By M. Boutegrabet

(Kabylia)– It is a disturbing fact in our political landscape: in the pro-Algerian colonial regime’s media and pro-regime social networks. Today, those who  suddenly assign a vocation to preach “national unity” are often the same ones who have never found a word, a single one, for the dramas that have deeply hit Kabylian history.

Where were they when Kabylian political prisoners languished in the prisons of the regime, without a  fair trial. Sometimes tortured, sometimes raped, sometimes pushed into exile? Where were they when, in 2001, young Kabylians were shot by explosive bullets, fired by the Algerian gendarmerie?  Still, where were they when, in 2021 and 2023, innocent people were burned alive in the chilling indifference of the institutions?

Their persistent silence is not an oversight. It’s a  deliberate choice.

They chose  to not mention the 500 Kabylians of  FFS activists murdered in 1963 by Houari  Boumediene and President Ahmed Ben Bella.

They chose  to ignore the political assassination of Abane Ramdane by Boussouf and his allies.

They chose  to ignore the assassination of Krim Belkacem: the Evian’s accords leader  and liberator of Algeria, eliminated by a  regime who seized forcibly power, then buried far away from his land and people.

And what about Colonel Amirouche Aït Hamouda, whose  body’s remains were even sequestered in a cellar of the Algerian colonial gendarmerie by decision of H.  Boumediene, from 1962 until the 1980s?

What greater proof of historical contempt is still needed?

The choice to forget the bullets of the Kalashnikovs who targeted Matoub Lounès several times, ended by killing him.

The choice to never mention the prohibition of Mouloud Mammeri to teach and transmit Kabylian and Amazigh culture.

The choice to silence Massin Uharun and so many other Kabylian voices that stood up for their rights.

And above all, the choice to never recognize  the Kabylian language, it is still marginalized today, absent from official documents, ignored in the administration, confined to the ditches as if it were not one of the historical pillars of this people and his identity.

Kabylian history is marked by forced exiles, from the departure of Slimane Azem to the thousands of young people pushed out today of their land because of political, social or security pressure.

Confronted with these facts, some continue to lecture us on a “national unity”, which they have never defended on the ground, in court or in memory.

Unity doesn’t have to be decreed.
It must be deserved, and it often requires courage, truth and moral coherence.

As long as some continue to speak of unity while refusing to look at the dramas of the past and present, their narrative will be only a facade — an artifice intended to mask the essentials: their inability to recognize the suffering, dignity and fundamental rights of the Kabylian people.

Furthermore, there is also the historical truth: Kabylia was independent, structured, organized and sovereign a long time before the creation of Algeria by French colonialism. It lost its  independence only by force, during the Battle of Icheriden, on June 24th, 1857. This historical event obliges us and confirms the legitimate independence of Kabylia. 

My tribute to Fadma n’Soumer, eternal symbol of resistance and lucidity.

Kabylia  above all.
We want to live free, dignified and prosperous, fully ourselves, tolerant, democratic, and proud of our Kabylian  identity.