http://enoughgaddafi.com/
By Tasbeeh Herwees
On December 16th, 2010, Libyan brothers Mazigh and Madghis Bozaghar were taken from their home in Tripoli and detained by members of Gaddafi’s External Security Agency. They were given no reason for their arrest. Agency members later returned to their home to seize personal computers, files and books belonging to the brothers.
In a statement released by the Security Agency, the Bozaghar brothers—engineers with no history in politics—were accused of espionage. The Libyan government claimed the two were spying for the Israeli Mossad and the CIA.
Their arrest, however, coincided with a different event. The Bozaghar brothers are Amazigh, part of Libya’s largest ethnic minority also commonly known as Berbers. The Amazigh are not racial minorities. Their cultural distinction is primarily linguistic, sharing substantial cultural practices with other Libyans. Under Gaddafi’s regime, the Amazigh are second-class citizens and victims of a campaign to undermine and suppress the existence and identity of the Amazigh of Libya through discrimination, censorship and “state-sanctioned ethnic cleansing.”
The Bozaghar brothers were not spies. Their crime, in fact, was getting in contact with an Italian researcher whose studies in Libyan history included a particular interest in Amazigh culture. Researcher Mauri Simoni reached out to the Bozaghar brothers because they were considered experts in the field. She and a fellow researcher were also arrested.
By virtue of being Amazigh, the brothers were already targets of institutional discrimination, but it was their attempts to study and actively propagate Amazigh culture in Gaddafi’s Libya that lead to their incarceration. An Amnesty International report claims the two have also been subject to torture in prison. The Libyan government has released the foreign researchers, and the Bozaghar brothers escaped prison, although the government remains silent regarding their status.
What happened to the Bozaghar brothers is not unique. Under Gaddafi’s regime, such cases are par for the course among both Arab and Amazigh communities, where sudden disappearances of prominent figures have always been regular occurrences.
For the past 42 years, the Libyan government has participated in a deliberate movement to erase the Amazigh from Libyan history and to assign them an Arab identity in order to justify nationalist ideological claims, despite long-lasting exchange between ethnic groups. The “Arabicization” of Amazigh history began with the onset of Gaddafi’s 1969 revolution, declaring Libya as an Arab state, naming Arabic as Libya’s only language and ignoring the 10 percent of Libya’s population that identifies as Amazigh. Their indigenous language, Tamazight, was outlawed, and those who were found speaking it were punished.
In 2006, a Libyan Amazigh singer, Ali Fates, was arrested by Libyan officials for singing Tamazight songs at a festival in Morocco. The singer, now in exile, said defiantly, “It is my right.”
Fates is not the only Amazigh musician to face repression at the hands of the Gaddafi regime. Two years ago, another Amazigh musician, Abdulla Ishini, was arrested and sentenced to 5 years. At the beginning of the current uprising, revolutionists helped Ishini escape.
In Gaddafi’s Libya, Amazigh names were also banned, and Amazigh history was excluded from school books. Amazigh Islamic religious practices, based on the Ibadi School of jurisprudence, were rejected by the regime. Even Amazigh cities, primarily located in the region west of Tripoli called the Nafusa Mountains, have been stripped of their Amazigh names and replaced with Arabic monikers.
Amazigh music and cultural celebrations have also been outlawed, as well as the distribution of Amazigh literature, books or news publications. In the spring of 2009, a popular Amazigh cultural website created by Libyan exile Muhammed Umadi called “Tawalt”—the Amazigh term for “Word”—was mysteriously forced to close its shutters. The website has been reestablished.
Despite deliberate attacks and threats of arrest (or even death), the Amazigh have never been silent. Amazigh activists like Salem Madi continued to fight for their rights and recognition of the Amazigh as an integral piece of Libyan identity. In response, members of Gaddafi’s Revolutionary Committees attacked his home in 2009, throwing rocks through his windows and spray-painting anti-Amazigh slogans, including “death to you and your families,” according to a Wikileaks diplomatic cable released in February.
The cable details an extensive attack on the Amazigh town of Yifren by Revolutionary Committee members and members of Libya Al-Ghad (“Libya of Tomorrow”), a Gaddafi loyalist group.
“Revolutionary Committee and al-Ghad members threw stones at and beat [Yifren] residents who gathered to protest the attacks,” states the Wikileaks cable, “A number of businesses and other residences were damaged, including several that were burned. Police threatened to imprison anyone who attempted to interfere with the Revolutionary Committee and al-Ghad members. Revolutionary Committee and al-Ghad members chanted anti-Berber slogans (“death to the Berber dogs”) throughout the incident.”
Although Gaddafi’s Western-educated son Saif al Islam was praised for leading efforts to restore the rights of the Amazigh, the Wikileaks cable dispels such sentiment. The cable indicts Abdallah Al-Hwaij, one of Saif Al Gaddafi’s “right-hand men,” as the leader of the attack on Yifren.
“[Saif] is closely involved in day-to-day management of Libya al-Ghad,” says the cable, “it is difficult to believe that Abdullah al-Hwaij would have led such an effort without at least tacit approval from Saif. His apparent tack towards the old guard may signal an effort to curry favor with his most stalwart opponents… by making common cause against an easily identifiable group that represents the political equivalent of low-hanging fruit.”
Today, the residents of Yifren and other Amazigh towns that line the Nafusa Mountains face a greater threat. These towns were among the first to join the current uprising, highlighting their sense of common struggle and national unity with other revolutionists across ethnic distinctions. The Amazigh are working closely with their Arab-speaking neighbors in Zintan and elsewhere, rubbishing Gaddafi’s attempts to divide a people with a long history of relatively fluid boundaries. These collaborations underscore the uprising’s emphasis on unifying Libya’s various cultural identities into an integrated whole and combating Gaddafi’s divisive strategies designed to maintain regime survival.
In the spirit of retribution, Gaddafi’s forces have descended upon the Nafusa Mountains with constant bombardment of artillery fire and missiles since the protests first began in February. His forces have cut off supply routes for food and medicine. The towns are running dangerously low on baby formula and essential medical supplies. Electricity has also been cut several times. Many of the cities’ residents have crossed into Tunisia to take refuge, taking advantage of their close proximity to the border. Amnesty International says the refugee camp in Tunisia hosts 1,207 people, mostly women and children. Moussa Ibrahim Gaddafi, the Libyan government spokesman minding reporters in Tripoli, makes the erroneous claim that the refugee camps are “fake” and funded by the Qatari government.
Despite their struggles, the Amazigh have not faltered in their fight for freedom. Alongside their Arab counterparts, they continue to retaliate against the violent forces of the Gaddafi regime. Last week, they successfully took hold of Wizan, a Libyan-Tunisian border crossing. And although most of the forces protecting these cities do not have the weaponry or equipment to effectively engage in battle with Gaddafi forces, they still have faith.
