176 Sigrid Faath and hanSpeter Mat teS
the Sahel states, particularly Mali and Niger. The largest berberophone
group is the Tuareg in Southern Algeria (roughly 20,000), in Libya (25,000),
in the neighbouring Sahel states of Niger (1 million) and in Mali (around
700,000). In Algeria and Libya, the Tuareg have been well integrated into the
population and currently harbour no wish for autonomy. Quite the opposite
is true of the Tuareg in the neighbouring Sahel states, where a conf lict has
been raging since the 1980s – in part with violent repercussions – with
the central governments, concerning autonomy and self-determination,
rights and development measures in the settlement areas of the Tuareg,
which are regularly hit by droughts. These conf licts and the precarious
conditions under which the Tuareg live (massive refugee problems in the
1980s due to a long-lasting drought) also affected Algeria and Libya, since
these countries served as temporary escapes from both drought and pursuit
by the government because of the Tuaregs’ armed attacks – or as getaways
by criminal groups f leeing the area. This type of repercussion, as well as
the precarious living conditions the Tuareg endure in the Sahel states, will
continue to affect Algeria and Libya (and, to a lesser extent, Mauretania).
The acute conf lict with the berberophones in the states of North Africa
- an ethnic-linguistic-cultural conf lict – concerns the Imazighen living in
the northern parts of Algeria, Morocco and Libya, who banded together in
the 1980s and 1990s. It is, however, diff icult to exactly classify what part of
the population is berberophone: There are no exact def initions available, as
self-perception plays a major role in such a classif ication, so that estimates
vary considerably. The reason for such uncertainty lies in the historical
development that led to a complete or partial assimilation of the Imazighen
into Arabic society in the cities following the Islamisation and Arabisation of
the autochthon (Berber) population in North Africa. Nor is the self-def inition
as an Amazigh necessarily coupled with a particular language competence.
Among the Maghreb states, Morocco has the largest number of berbero-
phones, followed by Algeria and then – with considerably smaller numbers - Libya, Tunisia and Mauretania.^22 Most of the conf licts arising because of
the large numbers of berberophones took place in Algeria and Morocco.
The conf licts arose because of the increase in Arabic components in the
national identity and the sole fostering of the Arabic language and culture,
22 The numbers vary depending on the source. For Morocco, the berberophones make up about
40-60 per cent of the total population (60 per cent = roughly 18 million persons); in Algeria, 25-38
per cent of the population (38 per cent = 12 million persons); in Libya, 3-9 per cent (9 per cent =
550,000 persons); in Tunisia, 1 per cent (100,000 persons), and some 80,000 berberophones are
thought to live in Mauretania.