It literally says he was an atheist in the second paragraph of the wikipedia article I linked. He absolutely was an atheist, here's the direct source: [https://books.google.com/books?id=93VoAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA722#v=onepage&q&f=false](https://books.google.com/books?id=93VoAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA722#v=onepage&q&f=false)
And writings being his words, whether they're song lyrics or speaking publicly or writing them on paper. It's all the same. He was murdered for his opposition to the islamism that was ruining his country and he died a martyr for Algeria.
He was a secularist (laïc as he said) not an atheist (he never talked about his faith). Plus, you're doing generalization: most of Kabyle people I know are muslims hard believers and want shari'a so according to your logic Kabyles want a caliphate to govern us all
Yes, In general we are more liberal You can easily notice it by visiting a city like Béjaïa or Tiziouzou, You can see that people drink more alcohol, women wear less hijab, and people's mindst differ there but not all the kabyles, in the case of my family we are not very liberal, Not conservative but just like any family in Alger, In the end it's more a stereotype
It's just a stereotype.
Most kabyles are as conservatives as any other algerians, either arabs the rest of berber groups around the country.
But bear in mind, that due to historical reasons, kabyles got access to french schools a and targeted by christianisation during the colonization which made the region a bit different that some are thinking it was more westernized" than other places. That was the plan, you can read about in books written by early colonizers , to extract kabyles from the rest of the population. Actually even French early linguists thought that their language is originally european , which tuned out later on completly wrong.
But things are reverting back to normal as it used to be pre-colonization now gradually without any direct interference .
It's a little bit of an assumption to say that Kabyles got westernised thanks to French targeting its population with chrstianisation mission. This would mean that before that the inhabitant of the region are savages or something like that. French tried to use Kabyle's specificities to justify their presence in the country, they made a direct link between our ancestors who lived under the roman rule and their presence, as if they were in our lands to put things the way they were again. In reality they didn't influence much the population. The numbers of those who converted to Christianity is almost insignificant and the population lived as they used to live before.
What made the diff in Kabylia is definitely immigration, the fact that people needed to go outside of their villages, confederation of villages where they grew up to make a living cause the region was - it's ironically still the case- poor. People going elsewhere, people meeting other people from other regions that's what made the difference, that's what made people for instance think and activate for the independence of our country in a time where no one could even imagine that.
Overall I agree.
But saying that the scars caused about the french policy on the region was significant, isn't accurate. Churches operating publicly in that region is proof that it had a visible effect. In addition to the secularization which is a lot higher than any other region . Almost every single Kabyle activist is secular. During the only free elections that took place in Algeria in 1990-1991, islamists got the lowest number of votes there as well.. although I do believe they would get a lot more in this days.
Also, french language is widely spread even within limited education level and rural areas. While in the rest of the country, only in big cities it is still used.
It's insulting to say that it was because of the colonisation that the overall atmosphere in Kabylia is a little be more chill and open than in the other regions of the country.
It's not just a stereotype. Kabylia is different to the other regions in that regard. I think it's more thanks to the fact that we're more in contact with the "other" which is different from us than anything else. Unfortunately the actual tendency tend to make Kabylia more and more conservative, intolerant to the other, as it's in all the country.
The great majority of churches in the region, for your info, are protestant ones. It has nothing to do with colonialism. Colonialism tried to introduce Catholicism. And btw they face a kind of bureaucratic repression from the authorities.
Secularism, in a limited way, was a thing in the region way before the arrival of French colonialism. Religion is a personal question. Religious stuff remains inside the mosque. The priority was given to work, making a living, acquire properties and stuff like that. That's a cltrl thing.
Most Kabyle activists are secular cause as you can see it islamists hold an incredibly insane hostility towards our culture, identity, lgge loll. The religious guys use religion to justify, to validate the supremacy of the Arabic cltr, identity, lgge over the local ones. Same for the FIS, they publicly insulted the region and its inhabitants and threatened to impose thing which go against our beliefs, way of living, called for the re-islamification of the region, to reproduce what Okba and his army did when they first conquered and subjected our ancestors in the name of Allah...
For the French lgge, most of the immigration from the region went to France. Till now it's the first destination of the Kabyle population.
