Mohamed Chafik

MOHAMED CHAFIK

Mohamed Chafik was born on the 17th of September, 1926, at Ayt Sadden, in the region of Fès. A former pupil of Azru College, Mr. Chafik was one of the rare graduates of this college to opt for a civil career. After having obtained a history degree and one in school inspection, he was, around the time of Independence, a primary schools inspector in various Moroccan towns before becoming Regional Inspector in 1959 then General Inspector of Primary Schools in 1963. In 1967, he was promoted to Principal Inspector for History and Geography before being appointed, in 1970, Under-Secretary of State for Secondary, Technical and Higher Education, and for Managerial Training, a post which he retained in the Government formed in August 1971. Mr. Chafik also worked as Secretary of State to the Prime Minister from the 13^th of April to the 19^th of November of that same year. He was then appointed Head of Mission to the Royal Cabinet and Director of the Royal College. Mr. Chafik is a member of the Academy of the Kingdom of Morocco and has taught Arabic, French, History, Pedagogy and Pedagogical Psychology, in this way contributing to the training of several generations of teachers and inspectors. At present he is the Rector of the Royal Institute for Berber (Amazigh) Culture, which has recently been created in Rabat.

The distinguishing feature about Mohamed Chafik was his early realisation that Morocco had many different identities. His fight to have Morocco’s diversity recognised was waged in several ways. At the beginning of the sixties, he wrote a series of articles on the profound significance of Amazigh culture and its contribution to the struggle for national independence. (From Our Unknown Heritage, A Taxomony of Amazigh Songs and Dances, Afaq number 5, 1967, and From our Unknown Heritage, Poem of National Enthusiasm, Afaq number 6, 1967). Realising that his voice was very small compared to the all-encompassing Arab nationalism, he began singing the praises of a plural and tolerant Islam during the early seventies, perhaps in order to attenuate this intransigent tendency (Under-developed Thoughts, 1972, and What the Muezzin Says, 1974). However, the main school of thought only recognises Islam’s Arab ethnical dimension. As Islam was a religion originating in Arabia, it enabled other races to be "swallowed up" by the Arab world. Confronted by this blind stubbornness, the Amazighs, helped by the developing international human rights and cultural diversity movement, began to realise that their claim to a separate identity was part of these rights. Mohamed Chafik therefore threw all his efforts behind the quest for a separate identity in the fields of history and language. He made a shortened version of Amazigh general history available to young Amazighs, who had been deprived of such knowledge before. A Glimpse of Thirty-Three Centuries of Berber History, published in 1989, was intended to be a history book which would fill in the gaps left by foreign historians. He invited young Amazighs to sup, in the words of a High Atlas saying collected by J. Berque, at the tree of speech. M. Chafik soon added, in 1990, the first volume of a Arab-Berber Dictionary to the Amazigh library and soon afterwards, in 1991, Forty-Four Berber Lessons. Together with a group of other intellectuals, he founded the cultural magazine Tifawt.

Amongst the latest actions he has undertaken in the context of the so-called "democratic transition" he has presented The Amazigh Manifesto to the main Berber activists so as to breathe new life into their claims and give them a new collective text following the charter adopted in Agadir in 1991.

Berberworld.com
Translated from French by Wendy Ouali

Publications

What the Muezzin Says, Editions Connaître l’Islam, Casablanca, 1974
Glimpse of Thirty-Three Centuries of Berber History, Rabat, 1989 (in Arabic)
Forty-Four Berber Lessons, Rabat, 1991 (in Arabic)
Arab-Berber Dictionary in three volumes published by the Academy of the Kingdom of Morocco