Berber unrest in Algeria: lessons for language policy

On April 19,1980, the Algerian police took over the university and municipal hospital of Tizi-Ouzou (capital of the Berber region of Kabylia, about 60 miles east of Algiers), which had been on strike for a month in support of Student demands for official recognition of the Berber language and culture. The following day the authorities shut down the university. A general strike was called in Tizi-Ouzou, with rioting resulting in injuries, arrests, and damage. The movement, which was prompted by a ban on a lecture in March by the writer Mouloud Mammeri on 'ancient Kabyle poems', had been brewing for some time. The Algerian government had just spent three months struggling with strikes by 'Arabisants', students at Algiers University who protested against the slow pace of Arabization and the continuing advantages given to Frenchspeaking Algerians, including Kabyles. Their strike was handled with moderation. The Berber-speaking Kabyles, on the other hand, were viewed äs much more of a threat by the Algerian government. Their unrest, though based on linguistic and cultural grievances, conjured up the memory of the 19631964 Kabyle uprising against former President Ben Bella's regime and brought into question the very 'Arabness' so important to Algeria's policy of establishing for itself a prominent position among the Arab states opposing the peace treaty between Egypt and Israel. A year later, disturbances resulting in arrests and injuries were again initiated by Berber activists in an effort to gain greater recognition of the Berber language and customs by the government. The unrest in Algeria at the beginning of the 1980s serves äs a focus on the conflict faced by many states between language unification äs a means of nation-building, on the one hand, and the worldwide trend of 'indigenous' groups to demand recognition of their native tongue äs a means of preserving their endangered identity, on the other.