French and Spanish colonial policy in North Africa: revisiting the Kabyle and Berber myth

AbstractThe French colonial presence in North Africa gave rise to a view that was founded on attributing certain – supposedly distinctive – qualities to the Kabyle people (Algeria) and the Berber people in general (Algeria and Morocco). This became known as “the Kabyle (or Berber) myth” and was propagated both by North African nationalists and by the academic world in order to validate their accusations against the colonial powers of practicing a “divide and conquer” policy. What’s more, from the outset, the French and Spanish colonial governments, by empowering Arabic as an imperial and dominant language to the detriment of the peripheral and low prestige Berber languages, greatly contributed to the widespread acceptance of a further myth, i. e., North Africa was “Arab and Muslim”. These myths then became a key argument used by the post-colonial governments to deny the distinctiveness of the Kabyle people, and Berbers in general, hence justifying rejecting their demands for linguistic and cultural recognition. In recent years, however, the Berber people have reacted to these myths; we have witnessed the birth of a resistance movement, the uprising in Algeria (Kabylie) and the development of cultural pride and identity. Surprisingly, these events have caused us to reflect anew on the Berber myths of the colonial period.