Countries of the World/COUNTRYS.BIN/dp/0008/00084.txt

Text File | 1991-06-24 | 22KB | 364 lines

$Unique_ID{COW00084}
$Pretitle{244}
$Title{Algeria
Chapter 2B.   Ethnic Groups and Languages}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{LaVerle Berry}
$Affiliation{HQ, Department of the Army}
$Subject{arabic
language
french
berber
kabyle
arabization
algerian
government
groups
kabyles}
$Date{1985}
$Log{}
Country:     Algeria
Book:        Algeria, A Country Study
Author:      LaVerle Berry
Affiliation: HQ, Department of the Army
Date:        1985

Chapter 2B.   Ethnic Groups and Languages

The Peoples of Algeria

     Because the present-day Berbers and the overwhelming majority of the
Arabs are descendants of largely the same indigenous stock, physical
distinctions carry little or no social connotation and are, in any case,
ordinarily impossible to make. Identification with the Berber or Arab
community is largely a matter of personal choice rather than of membership in
discrete and bounded social entities. Many adult Berbers also speak Arabic and
French, and for centuries Berbers have entered the general society and merged,
within a generation or two, into the Arab group.

     This permeable boundary between the two major ethnic groups permits a
good deal of movement and, along with other factors, prevents the development
of rigid and exclusive ethnic blocs. It appears that whole groups slipped
across the ethnic "boundary" in the past-and others may do so in the future.
In areas of linguistic contiguity, bilingualism is common, and in most cases
Arabic eventually comes to predominate.

     Algerian Arabs, or native speakers of Arabic, include descendants of Arab
invaders and of indigenous Berbers. As the major ethnic group of the country
(approximately 80 percent of Algeria's people), they dominate it numerically
and politically. Culturally, Arabs vary from region to region according to
their mode of life-mainly determined by geography-from nomadic herders in the
desert to settled cultivators and gardeners in the Tell to urban dwellers on
the coast. Linguistically, there is little distinction, except that dialects
spoken by the nomadic and seminomadic peoples are thought to be derived from
nomadic beduin dialects and the ones spoken by the sedentary population of the
north from those of the early seventh-century invaders. Urban dwellers tend to
look down on southern or "country" dialects. Urban Arabs are more apt also to
identify with the Algerian nation, whereas the ethnic loyalties of the more
remote rural Arabs are likely to be limited to the tribe (see Preindependence
Society, this ch.).

     The major Berber groups are the Kabyles of the Kabylie Mountains east of
Algiers and the Chaouias of the Aures range south of Constantine (see fig. 8).
The M'zab of the northern part of the Sahara region and the Tuareg of the
southern Ahaggar highlands have clearly definable characteristics, but both
exist only in small numbers. Altogether, the Berbers constitute about 20
percent of the total population.

     In the hills north of the Chelif River and in some other parts of the
Tell, Berbers live in villages among the sedentary Arabs, not sharply
distinguished in way of life from the Arabic speakers but maintaining their
own language and a sense of ethnic identity. In addition, in some oasis towns
of the Algerian Sahara, small Berber groups have remained sufficiently
unassimilated to Arab culture to have retained their own language and some of
their cultural differences.

     By far the largest of the Berber-speaking groups, the Kabyles inhabit the
mountains of the Kabylie east of Algiers. Some traces of the original
blue-eyed and blond-haired Berbers survive to contrast the people from this
region with the darker skinned Arabic speakers of the plains. The land is
poor, and the pressure of a dense and rapidly growing population has forced
many to migrate to France or to the coastal cities. Kabyles can be found in
every part of the country, but in their new environments they tend to group
together and to retain some of their clan solidarity and sense of ethnic
identity.

     Kabyle villages, built on the crests of hills, are close-knit,
independent, social and political units composed of a number of extended
patrilineal kin groups. Traditionally, local government consisted of a jamaa
(village council), which included all adult males and legislated according to
local custom and law. Efforts to modify this democratic system were only
partially successful, and the jamaa has continued to function alongside the
civil administration.

     Set apart by their habitat, language, and well-organized village and
social life, Kabyles have a highly developed sense of independence and group
solidarity. They have generally opposed incursions of Arabs and Europeans into
their region, and much of the resistance activity during the war for
independence was concentrated in the Kabylie. The society's ideals are rooted
in the past; change, though not entirely absent, is rare. "Follow the path of
your father and grandfather" goes a Kabyle proverb.

     Perhaps half as numerous as the Kabyles and less densely settled, the
Chaouias have occupied the rugged Aures Mountains of Eastern Algeria since
their retreat to that region from Tunisia during the Arab invasions of the
Middle Ages. In the north they are settled agriculturists, growing cereals in
the uplands and fruit trees in the valleys. In the arid south, with its
date-palm oases, they are seminomadic, shepherding flocks to the high plains
during the summer. The distinction between the two groups is limited, however,
for the farmers of the north are also drovers, and the seminomads of the south
maintain plots of land.

     In the past the Chaouias lived in isolation broken only by the visits of
Kabyle peddlers and Saharan camel raisers, and relatively few learned to speak
either French or Arabic. Like the society, the economy was a self-sufficient,
closed one. Out-migration was limited, but during the war for independence the
region was a stronghold of anti-French sentiment, and more than half the
population was removed to concentration camps. During the postindependence era
the ancient Chaouia isolation has been less evident.

     Far less numerous than their northern Berber kin, the M'zab who numbered
about 80,000 in the 1970s, inhabit seven walled cities on the northern edge of
the desert. They live beside the Wadi M'zab, from which comes their name.
Ghardaia the largest and most important of their settlements. The M'zab are
Ibadite Muslims who practice a puritanical form of Islam that emphasizes
asceticism, literacy for men and women, and social egalitarianism. They live
entirely apart from the rest of the world so far as is practical and call
themselves "God's Family." Women live by very strict rules and are not
permitted to leave the Ibadite realm.

     Each of the seven cities preserves its ancient theocratic government.
Real power lies with learned Islamic clerks, who together with a village
council control every facet of communal life. Deep wells provide water for
date groves and gardens, but the poor economic base of the region has driven
the M'zab to seek employment as long-distance traders; in the mid-1980s they
dominated retail trade in groceries and textiles throughout Algeria. Although
he may live elsewhere for much of his life, the true M'zab always returns to
the desert at the end of his life.

     Of all Berber subgroups, the Tuareg have been until recently the least
affected by the outside world. Known as the "blue men" because of their
indigo-dyed cotton robes and as the "People of the Veil" because the men-but
not the women-are always veiled, the Tuareg inhabit the Sahara from southwest
Libya to Mali. In southern Algeria they are concentrated in the highlands of
Tassili-n-Ajjer and Ahaggar and in the 1970s were estimated to number perhaps
5,000 to 10,000. They are organized into tribes and, at least among the
Ahaggar Tuareg, into a three-tiered class system of nobles, vassals, and
slaves and servants, the last often being of negroid origin. Tuareg women
enjoy hig