Religion, Ethnicity and State Formation in Algeria

Lisa Watanabe is a senior researcher at the Center for Security Studies (CSS). The following Q&A is based on her book chapter, “Religion, Ethnicity, and State Formation in Algeria: ‘The Berber’ As a Category of Contestation” in external pageState Formation and Identity in the Middle East and North Africacall_made.

What can you tell us about ethnic Berbers, their role in regional history and their status as group today?

Ethnic Berbers are located in a vast stretch of territory that runs from Egypt’s western desert, across North Africa and down to Burkina Faso, Niger and Mali. The historical narrative employed by many Berber activists is one of constant and continued resistance to external conquest that dates back to the Arab conquests and more recently has found expression within the context of French colonialism. However, the Berber are by no means a homogeneous group, which partly explains why no grand narrative or truly transnational movement has emerged. While the experiences of Berbers in different North African and Sahelian states are different, their growing activism has, nevertheless, acted as a site of contestation within many of the post-independence regimes.

Berber self-identification and activism can tell us a great deal about nationalism and state formation. In the Algerian context, the Berber quest for recognition illustrates how post-independence Algerian state-and nation-building has been linked to projects of Arabization and Islamization following the French colonial experience. In addition to highlighting the relationship between religion, ethnicity and state formation in Algeria, the Berber struggle is also interesting to look at as a potential driver of greater pluralism and inclusivity in the country.

Tell us about your chapter, how have Berbers shaped the history and culture of modern Algeria?

The Berber struggle in Algeria is very much rooted in competing visions of the nation and the fight for independence from France. Within the mainstream Algerian nationalist movement, Berber leaders often expressed an oppositional force that supported an independent Algeria as secular and multicultural - an Algérie algérienne (an Algerian Algeria) as they termed it. However, this vision did not conform to the dominant Arab-Islamic definition of the nation espoused by other nationalist figures, resulting in the supporters of a multi-ethnic Algeria being successively excluded from the nationalist movement.

In fact, the Algiers Charter of 1964, the de facto constitution of the newly-independent Algeria, declared Algeria to be an “Arab-Muslim country”. This definition of the nation was linked to the National Liberation Front's (Front de libération nationale, FLN) role as a revolutionary party that had played a central role in the fight for independence and its subsequent effort to forge a national consensus around itself as the inheritor of the revolution. Since the FLN and the state were essentially one and the same until the early 1990s, when a separation between the ruling party and the state occurred, efforts to endow the state with legitimacy have been embedded in a narrative of the revolution in which a single Arab-Islamic colonial subject rose up spontaneously against oppression.

Within this dominant vision of the Algerian nation, the Berber identity found no place. Berber activists, nevertheless, sought to appropriate Algeria's revolutionary past into the current Berber struggle for cultural and linguistic recognition. In part, this represents an effort to reinsert Berber particularity into the definition of the Algerian nation and to challenge the totalizing 'official' vision of an Arab-Islamic nation. Berber activists have, for example, claimed that the Algerian language was more closely connected to Berber dialects and the Arab dialect spoken in Algeria than with modern standard Arabic. They have also sought to contest the Islamic identity attributed to the nation, preferring secular or Marxist orientations. These competing visions of the nation remain a point of fracture in Algerian society.

What roles do religion and ethnicity have in Algeria? How have these roles changed over the years?

Religion and ethnicity have played central roles in the post-independence Algeria. State formation and legitimation has been connected to the promotion of a vision of the nation as Arab and Islamic. Since the state was synonymous with the ruling party until the early 1990s, regime legitimacy has also been tied to religion and ethnicity. Indeed, the ‘official’ representation of the Algerian nation has been accompanied by efforts on the part of the government to manage the discourse on national identity through various means, including control of the press, the political system and the social space. In the face of growing support for the Islamist movement in the 1980s, the regime’s efforts to prove its Arab-Islamic credentials intensified. Arabic was declared the only official language of the Algerian state in the 1989 constitution, and the Arabization of society has been pursued both through the use of Arabic in the educational and public spheres. The regime also sought to associate itself more closely with Islam as a means of legitimizing its rule.

