Theatre group

Yabber....yabber

01.00.00.00

The man having the living daylights beaten out of him next door is a Berber ... a native of Morocco.

00.11

His assailant is an Arab .. his ancestors conquered the Berbers thirteen hundred years ago.

00.19

Their acting out an ancient conflict ... but there are those who'll tell you the argument between Berber and Arab has never changed.

Map

Music from market place

00.38

Market Place

Music/hubub

In Morocco, even the very name "Berber" is a controversial one.

00.55

For militants like Miriam, the word "Berber" is a term that sums up the contemptuous treatment of her people by conquerord as far back as the Romans.

Mirriam

The word "Berber" means "from the forest", it means "wild" - it is a word that comes from the Greek that the Romans used, a word that the French used, a word the Arabs used - but it is a word that does not exist in our language.  We are called Amazigh we are not called Berber.

01.15

So they're not Berbers - they're Amazirgh - and they make up at least 65 percent of the population.

01.45

Yet the Amazirgh learn Arabic at schools in which their language and history is never mentioned - and their King has Arab roots stretching back to the prophet Mohammed ...

They have a word for what's happening to them - they're being Arab - ized.

02.06

Mirriam on Arabisation

Yes that is why we are militant.  So that our language and culture doesn't disappear under the earth.

02.14

through chasm

Mirriam want's to take us to Amazirgh heartland - Imichil and the festival known as the Moussem des Fiancees - roughly translated, the marriage market.

02.21

Peter:  It is very beautiful here.

Mirriam speaks in back of car

Mirriam:  Not just here - it's very beautiful everywhere in Morocco.  But Amazirgh country's the best on earth.

Journey continues

But isolation has it's price.  Many Amazirgh live without running water or doctors or hospitals .... or even reliable roads.

02.53

Road closed sign

Road closed

03.04

We find the direct road through a mountain pass to Imichil has been washed out.

Map discussion - hadou and pg

Our driver, Hadou, reckons on at least 6 - hour detour round the mountains.....

Arrival at campsite

Tent put up

The extra hours mean we spend a night by the road.

03.25

Mirriam and pg walk to tent

It's a chance for mirriam to explain that while the Imichil marriage market has a long history - she believes it's nature is changing as the Government turns it into a tourist event.

Mirriam speaks in tent

What do we expect tomorrow - I don't know because now it's run by the authorities we are a little suspicious and wonder if it's still authentic.

03.42

Night time at campsite

Morning has broken like the first ......

The next morning, it's as if we've travelled back through the centuries.

04.00

A landscape so rugged, so isolated and inhospitable, it's a wonder to me that people live here at all.

Various of people on the move... donkeys.. people walking...trucks..bike... motorbike etc

Yet out of this apparent wasteland come the Amizirgh people.

It's as if the whole countryside is on the move....

Whatever transport the Amazirgh can find, they use to make their way to the town of Imichil.

04.27

Young woman walk through the valley

It's a time when the normally shy and cloistered young Amazirgh women find a measure of freedom unique in this part of the world - under their family's watchful eyes they'll have a chance to roam - and to meet and talk to potential husbands.

04.37

Gv's of camel market

05.10

Imichil is the last great market before the onslaught of winter three days for scattered Amazirgh tribes to meet before the snows set in.

Haggling over camels

Over the centuries something's have changed little.  The livestock market continues it's age old discussions - the haggling over camels and mules.

Mule man

But there are some new faces now it's one of the few times of the year when Amazirgh villagers run across Government officials....

05.33

Mirriam and pg nater with camel herders - official interrupts

And when the tribesmen tell us about their problems - such as drought and the falling price of camels, were interrupted.....

05.46

Gvt official

I'd noticed him following us maybe it was the dark glasses that gave him away - a Government official -  keeping an eye on them - and us....

05.58

Gvt official

Gvt official:  Thanks to Allah, The community here is looked after by the government.  God bless the King

Drummers in welcoming line for governor

Music

Governor arrives

This is the only time of the year when Government officials make their presence felt here ... the Governor's arrival is intended as a symbol of a powerful but remote, Arab - dominated Government in Rabat.

06.24

Governor watches show

Music

What was once simply an Amazirgh event has been turned into something  more - a celebration of national authority.

06.39

And in the process, ordinary Amazirgh find themselves increasingly excluded from their own festivities.

Girl with jeans

Snappers with girls            more women

Not only excluded - but turned into objects of curiosity ... as the Government - with an eye to the tourist dollar - gives free rein to a growing number of tourists and journalists.....

06.55

Keohane takes photos...spks in v/o

Keohane:  We kind of invade the place and the local people who want to get on with their moussem and not have us around are kind of overwhelmed.

07.10

The increasing commercialism of the festival has been watched by British photographer Alan Keohane in the dozen years he's been coming here.

07.22

Keohane:  The government want to have people nicely dressed...traditional costumes...to pose for the photographers, and the photographers are desperate to get those kinds of photographs...but at the same time it's incredibly shameful for nice girls to pose for photographers - for them almost a form of pornography.  You see you have this contradiction.... conflict of interests...

07.30

PG:  So why are they here then?

07.55

AK: They're here because they've been asked to come here, and to an extent it's an honour but also they haven't got a great deal of choice.

Tarzan's act

Attempts to broaden the Moussem's appeal can border on the bizarre.....

08.15

Mirriam objects to outsiders like Tarzan here are turning the moussem into a carnival side-show.

Mirriam speaks in market

Mirriam:  He is not from here he is from Tarza very far away it's a region not at all like Amazirgh.

08.34

Market cutaways

What angers Mirriam is that while her people are being written out of the nation's history books - their traditions are being stage - managed for tourist dollars.

