Moroccan Activists Push for Amazigh New Year as National Holiday

Through a memorandum, the collective wishes that the Amazigh New Year be added to the list of public holidays, in accordance with Decree No. 2.77.169 of February 29, 1977, which has undergone several changes, the latest of which dates back to 2000. Moreover, the celebration of the Amazigh New Year in Morocco on January 13 of each year has become a popular celebration throughout the country. Thus, "there is no justification to continue to ignore the demand to make the celebration of the Amazigh New Year’s Day official in light of the strong involvement of elected institutions and territorial actors in the celebration of this event and its financing," reads the document.

Continuing its argument, the collective referred to the royal speech of 2001 in Ajdir and the official recognition of the Amazigh culture in the constitutional text of 2011. It did not fail to mention the promulgation in September 2019 of the organic law, marking the stages of the implementation of the official character of the Amazigh language and the modalities of its insertion in education and in various priority sectors of public life.

The Amazigh calendar represents the anniversary date of the enthronement of the Amazigh King Chichnaq in Pharaonic Egypt and also the celebration of agriculture and the gifts of the earth, the collective recalled.