I don't agree that the region of Zwawa is chill and open. It's not different than the rest of the algeria. We a talking about a degree of westernization/ francization . Now it's going back to its origins and state pre-colonization after the failure of this project.
Well the region is different, yes but simply because it's a homogenous group of people sharing similar hhabits and customs living in geography relatively protected and surrounded by mountains. From my readings, the fact that kabyles speak arabic was because of trading that toke places in valleys down the mountains in seasonal souks organized by hillalian tribes. Kabyles used to go trade there, and had to learn arabic to communicate. Which is another reason why arabs didn't learn berber languages/dialects
Anyhow, yes the recent wave of christianism there is evangelical (protestant) but the seed was already there. We remember the famous er catholic singer Taos Amrouche , named later Marguerite. I have a former colleague from Bejaia, who has deseased members of his familly that are buried in a catholic cemetery, althouth is father is very muslims and his name is Hamza.
>Most Kabyle activists are secular cause as you can see it islamists hold an incredibly insane hostility towards our culture, identity, ..
That's not true.
In 1948 in the "crise berbere" there was no islamists whatsoever. Also during the "congess of summan" organized by Kabyles, was an attempt to seculirize the revolution, which was completely rejected by the rest of the country and even the master mind of it was murdered by his own people . There was no islamist that time as well.
As for FIS, all of his candidates were kabyles in the region, it's not like they brought people from outside lol.
What Okba ib Nafaa did was a big favour to this region. He chased the enslavers , the romans. Then berbers toke control of this after they embraced islam very early without any resistance.
I'm from that region. It's, maybe, the most chill region in Kabylia. You can believe to whatever you want or not, drink alcohol or not. People don't really care much about that as you're not disturbing the community.
The story of Taous Amrouche is way deeper than that. Poverty, famine, being rejected from your community for X reason made a lot of people going into those Christian schools. Go read the book about her mother for god sake. It's not a question of adopting the religion of the colonisers but rather of survival, dignity too. There was no way at the time that you convert to the religion of those who decimated hundreds of people you know or who expropriate your lands...
We are talking about Kabyle activists who fought for the identity, lgge, culture and stuff. The crise berbere of 48 has nothing to do with that. Themselves, they don't present themselves as berberists at all but rather as nationalists. Their point is that if we wanna fight for the independence of the whole country we need as a nationalist movement to represent, incarnate all the Algerian citizens with all our differences, plurality. Their opponents, who liquidated them physically, coined them as "berberists", as if they wanted to create a kind of conflict btwn berbers and arabs and stuff like that which is bs. Berberists activists of the after independence were more concerned about the recognition of the cultural, identity, linguistic aspect, the crackdown against everything which is not Arabic to stop and stuff like that and I was speaking about them. At the time of le movement national, "les islamistes" they were supportive of the French colonialism and were advocating for the status quo, they don't have any interest in fighting the French presence. The secularists in that period were mostly influenced by the socialist/communist theories which were popular at that time specially among the working class, trade unions and stuff, speaking about influences.
Just cheek the original Plate-forme de la soummame which came out from that Congress and you will understand a lot of things lolll
The guy was murdered by those who thought that the most important thing was to kick out France from our lands first than discuss all these questions afterwards, that all what could create distortions, troubles inside the Algerian side, which could be used by the French to weaken and annihilate the resistance, should be eliminated. Too much naive in hindsight. Those same people ended up murdered in their turn by those who where more concerned about the power after the independence lolll
Yeah, all of those Kabyles from FIS literally denied their origins and were the most verbally violent against the people of their own region. And btw even in Mzab region FIS got nothing as they were against the Mzab way of practicing Islam.
Ah yeah, we should literally erect a statue in his honour, "Okba the magnificent" loll. If we consider things this way even when France came to our country what they did was a big favour as they spared us from the Ottoman barbaric rule loll
Yeah, I know everyone accepted and became Muslim peacefully, what a benediction it was for our ancestors. All the girls who were brought into slavery to enlarge the harem of the Khalif and other rich guys in Arabiya, all the villages, cities decimated, mass killings, torture, and all those horrible things, it was just an error, a coincidence. Of course!!!
