The “Colonization” of Morocco and its Effect on the Amazigh People


 * Will be using the word Amazigh instead of Berber as it is what the Amazigh people choose to call themselves (although I believe they are interchangeable)

In Morocco, the Amazigh, commonly known as the Berbers, are the indigenous people of the region and have resisted invasion and colonization (at least the formal definition) over centuries from the Roman, Arab, and French, to name a few (“Berbers”, 2001). The Amazigh people are normally identified as an ethnically different group from the Arabs who came to Morocco around 681 AD (Gross & McMurray, 1993). When France became a protectorate in 1912, the French, who behaved as colonizers, tried to make the Amazigh become their allies against the other Arab groups across Morocco. Their ideology was that since the Amazigh were of a different ethnicity than Middle Eastern Arabs, and were closer related to Europeans due to their proximity to the European continent, they were deemed superior (ibid).

With time, as the Amazigh became a minority in their country, their rights and interests were not prioritized. For example, in the year 2000, oil fields were discovered in Morocco and the American company Lonestar was given access to the site. Mohammed Boulkoumit, a farmer and family man, describes “It’s our land, not theirs. They grabbed it without the slightest apology. One day, they arrived on my land with their diggers, and planted their flags. And said the land was now theirs” (“Berbers”, 2001). This led to the recent rise in the Amazigh movement which supported other struggles that advocate for students, women, and other human rights movements (Silverstein, 2012). The rise of Amazigh activism happened around the same time as the Arab Spring. During a moment in which African and Middle Eastern countries were rejecting the unjust systems that had been influenced by their colonial pasts, Morocco and the Amazigh people provide a positive example of pluralism within their society (ibid). In many ways, they are an example of resisting colonization and advocating for the decolonization of society.

References Berbers: The Proud Raiders | BBC World Service. (2001, April 23). Retrieved from https://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/people/highlights/010423_berbers.shtml

Gross, J., & McMurray, D. (1993). Berber Origins and the Politics of Ethnicity in Colonial North African Discourse. Political and Legal Anthropology Review, 16(2), 39-57. Retrieved May 2, 2021, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/24497815

Silverstein, P. (2012). A New Morocco? Amazigh Activism, Political Pluralism and Anti–Anti-Semitism. The Brown Journal of World Affairs, 18(2), 129-140. Retrieved May 2, 2021, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/24590868