The Amazigh – or Berber – New Year is celebrated on January 13.
The Amazigh – or Berber – New Year has become a public holiday in Morocco, the country’s king said, in the latest recognition of the indigenous group who have campaigned for years to have their calendar recognised.
King Mohammed VI “decided to declare Berber New Year’s Day an official paid national holiday,” the royal court said in a statement Wednesday.
The Amazigh New Year is celebrated on January 13. The first day of the year in the Amazigh calendar, rooted in seasons and agriculture, marks the anniversary of Libyan king Sheshonq’s ascent to the throne of Egypt, according to historians.
The day is also celebrated by Arabic-speaking Moroccans who call it the start of the agricultural year.
Berbers inhabit an area that covers most of North Africa, with large populations in Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, and western Egypt. But Berber tribes and ethnic groups are also found in the south of Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso. The word Tamazight refers to the spectrum of related dialects spoken by the Berbers.
Morocco, home to North Africa’s largest Amazigh or Berber population, has long marginalized Berber language and culture in favor of Arabic and French, giving rise to an Amazigh identity movement that has steadily gained influence.
The demands of the Amazigh movement were prominent in the 2011 protests, which led to Morocco adopting a new constitution and the Moroccan monarch handing over some of his power to an elected government.
The decision to recognize the Berber New Year comes after Moroccan lawmakers confirmed the official status of the Berber language in 2019, eight years after it was provisionally recognized in a new constitution.
Morocco was the first Amazigh country to officially recognize its ancestral language, although activists deplore a lack of proper inclusion of the language in schools and administration.
The government has increased the 2023 budget to support the Amazigh language by 50 percent this year to 300 million dirhams ($30 million), and pledged to hire hundreds of official clerks for the language in public services.
Since 2010, a Moroccan public television channel is dedicated to the promotion of Berber culture.