Ma Maison a l'avenir

Amazigh-State Relations in Morocco and Algeria

Amazigh-State Relations in Morocco and Algeria

Finally getting around to posting my thesis.  I've posted it as PDF below.

ABSTRACT:

As some of North Africa’s original inhabitants, the indigenous Amazigh population in

Morocco and Algeria has withstood waves of invaders to retain a distinct cultural and

linguistic identity that has persisted within—and despite—nearly fourteen centuries of

Arab rule. The emergence of Morocco and Algeria as modern nation-states following

their independence marked the beginning of an ongoing tension between each state and

its ethnic Amazigh minorities. With one state (i.e., Morocco) more inclusive and

progressive and the other more repressive and exclusionary (i.e., Algeria), what are the

factors that explain the different outcomes in both states?

This study compares the two movements in Algeria and Morocco by investigating

the relative salience of two central variables—that of each state’s institutions and the

behavior of its movements—on the outcomes for the Amazigh community. The major

finding is that state institutions stand as the most potent variable due to their ability to

channel movement strategies towards either militancy or accommodation. This power is

largely illustrated through Morocco’s reliance on cooptation as an initial response to

expressions of grievance that has produced a milder form of activism. In contrast, Algeria

has defaulted to a more repressive approach (to any dissent) that has produced a strident

activism with radical offshoots. Movement behavior continues to play a secondary role

that largely hinges on its ability to use globalization as an amplifying and mobilizing

instrument for international pressure.

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B4BE1_xKfeEUTDlQc2c5UHRkVmc/edit?usp=sharing

Happy Birthday to My Love! (a new stanza)

You, My Love

I.

You inhabit me my love

Grow deep and young inside me

Like a sapling

You sink your roots

They wander

and wonderfully

entangle me my love.

You transfuse me my love

My blood is no longer my blood

For you are present even there

Flowing

Ebbing

Beating

Searching out

my innermost places my love.

You have taken up residence my love

In the furthest reaches

Of the slumber of my sleep

You run with me

Your hand in mine

In impossible places

In surreal dimensions

of my dreams my love.

You come to me my love

A smile that creases my face

An echo of your joy

Surprising me

In the midst of my day

Memories of you

Flash and burn

Images of you

flickering and searing

across my mind my love.

II.

You, like a spirit my love

Like the inside of my soul

That I never knew

Before you

Who pulses now always

Inside of me my love.

You, embodiment of answered prayers

my love

Extension of grace

Shining down upon me

Soaking into me

Seeping into my every thought

The crown upon my head my love.

III.

You are there in the morning light

my love

In my waking moments

I reach for you

I am drawn by the immeasurable gravity

Of your love my love

Against you

Amaranthine rock my love.

You infuse laughter in my life

my love

You peal

And beckon me

Your song dances

Your voice

Clarion

Notes floating

And leaping

Whirling

And washing over me my love.

You abide restlessly in my heart my love

Always increasing

Pushing me further

Multiplying passion

Never ceasing

Insatiable hunter

Of my heart my love.

Always always always my love

You will remain the lover of my youth

As we grow old and everything around us

decays and rusts

For you and I my love—nothing alters

For you my love

Are Beauty, eternally defined

Tattooed kisses accumulating

overlapping everlasting

Across the story of my life my love.

IV.

You: the radiant carrier of life my love

Your belly swollen and growing

Your face beaming and golden

You, emerging and evolving

Into an even higher form of beauty

Me, falling deeper and deeper into you

You, Possessor of generations, my love.

You: succor, nourisher and protector,

Our babies cling to you

Like vines they surround and grow to you.

Pillar of strength and zenith of grace

Your love refuses to ebb and only grows

Washing over, sustaining, and imbuing protection

You are the sun and your gravity immense

Pulling us deeper into the chasms—of your love,

Mother and lover of our children my love.

You: a beauty infinitely transcendent.

With the dawn of each day

I open my eyes to see:

Your eyes sparkling

Ever richer and deeper sapphires and emeralds.

A smile that launches my heart aloft

A kiss that arrests my very soul

Fingertips whose winding paths

Smolder and singe and ignite

My lover, my wife, my muse

for whom my love today eclipses yesterday’s

but which falls immeasurable short,

of my love with each day’s dawn.

You my love

Are me

And I

am you.

We.

my love.

We.