By Mohand Ouramdane KHACER President of the European Berber Cultural Space (Afus Deg Wfus) Founding Director of the Northern Division of the Berber Academy (1971–80)
Tamazgha: a civilization Denied, never erased
North Africa is Amazigh in its millennial depth. Before Rome, before Byzantium, before Islam, before France, the peoples of Tamazgha spoke, thought, transmitted, and wrote in Amazigh. This historical reality, attested to by linguistics, archaeology, and anthropology, was nonetheless methodically obscured in the 19th century by European colonization.
This evidence, which some sought to erase, was powerfully recalled by Mouloud Mammeri. In his preface to M. Hammouma’s Berber Grammar (ACB, 1987), he wrote: “The debate that has sometimes arisen regarding the writing system to adopt seems to me, personally, either a mere formality or a matter of convenience. The principle is a question of simple common sense. Berber must be written in Berber, that is to say, in adapted Tifinagh.” This simple, luminous sentence summarizes a fundamental truth: a language can only live through its own alphabet, its own graphic breath, and its own unique genius.
Colonial France, far from being content with territorial domination, undertook an identity reconfiguration of North Africa. Under Napoleon III, advised by Ismaÿl Urbain, a vast ideological project was conceived: that of an “Arab kingdom” associated with France, symbolically extending from Algiers to Baghdad. This colonial neo-Arabism was not a form of cultural recognition, but an Orientalist political construct intended to stabilize the conquest and provide ideological coherence to the imperial enterprise.
The “Arab Bureaus,” the colonial school system, the administration, and land tenure reform became the instruments of systematic “de-Amazighization.” Written Arabic was imposed as the language of prestige and power, while Amazigh social structures—such as the djemaa (assembly), customary law, and tribal organization—were marginalized or destroyed. In Eastern Kabylie, this policy had irreversible effects: private (melk) or religious (zaouïa) lands were reclassified as tribal lands (arch), paving the way for dispossession. The administrative “neo-djemaa” replaced the traditional one, accompanying an accelerated linguistic Arabization. Thus, a region that was majority Amazigh-speaking in the 19th century, from Jijel to Skikda, became largely Arab-speaking by the 20th.
Yet, colonial figures themselves belied the fiction of an “Arab” Algeria: approximately 500,000 Arab-speakers, 1,200,000 Arabized Amazighs, and 1,000,000 Amazigh-speakers. Demographic reality was knowingly ignored in favor of a manufactured narrative.
An ancient struggle, an assumed continuity
Faced with this organized erasure, Amazigh resistance never faltered. It took multiple forms, cultural, linguistic, intellectual, and militant and was passed down from generation to generation.
In 1971, in Roubaix, I founded the Northern Division of the Berber Academy, amidst threats, pressure, and slander from the Amicale des Algériens en France. On May 3, 1972, we organized the first conference-debate on Amazigh civilization there, marking the beginning of structured awareness-raising and transmission efforts in Europe. On June 16, 1974, we hosted Mohand Saïd Hanouz, founding president of the Berber Academy, for a historic lecture on Amazigh origins.
In April 1980, during the “Amazigh Spring,” I co-signed a letter of support for the protesters with the president of the Paris Berber Academy, addressed to the Algerian president, denouncing repression and cultural alienation. This public stance marked a major turning point for the international visibility of the Amazigh cause. In October 1985, I founded the association Afus Deg Wfus, which took up and amplified this work, becoming a true center for training, pedagogical innovation, and cultural creation in line with contemporary technological changes.
Modernizing to rebuild: tifinagh put to the test of History
Re-Amazighization cannot be effective without a modernized language and tools adapted to the times. It is in this spirit that, in early 1989, we began pioneering work on digital Tifinagh.
In 1993, Afus Deg Wfus designed the first functional Tifinagh fonts for Mac and PC, Afus Deg Wfus 1 & 2, accompanied by pedagogical materials. We then developed the Azerty-Tifinagh standard, the first coherent system allowing Amazigh writing on French keyboards. This standard would later serve as the basis for the normalization adopted by IRCAM, now integrated into Unicode, making the use of Tifinagh possible on computers, phones, and educational platforms.
In a process of historical truth and linguistic coherence, I also undertook the correction of the “Neo-Tifinagh” inherited from the Paris Berber Academy, replacing characters derived from Aramaic (Arabic) with authentic Amazigh letters (ⵞ, ⵟ, ⵡ) to restore the alphabet’s phonetic logic and original integrity. Tifinagh is not a folkloric relic: it is a pedagogical tool, a marker of dignity, a vector of modernity, and a bridge between generations. It is our alphabet of pride.
From Tamazgha to the Canary Islands: the same colonial matrix
France was not the only power to organize this identity erasure. Spain applied a similar logic to the Canary Islands, another Amazigh land. The Guanche people, island Amazighs, shared with North Africa a language derived from Tamazight, tribal social structures, common funeral rites, and a communal organization similar to the djemaa. Castilian colonization imposed Hispanization, forced Christianization, the destruction of social structures, slavery, and deportation. Within a few generations, the Guanche language disappeared. Two colonizations, one strategy: erase Amazighity to dominate more effectively.
In 1964, the MPAIAC (Movement for the Self-Determination and Independence of the Canary Archipelago) brought this memory before the UN under the impetus of Antonio Cubillo. In 1970, in Algiers, at the CRAPE directed by Mouloud Mammeri, I met Antonio Cubillo. This encounter symbolized the convergence of Amazigh struggles beyond borders. It was in tribute to the Canarian people and their struggle that I designed the seven-star Amazigh flag in 1971, symbolizing the seven islands of the archipelago.
Writing to exist, transmitting to endure
A century and a half after the colonial project, history is reversing. What was methodically erased is resurfacing with force. The officialization of Tamazight as a national and then official language marks a major historical rupture. It finally recognizes the existence of a people, a language, and a civilizational continuity that were long denied. It paves the way for education, teacher training, university research, the production of textbooks, and the media and institutional presence of the language.
The renaissance of Tifinagh, the rise of digital tools, artistic creations, and the engagement of new generations are the fruits of more than half a century of struggle, pedagogy, and perseverance. Every letter traced in Tifinagh is an act of resistance. Every word written is a victory over oblivion. Every child who learns their mother tongue is a future asserting itself.
Re-Amazighization is neither a retreat nor a return to the past. It is a reappropriation of self, the better to step into modernity.
Sources and references
- Alain Messaoudi, Les arabisants et la France coloniale, ENS Éditions, 2015.
- Presses Universitaires de la Méditerranée, research on the Hispanization of the Canaries.
- Historical syntheses and archaeological archives on the Guanches.
- French press archives (1972–2026) related to the Berber Academy, Afus Deg Wfus, and the Amazigh Spring.