By Amira Howeidy Thousands of Algerians mourned on Sunday the death of Algerian Berber singer Matoub Lounes. But the funeral, held three days after his assassination in an ambush by unidentified gunmen, soon turned into a political rally, as mourners denounced both Islamist terrorism and the government's decision to implement standard Arabic as the country's only official language starting on 5 July. Signs such as "No peace without tamazight" (the Berber language), and "Zeroual, murderer", displayed prominently at the funeral, left no doubt as to feelings among the people of the province. Berber opposition to what they see as linguistic imperialism is deep-rooted and highly militant. While the Algerian security forces immediately accused the Armed Islamic Groups (GIA) of Matoub's murder, most Berbers hold the government responsible for his death, which they see as a warning shot across the bows of a region that has always rejected the authority of central government. Matoub was not only a vigorous critic of Islamist extremism, but also an outspoken proponent of Berber cultural autonomy within a federal state. On Tuesday, the GIA issued a statement claiming responsibility for the murder, describing Matoub as "the enemy of God". "The second zone of the GIA claims responsibility for Matoub's assassination last Thursday." The statement was signed in the name of GIA dissident leader Hassan Hattab. Already before Matoub's assassination, there had been widespread speculation that the government would postpone the implementation of the Arabisation Law. However, observers interviewed by Al-Ahram Weekly argued that Zeroual's regime cannot afford to withdraw the disputed law, even in the face of widespread popular pressure. The Arabisation Law, first promulgated in 1992, was the brainchild of the late Algerian President Chadli Benjedid. But it was not implemented and repeated attempts to revive it never came to anything. However, President Limain Zeroual pledged to apply the law during his election campaign in 1996. By the end of the year, the National Transitional Council (temporary parliament) had voted for the implementation of the law and set 5 July 1998 -- the anniversary of Algerian independence from France -- as the final deadline for all governmental and non-governmental organisations, institutions and authorities to comply and substitute Arabic for French in all their official proceedings. Since independence in 1962, French has been the official language of Algeria. But as the deadline approaches, the situation continues to worsen in the country. "We are now sorting out our differences by violence. This is a very dangerous sign," Moheideen Amimour, an Algerian intellectual, told the Weekly. The murder of Matoub a few days ahead of the Arabisation deadline triggered massive riots in the streets of his home city Tizi Ouzou and in other towns throughout the Berber province of Kabylie. Public buildings were wrecked by protesters and notices written in the Arabic language were torn down. By Monday, five people had died at the hands of the security forces. The government has been faced with mounting pressure from both the French-language press and the Berber-dominated political parties, the Rally for Culture and Democracy (RCD) and the Front for Socialist Forces (FFS), to postpone the application of the Arabisation measures. On Sunday, a general strike called by the Berber Cultural Movement (MCB), a cultural organisation with strong and widespread grassroots support, was almost universally respected in Berber regions of the country. Challenging the government, officials in the FFS boldly declared that they would be "honoured" to be the first to violate this "unjust" law. The MCB and others have long pressured the government to recognise tamazight, the Berber dialect spoken in Kabylie, as an official language alongside Arabic, as a first step towards full cultural autonomy for the Berber peoples. Yet the government has never paid more than lip service to these demands. Attempts to build a broader coalition in support of them have been continually frustrated by the fact that the Berbers are generally viewed by Arabic-speaking Algerians as Francophones and sympathisers with the former colonial power. In an interview with Al-Ahram Weekly, Algerian novelist El-Taher Wattar declared that since the army cancelled the 1992 elections the crux of the crisis has been "the Algerian identity". "When they [the military-backed government] scrapped the elections back then, they said they wanted to prevent the establishment of a fundamentalist, backward Islamic Caliphate that would take us back to the Middle Ages, and so on. This time round, the [same people] are telling us Algeria is not ready to speak Arabic, and that we will witness even more violence [if we try], so it is safer to delay the law." The "real" reason behind all this, argued Wattar, "is to maintain the Francophone identity, which, in practice, is synonymous with French occupation."
