Asaru nniḍen - Another video.

      Like Ulysses, all his life was a kind of journey which took him back after long detours to his native land after a time consuming search to reconciliate his spiritual affiliation with his people. He made peace with himself but also with the legends, the values, the convictions and the aspirations of his fellow imazighen from Kabylia whose cultural heritage has been forgotten and persecuted. He became an “amusnaw” or a man of knowledge whose words, written or spoken have a special meaning for a whole people. He realized very soon that his people have made him the carrier of a torch which burns for freedom and democracy in a country were rational talk must overcome obscurantism, hatred and indifference.

       Early in his life, Mouloud Mammeri became very fascinated by Amazigh poetry. His first book “La colline Oubliée” or “The Forgotten Hill” was written in French. It was not any kind of hill he had in mind, since Mammeri was born in Kabylia in 1917 in a village called Taourirt or The Hill.

      In the 50s, Mammeri was a professor of French literature at the University of Algiers.  He knew that Amazigh culture has contributed a lot to the Mediterranean culture since, after all, it belongs to a region which is a crossroad of civilizations. His first essay “La Societé Berbère” or “The Berber Society” published in the magazine Aguedal in 1938 showed a vocation at its early stage.

      He already had a lucid vision of hispeople: a critical witness of the Amazigh society that he wrote “persists butdoes not resist". The place of the Amazigh culture in the modern world was one of his earliest concerns. While surrealism was predominant in his first writings, like in “The Forgotten Hill,” soon he was backto earth with “Le Sommeil du Juste,” “L'Opium et le Baton,” “Le Banquet,” “Le Foehn” and “La Traversée.”  At the same time Mammeri published essays on Amazigh literature. The publication of “Chants Berbères de Kabylie” by Jean Amrouche in 1937 was so emotional for him that he tried to get the original text ofthe book in Tamazight; he will preface the re-edited version of the book published in 1989, a book that he will never see because by thattime he had already left us.

      After the independence of Algeria, he thought for some time that the end of the tunnel for the persecution of the Amazigh culture was near. He had new dreams. He tried to persuade the Department of Education to implement the teaching of Tamazight in the system. Once more, he was denied because according to some officials of the same department “Berber is an invention of the Pères Blancs”  (as the French catholic priests were called in Algeria). The rebuttal of the language of his ancestors by these officials pushed Mammeri to a kind of crossing a desert. It was hard to swallow that while French, the language of French colonialism in Algeria for 130 years, can have free ride while Tamazight was denied existence. To add injury to prejudice, it was obvious that at the same time these same officials were celebrating the teaching of the language of Moliere to their children; in public they were showing a hate-relationship with French culture and French colonialism.

     In the late 60s, Mammeri developed a new transcription of Tamazight with Latin letters, a new approach different from the one introduced in 1894 by Professor S. A. Boulifa of the University of Algiers. Historically, Tamazight is one of the rare languages that has its own alphabet called Tifinagh; early scripts of Tifinagh were recorded in North Africa  more than three thousand years ago.  We can also add that there are speculations that  Latin is a language of Egyptian origin and therefore of north African origin even if it has been subject to many modifications by the Greeks and the Etruscans.

     With his new transcription of his mother tongue, Mammeri wrote a new grammar (Tajerrumt ) and elaborated a lexicon of modern words; both were published in France because Tamazight was forbidden from being even shown in public in Algeria. Around the same period, he contributed to the writing of the French-Touareg lexicon with Jean Marie Cortade.

      In 1969, Mammeri published in Tamazight the celebrated “Les Isefra de Si Mohand” or “Poems of Si Mohand,” a folk hero and poet of Kabylia which will be re-published seven times.

      Mammeri became director of the CRAPE (Centre de Recherches Anthropologiques Prehistoriques et Ethnographiques), which became under his leadership an ideal research center for Algerian and foreign students. The CRAPE Transactions on Prehistoric era and Anthropology became an internationally recognized publication in academia. All the success of the CRAPE could not help it to survive when an article written on cultural anthropology in the same transactions became the target of the political system in place that is denying one more time the existence of Berber history. The CRAPE was shut down. It was a great loss. No center of that dimension has ever seen lifein Algeria since the date of its closing.

