While going up and down in the streets of Michelet and Larbaa Nath Irathen, we were astonished at the absence quasi-total of bookshops. “Let’s leave, these people do not read!” Ahmed (a Kabyle-writing author) told me with disgust.

So where are our praiseworthy Kabyles?
By: Djaafar Messaoudi

At the sight of a big z (symbol of Berberity) on walls, doors, school tables and chairs, and even on the seats of buses, one would think that the Kabyles attached great importance to their culture and their language, that they were ready to sacrifice the most expensive thing they possess, namely their own life, so that these two pillars of their identity would remain standing and grow in strength. Don’t be fooled, the Kabyles like in Tamazight only its symbol which they set up everywhere and agitate now and then as a scarecrow to hypocritically warn their enemies or to simply reveal their presence to them.

I am sure that after reading the above paragraph, a lot Kabyle people, accusing me of being an anti-Amazighist, will jump with anger, though I am only telling the truth, all the truth.

If the Kabyles were indeed proud of their Amazighity, they would have contributed to the development of what forms the soul of the identity of a whole people, namely the language and the culture. Glance through bookshops shelves and you will see that they are overcrowded with works on and/or in Tamazight, but that almost nobody buys at least with the purpose of encouraging their authors. The argument according to which books are too expensive do not justify this abstention at all, since even more important sums of money are every day wasted in activities of lesser importance, as chattering in cybercafés, or, worst of all, in the purchase of cigarettes and other unnecessary products.

I personally know a Kabyle author who, after having published his book at his own expense, for lack of editor, really suffered to sell 2000 copies. Even those schools, which are expected to encourage reading, sometimes refuse to buy amazigh books under different pretexts. Despite this anti-Tamazight behaviour that the Kabyle people showed him, the author was not discouraged, since this year, even before drying up the supply of the first book, he published a second one and went up and down the Kabylia in search of readers [1].

Some authors used even compact disks to publish their works (linguistic researches, dictionaries, novels, etc). Alas, even at 50 DA a CD, almost nobody dares to buy them, not even those teachers who became converted “by firm sincerity!” to teachers of Tamazight.

And our multimillionaires, why do not they invest in the Amazigh film industry? They could have contributed to the preservation and especially to the spreading of Berber culture and language. The Kabylia gave birth to great film-makers and to talented actors, who, unfortunately because of financial constraints, limit themselves to short and medium-length documentaries without much success or, still worse, keep their projects in the drawers of their offices to be lost after their death.

If, at least in every commemoration of April 20th, instead of putting a lot into the building of monuments and other often useless and very expensive memorial statues and steles, the Kabyles disburse a very small sum of money for the purchase of written works in and/or on Tamazight, they will be of great help to this one.

To finish with, it is important to recall that Tamazight will not be kept alive and ever develop at the expense of simple graffiti on walls, and even less at the cost of hollow slogans of the kind “Anwi wigi? D-Imazighen!”
Footnotes

[1] While going up and down in the streets of Michelet and Larbaa Nath Irathen, we were astonished at the absence quasi-total of bookshops. “Let’s leave, these people do not read!” Ahmed (a Kabyle-writing author) said to me with disgust