Beyond the Arab Narrative

Echoes in the Dust: Moroccan Archaeology Unearths a More Inclusive Curriculum

In a town somewhere in the Atlas Mountains in Morocco, a student walked to school on a breezy morning. Along the way, she let her thoughts roam as children often do, recklessly and for no specific reason, before she suddenly got an amusing infatuation with her name, Tanirt. She wondered where it came from, and who held it before her, and soon her thoughts went even further as she became convinced the answer lies definitely in her history book, at the school where she was headed.

In the classroom, Tanirt found herself estranged, reading through her textbooks, her amusement slowly faded to disappointment as she flipped through the pages, wondering, where is her name?

To understand Tanirt’s quest for her name, one must first comprehend the nature of the cultural landscape in Morocco. Tanirt represents a member of the indigenous people of North Africa known as the Amazigh. They are also referred to as Berbers, though the term is often considered pejorative. In Morocco, the Amazigh make up around 40% of the population, speaking various Tamazight dialects. Yet despite its ubiquitous presence in Morocco, it was not until 2011 that Tamazight got the constitution’s recognition as an official language, alongside Arabic (Maddy-Weitzman, 2012).

This article is concerned with the longstanding debate about the inclusion of Amazigh as a crucial element of Moroccan identity. The essence of this debate stems from the fact that a new narrative that extends the Moroccan history and identity to contain the Amazigh competes against the already established, and prevalent narrative, which relates the statehood of Morocco to the conquest of Islam and exclusively to Arab culture. Thus, neglecting any cultures that existed hitherto.

The tension that results from this political debate manifests in different aspects of public life, including education. The emphasis of Morocco’s connections to the Arab and Islamic world, at the cost of its indigenous Amazigh roots, is reflected in teaching curricula. For example in the common core history textbooks, the kingdom’s history is taught in a lineup of lessons that starts with the Arab/Islamic conquest and continues forward in time. Omitting the history prior to the conquest.

Curriculums are decisive to individual and collective identity construction, as school history teaching can be used as a “cultural device” in the service of constructing national identities (Carretero & Kriger, 2011). Schools provide not only basic education in various scientific and linguistic subjects, it is also a space where children learn about cultural norms, values and social visions. It therefore contributes to the transmission of official narratives laying the basis for the forging of national identity.

The discussion has been ignited once again in the wake of recent archaeological discoveries in Morocco. Archaeologists continue to uncover the depth of the history of Morocco and the indigenous Amazigh. Thus, asserting the key role of Morocco and its native people as an independent entity throughout history, with a distinctive North African character. These new findings are nurturing a rethinking of Morocco’s history that is, however, not reflected in the current curricula. This leads to a serious gap between the scientific evidence of Amazigh history in Morocco and the teachings of the Kingdom’s history classes.

The Amazigh in the Moroccan Curricula

Currently, only 2% of Moroccan high school history curricula address topics related to Amazigh history and identity. They regularly include only one lesson on the topic of “Amazigh Kingdoms” out of 35 history lessons (ounghir, 2025). This percentage is utterly unrepresentative of the Amazigh in Moroccan society today; contradicting the diverse society and the multifaceted identity described in the constitution (Kingdom of Morocco, 2011).

The pre-Islamic history of Morocco is almost entirely wiped out from the history curriculum. Stressing that history began with the arrival of Islam and the foundation of the Idrissi Sharifian dynasty, current curricula present Amazighs as “long-lost cousins” of Arabs, linking their origins to Yemen, and even claiming that Islam had liberated them from their primitive state (Maddy-Weitzman, 2012).

Unearthing a new narrative

While Morocco’s indigenous past is largely overlooked in the educational curricula, archaeological research increasingly reveals its significance. The recent archaeological breakthrough in Oued Beht, Morocco, puts the spotlight on the prehistoric era in the southern region of the Mediterranean. While previously thought to be lacking any major prehistoric activity, incidentally as depicted in the curricula, Morocco, along with the rest of the North African region, is no longer viewed as a terra nullius; on the contrary, it is now accorded a substantial role in the development of the whole Mediterranean (University of Cambridge, 2024).

Broodbank et al. (2024) uncovers a farming society dating back to 3400–2900 BC, hailing it as the earliest and largest agricultural complex found in Africa outside the Nile Valley. In other words, this area was not a peripheral zone, but a dynamic part of the prehistoric Mediterranean world; “Oued Beht now affirms the central role of the Maghreb in the emergence of both Mediterranean and wider African societies.”, express the authors of the study (University of Cambridge, 2024).
 

Digging deeper, further archaeological research in north-west Morocco have revealed, via excavations at the site known as “Kach Kouch” near Oued Laou Valley; a full-fledged settlement with “cultural and economic practices (farming, herding, building and material culture” that spawned a time period between 1300 BC and 600 BC (Benattia et al., 2025).

Kach Kouch not only adds proof to the local native activity in the Bronze Age, but also, and most importantly, draws a more accurate and comprehensive picture of the prehistoric era in Morocco. Instead of relating any cultural achievement to civilizations that arrived later, now it is revealed that indigenous societies were active, influencing as much as being influenced, independent yet connected. All of which predates the Islamic/Arab existence in Morocco.

These discoveries connect to the Amazigh representation discussion by providing sound evidence of the existence of native societies long before the Arab tribes' arrival. These societies were thriving, cultivating the lands of Morocco and the northern Mediterranean coast, and were probably in contact and trading with other societies. This means that there is a largely ignored history in Morocco.

