page_title: Berbers
section_title: Modern history
hierarchical_section_title: Berbers / History / Modern history
caption_attribution_description: English: Morroco Berber village in the high Atlas Imlil valley. Français&#160;: Maroc village Berbère dans le Haut Atlas (vallée de l'Imlil).
context_page_description: Berbers, or Amazighs, are an ethnicity of several nations mostly indigenous to North Africa and some northern parts of West Africa.
  Berbers mostly live in Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Mauritania, northern Mali, northern Niger, and a small part of western Egypt.
  Berber nations are distributed over an area stretching from the Atlantic Ocean to the Siwa Oasis in Egypt and from the Mediterranean Sea to the Niger River in West Africa. Historically, Berber nations spoke the Berber languages, which is a branch of the Afroasiatic language family.
  There are about 25-30 million Berbers in North Africa who still speak the Berber languages, most living in Morocco, Algeria, Libya, Tunisia, northern Mali, and northern Niger. Smaller Berber-speaking populations are also found in Mauritania, Burkina Faso and Egypt's Siwa town. The majority of North Africa's population west of Egypt is believed to be Berber in ethnic origin, although due to Arabization and Islamization some ethnic Berbers identify as Arabized Berbers. There are large immigrant Berber communities living in France, Spain, Canada, Belgium, the Netherlands, United Kingdom, Italy and other countries of Europe.
context_section_description: The Kabylians were independent of outside control during the period of Ottoman Empire rule in North Africa. They lived primarily in three states or confederations: the Kingdom of Ait Abbas, Kingdom of Kuku, and the principality of Aït Jubar.
  The Kingdom of Ait Abbas was a Berber state of North Africa, controlling Lesser Kabylie and its surroundings from the sixteenth century to the nineteenth century. It is referred to in the Spanish historiography as "reino de Labes"; sometimes more commonly referred to by its ruling family, the Mokrani, in Berber At Muqran (Arabic: أولاد مقران‎ Ouled Moqrane). Its capital was the Kalâa of Ait Abbas, an impregnable citadel in the Biban mountain range.
  The most serious native revolt against French colonial power in Algeria since the time of Abd al-Qadir broke out in 1871 in the Kabylie and spread through much of Algeria. By April 1871, 250 tribes had risen, or nearly a third of Algeria's population. In 1902, the French penetrated Hoggar Mountains and defeated Ahaggar Tuareg in the battle of Tit.
  In 1911, Morocco was divided between the French and Spanish. The Rif Berbers rebelled, led by Abd el-Krim, a former officer for the Spanish administration. In July 1921, the Spanish army in north-eastern Morocco under Manuel Silvestre collapsed when defeated by the forces of Abd el-Krim, in what became known in Spain as the disaster of Annual. The Spaniards may have lost up to 22,000 soldiers at Annual and in subsequent fighting.
  During the Algerian War (1954–1962), the FLN and ALN's reorganisation of the country created, for the first time, a unified Kabyle administrative territory, wilaya III, being as it was at the centre of the anti-colonial struggle. From the moment of Algerian independence, tensions had developed between Kabyle leaders and the central government.
  There is an identity-related debate about the persecution of Berbers by the Arab-dominated regimes of North Africa. Through both exclusivities of Pan-Arabism and Islamism, their issue of identity is due to the pan-Arabist ideology of the former Egyptian president, Gamal Abdel Nasser. Some activists have claimed that "It is time—long past overdue—to confront the racist arabization of the Amazigh lands."
  Soon after independence in the middle of the twentieth century, the countries of North Africa established Arabic as their official language, replacing French, Spanish and Italian; although the shift from European colonial languages to Arabic for official purposes continues even to this day. As a result, most Berbers had to study and know Arabic, and had no opportunities until the twenty-first century to use their mother tongue at school or university. This may have accelerated the existing process of Arabization of Berbers, especially in already bilingual areas, such as among the Chaouis of Algeria. Tamazight is now taught in Aures since the march led by Salim Yezza in 2004, which has started to the teaching of Tamazight in the schools in Aures.
  While Berberism had its roots before the independence of these countries, it was limited to the Berber elite. It only began to gain success among the greater populace when North African states replaced their European colonial languages with Arabic and identified exclusively as Arabian nations, downplaying or ignoring the existence and the social specificity of Berbers. However, its distribution remains highly uneven. In response to its demands, Morocco and Algeria have both modified their policies, with Algeria redefining itself constitutionally as an "Arab, Berber, Muslim nation".
  In Morocco, after the constitutional reforms of 2011, Berber has become an official language, and is now taught as a compulsory language in all schools regardless of the area or the ethnicity. In 2016, Algeria followed suit and changed the status of Berber from national language" to an official language.
  Berbers have reached high positions in the social hierarchy across the Maghreb; good examples are the former president of Algeria, Liamine Zeroual, and the former prime minister of Morocco, Driss Jettou.
  Neverthele
caption: Berber village in the High Atlas mountains of Morocco
exif: {"Image Make": "NIKON CORPORATION", "Image Model": "NIKON D50", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "300", "Image YResolution": "300", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Ver.1.00", "Image DateTime": "2006:07:12 08:47:07", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "208", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "300", "Thumbnail YResolution": "300", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "2608", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "6910", "Thumbnail YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/160", "EXIF FNumber": "9", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Aperture Priority", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2006:07:12 08:47:07", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2006:07:12 08:47:07", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "4", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "37/10", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire", "EXIF FocalLength": "34", "EXIF SubSecTime": "50", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "50", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "50", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "3008", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2000", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "2472", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CVAPattern": "[0, 2, 0, 2, 2, 1, 1, 0]", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "51", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "None", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF SubjectDistanceRange": "0"}