75 MARTINDALE CENTER FOR THE STUDY OF PRIVATE ENTERPRISE Arab spring, and included Tamazight as an official language, alongside Arabic. Activists are careful not to praise King Mohammad VI too effusively for his implementation of Tamazight in rural schools or for his 2011 constitutional amendment (Maddy-Weitzman, 2012). The Congrès Mondial Amazigh (World Amazigh Congress) (2016) established that this constitutional amendment has brought no fruitful change to the country as the law lacked any plan to implement it. At the time the report was written, five years had passed since the constitutional amendment, which many people regard as profound. However, they emphasize that the ideological repository of the state is unchanged, and anti-Amazigh discrimination can still be seen at all levels of the institution, resulting in a significant decrease of the language over time (Maddy-Weitzman, 2011). There seems to be a vast disconnect between the promises of the Moroccan government and the implementation of that policy. Tamazight was introduced, first in the rural school system, with the hopes of integrating it into all Moroccan schools by 2010. But the reality today is almost the complete opposite; Tamazight is taught in only 5% of Moroccan schools (Ichou & Fathi, 2022). As of 2015, only about 45,000 students benefited from the Tamazight classes, out of four million pupils countrywide (Despite promises…, 2015). A dichotomy of choices The demand for Amazigh linguistic representation is often at the core of the social movement that focuses on cultural preservation; however, linguistics, although often regarded as the gateway to cultural understanding, is not the only way in which Imazighen activists are fighting for protection of their rights. The demands of the rural Amazigh sociopolitical movement, specifically in the Rif, are simple: access to a university, hospital, and cancer treatment center; encouragement of investment and infrastructure; demilitarization; and the right to a fair trial. Currently, urban residents enjoy all these rights (Masbah, 2017). The contrast in development efforts between rural and urban areas in Morocco can be traced back to its colonial era when the French deemed it necessary to divide the country, not only by Arab and Amazigh but also subsequently as “useful” and “useless” Morocco (urban and rural). This “useless” area was neglected by French colonizers and continues to be overlooked today, resulting in these regions ruled by a mixture of official rules and unofficial customs. This twofold system emphasizes the lack of thought applied to integrating these regions with the state in a way that maintains tribal rule and avoids juxtaposition with state rule. In addition to political neglect, much of rural Morocco has been deprived of the infrastructure necessary to improve their harsh living conditions and develop in the scope of their own cultural and tribal margins (Chtatou, 2023). Thus, a dichotomy between maintaining cultural identity, in which language and tradition is valued and preserved but sacrificing the resources that are unavailable in rural settings, and migrating to urban centers, in which the dilution of culture over generations is likely, has emerged. Imazighen communities have long depended on migration to overcome these challenges that are unique to the region, such as drought, soil erosion, and poor infrastructure, all of which are exacerbated severely by government neglect and political marginalization (Crivello, 2003). During the mid-nineteenth century, the first stream of mass migration from the region began in which men left their families in the Rif region to go work in the neighboring country of Algeria during the harvest season. When the border was closed between Morocco and Algeria, more than 40% of Riffan men were reliant on international work to support their families, with the result that their migration was redirected to Europe (mainly the Netherlands, Italy, France, and Spain). The region became dependent on money earned abroad, but migration policies in Europe made it difficult for workers to see their families, thereby effectively severing ties between migrants and their roots (Crivello, 2003). One current driver of migration, especially for youth, is the lack of universities in the rural regions. In one interview, conducted with youth who had migrated from the rural areas to the city of Agadir for university, a student indicated that he believed the government aimed to maintain poverty in the rural region. Government failure to facilitate the proper resources to develop an educated population in rural Morocco has obligated many such citizens to move to the cities, where unfortunately they still struggle to climb the ranks of affluence (Lima, 2011). Such dichotomous marginalization cries out for resolution on both sides. The Congrès Mondial Amazigh, an international NGO aimed at being the voice on behalf of Imazighen communities in North Africa and the diaspora for social and cultural development as well as environmental protection, presented their case at the 2016 UN Committee for Human Rights. The core of their argument was the deeply held sentiment of political marginalization: “The Amazigh people have so far been victims of massive and systematic discrimina-
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