Berberism
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Berberism or Amazighism is a Berber political-cultural movement of ethnic, geographic, or cultural nationalism, started mainly in Kabylia (Algeria) and in Morocco, later spreading to the rest of the Berber communities in the Maghreb region of North Africa. A Berber group, the Tuaregs, have been in rebellion against Mali since 2012, and established a temporarily de facto independent state called Azawad, which identified itself as Berber.
The Berberist movement in Algeria and Morocco is in opposition to cultural Arabization and the pan-Arabist political ideology. In Azawad (northern Mali), the Tuareg-Berberist movement is also secularist and is in opposition to both Arabism and perceived discrimination against nomadic Tuaregs by other Malian groups and the government.