The Berbers are old

It would not be prudent to try and convince someone who is a "Berber" that they are in fact called Berbers instead of whatever they are calling themselves. The term Berber was used by most people of the Mediterranean in reference to the people of North Africa, but it is unknown what group of people actually named them as such. It could have been the Persians or the Arabs with their words, "barbakh"/"barbar" and "khanah".

It is safe to say the the Berbers were around for a long time in Africa. They were mentioned in Egyptian writings in the periods before dynasty's (around 3100BC). The Berber people were generally well respected in the ancient world. This can be blatantly seen by their interactions with the Romans. It was already discussed that people like the Persians and Arabs had different names for the Berber people; the Romans however, offered enough respect to call them by the names of their large independent kingdoms. I say that this is a respect because when you look at the large German (Gaul) the Romans never referred to them as separate people, instead just The Gauls, no tribes were really recognized.Being well respected could not buy the Berbers a break though, since they inhabited North Africa, as in the coast by the Mediterranean, there were many invaders to the coast throughout the years. There are too many invaders to list them all, but it goes without saying that they all left small imprints in Berber society.

When Islam was sweeping through Northern Africa the Berber tribes were fairly receptive to the ideas. Islam helped take the place of the old religions and ways of living, taking away many of the tribal practices previously held by the Berbers. Not only did the new religion take them away from their tribal ways but it brought with it new opportunities to learn, as well as, military practices.

Islam call to prayer


I learned something when researching the Berbers. I had always known, from history classes and Talib Kweli songs, that Muslim people invaded and held Spain for a period of time and this has effect the looks and culture of the people on the Iberian Peninsula. Amazingly, one of the successful generals,Tarik ibn Ziyad, on one of the invasion attempts was a Berber. This is pretty huge in the history world, because several invasion attempts into Spain did not go so well. General Ziyad had quite a force with him and wasted no time after victories pushing out the European army out of Spain. Little fun fact about him, where he landed after crossing from Morocco to Spain was named after him, Djabal Tarik meaning Tarik's Mountian or more commonly Gibraltar. Yep, the Rock of Gibralter was named after a Berber, pretty big deal. At least to history nerds.

Now, in the modern times the wealth of the Berber populous is located in Morocco, Libya, Algeria, and Tunisia. They are mainly found in the news of Morocco, probably because 42% of the Moroccan population is Berber. As nations do from time to time, Morocco tried to negate the past of the Berber people enacting laws to hinder the growth and retention of the Berber culture. Small indignities, like not allowing children to have Berber names to more in your face laws like banning the use of Berber languages in schools. After a few Berber revolts in the 1970's and 1980's opened the eyes of King Hassan II to the plight of the Berbers. This is interesting because Hassan was the same king who, decades earlier, started programs in an attempt to make Morocco more Arab. Allowing students to receive up to three hours of instruction in Tamazight, one of the more widely spoken Berber languages, helped students immensely. Imagine, going to school for the first time at the age of 10, being very excited to finally go to school and learn new things and then when you enter your first day of class the teacher only speaks in Arabic, a language you are unfamilur with. This was obviously not a good scenario for students to learn in. Now, since the change things have been much better, schools offer classes where both Arabic and Tamazight so it isn't such a draastic change, a student can ease into the new language before they move on to the mainly Arabic and French courses as they get older.