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The Economics of Berberism: the Material Basis of the Kabyle Question in Contemporary Algeria

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2014

H. J. R. Roberts
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Extract

THE DEVELOPMENT OF A MAJOR ‘KABYLE QUESTION’ IN Contemporary Algerian politics was made manifest in the spectacular events of the spring of 1980. In an earlier article I suggested that the reason why most observers did not anticipate this development was because of their failure, on the one hand, to appreciate the specificity of the Kabyle case – the extent to which it departs from the sociologists' stereotype of Berber societies – and, on the other hand, to recognize the leading role played by the Kabyles in the national revolution and, in consequence, the significance of their subsequent eviction from commanding positions in the Algerian political elite. The practical substance of the Kabyle question itself was referred to only in passing and remains to be dealt with. Why is Kabyle particularism, which in itself is nothing new, now taking the form of ‘Berberism’, that is, not only opposition to the Arabization policy of the Algerian government but also the demand for official recognition of the Berber language? Why, moreover, has ‘Berberism’ become a popular force in Kabylia, capable of mobilizing, on occasion, support throughout Kabylia and from all classes of the population, when it was previously confined to an unrepresentative coterie of intellectuals and remains so confined in respect of the other Berberophone populations of Algeria and Morocco? The answer to these questions lies in the singular economic history of the Kabyle population.

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Original Articles
Information
Government and Opposition , Volume 18 , Issue 2 , 01 April 1983 , pp. 218 - 235
Copyright
Copyright © Government and Opposition Ltd 1983

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References

1 For an analysis of the internal politics of the movement of spring 1980, see my article ‘Towards an understanding of the Kabyle question in contemporary Algeria’, The Maghreb Review, London, Vol. 5, Nos. 5–6, September‐December 1980, pp. 115–24.

2 Roberts, Hugh, ‘The Unforeseen Development of the Kabyle Question in Contemporary Algeria’, Government and Opposition, Vol. 17, No. 3, Summer 1982, pp. 312–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3 Ibid., pp. 323, 333.

4 For Kabylia, this occurred in 1857, although the French had made occasional forays into the Kabyle marches before then. The conquest was not consolidated, however, until after El Mokrani’s revolt in 1871.

5 Hanoteau, A. and Letourneux, A., La Kabylie et les coutûmes kabyles, Algiers, 1872–73, three vols., Vol. 1, pp. 564–73Google Scholar.

6 Hanoteau and Letourneux, Op. cit., loc. cit., pp. 520–63.

7 Hanoteau and Letourneux, Loc. cit., p. 564.

8 For example, the qanuns (statutes) of the central Jurjura villages of Koukou and Taourirt Amrane, cited in Hanoteau and Letourneux, Op. cit., Vol. 2, pp. 386, 429.

9 Minute de Rapport sur la délimitation et la repartition du territoire de la tribu des Beni Bou Drar, 19 February 1900 and Minute de Rapport…… tribu des Beni Bou Attaf, 19 March 1900, Gouvernement‐Cénéral de l’Algérie: Direction des Affaires Indigènes: Service de la Propriété Indigène. Archives Nationales de France, Annexe d’Aix‐en‐Provence: Dossiers du Senatus‐Consulte des Tribus d’Algérie, series M96, dossiers 242 and 244.

10 André, General P. J., Confréries réligieuses musulmanes, Algiers, Editions La Maison des Livres, 1956, p. 265 Google Scholar.

11 Sidi Mohammed Ben Abderrahmane el Jurjuri et Guechtouli Bou Qobrin, born c. 1715 into the Ait Smail tribe of the confederation of the Igouchdal (in Arabic: Guechtoula) of the western Jurjura.

12 The instigator of the revolt, El Mokrani, was a member of the order, and it was on the declaration of the jihad by the Cheikh of the Rahmaniya, El Haddad, that the revolt was generalized.

13 Ageron, Charles‐Robert, Les Algériens musulmans et la France, Paris, PUB, 1968, 2 vols., Vol. 1, p. 301 Google Scholar.

14 André, Op. cit., p. 265.

15 André, Op. cit., p. 269.

16 Literally ‘the tribes’ (plural of qabila), qba’il was the term used by the townsmen of pre‐colonial Algeria to indicate hillsmen (as opposed to nomads) beyond the pale without distinction.

17 Morizot, Jean, L’Algérie kabylisée, Cahiers de l’Afrique et de l’Asie, Paris, Editions Peyronnet, 1962, p. 54 Google Scholar.

18 Hanoteau and Letourneux, Op. cit., Vol. 1, p. 565 et seq.; Morizot, op. cit., p. 38 et seq..

19 Roberts, 1982, Art. cit., pp. 320, 323–4.

20 Morizot, Op. cit., page 78 et seq..

21 For a more detailed discussion of this point, see my Doctoral thesis Political Development in Algeria: the region of Greater Kabylia, Oxford University, 1980, p. 190.