     Mammeri was a persecuted man and he always managed not to show it in public: after all, he was a “Free Man,” anAmazigh.

       In the spring of 1980, while just anyone from the Middle-East or Europe canbe invited to Algeria to talk about almost anything, M. Mammeri was one more time denied the right to make a presentation on Kabyl poetry in the city of Tizi-Ouzou, the heart of the Kabylia region.  The local population saw that as an outrageous act of censorship, and soon the whole region was in ebullition to vehemently denounce this act of denial of the existence of the Kabyl language.  Such an act will have repercussions in the whole country for years to come. It was this incident that opened a window to the rest of Algeria, a sign of a new hope for a better life; a sign that mediocrity, intolerance, exclusions, lack of freedom should not have their place in modern Algeria.

       Mammeri, the skeptical and independent humanist, the man who never made a judgment about anyone, found himself under fire from a certain media which used just any kind of tricks in order to discredit the man and his vision. Even his nationalism was questioned by certain “journalists,” hiding behind other causes, but who did not know the man, his activism in the MTLD (an underground political organization of the 50s which already was calling for the independence of Algeria), and his suffering during the French-Algerian war. He never talked about it. Only those who fought with him knew the facts. His open letter in the newspaper Le Monde to answer those who targeted him was a lesson on the dignity and commitments of the profession of journalist:  “only truth should prevail in their articles, not lies”, he said.

     In 1982, Mammeri found some kind of niche in France where, with some of his former students, he discussed the idea of creating a center of the same dimension as the CRAPE. However, it was in Paris at “La Maison des Sciences de l'Homme et l'Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales” that Mammeri received a cheerful welcome to continue his research. He founded with his good friend Pierre Bourdieu a center for research on the Amazigh culture known as “Centre d'Etudes et de Recherches Amazighes” and together published the review Awal or word  in Tamazight. He found an ideal place to do research on his own society and his people, something that never stopped burning in his heart. He dedicated his time to revive the Amazigh culture fromits ashes. No, the fire will never stop burning. His “Poemes Kabyles Anciens” published in 1980 were a robust reference to North African culture which has often been a victim of biased historians. While the culturalidentity of the Imazighen from Kabylia was beautifully narrated in “Poemes Kabyles”,  other books like “L'Ahellil du Gourara” about the Imazighen of the southern region of Oran and and “Les Dits de Ccix Muhend U Lhusin” confirmed one more time his love and dedication to traditional life in Algeria. All his publications were beautiful contributions to universal culture.

      It is, in fact, this universal perspective that became the focus of another one of his books “Le Banquet ou la Mort Absurde des Azteques.” Mammeri had a passion for history and truth; he is the man who wentto visit the roman vestiges of Rome, looking for traces of Jugurtha, the amazigh king who valiantly fought the roman legions. He narrated: “After being defeated, Jugurtha was thrown in the Latonies, a kind of underground cell used as a prison in Rome. I visited it. I have read the name Jugurtha among other names of enemies of Rome of that time. They thought that Jugurtha was going to die from starvation but it was not the case, so they forced a slave to strangle him. I always wanted to write a play called Jugurtha because he was the most magnificent of our freedom fighters.”

       Mouloud Mammeri never wrote this play because of a car accident. On his way back from Morocco where he drove to participate to a conference, he was, according to the official version, killed by a tree that fell across the road.  We may never know what really happened the day of his farewell to the man who loved so much Tamazgha , the ancestral land of millions of Imazighen.

       He left us at a time where all the ideals he fought for all his life started slowly to become reality in Algeria. He can leave now. His work will be the main reference for many generations to come and the fire that he started in our hearts will never stop burning. Qim di Talwit a Dda Lmulud.

