Activists launch campaign to speak Amazigh language during 2024 census

Agadir24

Activists launched a campaign to speak and adopt the Amazigh language when answering researchers’ questions in the 2024 general population and housing census, which is expected to begin early next September.

In this context, Amazigh activists launched the “Saoul s elsn nik” (Speak Your Language) campaign on social media platforms with the aim of urging “Amazighs living in major cities to declare their true identity by answering census researchers’ questions in Tamazight.”

These activists fear that the next version of the census will repeat the mistakes of its predecessor, because it includes “mined questions that ignore the fact that millions of Moroccans who speak the vernacular are Amazigh, despite their lack of proficiency in the Tifinagh language.”

These activities believe that answering the census questions in Amazigh will contribute to obtaining accurate data that reflects the specificity of Moroccan society and redresses the injustice that the Amazigh language suffered when it was considered a minority in the Kingdom of Morocco in the results of the 2014 census.

In order to introduce this campaign, the Amazigh activist Abdullah Bouchtart revealed that it “aims to sensitize the Amazigh population of Darija-speaking origin in the major cities in particular to the need to answer the census researchers’ questions in Tamazight,” in order to “save what can be saved, just four days before the start of the census process.”

Bouchtart explained that “the main target of this campaign are the fathers and mothers of Amazigh families, who have not yet realized that answering the census researchers’ questions in the dialect will directly lead to them being considered Arabs.”

The same speaker stressed that “the Amazigh activities have exhausted all possible means in order to push the High Commission for Planning not to repeat the 2014 scenario,” stressing that “the mobilization is still ongoing by the campaign’s launchers, in order to produce awareness videos and capsules on this matter so that we can ensure that they reach the largest possible number of users who will in turn convey the campaign’s message to their families.”

The Amazigh activist concluded that “the campaign aims to raise awareness of identity among these families, whose members, especially the elderly, speak Tamazight at home, and to push them to answer the questionnaire questions in Tamazight regardless of whether the census researchers speak it or not,” stressing that “the Amazigh activist’s stake in this campaign is high, and it reflects the specificity of Moroccan society in the results of the upcoming census.”