Sections of the Berber community have, in turn, responded with efforts to re-appropriate the cultural and political symbolic space in order to promote ‘the Berber’ as a legitimate category within the nation. The Berber Cultural Movement (MCB), for instance, opposed compulsory Arabization and sought recognition of Berber culture and language, as well as a calling for Western-style liberalization and democratization. In 1980, the Berber movement came into open opposition with the authorities in what became known as the “Berber Spring”. While the immediate cause was the Arabization of the education system, increasing Berber activism was also prompted by the increased Islamization of Algerian society.

Following the “Berber Spring”, very little changed. While efforts were made by the government to mollify Berbers, ultimately it was inattentive to their grievances. Tensions reached a peak again in 2001 with the so-called Black Spring that took place as civil protests swept through the Berber region of Kabylia. Once again, Berber activists sought to contest the exclusion of Berber identity and language within the nation-building projects of the regime. They called for acceptance of Amazigh demands of identity, language and culture, and that Tamazight (the Berber language) be recognized as a national and official language. Some concessions were made in 2002. Tamazight was recognized as a national, though not official language, in the constitution. The struggle for recognition of a legitimate Berber category within the Algerian nation and the challenge to the notion of religious and cultural unity of Algerian society imposed by the state thus remains ongoing. The place of Berbers within the cultural and political life of Algeria continues to be the source of one of Algeria’s social struggles and points of fracture within society.

Why is “the Berber question” a contested one in Algeria?

As explained, the “Berber question”, as it has come to be known, is closely tied to the post-independence state-building project and needs to be understood against the historical backdrop of French colonialism in Algeria and the evolution of the nationalist movement. Just as Algeria had to be re-appropriated from colonial discourse so too did “the Berber” within competing visions of the nation. Within the FLN’s totalizing project, “which became the official post-independence definition of the nation” the Berber was not recognized as a legitimate category with which people might identify. Following the immediate post-independence years, as the regime failed to deliver and dissatisfaction with the FLN grew, regime legitimacy came to rely more and more on successive efforts to increasingly Arabize and Islamize society.

The doctrinaire insistence of the post-independence regime on the Arab identity of the Algerian people and the program of linguistic Arabization has made “Berber identity” into a highly charged and volatile site of contestation and opposition in independent Algeria. Given that the regime’s legitimacy has been so closely tied to the vision of the nation as Arab and Islamic, Berber identity reimagined in opposition to the rigid Arab-Islamic identity of the nation has become a powerful expression of dissidence in today’s Algeria, making the “Berber question” a contested one.

What are some of the most likely scenarios for an outcome (or important developments) on this question in the medium- long term?

An ideal outcome on the “Berber question” is dependent on the emergence of a more inclusive vision of the nation that would enable cultural and linguistic diversity to be recognized and promoted by the state. However, such an outcome would most likely depend on the emergence of greater democracy, understood in a broad sense. The human rights culture in Algeria would need to be more firmly embedded than it is, particularly since Berber activists have increasingly embedded their struggle within a human rights discourse.

While the Arab uprisings did prompt a surge in Berber activism across North Africa and potentially greater openings for the recognition of their cultural and linguistic rights in a number of countries, those openings remain small in the Algerian case. Given the largely cosmetic reforms undertaken within the context of “managed transition” in the country, Berber activists still face an uphill struggle in the medium term. However, gains made in neighboring transition countries could help pave the way for greater recognition of minority and thus Berber rights within Algeria over the longer term.

Lisa Watanabe is a senior researcher in the Swiss and Euro-Atlantic Security Team of the Think Tank at the Center for Security Studies (CSS). She recently published the chapter, “Religion, Ethnicity, and State Formation in Algeria: ‘The Berber’ As a Category of Contestation” in external pageState Formation and Identity in the Middle East and North Africacall_made.

For additional reading on this topic please see:
Algeria Three Years After the Arab Spring
How Will Algeria Reinvent Itself
The Price of Stability in Algeria
Algeria 1962-2012: More Questions than Answers