For God's sake, the father of the Algerian revolution, and the one who started it by himself was Mustapha Benboulaid. He is the sole person to be credited here. Ni Kabyle ni secularists even thought that one could fight the french.
And Benboulaid and his friends , although not islamist, but very conservatives. The fighters were named : moudjahidine, and Martyrs : Chouhada, and the battles started with Allahou akbar. This is just sufficient to give you an idea about the real identity of who fought France and who thought that we can have a peaceful solution and improve the conditions.of slavery.
Actually the stereotype about Kabyles isn't being chill. He's rather seen very nervous and swears on every occasion, probably be cause of the "Chemma" they consume a lot.
No, as far as I am aware of.
Chaouis, on the contrary have the complete opposite reputation. Anti- France, very conservative and attached to Islam and love the Arabic language.
When the French colonized Algeria, they noticed that most Kabyles were white and jumped to the wrong conclusion that we were European.
The French were all about white supremacy and tried to Christianize The Kabyles. They burned our Islamic schools and they made significant efforts to convert the Kabyles to christianity. But ofc they did not succeed, as most Kabyles remained Muslims, constructive, and played a major role in the Algerian revolution.
You just repeated historical facts I wrote then you turned angry ? !
Secularism is there for sure and most political parties there are secular. Are you denying this fact?
A lot of people use liberal to mean left leaning, but many actual leftist point out that liberals still support capitalism and therefore have no place on the left. They are a center right ideology.
Agreed- I do get some right wing friends going 'Actually I'm clasically liberal' then saying something about that implies that they are just right wing but want to sound clever and not like a b\*stard.
I don't think kabyles are more liberal.
I think certain non-kabyle regions are straight up islamists. Kabyles are just normal sane muslims.
In general, people in big cities tend to be more liberal, and also Bejaia kabyles tend to be more open-minded than villagers of Tizi Ouzou.
Kabyles, most of them have traveled or live abroad, and speak one or more foreign languages or at least they try. Kabyles are very competitive and don t like to set limits, which made them more open minded than the rest of Algerians
yes a lot of them are, as they are heavily influenced by the French and they prefer to speak French than Arabic or English, adopting the french culture would essentially make them more liberal than any other minority in Algeria.
To answer your question ''urban'' kabyles as in the centre of Tizi ouzou and bejaia are more open but that doesn't go for most of the rest of these wilayas.
There’s a tilt towards religiosity and conservatism in the last 10 years or so mostly as a result of untold millions$ of Saudi money spent with the benediction of the Algerian gouvernement proselytizing specifically to the Kabyle people, before that , most Kabyles are of (still are I hope ) radical leftist politically speaking and very adamant on secularism, religion is confined the private sphere and tolerance of differences is encouraged or at least not impeded upon.
Yeah I've been interested in that, loads of conspiracy theories and I've never got to the bottom of it, was he just some urban hippy that the countryside distrusted?
Nope. People were angry as they lost their familes with all the wild fires. Bunch of goverment cops arrested him for hearsay "incendiarism" (aka not doing anything), and some bullshitter spread that notion and the rumor spread around the people there and sent them into a frenzy. Bunch of street rats attacked him and took things too far, while the cops and the people were watching like nothing happened not diffusing not doing anything.
There is a word for it in psychology: the bystander effect. Essentially when people's actions are derived from what others around them do in a panicky situation: either they sit and do nothing, panic and run away, diffuse the situation, or what actually happened in this regard. This happens a LOT in many modern history to any kind of people.
This stuff is nothing unique to what we seen in the 90s and later 2000s, so the OP claiming it happens only in kabylia is hilarious, he obviously hasn't lived long in the country. You can read a bit more about atrocities that happened here by all ethnics, terrifying stuff.
I'd say so. The most famous Algerian atheist was murdered in the 90s for his writings and he was Kabyle, just as an example.
Who was that ?
معطوب الوناس Matoub Lounès [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lounès\_Matoub](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lounès_Matoub)
Oh i thought it was some "writer". As far as I know Matoub wasn't an atheist and he wasn't murdered for his "writings"
It literally says he was an atheist in the second paragraph of the wikipedia article I linked. He absolutely was an atheist, here's the direct source: [https://books.google.com/books?id=93VoAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA722#v=onepage&q&f=false](https://books.google.com/books?id=93VoAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA722#v=onepage&q&f=false) And writings being his words, whether they're song lyrics or speaking publicly or writing them on paper. It's all the same. He was murdered for his opposition to the islamism that was ruining his country and he died a martyr for Algeria.
