Language and Society in the Middle East and North Africa by Yasir Suleiman

Author:Yasir Suleiman [Suleiman, Yasir]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780700710782
Barnesnoble:
Goodreads: 1050994
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 1999-09-17T00:00:00+00:00

Conclusion

For the Berbers, Arabic Morocco was preceded by centuries of Berber Morocco. The constant calls for Arabicisation, particularly since independence in 1956, have antagonized the Berber speakers who make up around 45% of the population and have awakened strong feelings of identity amongst them. By deciding in 1994 that Berber dialects would eventually be taught, at least at primary education level, the King of Morocco has finally made the Berbers feel that a healing process for their language and culture has begun. Many plans are being drawn up, priorities set, associations established, but what is new in this recent Berber endeavour is that Berber activists no longer hesitate to speak of areal Berberrenaissance in Morocco.

This Berber revival faces language policy-makers in Morocco with serious problems for the first time in 41 years. Previously, policy only took Arabic into account; now, Berber dialects and Moroccan Arabic have all to be considered within any national language policies. If all aspects of the ‘new officially’ multilingual Morocco have to be considered, then policy-makers should perhaps learn from the Spanish and Canadian experiences to avoid antagonising one group or the other. In Spain, for example, Hoffmann (1995) highlights the possible consequences of the rise of Spanish regional languages, as in the case of Catalan. The fear is that such indigenous languages, long oppressed, may well establish oppressive tactics against non-speakers of the language in their geographical areas of influence. If this were to happen in Morocco, then nothing would have changed and the cherished muhisms, linguistic and cultural, would give way to Arabs and Berbers seeing each other from purely monolinguistic perspectives. Equally, the cultural and linguistic ideal of Morocco might become that of a hyphenated (cf. Edwards 1995) one, where there would be no place for someone who wanted to be purely Moroccan.

Arab Moroccans should also show serious sensitivity to the aspiration of the Berbers and to the issues of Berber language and identity. They may, otherwise, find themselves, one day, without some areas of Morocco. This is in line with Bercuson’s (quoted in Edwards 1995:19) warning to the English-speaking Canadians:

English-speaking Canadians must either give up the quest to create a liberal democracy of multi-ethnic origin, or they must wave goodbye to Quebec. Since they will not do the first …, they must sooner orlater do the second.

If the above warning to the English-speaking Canadians were not to materialize in Morocco, then at best what might emerge would be a series of bilingual regions: Arabic-Berber, Berber-Arabic, with independently determined language policies for each region. But given the long history of the co-existence between Arabs and Berbers in Morocco, and the symbolism attached to the person of the King, the Berbers would endeavour to find a Moroccan solution to the status of their language rather than a self-centred Berber one.

In concluding this paper, I would like to leave the impression that Morocco, a country long regarded by the outside world as a coherent and tolerant one, is going through a period of great flux.

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