Quand trop de secheresse brule les coeurs
Quand trop de faim tord trop d’entrailles
Quand on rentre trop de larmes
Quand on baillonne trop de rêves
C’est comme quand on ajoute bois sur bois sur le bucher
A la fin, il suffit du bout de bois d’un ésclave pour faire
Dans le ciel de Dieu
Et dans le coeur des hommes
Le plus énorme incendie
 
Mouloud Mammeri

Novellas

• Ameur des Arcades et l'ordre, Paris, Plon 1953
• Le Zebre, Paris, Preuves, 1957
• La Meute, Europe, 1976
• Escale, Revolution Africaine, 1987
• La cite du soleil, Algiers, Laphomic, 1987

Books

• La colline obliee, Paris, Plon, 1952
• Le sommeil du juste, Paris Plon, 1955
• L'opium et le baton, Paris, Plon, 1965
• Les Iserfa, Poemes de Si Mohand ou Mhand, Paris, Maspero, 1969
• Tajerrumt n tmazight, Paris, Maspero, 1969
• Le Banquet, Perrin, 1973
• Poemes kabyles anciens, Maspero, 1980
• Machaho! contes berberes de Kabylie, Maspero, 1980
• Tellem-chaho! Contes berberes de Kabylie, Paris, Bordas, 1980
• Le Foehn ou la preuve par neuf, Paris, Publisud, 1982
• La traversee, Paris, Plon, 1982
• l'Ahellil du Gourara, Paris, CERAM, 1984
• Inna yas Ccic Muhend, (compte d'auteur) 1989

Articles

More than thirty articles published in various magazines.

In collaboration with the Théâtre du Renouveau Amazigh (TNA) and  the Amazigh Cultural Association at Ottawa-Hull (ACAOH), the Amazigh Cultural Association in America (ACAA) presents "Tidak n Nna Fa" at The Westminster Arts Center on the Bloomfield College campus (corner of Franklin & Freemont Streets in Bloomfield, NJ on April 18, 2010 at 4:00 PM

Nna Fadma , an old kabyl woman, has a doctor’s visit. However, particular circumstances turn the physician into a confident, Nna Fa unwinds a thread of a whole life made up of a lot of love and self-abnegation but also frustration and revolt. She speaks her mind on issues that relate to the social life in Kabylia and people’s lives in general but women’s lives in particular.

Come enjoy a one-time presentation of this first play in Tamazight in the USA. Let yourselves be transported by the language of Nna Fa to the heart of Kabylia but also in a journey to your hearts as  her sons and daughters.

Tickets: (ACAA & ACAOH Members/ Non-Members)
Before March 1st:    $30/ $40
After March 1st:    $35/$45
At the door:    $40/$50

To order tickets, please visit our "Events Tickets" page or send a check or money order to
             
ACAA
PO Box 1702
Bayonne, NJ 07002

Please note that SEATING IS LIMITED. Therefore you are advised to buy your tickets early.

For more information call (908) 442-8572 or  send an e-mail to acaa2010@gmail.com

To download the event flyer, click on the file icon below (Adobe Acrobat required)

Tamaziɣt
Tiddukla tadelsant tamaziɣt deg Marikan ad tegg tameɣra n Yennayer di teɣremt n Bridgewater di New Jersey as n 23 seg Yennayer n irumyen. Imaziɣen ak d imdukal nnsen ak ttwaɛrḍen ɣer temklilit-a n lferḥ d usirem. S tmeɣra n Yennayer ara nessaram aseggas-a d-iteddun d aseggas ara irefden taɛkemt f tmurt n imaziɣen. Ama di tmurt n Leqbayel ama anida niḍen imaziɣen maza-itel ttnaɣen akken ad ddren d imaziɣen. Ihi nekni dagi ilaq a d-nemlilet ak akken a nemyaɛqal d atmaten, akken a d-nessemlil tarwa nneɣ, akken ad asen-nesselmed d acuten, akken taftilt i s-d-nelḥa abrid nneɣ, a tt-refden, u nekni ad asen-negg afud akken ad bedden, acku d niti i d azekka, d nitni i asirem nneɣ.

Eddut akessar-a akken a d-tessesem ifayluten n Yennayer, afaylu n tuččit ara d-ittwaheggin, ak d wamek ara tizmiren a d-tasem ɣer Bridgewater. Ihi aseggas ameggaz. nessaram a ken-nemlil di Bridgewater, NJ.