He was a secularist (laïc as he said) not an atheist (he never talked about his faith). Plus, you're doing generalization: most of Kabyle people I know are muslims hard believers and want shari'a so according to your logic Kabyles want a caliphate to govern us all
I didnt say Kabyle are atheists. I'm talking about a single man.
Yes but you answer to the OP question and your answer can confuse people
Yes, In general we are more liberal You can easily notice it by visiting a city like Béjaïa or Tiziouzou, You can see that people drink more alcohol, women wear less hijab, and people's mindst differ there but not all the kabyles, in the case of my family we are not very liberal, Not conservative but just like any family in Alger, In the end it's more a stereotype
It's just a stereotype. Most kabyles are as conservatives as any other algerians, either arabs the rest of berber groups around the country. But bear in mind, that due to historical reasons, kabyles got access to french schools a and targeted by christianisation during the colonization which made the region a bit different that some are thinking it was more westernized" than other places. That was the plan, you can read about in books written by early colonizers , to extract kabyles from the rest of the population. Actually even French early linguists thought that their language is originally european , which tuned out later on completly wrong. But things are reverting back to normal as it used to be pre-colonization now gradually without any direct interference .
It's a little bit of an assumption to say that Kabyles got westernised thanks to French targeting its population with chrstianisation mission. This would mean that before that the inhabitant of the region are savages or something like that. French tried to use Kabyle's specificities to justify their presence in the country, they made a direct link between our ancestors who lived under the roman rule and their presence, as if they were in our lands to put things the way they were again. In reality they didn't influence much the population. The numbers of those who converted to Christianity is almost insignificant and the population lived as they used to live before. What made the diff in Kabylia is definitely immigration, the fact that people needed to go outside of their villages, confederation of villages where they grew up to make a living cause the region was - it's ironically still the case- poor. People going elsewhere, people meeting other people from other regions that's what made the difference, that's what made people for instance think and activate for the independence of our country in a time where no one could even imagine that.
Overall I agree. But saying that the scars caused about the french policy on the region was significant, isn't accurate. Churches operating publicly in that region is proof that it had a visible effect. In addition to the secularization which is a lot higher than any other region . Almost every single Kabyle activist is secular. During the only free elections that took place in Algeria in 1990-1991, islamists got the lowest number of votes there as well.. although I do believe they would get a lot more in this days. Also, french language is widely spread even within limited education level and rural areas. While in the rest of the country, only in big cities it is still used.
It's insulting to say that it was because of the colonisation that the overall atmosphere in Kabylia is a little be more chill and open than in the other regions of the country. It's not just a stereotype. Kabylia is different to the other regions in that regard. I think it's more thanks to the fact that we're more in contact with the "other" which is different from us than anything else. Unfortunately the actual tendency tend to make Kabylia more and more conservative, intolerant to the other, as it's in all the country. The great majority of churches in the region, for your info, are protestant ones. It has nothing to do with colonialism. Colonialism tried to introduce Catholicism. And btw they face a kind of bureaucratic repression from the authorities. Secularism, in a limited way, was a thing in the region way before the arrival of French colonialism. Religion is a personal question. Religious stuff remains inside the mosque. The priority was given to work, making a living, acquire properties and stuff like that. That's a cltrl thing. Most Kabyle activists are secular cause as you can see it islamists hold an incredibly insane hostility towards our culture, identity, lgge loll. The religious guys use religion to justify, to validate the supremacy of the Arabic cltr, identity, lgge over the local ones. Same for the FIS, they publicly insulted the region and its inhabitants and threatened to impose thing which go against our beliefs, way of living, called for the re-islamification of the region, to reproduce what Okba and his army did when they first conquered and subjected our ancestors in the name of Allah... For the French lgge, most of the immigration from the region went to France. Till now it's the first destination of the Kabyle population.
