Professor Salem Chaker Emeritus of Tamazight[/caption]
INTERVIEW
“A full recognition for Tamazight”
Emeritus Professor of Tamazight, Salem Chaker discusses in this interview, several issues relating to the first claim, then the status of Tamazight, where it considers that the progress made by the claim are for the moment largely symbolic and that concessions made by the power remain purely formal. Dr. Chaker also evokes the spelling and codification of the language.
Freedom: We just celebrated the 33rd anniversary of the Amazigh Spring. Citizen mobilization was the appointment in April. What is your view on that citizen commitment to Tamazight and is not fading, three decades after Tafsut imazighen?
Dr. Chaker: Clearly, this recurring mobilization, which is unwavering, clear the depth of the social roots of the Amazigh claim, especially in Kabylie; and also the fact that she resisted repression, permanent maneuvers neutralization and recovery. In a word, it is not soluble in the pretenses and pseudo-responses of the central state.
What assessment do you make of the status of the Amazigh issue with, in particular, the recognition of Tamazight as an official language in Morocco, popular pressure from the Libyan Amazigh on the new authorities in their countries for recognition, and also your appreciation of the management of this issue by the powers of the North African countries, in particular by the Algerian government remains resistant to any idea of formalization?
There is no denying that across North Africa, the issue has seen significant advances. But these advances are for the time being, even in Morocco, largely symbolic. In the field of concrete translations of the measures to ensure the survival and development of Tamazight real, it is still very far short. Resistance, in most countries remain powerful: Arabist ideology, characterized by a deep hostility to anything that is not Arab, maintains quite dominant positions in the state apparatus and among intellectuals close to the government, although it is obvious that it is today a political horizon. His ability to lock and nuisance remains high: it is clearly the case in Algeria and Libya, certainly in Morocco. In the Algerian case, it is worth remembering that all laws and decrees, subsequent to the recognition of Tamazight 2002 as a “national language”, have consistently reaffirmed the exclusivity of Arabic (classical) as a language official (including: 2005 Ordinance on private education; 2008 Law on the code of civil and administrative proceedings, not to mention the language law of 1991/1998 is still in force!).
Despite the introduction of Tamazight at school since the 90s and its recognition as a national language in 2002, following the tragic events of the Black Spring, teaching remains marginal and optional. What your assessment of the management of this teaching and especially the status reserved for him?
It seems obvious to me that the Algerian state, tolerating an optional teaching of Tamazight, then inserting it in the Constitution as the “second national language”, made a purely formal concession to the Kabyle protest. The legislator and the state, Arabic remains the exclusive language of institutional and public spaces, even unofficial. Specifically, Algeria, the status of “national language” is reduced to the recognition of a heritage legitimacy – Tamazight and Amazigh are part of the historical and cultural heritage of Algeria – and tolerance of an optional teaching, where demand exists. The real and only question is whether we want to do with a recognition “heritage”, “folklorisante” which may be limited to a tolerance in the margins, on the model of what is practiced in France for Languages and regional cultures (Breton, Occitan, Basque …) or if we want Tamazight to a full recognition as a living language and language of the future of language communities, according to a rather Spanish model, in which the Catalan, Basque are the own language of Catalonia, the Basque Country and enjoy a status of co-official with Spanish. Of course with heavy and structural implications: basic education is given in the language of the region, administration, justice … systematically use the language of the region, etc.
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Tamazight National and Official Language [/caption]
Algeria is poised once again to revise the Constitution. Do you think Tamazight will appear this time and what are your recommendations for its decision not true institutional care?
I’m not in the secret of the gods and ignores the intentions of the legislator!
However, we can assume that it will be very difficult to Algeria not to align, now or in a few years on Morocco and not to recognize the status of official status to Tamazight. This change seems inevitable, as it was since 2002 that the inevitable Morocco Tamazight introduce in its Constitution.
That said, we know the worth of the Constitutions and laws in our countries …
The principles they claim loudly have been and are being violated daily: freedom of thought, religious freedom, gender equality, independence of justice and subordination of the police and security services to righteousness … and I pass the best!
It is perfectly possible to have the status of an official nature and see it empty of any real content. Everything will depend on the mobilization and the balance of power with society and the Berber activism.
The spelling is one of the issues raised in recent years. While specialists opt for the Latin alphabet, Tifinagh some say, others still offer Arabic script. As a language specialist, what is the proper script for Tamazight?
I spoke many times on the subject, which for me is closed for a long time; most recently as part of a symposium HCA. These are the real and practical social history that regulate these questions for over a century, the vast majority of texts are written in Latin characters, almost all creators of literary writing in Latin – including Morocco or Nova Tifinagh have yet been selected by IRCAM … That said, many languages in the world are written with multiple writing systems, depending on whether one is on one side or another of a frontier policy (Serbian / Croatian, Urdu / Hindi, Turkish and Iranian languages languages …). A “poly-alphabetic” Berber situation has nothing extraordinary. And time will, eventually, his work harmonization.
One also evokes the idea of a panamazighe standard. Do Tamazight she has a codified common form. What will it socio-historical specificities and identity of each region Amazigh if one opts for this panamazighe standard?
Currently, a common standard form of Tamazight is a chimera, which can have social and cultural roots. Here too, I expressed myself clearly since 1983: it is unthinkable that a “convergent standardization” of regional varieties of Tamazight. And it is, in fact, widely what happened. The conditions and means of a common standard does not exist, both for linguistic, cultural and geopolitical reasons.
Not even within a single country: IRCAM has the greatest difficulty to accept his “common standard Amazigh” the Rif who do not recognize it …
In Algeria, will define a common standard in Kabyle, Chaoui in at Mozabite at Tuareg! Or you create a linguistic abstraction, conceivable, but will be far removed from any real purpose, or behind the “standard Amazigh,” you impose actually a form demographically / culturally dominant, Kabyle in Algeria, chleuh in Morocco…
We must not delude ourselves or “tell salads”: all cultural producers, writers, theater people, filmmakers, poets and singers “of Amazigh language,” without exception, write, produce and sing in a specific regional variety , Kabyle, Rif chleuh … And it is perfectly normal because they cater to a specific audience, which they share language, cultural references, etc. Anyway, geographical and linguistic fragmentation Tamazight adds geopolitical fragmentation: we’ll talk seriously of a common standard Amazigh day or exist politically a “Union of the Great Maghreb Amazigh”, that is, Tamazgha say!
http://www.liberte-algerie.com/entretiens/une-reconnaissance-pleine-et-entiere-pour-tamazight-189955]]>
For the full and official recognition of Tamazight