Mirriam:  What has annoyed me most is these city girls dressed up as local girls.  That's too much to take photo's as souvenirs.  It's similar to the Indians in America with their feathers.

08.56

Governor leaves....cops shoo away camera

Having put in an appearance for a couple of hours, the Governor leaves- unable to spare time to talk about sensitive Amazirgh issues...but Mirriam has found like-minded militants who are driven to discuss exactly those issues....

09.18

Mirriam and friends in tent

Mirriam:  We have been here for 33 centuries - how come we have no history?  We have it but it's hidden.  We have to rewrite our history.  Because they have stolen it.

09.37

There was just a small paragraph in the history books - cut out- even this small paragraph - they have cut it out.

Zaid showing Mirriams t-shirt

Zaid recognised Mirriam as a kindred spirit from the t-shirt she's wearing....it's Amazirgh lettering, a symbol of militancy - and regarded as subversive by the government.

10.08

Zaid continues in sync

Zaid:  I had the same thing that I put on the back of my car I drive around with it.

Mirriam:  And what happened?

Zaid:   In the end the authorities took it off.

Mirriam:  We can not go around with it.

Tent scene contd

Mirriam and her friends are militants - not revolutionaries - but there's no way to pursue their cause through the ballot box in Morocco, no political means to express their passions....

10.34

Children only speak Amazirgh  it is not taught at school so how do you expect a little boy before going into pre-school to learn another language while he has his own language.

Mirriam:  The militantism here is quite necessary.

Market place

Market place girls and boys

While insiders argue the politics and outsiders soak up the atmosphere, there is still traditional business afoot... the matter of love and marriage.

11.08

Young women have a say in who they marry..... and they can demand a divorce and later re-marry - all without social stigma.

Blonde tourist                    photographer maybe

It's the romance, of course, that attracts the tourists...but Mirriam rejects the portrayal of the Moussem as some sort of North African lovefest.

11.35

Mirriam sync

Mirriam:  They just use this opportunity to come and get the paper work done (only) it is not a situation where people come to buy a wife like they buy a cow.

11.42

Inside marriage tent  shy and embarrassed women

Officials in turbans stamping papers

Amazirgh women are by upbringing timid in public .... so one can only speculate on their thoughts on this, their official, Government-approved wedding day.

12.03

Photographers scrum

What should be a dignified, joyous event, becomes a publicity zoo.

12.19

Keohane

Alan:  I think they're all dying of shame and embarrassment-must be horrible......nice to be a spectator - but real people who want to come and see it are family and friends and they're all stuck behind barriers and because we've got press cards etc we get access to it.

12.25

Press contd and women

The press, unfortunately - with encouragement from the tourist authorities - sells story's built on extraordinary myths about Imichil - I've read you can a bride for a mere three bags of sugar.

12.49

Such distortions outrage Mirriam and her friends.

13.02

Zaid in car

Zaid:  Berber society tends to be a matriarchal society women who command at home like Tuareg society its typical Berber society.  How can you imagine that Berbers could sell women.  Have you seen any women put on sale here.

Driving through towns

Zaid wants to strip away the myths - and take us to a nearby village to meet one of today's bridegrooms - and to better understand Amazirgh problems.

13.20

There is a school here but few children go to school for one reason the teacher comes from an Arab speaking area and when he comes here he cannot communicate with the people here.  They need an interpreter between the teacher and the children.

13.33

Arrival in town - with kids                                   Kids shows us his writing

It seems only one in five children here go to school at all.....those who do learn to read and write in Arabic and - because of Morocco's colonial history - in French....but they learn about their own identity, they'll do so in their own home.

14.02

Pg and mob walk through with bridegroom into courtyard

When we meet the bridegroom, he takes us to his village house.

14.22

In courtyard

Girl leave house                Mother comes out and rouses                                Takes animals away

Hussein bride is to bashful to meet strangers...his mother, by contrast, is simply annoyed - put out more by us filming the state of her courtyard and animals than by our unexpected arrival.

Zaid

Zaid:  She says you can film the humans but not the animals (laughs).

14.45

Interior Hussein's house drinking tea

Like all Amazirgh, Hussein's real wedding will actually take place in the village - but he had to go to the marriage festival because it's the only time of the year to get the obligatory Government marriage certificate.

14.55

Hussein in house talking

Far from buying his bride, Hussein says he'll give her 200-hard-earned dollars for her wedding gift - but he's annoyed at forking out another 30 dollars for a certificate that's meaningless in Amazirgh society.... and he can't read it anyway.

15.14

Man chats up woman

With Government officials gone, the local tribes regain possession of their festival.

15.49

Guys in tent                      Cooking scene

Musos and Japanese tourists

The tourist's remain, of course, to enjoy the ambience.

Street vendor in lighted tent

And the trinket sellers?  Well, they're city folk, here to turn a buck.

16.05

Distant music over street

Music

Arab music inside tent

And when we stop into a tent to while away the evening... we find out it's not Amazirgh music at all ....they're an Arab group invited by the Government to perform at his Amazirgh festival.

Music

Music contd

Night timedriving through village

Tent

Later,  I ask Mirriam if she has been saddened by what she saw at Imichil.

16.30

Mirriam in tent

Mirriam:  Yes, once we were 99 percent of the people here...now we are 70 percent.  Tomorrow  60......50......40....30.  Just like the Indians of America.

Exterior tent

Morning

Foreign 4x4s departing

In the morning, the tourists leave with their trinkets and their memories.

16.54

The Amazirgh go home, too....Home to the mountains to wait for the long cold winter ahead.

17.01

END