Casablanca- While biological racism today has relatively decreased compared to 100 years ago, other forms of discrimination have emerged. Simon Clarke uses the term “new racism” to refer to forms of discrimination that put excessive emphasis on cultural rather than biological differences.
In this sense, new racism includes any sort of discrimination against individuals or groups of people with dissimilar cultural practices or ways of life. This form of racism is what Clarke describes as “the exaggeration of [cultural] difference.” New racism, according to Clarke, “ignores the wealth of cultural and ethnic diversity,” while putting more weight on social “dichotomies.”
In new racism, the emphasis on cultural difference creates “an emotional boundary” between “them” and “us.” The exaggeration of ethnic difference is one manifestation of new racism. One repercussion of this, according to Martin Barker, is that it generates “a common sense that people from different cultural backgrounds cannot live together [and that] it is ‘natural’ for people to live with their ‘own kind’.” Any example of “ethnic mingling,” in which people with different ethnic identities successfully manage to live together, is deemed a social peculiarity.
Many Moroccans still consider the relationship between the two major ethnic groups in the Kingdom, Arabs and Amazigh, as characterized by discernable forms of cultural discrimination. Based on a report issued by Moroccan news portal Tamazgha.fr in 2003, the discrimination that Moroccan Amazigh are subjected to mainly comes in the form of “forced assimilation” into the culture of the Arabs.
One aspect of this forced assimilation is inherent in the process of Arabization that the Moroccan State carried out in the past so as to counter the dominance of colonial languages. According to the same report, the process of Arabization denied Amazigh the right to the expression and practice of a distinctive identity by granting more privileges to Moroccan Arabs, while Amazigh were forced to relinquish their cultural identity in order to access the same privileges.
Arabization, in this sense, oppressively forces Amazigh to learn and use Arabic in order to enjoy certain basic rights, such as the right to education. According to Tamazgha’s report, Arabization was one of the main reasons behind both the explicit and implicit discrimination that Amazigh in Morocco still undergo today.
The Arabization process seems to correspond to the process of “identity normalization” that Clarke refers to in his article. Clarke brings up Margaret Mead’s 1934 work to account for how an individual’s or a group’s “sense of cultural identity…is [sometimes] overwhelmed by the normalization of self by society.”
The identity that is mostly subject to normalization is that of the Amazigh, and the normalizing society is believed to be that of the Arabs. To get access to either public or private education, Amazigh are required to speak Arabic rather than one of their languages.
In addition to French, Arabic is the language of instruction in Morocco, and one factor behind the privilege it enjoys today is mainly due to the importance that it has been attached to the Arabization process. According to Clarke, this happens when “cultural identity is used to pathologize other cultures whilst reinforcing who we are.”
The linguistic normalization of Amazigh in education and the job market, for instance, accounts for the “pathologization” of the Berber identity in the Kingdom. The process of forced Arabization and the resistance it has received from many Amazigh is what creates binary oppositions in terms of identities.
Many types of discourses in Morocco seem to victimize Amazigh’s identity, which is mostly described as that of a less privileged ethnic group. Such victimizing discourse generates what Clarke describes as “stigmatized identities.” This stigmatization is clearly perceptible in a plethora of Moroccan jokes generated by Arabs on Amazigh and vice versa:
1. A joke about Amazigh: Fire erupts in a Berber man’s shop. He then beeps the firefighters to avoid wasting money calling them. The firefighters then send him a message that reads “weew weew” (the sound of a fire truck’s siren).
2. A joke about Arabs: An Arab enters a shop for household appliances. He likes a TV, and asks the shopkeeper about its price. The shopkeeper replies, “I don’t sell to Aroubis. The Arab then exits the shop, disguises himself as a businessman, and reenters the shop. He then asks the shopkeeper again, “How much is this TV?” The shopkeeper replies, “I don’t sell to Aroubis” The Arab furiously asks, “How do you know I’m Aroubi?” The shopkeeper replies, “That’s not a TV. That’s a microwave!”
These jokes are only two among many other popular jokes Arabs and Amazigh generate about each other in Morocco. The first joke about the Amazigh man highlights a recurrent stereotype that is held about Amazighs in Morocco: they are “stingy” people.
The second joke highlights a stereotype that is held about Arabs: Arab people are “A’roubis” (a derogatory term used to describe Arabs from the countryside as stupid). Both jokes encompass a clear degree of stigmatization of the other’s identity.
By emphasizing the other’s imperfections, differences are exaggerated and discrimination subsequently takes place. One dangerous repercussion of these stereotypes is that they are used with knowledge about the other.
For instance, Al Mokri Abou Zaid, a deputy of Morocco’s ruling Islamist Party, the PJD, told a joke about Amazighs during a scientific conference in Saudi Arabia. After telling his joke, Abou Zaid stated, “There are people in Morocco who are known for being acutely stingy, and they are from a specific ethnicity.”
Clearly, these stereotypes are sometimes referred to as factual knowledge of the “other.” According to Papademetriou Demetrios, they are also used to identify and define the “other” as very different, and thus as a source of discomfort and social anxiety.
The stigmatizing stereotypes generated about a certain ethnic group, such as the Amazighs, and the exaggerated emphasis on differences in public discourses mostly leads to what Clarke describes as “ethnic hatred…in which people come to hate each other as particular notions of self and identity are re-written in relation to Others.” This is what characterizes new racism, according to Clarke.
The two jokes cited above, for instance, are examples of how groups and individuals idealize their identities while stigmatizing the identities of others. According to Clarke, this leads to the construction of “ethnic boundaries,” which complicate interaction and cohabitation between the various ethnic groups that form each society.
Clarke’s article “Culture and Identity” is significant because it accounts for the sources of different forms of discrimination and racism in societies. The article explains how the most intense forms of discrimination and racism start with a simple emphasis on difference. This exaggeration of difference takes place during the process of identity construction.
The self is constructed not in relation to the other, but against it. This consequently leads to feelings of fear and anxiety that are sometimes translated into intolerance, racism, and discrimination.
An interesting way of viewing culture was highlighted by Stuart Hall in 1999; according to Hall, one should view and define cultural identity as “not just about being, but becoming.” When cultural identity is defined as an ongoing process, cultural interaction and mingling become possible, and the discrimination generated by fear of the other becomes a myth.
In the case of Amazigh and Arabs, the two ethnic identities tend to be referred to as opposed and fixed, with their own exclusive characteristics. Viewing the Arab and Berber identities as processes would eradicate the ethnic discrimination and hatred that are still perceptible in many aspects of Moroccan life.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Morocco World News’ editorial policy
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