political conFlictS and Migration in the Mena StateS 177
which came to dominate government policy in the countries of North Africa
after independence. Parallel to the re-invigoration of the Arabic-Islamic
‘mono-culture’ and ‘mono-identity’ toward the end of the 1970s and the
beginning of the 1980s as an off icial reaction to the strengthening of Islam-
ist groups, the berberophones joined together to establish associations to
protect their cultural rights. This movement started in Algeria and then
spread to Morocco and more recently to Libya. In Algeria there have been
repeated, in part violent, demonstrations on the part of the berberophones
to draw attention to their demands. The more violent forms were the result
of political and socio-economic factors that were not solely related to the
situation of the berberophones. That the identity/ethnic-linguistic demands
can be an additional element mobilising the masses may be seen in the
violent conf lict that broke out in April 2001 in the Algeria/Kabyle region and
lasted through to 2004/2005, resulting in the destruction of large stretches
of infrastructure in the years 2001-2004 and disrupting both political and
economic life considerably. The conf licts surrounding the recognition
of the equality of Amazigh identity and the main Berber language, both
as a national and an off icial language, remain to date unsolved and still
represent a medium-term element of conf lict in both Algeria and Morocco.
However, no major migration potential arises from this specif ic conf lict.
Regarding the ethnic/ethnic-linguistic conf licts between the Sudanese
Arabic population and the African ethnic groups in Southern, Western
(particularly in Darfur) and Eastern Sudan (particularly Beja), we refer to
our comments above on the diff icult and ongoing process of nation-building
in Sudan in general.
A third group of domestic conf licts is related to the so-called Arab Spring.
The mass protests which began in Tunisia in December 2010 and spread
to Egypt, Libya, Yemen and other Middle Eastern countries were protests
against unemployment, especially the unemployment of younger people,
and against a corrupt, repressive, authoritarian leadership which had been
in power for decades. The political legitimacy of these leaders was waning,
while dissatisfaction was on the rise. The institutional transformation which
began after the changes of leadership in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya in 2011 re-
sulted in political conf licts over power distribution and the future political
and societal order (i.e. the relationship between religion and politics in the
new constitution) and – especially in Libya – in a conf lict over control of the
armed forces, which is linked to regional (tribal) rivalry. At the same time,
the potential for social protests was high, as the economic and develop-
mental aspirations of the majority of those who engaged in the Arab Spring
protests had not been met. This situation aggravated the divide between