North African governments are Arabist elites who only pretend to acknowledge us.

I also feel that complaining to the UN won't get us anywhere, because North African states are too powerful.

The worst part is that the majority of Imazighen have been Arabized, which complicates the issue. Sometimes I wonder if a minority can actually have influence and bring about change, or if it’s a lost cause.

In short, it feels like the odds are stacked against us; if anyone can reassure me, please do.

Tenmirt.

It makes me feel like we completely lose to the colonization

I wanted to put this out there to see if anyone else feels the same way, or if I'm completely alone in this.
On one hand, I have an immense amount of pride in my roots, my ethnicity, and our history as Riffian Amazighs. Our culture, resilience, and identity mean a lot to me.
However, on a personal level, I often really struggle to connect with our people day-to-day. I find myself deeply frustrated by prevailing social beliefs, traditional religious dogmas, and the heavy Arab-Middle Eastern cultural influence that has largely overshadowed or erased our indigenous Amazigh identity and way of thinking. Because of the general lack of open-minded discourse and intellectual stimulation in many of our circles, I find it hard to form deep friendships or date within our community. Instead, I naturally gravitate toward people from other regions or entirely different countries who share a more critical and open wavelength.
Does anyone else experience this duality? How do you balance being deeply proud of your heritage while feeling alienated by the current cultural and religious mentality of the community?

I Heard it's afriqi but some where else it's amfriqi

Hi everyone. I’m from Kasserine, Tunisia. After watching and reading some things about the Amazigh people, I started asking myself a lot of questions. Right now, I’m wondering whether I have the right to live in Tunisia and call it my home, my country, the homeland,... . because I honestly don’t know who I am. Am I Arab, Berber, Amazigh, or simply African?

My last name is Bellili, and researching its history has been very difficult because there are many similar family names, such as Belili and Blayli, which makes things even more complicated.

What I know is that I was born here in Tunisia, as were other members of my family, although I believe our family has only been here for a few generations. According to what my grandfather told me, his father was originally an Algerian Jew who later converted to Islam. He also fought during World War II and eventually ended up fighting alongside Tunisians during the struggle for national independence.

So, I’m trying to understand my family’s history and, more importantly, understand who I am. I don’t know whether I should identify as Arab, Amazigh, Berber, or simply Tunisian. I’m very curious about what being Amazigh really means and how people recognize each other as Amazigh or Arab. Like, how would you know that someone is Amazigh and someone else is Arab?

And thanks for your time

hey everyone i’ve been trying to discover more about my amazigh lineage even tho my mom keeps insisting that we are “arab.” Even tho my family identifies with the arab ideology i still have a firm belief that we got colonized and arabized that everyone here at least has at least some amazigh lineage in their blood but it’s a matter of fact of if the tribe or the population of people were forced by arabs and resisted or not. I strictly refuse the arabization that happened to our country but at the same time i really don’t know what to identify as since my family themselves wouldn’t think bout it.
So i wanted to ask who can consider themselves amazigh? Is it only strictly to the tribes? Or anyone who refuses the arabization? cause we all whether you come from an “arab” family or amazigh tribe we for sure have mixed blood cz we couldn’t help it.

So i knew some Kabyle girls aborad, and some Eatsern Moroccan girls (especially from Rif/ Beni Zenassen) and i noticed big similarity in looks like if they are from the same place

Both are really white light skin, with brunette hair, light brown eyes, tall, and attractive looks

To the point that if you don't know them you'll think they are sisters or from the same family

This is interesting to think about, because although the distance, isolation of these 2 Amazigh groups they are very similar in looks

We should be giving amazigh names more often to our children because they are really beautiful and need to be preserved, i have noticed that we often use arabic names for our children, im half kabyle half chenoui and my whole family has arabic names even though they are full ethnic amazighs i have met people in kabylie who bore amazigh names such as massinisa and numdia but not the same could be said about chenouis i have never met a chenoui with an amazigh name actually which makes me sad , no shade to arabic names but cultural names are part of our heritage.

For girls i really love the names, tiziri(moonlight) tanirt(angel), numidia (after the amazigh empire) , dihya , massilya (after the Massyles, a ruling amazigh Numidian dynasty)

For boys i really like massinisa( "Their lord"; the great Numidian king) ,aksil (Leopard; name of the resistance king Kusaila) ,amarouz and amayas (cheetah) and sifaks (numdian king)

And much much more they sound so sweet and their meaning is beautiful too, makes me devastated they are rarely used even by us.

Like genuinely is it a trend or are we back with the phrenology ???