English
ACAA is pleased to announce the celebration of Yennayer, the Amazigh New Year 2960. This will take place on the 23rd of January in Bridgewater, New Jersey. Please download the attached flier, menu and directions. Also, please make sure you reserve your spot. We would like to know how many people will be coming so that everyone will be served.

Come and join us to this yearly joyful event and share with us some very soecial moments. Moments during which we are together to celebrate and wish the best for the new year. We hope it will be a good year for our battered community. We are a community that is pushed hard these days. Let's come together to give each other strength and also teach our little ones about our culture. It is our way to pass the torch to them. We wish them the best, after all they are our future. Come and join us. We wish you a very happy new year. Aseggas ameggaz!

Tiddukla tadelsant tamaziɣt deg Marikan tessaram-awen aseggas amaynu ifulkin. Wid iqerben ɣer Boston, tettwaɛrḍem ɣer imensi n Yennayer. Tekkit ɛef tewlaft agi akken ad teɣrem d acu d-tenna Tiddukla.

Tekkit ɣef  ubuṭun "Buy Now" swadda agi ma tram a d-taɣem atiki ($15/amdan) ɣer tmeɣra agi n Boston.

Tameɣra n Yennayer a d-tili deg kra n imeḍqan deg Marikan. Uɣalet-ed ɣer wesmel nneɣ ma yella tettnadim isallen ɣef tmeɣriwin agi. Isallen yellan a ten-id-nerr dagi.

The Amazigh Cultural Association in America wishes you a very happy new year. ACAA invites you to join it at the celebration of Yennayer in Boston. Please click on the "Buy Now" button below to purchase a ticket ($15/person).

Other celebrations will take place in other places all around the country. Information will be posted as soon as it becomes available.

Sorry, the event ticket sale is closed. If still plan to attend, you may still purchase a ticket at the door the day of the event.

Adlis-a n tmedyazt tamaziɣt (s taqbaylit) yeffeɣ-ed deg useggas 2008. Masinisa Lwennas yuzen-aɣ-d yiwet n trumalt n wedlis-is. Nesnemmir-it aṭas u nessaram-as tazmert tameqqrant akken ad ikemmel abrid n tira d usefru.

Hatta wacu d-ittwuran f umedyaz ameẓyan (asebter aneggaru n wedlis):

Amedyaz Masinisa Lwennas d yiwen ilemẓi ilulen ass n 06 Yulyu 1985 deg At Meḥmud di taddart n tewrirt Musa Waɛmer. Ilemẓi-agi ad yli seg wid i umi qqaren "tettuneft-asen" imi tamedyazt tezdeɣ-it, yettidir yis-s. Yesɛa acḥal d asefru deg wallaɣ-is. Ɣer tira, akken kan yerra lewhi-s imi d wagi i d ammud n isefra amezwaru i d-yeffɣen. Ad t-id-ḍefren wiyaḍ.

"
Tamzwarut ilaq a d-nini belli tira n tmaziɣt n wedlis-a gerrzent. ḍefrent ilugan n tira akken ilaq. D ayen waqila iɛedda zzman nni deg yal wa ittaru akken ibɣa. Isefra n Masinia serrḥen, uran s teqbaylit isehlen. Maca ufiɣ belli amedyaz ameẓyan yettader-ed isem n Ṛebbi, ad as-tiniḍ d awessar. Aya ur nezmir ara a d-nini ma yella ikka-d seg laɛwayed n leqbayel (am isefra n at zik) neɣ seg wakken amedyaz d win iḍefren abrid n Ṛebbi ak d tineslemt.
D amedya yenna deg usefru "Tamɛict nneɣ":

Newwi lmektub d aɛwin
Ṣṣber d lkuraj di sin
Nɣil iṭij ad aɣ-yecreq
Dawit-aɣ ay at ddin
Nɣant-aɣ tismin
Lebɣeḍ la d-iḥemmeq
At lbaṭel i ɣ-d-yezzin
Ur nettagad mi ara ɣ-awin
S wawal n Ṛebbi a d-nenteq

Ayen i yi-ɛeǧben deg wedlis-a, ɣas akka ittwadder-d degs Ṛebbi aṭas, d akken isefra n Masinisa d isefra n lḥif n imeẓyanen n tmurt n leqbayel. Am Masinisa Lwennas n At-Meḥmud, am Masinisa Germaḥ d waytm-as yeɣlin di tefsut taberkant (2001) anida ilemẓyen n tmurt n leqbayel kkren-d, neɣ a d-iniɣ ggelfaɛnt seg lḥir n tmuḥqqranit d lmizirya.