What makes this newfound knowledge crucial to the Amazigh identity debate is that it challenges the narrative that cultural development in Morocco has primarily been introduced through external influences. Instead, they suggest “a complex history of negotiations, involving resistance, assimilation and hybridisation of new cultural practices among local North African communities” (Benattia et al., 2025). As transformative these findings proved for Moroccan prehistoric history, their influence on national history curricula remains startlingly minimal.

The absence of this key historical period reflects an exclusion of the indigenous people. More importantly, it promotes an inaccurate narration of historical events, which affects people's sense of identity (Ounghir, 2025). The fact that the Amazigh make up for almost half of the Moroccan society, demands that the inclusion of such a significant component in school curricula needs to be addressed.

Towards an inclusive curriculum

Throughout the twelve years of formal education, Tanirt would search for traces of her Amazigh heritage; digging into the curriculum, through various subjects and textbooks, yet, unlike the archaeologist in Kach Kouch, she would turn empty-handed. This embodies the discrepancy between the reality of Amazigh history as evidenced by the archaeological findings, and as depicted in Moroccan education.

The current curriculum comes short of representing the Amazigh, who are deeply tied to these ancient societies, reducing their history to a few mentions here and there, as nomads or primitive barbarians, devoid of any culture except that bestowed on them by foreign civilizations.

This marginalization is not coincidental, but rather a consequence of Morocco’s Arabization policies, which were adopted as a state-building strategy in the aftermath of Morocco’s independence. The state embraced Arabization to build a unified national identity, subsuming Amazigh and minority cultures. Declaring “Arabic the sole official language, Islam the state religion, and the Arabization of education and public life a top priority” (Maddy-Weitzman, 2012).

This view constitutes the other side of the debate regarding Amazigh representation in the Moroccan identity.

It is important, then, to note that the issue goes beyond acknowledging the Amazigh as a component of national identity. Whether the Amazigh are a central or a peripheral element to this identity debate is the subtle problem that is equally disputed.

Decades of Arabization policies have indeed created a narrative that assumes an Arab-Islamic national identity, and consequently views any equal acknowledgement of native cultures as a threat to this traditional, established perspective.

This view might have been justified if Moroccan history indeed began in the seventh century, however, the pre-Arab history is distinctly vibrant and diverse. This is particularly what archaeologists’ fieldwork is proving. Studies and excavations at different sites in Morocco continue to display the richness of Amazigh culture and history in full length.

For this reason, propagating a unified Moroccan identity runs the risk of neglecting the fundamental role of the indigenous culture.

Ultimately, seeing how schools are pivotal to identity construction, correcting this narrative ought to start with bringing educational curricula to include a version of history that is as culturally diverse and complex as current scientific findings reflect. Initiating a radical change in the way Amazigh history is perceived across the curriculum. Teaching a history that aligns with archaeological evidence .Which is what Amazigh activists are advocating for, such as Youssef Bokbot, the scientist who supervised the research at Oued Beht and Oued Laou, who urged for a curriculum reform, appearing on a youtube podcast (Moulay Mahdy KATIF, 2025).

Tanirt will know her name, what it meant and stood for. In the end, the answers Tanirt would find in the history textbook would rather guide her to ask even more questions, and perhaps, being exposed to the complex, multilayered history of her nation, would help her develop a better, nuanced understanding of her Moroccan identity.

This publication is part of the Youth Task Force Analysts series. In this programme, we give young Moroccan researchers and civil society activists a plattform to share their opinions and insights on current matters in Moroccan politics, economy and culture.

References

Benattia, H., Bokbot, Y., Onrubia-Pintado, J., Benerradi, M., Bougariane, B., Bouhamidi, B., … Broodbank, C. (2025). Rethinking late prehistoric Mediterranean Africa: architecture, farming and materiality at Kach Kouch, Morocco. Antiquity, 99(404), 354–374. doi:10.15184/aqy.2025.10

Broodbank, C., Lucarini, G., Bokbot, Y., Benattia, H., Bigoulimen, A., Farr, L., … Wilkinson, T. (2024). Oued Beht, Morocco: a complex early farming society in north-west Africa and its implications for western Mediterranean interaction during later prehistory. Antiquity, 98(401), 1199–1218. doi:10.15184/aqy.2024.101

Carretero, M., & Kriger, M. (2011). Historical representations and conflicts about indigenous people as national identities. Culture & Psychology, 17(2), 177-195. https://doi.org/10.1177/1354067X11398311

Kingdom of Morocco. (2011). Constitution of the Kingdom of Morocco. Constitute Project. Retrieved from https://www.constituteproject.org/constitution/Morocco_2011

Maddy-Weitzman, B. (2012). Arabization and Its Discontents: The Rise of the Amazigh Movement in North Africa. The Journal of the Middle East and Africa, 3(2), 109–135. https://doi.org/10.1080/21520844.2012.738549

Moulay Mahdy KATIF. (2025, March 14). عالم الآثار يوسف بوكبوط يقلب الطاولة: الاكتشافات الأثرية تدمر السرديات الكاذبة ! | أوال طالك [Video]. YouTube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFgCNC2W9NA

Ounghir, B. (2025, March 24). من أجل تصحيح جذري لتاريخ المغرب انسجاما مع نتائج الاكتشافات الاركيولوجية العلمية الجديدة. Anfas Press. https://anfaspress.com/index.php/news/voir/148560-2025-03-24-12-53-57

University of Cambridge. (2024, April 17). Previously unknown Neolithic society in Morocco discovered. University of Cambridge. Retrieved April 19, 2025, from https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/previously-unknown-neolithic-society-in-morocco-discovered?utm_source=chatgpt.com