{"id":1384,"date":"2011-05-05T17:56:35","date_gmt":"2011-05-05T22:56:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aberfoylesecurity.com\/?p=1384"},"modified":"2016-05-03T17:57:43","modified_gmt":"2016-05-03T22:57:43","slug":"libyan-berbers-defy-regime-that-denies-their-existence-part-one","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aberfoylesecurity.com\/?p=1384","title":{"rendered":"Libyan Berbers Defy Regime That Denies Their Existence (Part One)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Andrew McGregor<\/strong><\/p>\n

May 5, 2011<\/p>\n

<\/strong>In the remote mountains that range along Libya\u2019s western border with Tunisia, North Africa\u2019s indigenous Berber tribes are locked in a life-and-death struggle with Mu\u2019ammar Qaddafi\u2019s Arab-supremacist regime. Though they were among the first to rebel against Qaddafi\u2019s government, the Berbers are poorly armed and severely short of food and fuel with loyalist forces in the plains cutting off supply routes. Direct military intervention by NATO warplanes appears to the Berbers to be the only way of repelling advancing loyalist troops.<\/p>\n

\"Berbers<\/a>Heavily tattooed ancient Libu as depicted in a 19th<\/sup> Dynasty Egyptian Tomb Painting<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

There are an estimated 25 million Berbers (as defined by use of Berber languages) spread across North Africa. The Berbers call themselves Imazighen<\/em> (\u201cFree Men\u201d) and their ancestors were known to their ancient Egyptian neighbors as the Libu<\/em>, the Meshwesh<\/em>, the Tjehenu<\/em> and the Tamahu<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Libya\u2019s Berbers do not form a single group; a division between Eastern and Western Berbers dates back to ancient times and the desert-dwelling ethnic-Berber Tuareg developed their own independent culture centuries ago. As a result, there are three main groups of ethnic-Berbers in Libya with only minimal interrelation:<\/p>\n

\u2022 The Western Berbers consist of two main groups.<\/p>\n

1) The tribes of the Ait Willul live in the coastal city of Zuwara, known in Berber as Tamurt n Wat Willul<\/em> (Town of the Ait Willul). Zuwara rose in revolt in February, but government forces suppressed the rebellion there a month later.<\/p>\n

2) The Nafusa tribes live in the Western Mountains (al-Jabal al-Gharbi), better known as the Nafusa Mountains after the region\u2019s Berber name, Adrar n Infusen<\/em>. The Nafusa Berbers retreated there from the coast to isolate themselves from the mass Arabization of the Libyans after the arrival of two large Arab tribes in the 11th century, the Banu Hilal and the Banu Salim. The Nafusa declared against Qaddafi in the earliest days of the rebellion despite having little ability to defend their communities. With the government having managed to consolidate itself in other parts of western Libya, loyalist forces have now turned their attention to the mountain rebels.<\/p>\n

\u2022 The Eastern Berbers live in the oasis towns of Jalu and Awjilah, about 250km southeast of the battlefront at Ajdabiya. Rebel sources reported a new loyalist offensive by troops in trucks mounted with anti-aircraft guns and Grad rockets against the settlements this week, part of a government effort to cut off rebel-held northern Cyrenaica from the oil and water-rich Libyan interior.\u00a0 The loyalist column of 45 vehicles was destroyed in a NATO airstrike on May 1 after the column attacked Jalu and Awjilah (Reuters, May 1; Upstream Online, May 2).<\/p>\n

\u2022 The Tuareg live in communities focused on the oases of southwestern Libya. Though ethnically Berber, the Tuareg developed their own culture and version of the Berber language (Tamasheq or Tamahaq) after their ancestors migrated deep into the African interior roughly 1600 years ago. Despite insisting the Tuareg are actually Arabs, Qaddafi has also sought their favor at times due to their reputation as skilled desert fighters he could use in his efforts to expand his influence in the Sahara and Sahel regions. Qaddafi\u2019s occasional efforts to champion the Tuareg cause and arm Tuareg rebel movements outside Libya appear to have brought large numbers of Tuareg from Mali and Niger to Libya to join the loyalist forces, though this recruitment has been achieved more through cash payments than personal loyalty to Qaddafi. [1] Libya\u2019s own Tuareg appear divided on whether to support Qaddafi, though few, if any, appear to have joined the armed rebellion.<\/p>\n

\"Berbers<\/a>Modern Libyan Berbers Demanding Language Rights<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Qaddafi has always regarded the existence of the Berbers as an annoying reminder of the Berber origins of his own Arabized tribe and hence an impediment to his efforts to become leader of the pan-Arab community. An apparent softening of the regime\u2019s approach to the Berber minority led by Sa\u2019if al-Islam Qaddafi in 2007 (which included lifting the ban on Berber names) was reversed by Mu\u2019ammar Qaddafi less than a year later when the Libyan leader travelled to the Western mountains to warn Berbers; \u201cYou can call yourselves whatever you want inside your homes \u2013 Berbers, Children of Satan, whatever \u2013 but you are only Libyans when you leave your homes\u201d [2]<\/p>\n

Notes:<\/strong><\/p>\n

1. See Andrew McGregor, \u201cLibyan Loyalists and Dissidents Vie for Tuareg Fighters,\u201d Terrorism Monitor Brief, March 10, 2011.
\n2. U.S. Embassy Tripoli cable 08TRIPOLI530, July 3, 2008, published by the Telegraph, January 31, 2011. See also AFP, August 24, 2007.
\n
\nThis article first appeared in the May 5, 2011 issue of the Jamestown Foundation\u2019s Terrorism Monitor.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Andrew McGregor May 5, 2011 In the remote mountains that range along Libya\u2019s western border with Tunisia, North Africa\u2019s indigenous Berber tribes are locked in a life-and-death struggle with Mu\u2019ammar Qaddafi\u2019s Arab-supremacist regime. Though they were among the first to … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1384","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-berbers","category-libya"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aberfoylesecurity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1384","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aberfoylesecurity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aberfoylesecurity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aberfoylesecurity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aberfoylesecurity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1384"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.aberfoylesecurity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1384\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1387,"href":"https:\/\/www.aberfoylesecurity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1384\/revisions\/1387"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aberfoylesecurity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1384"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aberfoylesecurity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1384"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aberfoylesecurity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1384"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}