In this month of November we had a thought for Kamal Amzal murdered by Islamists at the university of Ben Aknoun in Algiers the 2 November of 1982.

Kamal would show a call for a general meeting at the campus when students, activists of the Muslim Brotherhood movement, hostile to any expression that is not favorable to them, came equipped with weapons to prevent the act. Not wanting to succumb to intimidation or terror, determined in its commitment and belief, the barbarism got the final word - he was so cowardly murdered. Indeed, fundamentalists, after having ripped his shirt, had ripped him with a sword in front of his classmates.

Kamal was part of a group of students who want to create a functioning democracy in the university, especially by the election of an of independent and representative city committee. The Muslim Brotherhood, for their part, wanted to have control of the City and did not want to leave any space to free expression.

It must be remembered that the late 1970’s and early 1980 was the period when the ideological confrontation between the Muslim Brotherhood and the Amazigh Movement was very strong. The Algerian regime supported and encouraged the Muslim Brotherhood to dam the Berber movement. And if the problem did not exist at the University of Tizi-Ouzou, where the Muslim Brotherhood were small, in Algiers, where he Kabyle presence was significant, tensions and conflicts between the two movements were permanent. As for other regions such as Oran or Constantine, the Muslim Brotherhood made (and still make) almost unanimously the law.

Kamal Amzal therefore paid with his life for this desire of the Berber militants movement to block the Islamist scourge .

Masin FERKAL

Translated by Jugurten for Kabylia Observer