hantise des fassi, rabatis; haine des alaouites; rejet de l'arabe...)
I really can't understand you my friend, first you mention two cities
Fes and Rabat both founded by Imazighen en inhabited by them since its creation.
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It should be noticed, however, that the term 'Arab is only an indication of language, not race.There can be no doubt that the large majority of Arabic-speaking tribes in Morocco are pyrely or essentially Berber by origin.
The number of Arab immigrants from the East can only have been comparatively small. Those who came there as conquerors at the end of the seventh and at the beginning of the eightf century were only a handful of people. The chief invasion took place in the eleventh century, when several Bedouin tribes setteld down in Barbary(Tamazgha).
Ibn ar-Raqiq estimated the numbers of these invaders at more than a million persons of both sexes and the number of combatants at fifty thousand(1) but it seems that his estimates are considerably exaggerated(2). In any case the invaders were spread over a large area, from Tripoli to the Atlantic Ocean, and we may presume that only a minority of them reached Morocco(3).
An anthropological investigation of over eight thousand natives of
Eastern Barbary(tamazgha) has led Messrs. Bertholon and Chantre to the conclusion that the number of Arab immigrants has always been insufficient to impress their type on the mass of the people, and that " the so called Arab tribes of North Africa present the same somatic characteristics as other tribes which are incontestably Berbers(Imazighn)"(4)
A CENTURY AGO.
According to Robert Montagne, the census conducted by the French government in late 1800's revealed that 75% of the Moroccan population was Amazigh and two thirds of the remaining 25% were bilingual, that is, speak both Tamazight and Arabic. He added that this bilingual population was Amazigh but it was counted as Arab. The census of the 70's indicated a much lower percentage (50% versus 75%), a direct consequence of the arabization process. There was no mention of the bilingual population.(5)
Notes:
1.Ibn ar-Raqiq, quoted by marmol Caravajal, L'Afrique,i.(Paris,1677),p.275;and by Leo Africanus, The History and Description of Africa, trans. By J.Pory (London, 1896), p.139.
2.G.Marçais, Les Arabes en Berbérie du 11e au 14e siécle (Constantine & Paris, 1913), pp. 113, 733.
3.Ibid. P.515 sq.
4.Bertholon and Chantre, Recherches anthropologiques la Berbérie orientale (lyon, 1913), pp. 347, 358.
5. (Reflections on the Amazigh Consciousness in Morocco
An Essay By Ahmed El Asser,a note from the essay written by Ahmed El Asser)