22 Roberts, 1980, Op. cit., pp. 190–2.

23 Etienne, Bruno, L’Algérie, Cultures et Révolution, Paris, Le Seuil, 1976, p. 147 Google Scholar.

24 Roberts, 1980, Op. cit., pp. 192–4.

25 For a discussion of the relationship between the development of the Kabyle bourgeoisie and the traditional pre‐capitalist culture of Kabyle society, see Roberts, 1980, op. cit., pp. 194–200.

26 Recensement général de la Population et de l’Habitat, 1966, Oran, Secrétariat d’Etat au Plan, 1970, 1st series, vol. XV: Wilaya de Tizi Ouzou, p. 100.

27 Recensement général… 1966, loc. cit., p. 104.

28 The exit visa was suppressed by President Chadli in the summer of 1979.

29 Examples of this are cited in Roberts, 1980, op. cit., p. 207.

30 It would be superfluous to cite Kabyle expressions of this consciousness. I have not met a Kabyle who is not explicitly aware of the distinction, although left‐wing Kabyles frequently play it down. It is not clear when the Kabyle‐Arab dichotomy became established in the social consciousness but we may note that it is taken for granted by the great 19th century Kabyle poet, Si Mohand ou M’Hand, although devoid of any animus in his case (Mouloud Mammeri (ed.), Les Isefra: poèmes de Si Mohand ou M’Hand, Paris, Maspero, 1969, pp. 182–3, 192–3, 324–5, 444–5). See also Camille Lacoste‐Dujardin, Le Conte Kabyle, Paris, Maspero, 1970, p. 124.

31 Examples of this are cited in Roberts, 1980, op. cit., p. 213.

32 Harbi, Mohammed, Aux Origines du FLN: le populisme révolutionnaire en Algérie, Paris, Christian Bourgois, 1975, pp. 35–9Google Scholar.

33 Amazigh (literally: ‘free man’, plural imazighen) is the word employed by Berberists to denote ‘Berber’, in preference to the latter term in view of its foreign (Greek‐Latin‐French) origin. A derivative, tamazight, is used to denote the Berber language in general. It has long been used by the Berbers of central and northern Morocco for their dialect.

34 As is evident from the contents of the journals in question.

35 Rachid, F., ‘Langues et Politique Linguistique en Algérie’, Bulletin d’Etudes Berbéres, No. 12, 1977, pp. 47–62 Google Scholar; ‘Combat Culturel en Algérie’, Assaghen, No. 2, April 1979, pp. 69–96.

36 ‘Combat Culturel en Algérie’, Loc. cit..

37 The demand for free elections and democratic government is the common denominator of all the Algerian opposition movements in exile.

38 Witness official reactions to this, disapproving in tone: for example, the report on the debates at the University in Révolution Africaine (weekly organ of the FLN, Algiers) No. 639, 21–27 May 1976.

39 Personal observation in Bouira 1973–74.

40 I know personally a number of young Kabyles who were arrested for this type of activity in the mid‐1970s.

41 Bessaoud, Mohamed Arab, Le FFS, Espoir et Trahison, Paris, Imprimerie Cary, 1966, pp. 76–7, 83Google Scholar. For a detailed account of the FFS revolt, see Roberts, 1980, op. cit., pp. 247–75.

42 As Mohammed Harbi has described the 1948–49 ‘Berberist’ movement, op. cit., p. 116.

43 One of Algeria’s most prominent intellectuals, Lacheraf, has long been noted for his reservations about the Arabization policy. Although not a Kabyle, he was associated with the ‘Berberist’ group led by Ali Yahia in 1948–49 as a member of the editorial board of L’Etoile, the journal of the FFMTLD, of which Ali Yahia was editor. For much of the 1965–77 period, Lacheraf was one of Boumediene’s advisers on social and cultural policy.

44 Abdelhamid Ben Badis was the founder of the Association of the Ulama which preached a return to a reformed Islam and promoted the revival of the Arabic language during the 1930s and 1940s.

45 Assaghen, No. 2, April 1979, p. 43.

46 The one important exception to this is the mrabtin (saintly families), whose position I have discussed in detail in my article ‘The Conversion of the Mrabtin in Kabylia’ in Gellner, Ernest and Vatin, Jean‐Claude (eds), Islam et Politique au Maghreb, Editions du CNRS, Paris, 1981, pp. 101–25Google Scholar.

47 Favret, Jeanne, ‘Traditionalism through ultra‐modernism’ in Gellner, Ernest and Micaud, Charles (eds), Arabs and Berbers, London, Duckworth, 1972, pp. 307–24, p. 321 Google Scholar.

48 And the other dialects, both Berber and colloquial Arabic, spoken in Algeria, as opposed to the literary Arabic taught in the schools. This principled gesture of support for other dialects than Kabyle should not obscure the fact that it is the fate of the Kabyle language which is the politically significant issue. For a fuller discussion of this point, see Roberts, 1980, art. cit., pp. 116–17, 122–3.