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Arab colonial conception of Berber/Tuareg

The famous medieval Moroccan traveler Ibn Battuta troubles this idea when he states, “With one exception, color terminology was not used to identify or describe the Berber-speaking peoples from the Sahel...”* Instead of using the term “Whites” for the Berbers who were Muslim just like the Arab Muslim, Battuta described them as having different cultural practices thus could not be qualified as being White as the Arabs considered themselves. Even though many Berbers/Tuaregs converted to Islam as a way to gain emancipation, tax exemption and equality, they weren’t seen in the same light by their fellow Arab Muslims. They were seen as inferior.

Source: A HISTORY OF RACE IN MUSLIM WEST AFRICA 1600-1960, Bruce S. Hall Page 34

The policy in 1962 Algeria affecting the Berber population was to Arabize the whole of Algeria. It served to remove Algerian Berber ethnic groups from their origins and implement Arab values and culture. “The process of Arabisation – which was to be implemented in classical Arabic, which few people in Algeria spoke or read – was intended to permeate all aspects of everyday life.” This program to introduce Arab culture was a huge failure due to the Algerians only speaking colloquial Arabic or Berber and French.

Source : Between Algeria and France: The origins of the Berber movement Fazia Aïtel First Published January 29, 2013

French colonial conception of Berber/Tuareg

The French started colonizing North Africa in the 19th century. The French perceived Tuaregs as similar to the peasants back home in France. French colonizers gave Tuaregs much more respect than they did dealing with Arabs in the same regions. *“In either case, the Tuareg were thought to be racially distinct from Arabs and blacks, and possibly even the racial cousins of Europeans as the descendants of a classical, originally European, Atlantic race.” The French used Kabyle’s myth as a means to divide and conquer the Tuaregs. Kabyle’s myth states that North African Berbers/Tuaregs are racially closer to French then Arabs. This also lead to the Tuareg myth which targeted Tuareg people specifically.

Source: A HISTORY OF RACE IN MUSLIM WEST AFRICA 1600-1960, Bruce S. Hall Page 106

Further proof of the French making use of the Kaybles myth to ruler over the Algerian Tuaregs. The French imposed “Using craniometric statistics of human remains found in the vicinity of the standing stones to propose a genealogy of the Kabyles, French administrators in Algeria thereafter suggested that their mixed origins allowed them to adapt more easily than the Arab population to French colonial governance.”

''Source: Berber genealogy and the politics of prehistoric archaeology and craniology in French Algeria (1860s-1880s) EFFROS, BONNIE''

The importance of women in Tuareg culture

“The most important of all the characteristics is that among the Touareg woman or is free, if not free year, then in England. They choose their own husbands, and they are repositories of learning and the art of poetry.” Example of how the women are the judges and decision makers in their society. They are given respect and assert their dominance, something which isn’t seen very often in Muslim societies.

Source: The Origin of the Tuareg Francis Rodd the Geographical Journal Vol 67 No. 1 p 32 (Jan 1926)

“Their woman are respected in owned property in livestock. In many other Muslim societies, women follow the Koranic directive to “cover” themselves, through viewing and keeping two private quarters. In Tuareg society, however, the man where the bills – not a Muslim custom but one peculiar to the Tuareg and other Berber peoples of the Central Sahara. Tuareg woman wouldn’t consider veiling their faces, and they continue to assert their right to a public presence and to voice their opinions openly.” The importance of Tuareg women is immensely present in this excerpt from Barbara Worley. The women are at the center of attention and usually assert their dominance. Tuareg society values women and allows them to speak freely and own land which in most Islamic countries in contemporary time wouldn’t allow.

Source: Worley, BA 1992, “Where all the strong women are”, Natural History, vol. 101, no. 11, p. 54