Me MBarek OULEMDA, on Monday,May 11 th, I felt discriminated and humiliated when I went to the Civil Status Service to register my newborn (boy) with the name (Ayyur Adam) in Beni Mellal. The agent said “Adam is accepted but Ayyur is strange”. “Go to the Civil Status Inspector in the Province to check if this name is on the list” he added. I went to the Inspector, an arrogant person, he said : ”Tamazight is not a language, it's a dialect because it has no history. Sorry, Ayyur is not on the list.”
I denounce this shameful and racist act that reflects the Moroccan authorities plot and conspiracy against the Amazigh civilisation in its homeland. I wonder if I have the right to name my son with an Amazigh name or I don't? Thus I call for all democratic forces to support my struggle until the registration of Ayyur Adam and the total annulation of this racist list.
Lounes Matub sang
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in Amazigh
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In English:
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“ Asmi d-lule ? d ass amcum
Deg ufus i d-kemse ? lehmum” |
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Cursed the day that day I was born,
In my hand shaking node torment. |
Thank you very much for all people who sympathized with me in this bitter humiliation which was prepared and acted by Moroccan authorities.
Actually, the experience of refusing one's newborn's name by the Civil Registry services in his homeland is indescribable especially when you find that a citizen like you has just registered his newborn (Saàd) meanwhile yours is rejected. Therefore you feel that you are not like the other (who chose an Arab name). You understand that your status is lower than the other citizen, or the lowest and the most wretched creature on earth. I am not the first or the last to endure this absurd banning.
Therefore, it is clearer and clearer that the process of discrimination, marginalisation and systematic cultural erasing is still going on in spite of sweet political speeches which we have been accustomed to hear since the so called “ Independence ” in 1956.
To illustrate this I start with the Moroccan constitution which does not recognise Amazigh identity as it is stated in its preamble: “An Islamic and fully sovereign state whose official language is Arabic, the Kingdom of Morocco constitutes a part of Great Arab Magreb”.
So according to this constitution Imazighen don't exist although the historical, archeological, anthropological, linguistic and social studies have shown and confirmed that the population of North Africa in general and of Morocco in particular is mainly Amazigh.
Moreover, the translators into Tamazight have been disappeared in the Moroccan administrations since (courts, hospitals…) since 1956.
The High Institute of Amazigh Studies hasn't seen light up to now. Unfair detention of Amazigh association members in 1994 because they protested on Labour Day (May 1st) and claimed the official recognition of Tamazight.
Systematic marginalisation of Amazigh speaking regions (Rif , Atlas, the South East…). Promulgating laws in order to ban Amazigh names in the name of protecting “Moroccan identity”, so many Amazigh names have been banned and considered either strange or bring shame to the public morality! Or menace the national unity! Many Amazigh toponyms have been arabised.
Another scandalous aspect of humiliation is that of the 2M TV that broadcasts only 15 mn of Amazigh news but the presenters are behind the veil, they are ashamed to appear to the viewers! Al uwla TV also broadcasts only 15 mn of Amazigh news in spite of the fact that Imazighen, the majority, pay taxes on TV and Radio (Note that Amazigh radio programmes are not captured in high lands where Tamazight still stands firm against arabization and extremism).
However, Israel, the first enemy as the Arabs see it, does not prohibit Arab names, and Arabic is recognised as a second official language in the Israeli constitution. In our sweet homeland Tamazight is not recognised at all in the Moroccan constitution (as mentioned above). Tifinagh script is banned in the public life as it happened in Nador.
If you meditate a little bit on these factors you conclude that the Moroccan authorities treat Imazighen as colonised unwanted natives that put obstacles in front of the "national unity" and the Arab unity as a whole.
It's up to Imazighen to struggle and strive to incarnate their existence as the American Civil Right movement leader Martin Luther King Jr puts it : "Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle. And so we must straighten our backs and work for our freedom. A man can't ride you unless your back is bent."
He adds:"One who breaks an unjust law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for law.
Finally they registerd my son with the name Ayyur Adam but after a long process of humiliation.
M L K Jr says "A right delayed is a right denied".
MBarek OULEMDA
Beni Mellal
See list of signatories
See list of signatories
