Jean-Pierre Lledo
I who witnessed for 30 years the struggle of the Kabyle people for its freedom, how could I hide my emotion after seeing the pictures of the march organized on 12 January, on the occasion of Yennayer (Berber New Year ) in 2966, in Tizi Ouzou, the capital of this country, and this started by MAK (Movement for Self-Determination of Kabylia)
And how not to be struck by the symbolism of almost simultaneous events, a few days earlier, the death of Ait Ahmed, a Kabyle historical of the Algerian independence movement, which came into opposition (political and military) to the Algerian dictatorial system that started up since independence in 1962.
From the start he opposed the new Algerian Constitution imposed by the Boumediene’s army. Mainly because the second article postulating that Islam is the state religion, and the Code of Nationality that arose, granting automatically Algerian citizenship only to Muslims, even though many Christians and Jews were committed to the independence, alongside or within the FLN.
And this is from his party, the FFS (Socialist Forces Front), that were born different cultural and political movements that with time gained autonomy but whose common denominator remains to claim the recognition of the Berber language as the national and official language and all the cultural rights that would result.
This cause has triumphed in part, but it is now considered insufficient to ensure the vitality of the people of Kabylia, seaside and mountainous region between the Mediterranean and the desert, which remains an underdeveloped area. And a few days after the funeral of Ait Ahmed, the MAK demonstrated that the struggle of the Kabyle people had now reached a point of no return: the claim to self-determination inevitably lead to independence. The transmission was done!
Ferhat Mehenni who currently heads the GPK (Provisional Government of Kabylia) in exile to give to this cause an international audience, is at the origin of the creation of the MAK. It is in itself a summary and a symbol of all the struggles under different banners by the people and especially the Kabyle youth. Since at the beginning of the 70s, it’s as a singer that he was known, participating in the birth of the new Kabyle song, and in his case, the origin of the song with political texts or protest song. He went to jail of course as a member of a League of Human Rights struck of illegality. And in the 80s, he supported with all his celebrity the RAIS (Gathering of Artists, Intellectuals and Scientists), a citizen movement that has imposed itself without asking nor having authorization, and whose main purpose was to face censorship and torture.
These struggles of Kabylia were dearly paid by hundreds dead. Unable to reach the father, the own son of Ferhat Mehenni, Ameziane thirty years old, was also assassinated in Paris, probably by an agent of the Algerian military security, as was the case in 1987 for Ali André Mecili, another leader of the FFS.
The MAK and GPK whose leaders have long believed in a simple autonomy within the framework of Algeria, arrived today in the conviction that there is no alternative to the independence of Kabylia . These have undoubtedly learned from the world history of liberation movements, starting with the Algerian FLN. Obviously, they have opted for peaceful struggle, armed struggle having dispossessed peoples for the benefit of armed men. And this is a sign of wisdom which gives idea of the maturity of this movement.
It should be noted also because it is not insignificant in the context of the Muslim world that these leaders, consistent with their people, oppose any form of Judeophobia, including the one that hides behind the struggle against Zionism and against Israel. Probably the Kabyle people, like other minority peoples in the Muslim world, especially the Kurdish people, instinctively perceived that there was an affinity between – its will to exist independently in order to maintain personality, identity and dignity – and the will of the Jewish people.
I do not resist to mention two facts.
When the Algerian gendarme did not hesitate to fire at close range on peaceful Kabyle protesters (Year 2001) not to mention all the other abuses, including rape of young men, young people began to chant the name of him who had been the bane of all the Arab armies of the Arab world, ” Sharon! Sharon! ”, Underlining the cowardice of those vile soldiers just able to suppress a defenseless people.
More recently, on the death of Ait Ahmed, Algerian soccer fans violated the minute of silence demagogically decreed by the junta shouting ‘chouhada Palestine!’ (Palestine martyrdom), way of signifying their contempt to the Kabyle people and assimilated them to Jews, because despite the almost total disappearance of the Jews from Algeria to independence, ” Jew! ” remains the favorite insult around the Muslim world. (There is without a doubt, especially in Kabylia, many Marrano Jews, but only a free Kabylia would allow them to assert themselves as such).
Kabylia was quick to react to this insult: ‘ Israel chouhada’ (Israel martyrdom )!
Best wishes to the Kabyle people and ITS Brave New Officers and Veterans, For the new Berber year Yennayer of 2,966!
Shame on this Algerian intelligentsia who, except the writer Boualem Sansal, legitimate right to independence of Moroccan Sahrawis, but not for the Kabyles!
Shame on French and world leftists who use selective support, rather than support the cause of a people rooted in the land for millennia, prefer allegiance to the Algerian power, so it can not be said that the Arabs can also be colonizers!
Jean-Pierre Lledo, filmmaker, essayist