Berber

Berber, name given to the group of languages and people of certain indigenous, non-Arabic peoples inhabiting large sections of North Africa. Through the centuries Berbers have mixed with so many other ethnic groups, notably the Arabs, that they are now identified usually on a linguistic rather than a racial basis. Berber languages form a branch of the Afro-Asiatic linguistic family and comprise about 26 closely related languages, including Tachelhit, Central Atlas Tamazight, and Kabyle. Many Berbers are bilingual in Arabic.

Berbers constitute about 40 per cent of the population of Morocco, about 30 per cent of the population of Algeria, and about 1 per cent of the population of Tunisia. The number of identifiable Berbers in North Africa is slowly declining as more of them adopt the language and culture of the Arab majority. Like the Arabs, the Berbers are Muslims; they are less orthodox, however, and their religious rituals include many elements, some animistic, that derive from ancient pre-Muslim and pagan religions. Most of the Berbers inhabit rural areas where they live in tents and clay huts or, in the larger villages, in stone houses. The traditional Berber occupations are sheep and cattle raising, but increasing numbers raise crops. Other industries in which Berbers engage include flour milling, woodcarving, the quarrying of millstones, and the production of domestic utensils, agricultural implements, pottery, jewellery, and leather goods.

Berbers have lived in North Africa since the earliest recorded time. References to them date from about 3000 bc and occur frequently in ancient Egyptian, Greek, and Roman sources. For many centuries the Berbers inhabited the coast of North Africa from Egypt to the Atlantic Ocean. They continued to inhabit the region until the 7th century ad, when the Arabs conquered North Africa and drove many Berber peoples inland to the Atlas Mountains and to areas in and near the Sahara. After the Arab conquest, the Berbers embraced the Muslim faith of their new rulers. Succeeding centuries were marked by almost continuous struggles for power in North Africa among the various Berber groups, between the Berbers and the Arabs, and between both these peoples and Spanish, Portuguese, and Turkish invaders. During the same period the Barbary Coast of North Africa, the name of which is, in fact, derived from the word “Berber”, became famous as the principal base of Arab and Berber pirates, who preyed on Mediterranean shipping.

In the 19th and early 20th centuries France and Spain subjugated Morocco and Algeria. After World War I the Berber and Arab populations of North Africa began actively to seek independence. Beginning in 1920, the Rif, led by the Rif emir Abd-el-Krim, repeatedly defeated Spanish troops occupying the Spanish zone of Morocco; Berbers advanced into French Morocco in 1926, but were repelled the following year by combined French and Spanish troops. During the upsurge of nationalism that swept through the indigenous peoples in French North Africa after World War II, the Berbers played a somewhat equivocal role. In French Morocco, Berbers, led by the pro-French Berber pasha Thami el-Mezouari el-Glaoui, constituted the chief bulwark of French control. In 1953 the French, aided by el-Glaoui, deposed and exiled the nationalist sultan of Morocco, Muhammed V ben Youssef. Anti-French feeling grew steadily thereafter among the Berbers of Morocco, as well as among the Arabs. On August 20, 1955, a force of Berbers from the Atlas Mountains region of Algeria raided two rural settlements in Morocco and killed 77 French nationals. After a number of such anti-French outbreaks among the Berbers of Morocco, el-Glaoui, yielding to popular sentiment, adopted a nationalist position. The loss of Berber support helped to force the French to end the exile of Muhammed V in 1955 and to grant Morocco independence in 1956. In Algeria violent resistance to French rule by segments of both the Berber and Arab population continued until the country gained independence in 1962.