Deg usefru "Imeɛdar" yenna-yas:

Aqli-yi am win yessaramen
Ad sɛuɣ iḍarren
Ula d nekk ɛyiɣ di lemrar
Di ṣṣifa cubaɣ all medden
Lameɛna kkawen ifadden
Zzher-iw dima yenṭer
D lmut kan i ɣ-d-iṣaḥen
A nesteɛfu d ayen
Axir akka wala kter

neɣ akken i s-yenna deg usefru i wumi isemma: "Cubaɣ-k ay iṭirelli"

Cubaɣ tamɛict iṭirelli
Si ṭṭlam ur d-yettefeɣ
Ddunit teɛkes fell-i
A tafat ur am-zmireɣ
Xas ruḥ eǧǧ-iyi
Tannumi tesɛeb a tt-kseɣ

Maca deg tama nniḍen ilaq a d-nini dagi beli issewhem-aɣ yisem n wedlis-a "Laṣel mebla izerfan" acku adlis yewwi-d aṭas ɣef tlufa n tudert ak d tayri. Ulac aṭas n wawl ɛef izerfan neɣ laṣel.

Haten-a yismawen n isefra n Mas Masinisa Lwennas:

• Lakul yeḥfan
• Ččet a wid yeṛwan
• Mači d lmektub i daɣ-yebḍan
• Iḥnin-d ttxil-em
• Acḥal i tewɛer ddunit
• Yekfa laman
• Tamɛict nneɣ
• Acḥal i ɛettbeɣ fellam
• Imeɛcaq n yiḍ
• Ameɣbun
• A ccix ibeqqun
• Yellis n At-Dwala
• Yugi lemektub a ɣ-d-i
• Asirem
• Cubaɣ-k ay iṭirelli
• Ḥemmleɣ-kem
• Dda Lwennas
• Tanekkart n leḥsan
• Iɣriben
• Imḍarriyen
• Amek i kem-ssneɣ
• Tagemmunt Azzuz
• Xaṛub Yusef
• Yewweḍ-ed zzwaǧ-im
• Ur sɛiɣ ddwa n ḥellu
• D lexdma ɣef waydeg i nettnadi
• Mmi-s n umarkanti
• Tidett

Sɣur Ḥsen Larbi

S unecreḥ i tera Tiddukla tadelsant tamaziɣt deg Marikan ad tefk tallalt n $1000 i useggas i Radyu Numydia n Columbus Ohio. Radyu Numydia d radyu n tmaziɣt tamezwarut di Marikan. Tessenker-itt-id Sunya Laǧaǧ d imdukal-is. Tiddukla tesnemmir-iten aṭas ɣef usemlili agi d-semlalayen imaziɣen yellan d iɣriben yellan di yal tama di Marikan d umaḍal s lekmal-is. Tiddukla ACAA taɛreḍ imaziɣen yellan di Marikan a d-fken tameẓẓuɣt i Numydia ama akken a d-slen i isallen, ama d aẓawan (tizlatin) neɣ d tidewwiniyin... Ddut ɣer usmel n Numydia teslem i yedles nnwen!

English

As an active advocate of the Amazigh culture, Numydia Radio (Columbus, Ohio) has been offering a great platform for communication and public service by keeping all Imazighen connected throughout the world with their Amazigh cultural heritage by bringing them the latests news and songs, organizing interviews and promoting the Amazigh culture through Internet radio.  

The board of directors of ACAA is happy to present Numydia Radio with a yearly grant of $1000. This modest monetary contribution is a token of ACAA's appreciation for all the great services Sonia and her staff at Radionumydia have been providing to our community. 

ACAA is committed to helping RadioNumydia and other social/cultural initiatives geared towards the same goals of providing a public service to our people through the promotion of the Amazigh culture.