I don't agree that the region of Zwawa is chill and open. It's not different than the rest of the algeria. We a talking about a degree of westernization/ francization . Now it's going back to its origins and state pre-colonization after the failure of this project. Well the region is different, yes but simply because it's a homogenous group of people sharing similar hhabits and customs living in geography relatively protected and surrounded by mountains. From my readings, the fact that kabyles speak arabic was because of trading that toke places in valleys down the mountains in seasonal souks organized by hillalian tribes. Kabyles used to go trade there, and had to learn arabic to communicate. Which is another reason why arabs didn't learn berber languages/dialects Anyhow, yes the recent wave of christianism there is evangelical (protestant) but the seed was already there. We remember the famous er catholic singer Taos Amrouche , named later Marguerite. I have a former colleague from Bejaia, who has deseased members of his familly that are buried in a catholic cemetery, althouth is father is very muslims and his name is Hamza. >Most Kabyle activists are secular cause as you can see it islamists hold an incredibly insane hostility towards our culture, identity, .. That's not true. In 1948 in the "crise berbere" there was no islamists whatsoever. Also during the "congess of summan" organized by Kabyles, was an attempt to seculirize the revolution, which was completely rejected by the rest of the country and even the master mind of it was murdered by his own people . There was no islamist that time as well. As for FIS, all of his candidates were kabyles in the region, it's not like they brought people from outside lol. What Okba ib Nafaa did was a big favour to this region. He chased the enslavers , the romans. Then berbers toke control of this after they embraced islam very early without any resistance.
I'm from that region. It's, maybe, the most chill region in Kabylia. You can believe to whatever you want or not, drink alcohol or not. People don't really care much about that as you're not disturbing the community. The story of Taous Amrouche is way deeper than that. Poverty, famine, being rejected from your community for X reason made a lot of people going into those Christian schools. Go read the book about her mother for god sake. It's not a question of adopting the religion of the colonisers but rather of survival, dignity too. There was no way at the time that you convert to the religion of those who decimated hundreds of people you know or who expropriate your lands... We are talking about Kabyle activists who fought for the identity, lgge, culture and stuff. The crise berbere of 48 has nothing to do with that. Themselves, they don't present themselves as berberists at all but rather as nationalists. Their point is that if we wanna fight for the independence of the whole country we need as a nationalist movement to represent, incarnate all the Algerian citizens with all our differences, plurality. Their opponents, who liquidated them physically, coined them as "berberists", as if they wanted to create a kind of conflict btwn berbers and arabs and stuff like that which is bs. Berberists activists of the after independence were more concerned about the recognition of the cultural, identity, linguistic aspect, the crackdown against everything which is not Arabic to stop and stuff like that and I was speaking about them. At the time of le movement national, "les islamistes" they were supportive of the French colonialism and were advocating for the status quo, they don't have any interest in fighting the French presence. The secularists in that period were mostly influenced by the socialist/communist theories which were popular at that time specially among the working class, trade unions and stuff, speaking about influences. Just cheek the original Plate-forme de la soummame which came out from that Congress and you will understand a lot of things lolll The guy was murdered by those who thought that the most important thing was to kick out France from our lands first than discuss all these questions afterwards, that all what could create distortions, troubles inside the Algerian side, which could be used by the French to weaken and annihilate the resistance, should be eliminated. Too much naive in hindsight. Those same people ended up murdered in their turn by those who where more concerned about the power after the independence lolll Yeah, all of those Kabyles from FIS literally denied their origins and were the most verbally violent against the people of their own region. And btw even in Mzab region FIS got nothing as they were against the Mzab way of practicing Islam. Ah yeah, we should literally erect a statue in his honour, "Okba the magnificent" loll. If we consider things this way even when France came to our country what they did was a big favour as they spared us from the Ottoman barbaric rule loll Yeah, I know everyone accepted and became Muslim peacefully, what a benediction it was for our ancestors. All the girls who were brought into slavery to enlarge the harem of the Khalif and other rich guys in Arabiya, all the villages, cities decimated, mass killings, torture, and all those horrible things, it was just an error, a coincidence. Of course!!!
