It Looks Like Tamazight in Morocco Will Finally Have its Own TV Network: About F*&*%ing Time

Posted on | January 6, 2010 | No Comments

It’s delayed for a few days but not totally abandoned.  The project of a new TV network to cater to the needs of Tamazight-speakers in Morocco seems to be almost on track for launch within days after being delayed from an earlier launch date of december 31st.  This is a major step in  correcting long decades of marginalization, and sometimes repression of one of Morocco’s oldest indigenous languages.  Hundreds of cultural associations and miltants have been pushing for this for a good part of the past century.  The channel promises to devote 70% of its broadcasting time to programming in Tamazight.  The remaining 30% will be devoted to programs in other languages including Arabic.

For any out there doubting the power of TV or any type of “moving images,” for that matter, in one’s own language, I have a story to tell you.  Back in the early 90s, one of the first movies to be released in Tamazight came out.  The title was Boutfounast (The Cow Owner).  It was a comedy about a band of small time thieves conspiring to steal a cow from the home a very clever man.  In all honesty the movie was a pretty crude attempt at the art of cinema and left a lot to be desired.  The only thing that made it stand out was the language it was shot in.  It was Tamazight.  I bought a copy and brought it home.  Put it in the VCR and asked my mother to come and watch.  She sat down and was totally mesmerized.  All of a sudden my mother became competition when it came to using the remote control.  Up to that day she probably never even touched it.  My father came home and my mother put the movie back on and was in control of the remote.  What ensued were a few weeks of very frequent reruns.  My brothers and sisters and I started seriously thinking of making something happen to that video tape.

But beyond the anecdote, what became clear to me is that my mother and father like millions of other Moroccans were basically left out because they happened to speak the “wrong” language.  The situation gets a lot more sinister when one thinks of access to civic, health, administrative information etc…It was not until the new millenium that a law was passed to allow Tamazight speakers interpreting services when they to court. Before that they were expected to just “try harder” to speak Arabic.

It is encouraging what Morocco is doing but the road to correcting the illegal marginalization of a huge section of the country’s population is still a long one.

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