71 MARTINDALE CENTER FOR THE STUDY OF PRIVATE ENTERPRISE Preserving Indigenous culture in Morocco Layan Suleiman A majority of Moroccans today are genetically linked to the Indigenous Imazighen tribes of North Africa. Through centuries of intermixing and twentieth-century European colonization, Morocco moved toward a policy of Arabization. Today, state negligence and lack of investment in educational, healthcare, and transportation infrastructure have left these primarily rural communities with little choice but to migrate to urban centers, effectively risking the loss of their language and culture over the course of time. Introduction Morocco’s diverse ethnic demographics have raised difficult questions in terms of national recognition, unity, identity, and urbanization. The Amazigh, an ethnic group that constitutes the original population of much of North Africa, have long faced pressure to assimilate, especially in the postcolonial period. The majority of Morocco’s Amazigh population resides in the mountainous and more rural regions, where the primary language consists of variations of Tamazight (Figure 1). In contrast, most of urban Morocco has adopted Arabic as the primary language, putting the preservation of Tamazight low on the list of state priorities. Additionally, the rural areas have long been neglected in terms of education, health care, and infrastructure. Coupled with rural Morocco’s history of uprisings and the state’s tendency to stifle activists, the Amazigh of Morocco find themselves in a unique position in which their concrete demands for infrastructural change are unmet and urban migration for access to those resources dissipates tribal connection and community. Figure 1 Distribution of languages in main Amazigh population regions Source: Roettger, 2017. Figure 1 Distribution of languages in main Amazigh population regions Source: Roettger, 2017. doi:10.18275/pbe-v042-011
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