Publication Date
Spring 2025
Abstract
This paper seeks to explore a dynamic in which the Amazigh people of the Anti-Atlas Mountains are forced to decide between stability and success at the expense of their cultural identity. The Imazighen are deeply prideful of their culture and history. But in Morocco, being Amazigh often comes with burdens that disproportionately encumber this culture when compared to general Moroccan society. I will discuss literature on linguistic dynamics with the Tamazight language, literature regarding Amazigh art, and Pan-Africanist literature in order to gain a well-rounded insight into the Amazigh situation. I will then synthesize this information, along with some of my personal experience in an Anti-Atlas Amazigh village called Ikniouen, to create an argument regarding this dilemma of identity and stability. An argument that ultimately states that the societal elite, the then colonial French and current Arab-Moroccan elite, have intentionally crafted this dynamic for the Amazigh people. They placed the Imazighen into this dilemma as a means to keep the Amazigh people underdeveloped and to force them into driving their profit-driven entities. An argument that states that the Amazigh situation is one of oppression from powers that seek to benefit off the backs of the Imazighen's suffering and hardship. This paper hopes to offer a different perspective on Amazigh struggle; hopefully, it is a perspective that opens up paths to progress and the realization of Amazigh human rights.
Disciplines
Arts and Humanities | Social and Behavioral Sciences
Recommended Citation
Lee, Morgan, "We Are The Cemetery of Talents: Amazigh Reality in the Anti Atlas" (2025). Morocco: Human Rights, Social Justice, and Cultural Transformation. 2.
https://digitalcollections.sit.edu/mor2/2