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You were born and raised in Holland, how we become amazigh activist in these conditions?

Thank you for your response. Indeed, I am born and raised in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. When I was twelve I started to get interested in my culture; I only spoke Dutch, until I was twelve and then my mother found it important that I also speak Tashelhit. Also at school, we start to learn Arabic, this was part of a cultural education program in the Dutch schools. But I could not learn it, I did not understand Arabic, so it was very hard for me, also because it was a different language than what my parents spoke at home.

My parents are also very Amazigh orientated, they watched movies of Tashelhit Culture and listened to a lot of music, Rways, Izenzaren, etc. My father used to be Rays in the late fifties and was very influenced by Hadj Belaïd. My mother dit a lot of embroideries of Tizerzay, made home-made Amlou, etc. My parents also spoke about the Amazigh situation in Morocco, that because we are not Arabic, that there were a lot of discrimination towards Imazighen.. One day, I was twelve or thirteen, I watched a movie in Tashelhit language, I do not remember the name, it was something with Tililla, I think... At last, I took the case of the movie and I saw "signs" (Tifinagh) which were not Arabic or Dutch, so I asked my father, he told me that those "signs" were our language and we used to write in Tifinagh..So I discovered at a young age that our language was not Arabic, but Tamazight..I start to read a lot of books, went to libraries to learn more about the Berbers, etc. etc. When I went to Morocco I loved to be in the mountains of Idaw Tanane, my father was born there, I went swimming in Immouzzer; I believed that the Imazighen are a special people with ancient history and that we should protect it and cherish it.

When I was older I got more interested in politics and then I became more aware of the true social and political situation of Imazighen in general; I was determined to do my part to improve the situation of the Imazighen or my part to keep the Amazigh culture "alive"..I consider myself as a European Tamazight, with the best of both worlds. At the moment I does a lot of research in Tamazight and of course my studies of Science Based Archaeology; in the future I will dedicate myself to do archaeological studies of the Imazighen and their ancient culture. At the moment there is not much Archaeological information about the Imazighen in general. At last but not least, I want Tamazight to be modern, but Tamazight should not lose her inheritance. I think that a lot of people think that Tamazight and the Imazighen are old-fashion and they are linked to illiteracy. We have a beautiful culture and history and we should do everything in our power to keep that and to show that to the world, not all of us are mountain-people, and even that should not be an insult. Our culture and language still exists because of those mountain-people and of course the Amazigh woman; the base of Amazigh culture is feminine.

Talk us about the actions do you do in Netherlands in favor of the amazighity?

The actions that we do, we do a lot of things. Like providing information about Tamazight culture to schools and other facilities, organize meetings for Imazighen and other people who are interested in Amazigh culture. I have done a few programs with Dutch TV and BRTV; this summer I am going to make a documentary in Souss about Souss with Dutch Television; I am looking forward to spend those 6 weeks working and to make a nice documentary about culture, politics and the social position of the Berbers of the South.

Further more, we have developed education material to learn Dutch from the Tamazight language; in the Netherlands there is a great community of first generation Moroccans who speak very poor Darija and Dutch, there also Amazigh migrants who came from Morocco a few months or a few years ago and this a good method to learn Dutch, to speak and write it properly; but it takes a lot of energy to inform people about this new method of teaching Dutch.

We do also a lot of things abroad; like establishing Tamaynut Canarias in Tenerife, which takes a lot of work. But we are very happy to work with our Guanche militants. Our latest project is Tamaynut Amazigh Women Foundation for the European Feminist Forum. I am the Affinity Group Coordinator in this project, go visit this link http://europeanfeministforum.org/spip.php?article181&artsuite=0&lang=fr

I hope you find it interesting, this is also a very intensive project. Because I am the coordinator of Amazigh women in Europe, I have to travel a lot to get women active for this project.

What else do you do ?

We also worked with hospitals to provide information in Tamazight for diabetics. At the moment we are working on a project to provide elementary schools information about the Amazigh history between Morocco and The Netherlands, this project is called "Mail uit Barbarije" after a book which is written by Peter van Beek. This book tells a story about a boy who is originally from Agadir named Abdel and a Dutch Girl named Anne; the whole core of the book is about the famous Dutch salesman Michiel de Ruyter who stayed in Agadir over more than 8 months in 1650; the history between The Netherlands and Morocco started with him. It is very interesting because the historical connection between Morocco and the Netherlands begun in the South of Morocco more than 400 years ago, but the most Moroccan immigrants in Holland are from Northern Morocco. Here is the link; http://www.mailuitbarbarije.nl/

By de way, what is the real situation of amazigh community? It is true, as we see in news, that she is influenced by extremism ?