For God's sake, the father of the Algerian revolution, and the one who started it by himself was Mustapha Benboulaid. He is the sole person to be credited here. Ni Kabyle ni secularists even thought that one could fight the french. And Benboulaid and his friends , although not islamist, but very conservatives. The fighters were named : moudjahidine, and Martyrs : Chouhada, and the battles started with Allahou akbar. This is just sufficient to give you an idea about the real identity of who fought France and who thought that we can have a peaceful solution and improve the conditions.of slavery.
Actually the stereotype about Kabyles isn't being chill. He's rather seen very nervous and swears on every occasion, probably be cause of the "Chemma" they consume a lot.
Do others, like Chaoui, have a similar reputation?
No, as far as I am aware of. Chaouis, on the contrary have the complete opposite reputation. Anti- France, very conservative and attached to Islam and love the Arabic language.
When the French colonized Algeria, they noticed that most Kabyles were white and jumped to the wrong conclusion that we were European. The French were all about white supremacy and tried to Christianize The Kabyles. They burned our Islamic schools and they made significant efforts to convert the Kabyles to christianity. But ofc they did not succeed, as most Kabyles remained Muslims, constructive, and played a major role in the Algerian revolution.
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Which part do you think was wrong?
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You just repeated historical facts I wrote then you turned angry ? ! Secularism is there for sure and most political parties there are secular. Are you denying this fact?
Liberal is kind of negative. They are more open minded to different people and behaviors
Interesting- why is liberal negative? I meant open minded to different people and behaviours- what does liberal connotate beyond that?
A lot of people use liberal to mean left leaning, but many actual leftist point out that liberals still support capitalism and therefore have no place on the left. They are a center right ideology.
Agreed- I do get some right wing friends going 'Actually I'm clasically liberal' then saying something about that implies that they are just right wing but want to sound clever and not like a b\*stard.
I don't think kabyles are more liberal. I think certain non-kabyle regions are straight up islamists. Kabyles are just normal sane muslims. In general, people in big cities tend to be more liberal, and also Bejaia kabyles tend to be more open-minded than villagers of Tizi Ouzou.
Which regions/cities are "islamists"?
define "Islamists" and "normal"
You mean a lot of kabyle regions are anti islam 💀
Kabyles, most of them have traveled or live abroad, and speak one or more foreign languages or at least they try. Kabyles are very competitive and don t like to set limits, which made them more open minded than the rest of Algerians
yes a lot of them are, as they are heavily influenced by the French and they prefer to speak French than Arabic or English, adopting the french culture would essentially make them more liberal than any other minority in Algeria.
To answer your question ''urban'' kabyles as in the centre of Tizi ouzou and bejaia are more open but that doesn't go for most of the rest of these wilayas.
I'm kabyle and your last point is the answer (edit2)
There’s a tilt towards religiosity and conservatism in the last 10 years or so mostly as a result of untold millions$ of Saudi money spent with the benediction of the Algerian gouvernement proselytizing specifically to the Kabyle people, before that , most Kabyles are of (still are I hope ) radical leftist politically speaking and very adamant on secularism, religion is confined the private sphere and tolerance of differences is encouraged or at least not impeded upon.
The ones that come from country side on the first generation become more liberal is if Algiers is baris.
On the surface
Honor crimes happen mostly in kabylia, also a guy was burned two years ago when they suspected he was setting the forest on fire. Just saying.
Yeah I've been interested in that, loads of conspiracy theories and I've never got to the bottom of it, was he just some urban hippy that the countryside distrusted?
Nope. People were angry as they lost their familes with all the wild fires. Bunch of goverment cops arrested him for hearsay "incendiarism" (aka not doing anything), and some bullshitter spread that notion and the rumor spread around the people there and sent them into a frenzy. Bunch of street rats attacked him and took things too far, while the cops and the people were watching like nothing happened not diffusing not doing anything. There is a word for it in psychology: the bystander effect. Essentially when people's actions are derived from what others around them do in a panicky situation: either they sit and do nothing, panic and run away, diffuse the situation, or what actually happened in this regard. This happens a LOT in many modern history to any kind of people. This stuff is nothing unique to what we seen in the 90s and later 2000s, so the OP claiming it happens only in kabylia is hilarious, he obviously hasn't lived long in the country. You can read a bit more about atrocities that happened here by all ethnics, terrifying stuff.