The Berber Identity Movement and the Challenge to North African States (review)

Bruce Maddy-Weitzman's The Berber Identity Movement and the Challenge to North African States addresses exactly what the title purports, and is the first English language book to do so. It is organized by time period, with two chapters that explore Berber/Amazigh issues in the era leading up to and encompassing colonialism, two more on the independence period, and three chapters on the new millennium. The author includes a brief introduction and a conclusion where more general issues are raised, from the origins of the word "Berber" at the beginning (p. 2) to the uses of history for "ethnonational/ethnocultural" movements at the end (p. 207). Employing interviews with activists, as well as websites, newspapers, and other material in several languages, Maddy-Weitzman addresses the status of Berbers/Imazighen via those who advocate for them, with sustained attention to how this advocacy plays out in different North African contexts.

The majority of the book is devoted to Algeria and Morocco, unsurprisingly, since that is where the "underlying Berber ethnicity and culture" of North Africa is thought to be most apparent (p. 1). There is less attention to the Berber diaspora in Libya, Tunisia, Niger, Mali, and Mauritania. Obviously, the events of the "Arab Spring" will have impacted many of the dynamics covered in the book — especially in Tunisia and Libya — but the focus on Morocco and Algeria mitigates this significantly. The book remains relevant despite recent political upheavals.

What the book does not examine is the relationship between Berber advocates and their putative clientele, i.e. the links between the "Berber identity movement" and the diverse community of actual Berbers/ Imazighen. Nor does it substantially address the relationship between Imazighen and Islam, especially political Islam. These would perhaps be other books entirely. However, in much of the discussion of Berber advocacy it is clear that murky "Islamists" are the bête noire of both militant Amazigh groups and conservative North African governments.

Readers may be surprised to learn in the conclusion that "one also finds Kabyles among the most radical Algerian Islamist groups, and Kabylie mountain redoubts have become havens in recent years for Islamist insurgents still battling the Algerian regime" (p. 205). In Morocco, too, the conclusion notes, "Berbers could be found all across the ... political spectrum" (p. 207). Thus, one question lurking beneath much of the "challenge" explored through most of the book is whether the adamantly secularist, humanist discourse of the Berber identity movement reflects popular sentiment — or not. Still, the book does an excellent job of tracking the complexities of various Berberist parties and partisans, both their internal dynamics and their wider political successes and failures. And it usefully highlights the rhetorical strategies Amazigh activists employ to make their case, and the intersection of these with the competing strategies of other actors — most especially the Algerian and Moroccan governments, and occasionally Islamist thinkers (e.g., see the interplay between Shaykh Abdeslam Yassine and Mohamed Chafik on pp. 124-127).

The Berber Identity Movement and the Challenge to North African States will have wide appeal to scholars interested in identity politics, and as a fresh way into the dauntingly complex history of the region, the book works well. As noted by Paul Silverstein on the jacket cover, the writing is mercifully free of "academic jargon [and] needless theoretical diversions," though some readers will certainly argue that their own preferred diversions are catastrophically absent. There are small offenses at the margins of the text — Malika Oufkir becomes "Malik" in a footnote (p. 232), Melilla is misspelled "Mellila" (p. 54), and the reviewer's "invisible" Imazighen is changed to "forgotten" in the bibliography (p. 260), but this does not compromise the value of the work. Overall, the book is a welcome addition to the literature on identity politics; instructors will find it accessible to and useful for undergraduates, and it provides a concise overview of the history of Berber advocacy for graduate students...