User:Hoyboy 1/sandbox

Mohamed Chafik

LEAD

Mohamed Chafik (Berber: ⵎⵓⵃⵎⵎⴷ ⵛⴰⴼⵉⵇ; Arabic: محمد شفيق), born 17 September 1926, is a leading figure in the Amazigh cultural movement. An original author of the Amazigh Manifesto, he was later appointed as the first Rector of the Royal Institute of the Amazigh Culture. He has worked extensively on incorporating Amazigh culture into Moroccan identity and is a leading intellectual of the Moroccan intelligentsia.

Early Life and Education

Mohamed Chafik was born in the small village of Béni Ait Sadden, located in the Middle Atlas. He was born to a wealthy agricultural family and was raised in a devout Muslim household. At the age of 8 he began his French-Moroccan education. He would later described this as "la troisième de mes dimensions socio-culturelles : ma marocanité". Chafik went on to be educated at an elite collége d'Azrou. There he was taught by My Ahmed Zemmouri, who was a proponent of the Moroccan independence from France. He finished his secondary education at the now infamous lycée Moulay Youssef, temporarily closed for student protests that erupted. During the tensions surrounding Moroccan independence, Chafik was lucky to avoid conscription, unlike many of his other graduating classmates from the collége d'Azrou. Despite interruptions of his education due to political strife, he would go on to receive degrees in Arabic, Amazigh, history, and pedagogy.

Professional Work and Amazigh Activism

Before explicitly working for the Amazigh cause, Chafik held a number of other positions that would prove to be helpful in the future. He began his career as a teacher in the mid 1950s. He specifically worked as a teacher for the cause of educating girls, specifically those in rural areas. In the late 1960s into the 1970s he was promoted through the ranks of Moroccan civil service in education. He would eventually occupy the positions of secretary state education and member of the royal cabinet, running le Collége royal. During his time in these posts he advocated for strong bilingual education, but gained little traction in the face of hegemonic French.

During this time as well, he wrote extensively about the place of the Amazighs in Moroccan and African culture. One of the ideologies he focused on was the importance of using an intersectional lens to look at the ethnic and linguistic complexities of Morocco. He is noted for finding a middle ground with the Arab-nationalists and Islamist. He pointed out that Morocco is not a purely Arab nation and nor is Islam solely compatible with Arab identity. One of his most notable professional conflicts was with Abdesslam Yassine, a colleague he met in the Ministry of Education. Yassine, a staunch Islamist, used the argument that Islamic-Arab indentity of Morocco is tied intrinsically to quranic Arabic. Without rejecting Islam or Arabic, Chafik retorted that there was no justification for the suppression of Amazighe in the Quaran, citing the verse that reads "the Arab is no better than the foreigner, nor the foreiger than the Arab but in piety."

In 1980 Chafik joined as a co-founder l’Association culturelle amazighe (the Amazigh Culture Association). This was the first of its kind to use the preferred 'amazigh' instead of 'berber'. Chafik advocated for this vobcabulary change to represent the actual language of these people. The word berber comes from Latin for barbarian, which in itself is pejorative. Amazigh is the chosen word for these people and literally translates to 'the free people'. Unfortunately, l’Association culturelle amazighe was short lived. In 1982 the association's leader, Sidqi Azayko, was arrested and imprisoned for a year which prompted Chafik and his collegues to suspend the association.

While some of this article is already written, I plan to expand and improve it. I will specifically focus on contributions made to the Berber community and other contributions to Moroccan linguistics. There is also very little information about his early life and education that I hope to fill in. There is more information in the French language version of this article but the sources for that page no longer work and there isn't even a talk page :( http://archive.wikiwix.com/cache/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mondeberbere.com%2Fculture%2Fchafik%2Fportraithebdo.htm An article published in by Le Journal Hebdomadaire, a French-language Moroccan intellectual magazine. This article is specifically a feature on M. Chafik. I'll probably have to dig a little deeper to see if it meets the neutrality standard of Wiki.

https://remmm.revues.org/6029 A scholarly article about the political struggle of pushing for a standard Berber writing system in Morocco. The article features a few sections about M. Chafik's key roll in its development.

http://anneemaghreb.revues.org/313#ftn19 A scholarly article about the Amazighe cultural movement. Features sections about M. Chafik and other references to him.

