Open Letter to Mr. Barack Hussein Obama, President of the United States of America (Version Anglais)
Thursday, 10 September 2009/2959.
Dear Mr. President,
I am writing this open letter to thank you for your memorable speech in Accra, the capital of Kenya.
This was your second speech on African soil, after the one in Cairo, and we felt like your words were addressed only to the sub-Saharan people in Africa, ignoring North Africans as if their countries are not considered part of our beloved continent, Africa. Therefore, I would just like to assure you that Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, and Mauritania are also African countries just like Ghana, Zimbabwe, and Kenya, the home country of one of your parents. They are all, by virtue of their geography and the history of their population, African contries. The word "Africa" itself is of Amazigh (Berber) origin, which designated Tunisian territory in the Roman era before being extended to our entire continent. It derives from the term "Afri", used already in the Phoenician era to designate indigenous people of this country.
Of course, all the present leaders of so-called “White Africa” will assert the contrary by evoking the Arabo-Islamic ideology, imported from the Middle East, and expressing their pride for being “Arabs” from the Arabian Peninsula. Such an ideology they have -just like their predecessors, and together with their political classes and elites- imposed and continue to impose to other Africans who are still uprooted, if not "Arabized". Political leaders of North Africa or "Tamazgha”, in the Amazigh (Berber) language, are all dictators who do not respect the will of their peoples, do not hold transparent elections, and do not respect the alternation in power. Our Heads of State, whether monarchs with absolute power or tyrannical presidents at the head of a republic, who have gained power as a result of coups, have all changed the constitutions of their countries to continue their eternal power and enrich themselves and their vassals, abusing our natural resources, taxes paid by our citizens and money transfers of our nationals abroad, while maintaining a policy of anti-Amazigh apartheid, a policy of discrimination that does not respect the political, economic and cultural rights of its Amazigh citizens! One of them, Moammar Gadhafi, who has recently celebrated his forty years of dictatorship, not only executes a policy of apartheid, denial, and assimilation of indigenous Amazigh libyens to Arabs, but has also openly threatened them with genocide and extermination. He has been defending, since he was appointed head of the African Union, the criminal Omar El Bashir, charged by the International Criminal Court with genocide against civilian populations, including the Christian and animist peoples of Darfur and the Nuba living in central Sudan!
Mr. President,
We welcome your choice of Turkey as the first state of the Muslim world you visited. Turkey is a secular country that our great hero, Abdelkrim Mohamed Al-Khattabi, already admired in the twenties, and had managed to create quite a similar and modern nation-state in Africa from 1923 to 1926. A state with institutions and people's army whose example had inspired at the time Ho Chi Minh and Mao Tse Tung! He understood that the concept of secularism, far from being imported from the West, did exist in the socio-political institutions of our precolonial Amazigh tribes as evidenced by our customary laws called “Azerf”. But after our independence wrested by the arms of our "guerrillas" Amazigh armies of liberation, “Arabo-Andalusian” minorities based on Salafist currents have monopolized the power centrally and simply abolished “Azerf” a customary law which has governed water sharing and wealth, conflict and collective work (Twiza) for millennia!
Mr. President,
Let me tell you that we are proud of our ancestors and the history they have bequeathed to us, and our identity that our Arab leaders are marginalizing and distorting all the time. We, whther white North Africans, black Africans, or African Americans, are and will forever be proud of our ancestors. Our story is not limited to 12 centuries, the date of the founding of the city of Fez, recently celebrated with great pomp by the Moroccan State, even less so to the arrival of the first "Arab"conquerors in 642 of the Christian era (1592 of our Amazigh African calendar). Our history is rooted in thousands of years if not millions since the birth of Lucy or even further, back to the emergence of Human Toumaï in Chad! The four corners of our continent are marked and staked by archaeological excavations and discoveries of human bones that show the continuing presence of our people in Africa from the dawn of prehistory until today, although much of our North African population were “Arabized” as a result of their Islamization. We should recognize that our Ancestors, apart from being the first to domesticate wild animals as evidenced by the frescoes and rock paintings of Tassili n Ajjer, have discovered the rudiments of agriculture. They also discovered the metal before prehistoric Europe as just recently was revealed by the team of Youssef Bokbot in "assif Beht" in the Middle Atlas in Morocco. Also the first alphabets of Amazigh writing called “Tifinagh”, widespread in the Canary Islands, testify of the birth of the first written civilization thar remains the work of our ancestors before the great Pharaonic civilization!
Mr. President,
I would like to take the opportunity of writing this letter to tell you about the tragic fate of one of our people, namely, the Tuareg people who have preserved most of our language and culture heritage and our pre-Islamic African values.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy and French multinational companies (for example Areva) specialized in the uranium, are claiming that they are providing logistical and military support to the Governments of Mali and Niger. We say to them that they are completely on the wrong side. Mali and Niger governments are using the pretext of fighting Al Qaeda to conduct and covert their campaign to exterminate the Tuareg civilians and rebels. Let me assure you that our brothers in the Great Sahara, known as the "Blue men" may actually be tempted to ally with Al Qaeda if the Malian and Nigerien military agression with the complicity of the French continue to be exercised against them! Our brothers Tuaregs knew every corner of their vast Sahara territory and are the only ones capable of dislodging the “new invaders" and allies of Al Qaeda. Packing the Tuaregs in the same bag as the mercenaries of Al Qaida is going probably to engender a new, more dangerous and explosive Afghanistan!
Mr. President,
Even if we are deprived of material and financial support and resources, be sure that our will and our determination, as activists and young Amazighs, are unshakable. We will advocate hard and peacefully for the democratization of our countries because we are Amazighs and Africans from the northern part of our African continent. Our vision is to defend a society governed by the true democratic institutions. We are the only people who sacrifice themselves for secular states, where constitutional reforms passed by the separation of powers, freedom of religion and the right of regions to have their own governments and parliaments. As stated by our great king Massinissa 2200 years ago, and as you have rightly reminded us in Accra 11 July 2009/23 July 2959: “The future of Africa belongs to Africans”.
Please accept, Mr. President, the assurances of our highest consideration;
Rachid Raha,
President of the World Amazigh Congress
*Translated from French to English by Dr M. ElMouedden