#theafroarabcorner

[theafroarab]

“Culture is not just a legacy inherited, it is also a vision that is accepted.”

- Mouloud Mammeri (Kabyle writer, anthropologist and linguist).

The meaning behind the colors are as follows:

Blue (amidad) represents the Mediterranean Sea, whose shores have been occupied by the Imazighen (plural form of “Amazigh” referring to the Berber people) for millenaries.

Green (azegzaw) represents the green land of North Africa, which has been cultivated by the Imazighen since the Prehistoric times.

Yellow (awragh) represents the Desert, primarily. However, we also like to describe it as the color of joy and gold.

Finally, the ⵣ (ezza) letter is situated at the center of the word Amazigh. The latter means "free man". WE ARE THE FREE PEOPLE. 

[theafroarab]

I am a flow. I follow along. my life is fueled with flowy feelings.

[theafroarab]

Who am I?

I was always expected to choose a sphere to fit in. I was taught and lured to fit in. I was confused but obliged to fit in. I learned how to fit in. I submitted to their sphere. The one that they have drafted and designed for themselves. As if humanity was presumed to fit in. I am who I am and I create my own sphere.

[theafroarab]

Each Berber has two oxen, a donkey and a rifle. In case of distress, he sells an ox. Struck by a second setback, he sells the other ox, then his donkey. But he never sells his rifle.

Berber proverb

[theafroarab]

NEW ERA

From the 20th century, we have been indoctrinated and blinded to believe the form and carelessly neglect the content of our reality. The Utopian vision of post-independence Arab nationalist leaders negated audaciously the marginalization and impoverishment of black communities. We have been silenced and censored on our own misery. We have been reminded ceaselessly that we are nothing but second-class citizens. Our history, past, traditions and customs have been eradicated. We have been forced to internalize a present that does not belong to us. They manufactured it in various shapes and forms to orchestrate us. They made us live in a Freudian state of denial. 

Henceforth, we refute what have been preselected for us. Afro-Arab people accept what Afro-Arab people decide. 

[theafroarab]

Some people may say:

“Black and Arab are not mutually exclusive”

I would say: 

“Growing up as a Black-Arab, I never felt distinctly included”

[theafroarab]

The 25th March was,  as usual,  commemorated as  the day  Britain officially abolished its Slave Trade in 1807. But how many recall that Arab slavers were the first, and last, in modern times to ship millions of Africans out of the continent as slaves? And that Arab slavers preferred more African women to men?

George Pavlu