The Amazigh Movement began its militancy in independent Morocco in the late sixties. Since then, the changes in the structure of the movement, the diversification of the actors who shape it, and the changing nature and extent of their claims have contributed to the redefinition of their position in the country's political arena and their relationship to the institutional political sphere. After a first stage of popular culture's exaltation, the Amazigh Movement places on the public arena of contestation to Moroccan political system thanks to the consolidation of its structure and its transition from individual action to collective action. That Amazigh Movement's change took place during the last years of Hassan II's reign, and it was strongly related to a specific national context: the government of alternance, and hopes around what it was call the democratic transition process. Both issues will open up a gap in the Amazigh Movement which will increase with the arrival of the new king Mohammed VI. Thus, the enthronement of the new monarch has brought about the renegotiation of different power groups positions' in the institutional political arena, including the role of the Amazigh Movement, besides the opening of a "New Amazigh Policy". Both issues have given rise to the design of new strategies for action in the country's public sphere by the movement, the redefinition of its modes of representation and organization, and the adoption of new channels of communication with the population and with the Makhzen. This paper has the target of analyzing the new organizational structure of the Amazigh Movement in Morocco, the ideological differences of its current discourses, and the role of new Amazigh elite in the present socio-political life of the country. Likewise, we want reflect on the impact that the restructuring of neo-patrimonial system implemented after the arrival of Mohmed VI has had on the Amazigh Movement as an actor of contestation to the regime.

Focusing on the interaction between the Moroccan state and Amazigh activists, this paper explores the conditions under which ethnic movements become successful in transforming official politics of national identity. In 2001, the Moroccan state, for the first time, declared its recognition of "Berberness" as a principal element of the Moroccan national culture and founded 'the Royal Institute of the Berber Culture' (IRCAM). The Institute was charged with doing research on different aspects of Berber culture and preparing school textbooks to teach elementary school students the standardized Berber language. These initiatives represented a dramatic reversal of the official definition of national identity and a major victory for Amazigh activists in their long struggle for cultural recognition. The establishment of IRCAM represented the first substantial change in the state's attitude towards its Berber speaking population, from a policy of subtle neglect to explicit recognition and support. The main objective of this paper is to call attention away from state-centric analyses of policy change in authoritarian contexts and to underline an ethnic movement's capabilities in affecting policy. This paper underlines Amazigh activists' specific strategies, in particular their use of personal networks of influence to negotiate with the state center and strategic concessions to placate the state, in explaining their policy success. The activists' strategies were in line with Moroccan political traditions and were formulated based on specific expectations about the monarch's behavior vis-?-vis emerging challenges to his conventional policies. The previous acts of selective cooptation of different social movements by the palace set important precedents in determining the boundaries of legitimate action for the Amazigh activists. This paper also emphasizes how the interaction between the Moroccan state and the Amazigh activists has been a mutually transformative one and discusses how the establishment of IRCAM worked to transform the Amazigh movement in ways unintended by activists. This paper is based on in-depth interviews with Amazigh activists, publications of Amazigh activist organizations as well as major Moroccan newspapers and magazines between 1995 and 2010.

The two most important and popular socio-political movements to have arisen in the Maghreb during the last three decades have been the Islamist movement and the Berberist or Amazigh movement. Studies of the region's Islamist movements have been quite numerous and there is now more academic interest being shown in the Berberist movements. Surprisingly little attention has, however, been paid to relations between these two movement despite their strength and popularity. This paper aims to partially rectify this by looking at the relations between the two movements in Morocco. It will argue that whilst obvious and important differences exist between the two in terms of ideology and outlook, surprising amounts of cooperation and common ground have at times been found between them. Differences over the place of religion and the Arabic language in the legal framework of the state are frequently sources of basic disagreement. Most Berberist associations take issue with the mainstream Islamist view that Arabic should be the only official language in Morocco and that Islam should be the state religion. Nearly all argue that Berber languages should be given a status equal to that of Arabic and that a formally secular state framework is essential to ensure cultural and linguistic pluralism within the country. In spite of this seemingly fundamental divide, elements of both movements often, however, share similar perspectives on issues such as democratisation and human rights. There have also been efforts from both sides to try and bridge the divide on the issues of language and secularism both intellectually and also organisationally through the creation of Islamist Berber associations and Berberist Islamic organisations. The paper will look at a number of events that shed light on relations between the two sets of movements including, most prominently, the national debate over the choice of alphabet to be used in the teaching of Tamazight (Berber language) in schools. It will draw on a range of sources including existing published works, print media and publications by both the main Islamist movements in Morocco and the main Berberist associations in addition to interviews with senior figures from both movements.

This paper will analyze manifestations of the Amazigh (Berber) Culture Movement's increasingly public affinity with the State of Israel and North African Jewish history, the reactions among other segments of Moroccan and Algerian societies, and their meaning for both the movement and for North African states and societies as a whole. In particular, it will focus on the November visit to Israel by a cross-section of Moroccan Amazigh activists, who participated in a week-long intensive seminar at Yad Vashem, Israel's Holocaust Museum, the first ever seminar conducted for a delegation originating from a member of the League of Arab States. The visit was related to an ongoing Amazigh project: the effort by Moroccan Amazigh militants to form an Amazigh-Jewish Friendship Association, a project which both draws on a particular reading of North African history that includes deeply rooted origin myths regarding Jewish-Berber ties and is intimately connected to the contemporary Amazigh movement's political agenda. The Amazigh movement has long been a target for Arab nationalist and Islamist accusations of serving Western imperialism, thanks to its rejection of the Arab-Islamic historical and civilizational narrative, and its affinity to the universalist paradigm espoused in Western intellectual circles. Moreover, an additional aspect of the movement's overall orientation has been a quietly amenable view towards Jews and Judaism, an unwillingness to line up reflexively alongside of the Arab world in its struggles against the State of Israel, and even a measure of admiration for the Zionist movement's successful revival of a national language and assertion of ethno-national rights in the face of an antagonistic Arab world. In earlier decades, Amazigh movement circles were extremely reticent to even mention anything to do with the Arab-Israeli conflict or their belief in their Jewish "roots". But in recent years, they have begun to be blunter. So too, have been the responses of its opponents, from both Islamist and Arab nationalist circles. Their mostly verbal confrontations are part of the larger developments in Algeria and Morocco in which competing Amazigh and Islamist discourses entered into the public sphere, an outgrowth of the newly liberalizing policies of North African states seeking to better manage and re-legitimize their rule. Drawing on interviews with activists and a close analysis of published sources, this paper will analyze the Jewish-Amazigh connection in the context of the Amazigh movement's effort to create a viable social movement.