This child learns the language of a once oppressed community, in a classroom in Zuwara, an Amazigh (or Berber) town in northwestern Libya, near the border with Tunisia.

And the other students of CM2 follow one another on the board, under the demanding but benevolent gaze of the young teacher, in black dress and gray veil.

"The children love this subject because they find their identity and culture," says Assirem Chouachi, the Tamazight teacher. "It's not just about the alphabet and vocabulary, but it's a cultural whole that is passed on to them," she says as the children go to recess.

120 kilometers from the capital Tripoli, the flag, symbol and alphabet of the Amazigh stand proudly in Zuwara, as elsewhere in Libya, since the death, in the midst of the 2011 revolution, of Muammar Gaddafi.

During the four decades of his dictatorship, the Amazigh were condemned to clandestine orality, being able to speak their language only at home or in the street, but always away from the ears of the police, the administration or the media.

For Gaddafi, Libya was exclusively Arab. The approximately 10% of Amazigh Libyans are part of the large indigenous population of all North Africa, present well before the Greek, Roman and Arab conquests in the seventh century.

"Natural law"

In a country divided into rival camps vying for power, the UN-recognized government is keen to spare the Amazigh community and now provides Tamazight textbooks, but does not make the language official.

For the youngest students, who did not experience life under Gaddafi, "it is just a natural right to learn their mother tongue and they do not imagine that anyone can forbid them," observes Assirem Chouachi, herself from the first Libyan class of Tamazight license, issued last year by the University of Zuwara.

A Libyan student studies the Tamazight language at a school in Zuwara, near the border with Tunisia on March 21, 2023 © Mahmud Turkia / AFP

If she hopes for even more recognition, the teacher is delighted with the "enormous progress already made in just ten years". "We ourselves are surprised," says the teacher who, after the revolution, immediately bought Tamazight textbooks published in Morocco.

In Zuwara, the first classes were given in 2012, with "difficult beginnings" due to a lack of trained teachers and uncertainties around the program to follow, recalls director Sondoss Saki, after ensuring order in the playground.

It was even necessary to convince parents of students who feared language overload, judging Arabic and English as priority for studies.

"But the children come to learn and their minds are wide open to knowledge," the director said confidently, with the Libyan and Amazigh flags enthroned side by side on her desk.

"Moving forward"

After finishing his classes, Assirem Chaouachi went to the small studio of Kasas FM, the first local radio station in the Tamazight language. While a Berber-speaking national station was recently launched from the capital Tripoli, Kasas FM has been broadcasting since 2012.

Also a radio presenter, Assirem Chaouachi discusses with Ismaïl Aboudib, the director of programs, the next episodes of his show devoted to Amazigh literature.

In a white shirt and grey blazer, the 28-year-old, who is also an architect, has also made it his "duty" to defend the "rights" of his community.

A Libyan teacher with her students during a Tamazight class at a school in Zuwara near the border with Tunisia, March 21, 2023 © Mahmud Turkia / AFP

And Kasas FM is one of the ways to "meet the expectations" of the inhabitants of Zuwara, he says, after making some adjustments to the small mixer.

Society, culture, religion, entertainment, sport: the radio addresses "all the subjects that interest listeners in the language they know best," he says, behind his large glasses with transparent borders.

For him, "respecting one's language and being proud of one's identity" does not prevent "living with other communities". On the contrary, these new rights allow "to move forward together without being haunted by the times of persecution".

"The whole world is made up of diversity," he says. "And it is also the right of all Libyans to live in this harmony."

© 2023 AFP