There is a minority in the Dutch Amazigh community which is badly influenced by Islam extremism, fanatism and terrorism. Mohammed B; is the ’famous’ one, but you also have the Hofstad Groep, Samir A., etc. who are also Imazighen. I think the reason why youngsters choose to rebel, in this case being an Islam fanatic, is due to discrimination in The Netherlands, they have no where to turn to; so they choose extremism, you even have Amazigh atheist in the Netherlands, everything they choose is ’too’, which can never be positive. Islam and being Amazigh is very possible if you can take the positivities in the both of them; I personally believe that people should not use Islam or another religion for their own personal benefits or political agenda; religion should and must be cherished and is no culture or identity; religion is something of your own and private.

What disturbs me the most in the Moroccan community in The Netherlands is that they do not name themselves Moroccans or Amazigh anymore, but Muslims. Yes, their religion is Islam, but not their identity; they mix up the Islam with identity and culture; it becomes one whole.

How do you see her future in Holland?

I hope by promoting and defending the Amazigh identity and let people know that it is possible to be a Muslim and Amazigh, that we can make a difference. If we do nothing, things can look very badly in the nearest future; in this case parents are very important to be informed about the difference of culture and religion. That is why Tamaynut NL is working on different projects with elementary schools, to make a difference, but it takes a lot of time to make Dutch-Amazigh parents to understand; they think Tamazight is just a part of Arab identity, to let them lose such illiterate ideas, is very hard, but we are working on it.

What do you think about the place of amazigh woman in our struggle for our rights in Morocco and even abroad?

The place of Amazigh woman is this struggle is very important, because Amazigh culture is a feminine one, but most Amazigh women have no idea how important their role is, in Amazigh culture. Due to political, social and religious influences the place of Amazigh women is nowadays very weak, we Amazigh women must work twice as hard to get recognition for our rights and culture. I think it is in general a very difficult situation for a woman to succeed in Morocco, even though her rights concerning "Mudawama" are a bit improved. Many Arabised women and Amazigh women are still illiterate, but this is also changing in a positive way. Education and knowledge about her Amazigh identity are the most important things for an Amazigh woman to succeed in this struggle. Well, you have feminists in Morocco and abroad; even the European woman must still fight for her recognition and rights, there is discrimination in many issues. Do you know that in Holland and other European countries, a female still receives a lower salary than a male for the same job and education? So you must understand what the general situation is like for the Amazigh women in Europe; "double" discrimination and they have to work also twice as hard in a political environment where racism and discrimination is still increasing towards the North-African community.

What kind of relation has Tamaynut-Morocco with Tamaynut-Netherland?

We have a good and professional relationship, Tamaynut Nederland is a European division of Tamaynut Morocco, although Tamaynut Nederland has it own projects and is independent, of course. I think it is very important that an organization like Tamaynut must get more recognition for their work and name. That is why I have established Tamaynut Canarias, others are working on a Tamaynut in Lybia and I hope we can also establish a Tamaynut division in the North of Morocco and Algeria. It is important that we bring all Imazighen together, because we are all fighting, promoting and working for the same cause; the official recognition of the identity and culture of the Imazighen. My personal message to all Amazigh militants throughout the world; we have to give Tamazight back to the people, that is our job and mission. Considering the Amazigh cause as an elite, is not always the right way or reason to succeed in our struggle for recognition; so it is very important that we approach our Amazigh people, to get them involved in the general Amazigh cause and inform them of their situation and the most important thing, their heritage and future legacy.

What do you think about violence in Moroccan university between amazigh movement and other ideological currents?

I think that we all should respect each others opinions and ideological ideas, without using any violence. The world would be a dull place if we all share the same opinion. But the Amazigh militants have to approach provocation by others in smarter way and ignore it, which I believe can be very difficult. In this case the violent actions were very logical, but I am still against using violence to express your personal opinion.

  http://www.tamaynut.nl/
  Oulhadj Lahsen