Kabyle people

Kabyles (Leqvayel)

File:Kabyle people.png
Regions with significant populations
Algeria –   Kabylia : 4 million   Algiers: 1 million (est.) France: 1 million (est.)
Languages
Kabyle
Religion
Islam, roman catholic, with protestant minorities
Related ethnic groups
other Berber peoples, Iberians,greeks

The Kabyles (Leqvayel or Leqbayel in Kabyle) are a Berber people whose traditional homeland is highlands of Kabylie (or Kabylia) in northeastern Algeria.

Their name derives from the name of the mountainous region in the north of Algeria which they traditionally inhabit. Their name means "tribes" (from the Arabic "qaba'il" which is the plural of "qabîlah" قبيلة tribe). They speak the Kabyle variety of Berber. Since the Berber Spring in 1980, Kabyles have been at the forefront of the fight for the official recognition of the Berber language in Algeria (see Languages of Algeria) "Al Qabayel" ("tribes"), but its inhabitants call it "Tamurt Idurar" (Land of Mountains) or "Tamurt Leqvayel" (Land of Kabyles). It is part of the Atlas Mountains and is located at the edge of the Mediterranean Sea.

Language

The principal language used by this people is Kabyle, used both at home and professionally. Speakers take pride in the Kabyle language and have resisted using Arabic. French is often also used in both trade and correspondence. Algerian Arabic is the next most-used second language.

Genetics

• The Y chromosome is passed exclusively through the paternal line. The composition of Y Chromozome is: 48% E3b2, 12% E3b* (xE3b2), 17% R1*(xR1a) and 23% F*(xH, I,J2,K) ((Arredi et al., 2004) [1]), according to the method used by Bosch et al. 2001. We may summarize the historical origins of the Kabyle Y-chromosome pool as follows: 60% Northwest African Upper Paleolithic (H36/E3b* and H38/E3b2), 23% Neolithic (F*(xH, I,J2,K)) and 17% historic European gene flow (R1*(xR1a)). The NW African Upper Paleolithic component is identified as "an Upper Paleolithic colonization that probably had its origin in Eastern Africa."

• The mtDNA, by contrast, is inherited only from the mother and is: 30.65% H, 29.03% U* (with 17.74% U6), 3.23% preHV, 4.84% preV, 4.84% V, 3.23% T*, 4.84% J*, 3.23% L1, 4.84% L3e, 3.23% X, 3.23% M1, 1.61% N and R 3.23%. The mtDNA makeup of Kabyles is: 66.12% general Western Eurasian (H, J, U, T, K, X, V and I), 22.58% specific Northwest African (U6, L3E), 8.07% Asian (M1, N, R) and 3.23% sub-Saharan gene flow (L1-L3a).

Religion

• The region is overwhelmingly Sunni Muslim of Maliki madh'hab, but there is also a very small Roman Catholic community, outnumbered by non-confessional people. Despite this, the main Berberist political parties (the Front of Socialist Forces and the Rally for Culture and Democracy) are both secular. These two parties together garner nearly 80% of the vote in the region.

Economy

The traditional economy of the area is based on arboriculture (orchards, olive trees) and on the craft industry (tapestry or pottery). The mountain and hill farming is gradually giving way to local industry (textile and agro-alimentary).

Politics

• Two political parties dominate in Kabylie and have their principal support base there: the FFS, led by Hocine Aït Ahmed, and the RCD, led by Saïd Sadi. Both parties are secularist, Berberist and "Algerianist".
• The Arouch emerged during the Black Spring of 2001 as a revival of a traditional Kabyle form of democratic organization, the village assembly. The Arouch share roughly the same political views as the FFS and the RCD.
• The MAK (Movement for the Autonomy of Kabylie) also emerged during the Black Spring, and is a political association that militates for the autonomy of Kabylie.

History

Middle Ages

The Fatimid dynasty of the 10th century originated in Petite Kabylie, where an Ismaili da'i found a receptive audience for his millennialist preaching, and ultimately led the Kutama tribe to conquer first Ifriqiya and then Egypt. After taking over Egypt, the Fatimids themselves lost interest in the Maghreb, which they left to their Berber deputies, the Zirids. The Zirid family soon split, with the Hammadid branch taking over Kabylie as well as much of Algeria, and the Zirids taking modern Tunisia. They had a lasting effect on not only Kabylie's but Algeria's development, refounding towns such as Bejaia (their capital after the abandonment of Qalaat Beni Hammad) and Algiers itself.

After the Hammadids' collapse, the coast of Kabylie changed hands regularly, while much of the interior was often effectively unruled. Under the Ottoman Turks, most of Kabylie was inaccessible to the deys, who had to content themselves with occasional incursions and military settlements in some valleys. In the early part of the Ottoman period, the Belkadi family ruled much of Grande Kabylie from their capital of Koukou, now a small village near Tizi-Ouzou; however, their power declined in the 17th century.

Modern age

The French colonization

Kabyle women, 1886.

The area was gradually taken over by the French from 1857, despite vigorous local resistance by the local population led by leaders such as Lalla Fatma n Soumer, continuing as late as Cheikh Mokrani's rebellion in 1871. Much land was confiscated in this period from the more recalcitrant tribes and given to French pieds-noirs. Many arrests and deportations were carried out by the French, mainly to New Caledonia (see : “Kabyles du Pacifique”). Colonization also resulted in an acceleration of the emigration into other areas of the country and outside of it.

Algerian immigrant workers in France organized the first party promoting independence in the 1920's. Messali Hadj, Imache Amar, Si Djilani, and Belkacem Radjef rapidly built a strong following throughout France and Algeria in the 1930's and actively developed militants that became vital to the future of both a fighting and an independent Algeria. During the war of independence (1954-1962), Kabylia was one of the areas that was most affected, because of the importance of the maquis, aided by the mountainous terrain, and French repression. The armed Algerian revolutionary resistance to French colonialism, the National Liberation Front (FLN) recruited several of its historical leaders there, including Hocine Aït Ahmed, Abane Ramdane, and Krim Belkacem.

After the independence of Algeria

Tensions have arisen between Kabylia and the central government on several occasions, initially in 1963, when the FFS party of Hocine Aït Ahmed contested the authority of the single party (FLN). In 1980, several months of demonstrations demanding the officialization of the Berber language took place in Kabylie, called the Berber Spring. The politics of identity intensified as the Arabization movement in Algeria gained steam in the 1990s. In 1994–1995, a school boycott occurred, termed the "strike of the school bag". In June and July of 1998, the area blazed up again after the assassination of singer Matoub Lounes and at the time that a law generalizing the use of the Arabic language in all fields went into effect. In the months following April, 2001 (called the Black Spring), major riots — together with the emergence of the Arouch, neo-traditional local councils — followed the killing of a young Kabyle Masinissa Guermah by gendarmes, and gradually died down only after forcing some concessions from the President, Abdelaziz Bouteflika.

See also

• Famous Kabyles
• Kabyle language
• Berber people

External links

• Project Kabylepedia
• Pictures of Kabyles
• Kabyles.com (French)
• Ethnologue.com: Kabyle language
• Algerian linguistic policy (in French)
• imyura.com (kabyle)literature
• MAK