to a wider audience.
    "We didn't want to make a community based festival a closed festival. Rather a world music festival, while at the same time putting Amazigh music and Amazigh culture in the middle of this diversity. Especially at a time when globalisation is with us bringing with it anxiety and a bulldozer-like quality which can harm certain cultures," said Brahim El Mazned, the artistic director of the Timitar Festival.
    Many of the Berber signs and symbols were invoked in the festival to bring a sense of belonging to a real community. The audience was almost all Berber and they responded to the songs, which become almost anthems.
    Many of the singers were female, and showed a great deal of confidence in their delivery.
    Rayesa Kabira is one of the youngest Amazigh singers to break out of performing solely at weddings and family occasions. She has released a record, is going on tour and is making the call for greater recognition of the Amazigh a theme in her songs.
    "My songs are about what is going on at the moment in the Berber world. I sing about what is going on a cultural level and how things are altering. But I also sing about love between man and woman, so it's a combination of comment on the current situation and the traditional love song," she said.
    While many Amazigh support Moroccan king Mohammed, they are keen to ensure that the acceptance of the Amazigh goes further than just a paragraph in the new constitution.
    "All my life I've built my work around the Amazigh identity. Now we've achieved this change to the constitution it's great. But this doesn't mean everything is going to stop just because we have got this far. We'll carry on," said singer Fatima Tabamrant.
    Shortly after King Mohammed ascended to the throne in 1999, 20 groups issued a formal demand for Amazigh culture to be recognised in the constitution.
    The king set up a heritage body for Amazigh culture in 2001, saying it belonged to all Moroccans and must not be used for "political purposes".
    Last year Amazigh rights campaigners said majority Berber regions were still being sidelined and Morocco's development mostly favours big coastal cities such as Tangier, Rabat and Casablanca.
    But Amazigh activists say the government is moving in the right direction. Amazigh artist Abdullah Aourik said the fact that the Berber language could be recognised as an official language is 'better than nothing.'
    "Because it's the land of the Berbers, this is the most important. You know other politics are just convictions that's personal things you can believe. But first of all my language, my cultural identity, my land and my people, that's the priority," said the artist.
    Berbers, who call themselves Amazigh or "Free Ones", inhabited north Africa for thousands of years before the Arabs brought Islam to the region in the seventh century.
    Their culture lives on in mountainous hinterlands where poverty and neglect have hardened suspicion of outsiders and spawned an urban movement that campaigns for Amazigh rights.
    Many in the Arabic-speaking middle class that led Morocco to independence in 1956 saw attempts to promote Amazigh language and culture as a threat to national unity.
    Today Arabic remains the official language in Morocco and the constitution does not yet mention the Amazigh.
    Timitar Festival ran from June 22-25 this year.
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