I found a citation for a work by M. Chafik but features forwards and postwards that I would like to read for possible information about him. However, google scholar just lists it as a citation and I don't know how to access it.

http://aan.mmsh.univ-aix.fr/Pdf/AAN-1991-30_46.pdf Features a small reference to M. Chafik with a citation to a group of short speeches given about him that I would really like to have access to but once again, I'm unsure about how to approach that. Perhaps the librarian would be able to offer assistance.

https://web.archive.org/web/20070611175236/http://www.telquel-online.com:80/181/sujet2.shtml An interview with M. Chafik but I'm not familiar with the source and its listed on a .com domain so I'm not totally sure about its authenticity but then again who would take the time to fake a complete interview?

Mohamed Chafik : l’homme de l’unanimité A book written about M. Chafik that I definitely need to get my hands on.

https://books.google.com/books?id=xVpxZSTyhb0C&pg=PA58&lpg=PA58&dq=My+Ahmed+Zemmouri&source=bl&ots=IXGx5WuE9z&sig=tSJotU6AFlCfBaE1wAUOlNCe7Ss&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjK6PXns9zSAhVOxWMKHTeTABsQ6AEIKzAF#v=onepage&q=chafik&f=false another book written about the amazigh cultural movement

Subsections

Early life and education

Work on Berber Culture Movement

Roll with Roi M. VI in developing ICRAM

Other works on linguistic nature

Possible Project Topics

All of my possible project topics are in some way or another related to my academic abilities and interests. All of the linguists I have chosen speak languages that I am competent in and study and work in fields of which I have interest. My possible choices are listed here by their language relevance with the exception of Manuel Teixeira as it appears that he speaks Portuguese which I can't actively use but can parse, to some success. I will discuss my interests of my choices in further detail in each respective subheading.

French

Jacques Fontanille (1)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Fontanille

• Basic biography, including picture
• Influences
• Influenced
• Work at the university of Université de Limoges
• Work in semiotics

My main motivation for choosing Fontanille is threefold. He speaks and works in France; I have an interest, (though naive) in his main field of study, semiotics; and the university he works with is located in a region of France that speaks such minority languages that I have already talked to you (MT) about.

Moroccan

Mohamed Chafik (1)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohamed_Chafik

• Build upon existing biography (specifically update it with his current efforts)
• Roll in Berber revival
• Work with l'Institut royal de la culture amazighe
• Texts

His work in revitalizing Berber language and culture is really interesting to me as I am also quite interested in supporting minority, underrepresented language/cultures. I am also strongly considering studying abroad in Morocco and if this takes off maybe I'll be able to tailor my ASG to him/Berber culture/???

Najima Rhozal (2)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Najima_Rhozali

• Basic biography
• Work as Secretary of State for Literacy and non-formal Education
• Current work at the university of Agadir
• Contributions to study of Moroccan oral traditions

Very similar to my interests to that of Chafik. However, while a professionally trained linguist she then turned her life to work in government, specifically as the education secretary. Using my training as a linguistic and then applying this to governmental work is something I am actively considering for my future.

Jesuit

Manuel Teixeira (3)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manuel_Teixeira_(linguist)

I really can't find much information about him but perhaps BC will have unique connections due to his membership of the Jesuit order. BC seemed pretty gung-ho about supporting your class's project last year on jesuit missionary texts so perhaps someone around here would also be interested in my study of this particular Jesuit (???)

Part I

There are some positive things about this stub. Almost all of the information provided is relevant and does not appear biased. Unfortunately, there is only one citation and it links to a "poster" that can not even be viewed anymore. Even more suspect is that the poster is on what I'm pretty sure is a Filipino website (bias).

Much of the information provided is very relevant to Norberto's work on the Waray-Waray language and linguistics of the Philippines but it does not go into depth at all. A few texts that he wrote are provided but they do not recount the contents or impact of his works on the language.

Overall this stub is just that; it lacks sufficient information. While there is a serious lack of citation there is not a clear instance of bias. The language used is quite neutral. But who knows, all this information could just be part of some wild plot by a fan of Norberto Romuáldez y López!