Nations look so pretty from afar

Berber activists in Morocco see in the country’s current political upheaval a chance to press for their own demands: the use of the Berber language in more public schools; official recognition of the Berbers in the Moroccan constitution; and the repatriation of the remains of one of their heroes, Abd El-Krim. Abd El-Krim expelled the Spanish from Northern Morocco in 1921, then presided over his “Rif Republic” for five years – the time it took Europe to drive that gadfly into exile in Egypt, where he died and still rests.

Abd El-Krim called his new country the Rif Republic because he himself was a Rif. The Rif are an ethnic group – one of several – within Morocco’s larger Berber population. The Berbers are the indigenous people that have lived in North Africa, west of the Nile, for millennia. They were there long before the Muslim Arabs arrived. Yet despite centuries of mixing, many Berbers say they have never integrated into Moroccan society.

The distinction – the sense of “other” – is about cultural identity, not race. Generally speaking, you can’t distinguish a Rif Berber from other Berbers, or from other Moroccans for that matter (although it’s true that some Rif have light colored eyes and skin). In fact, the Berbers are a majority in Morocco. One Moroccan government minister recently said that probably 90 percent of Moroccans have Berber blood.

And yet the debate rages on. The tension remains: group identity versus national identity. It’s the reality, the perfectly legitimate reality, on the ground.

Yet often, when seen from a distance, things seem different. Countries appear unified, homogenous, well-knit. Up close, the reality is messier. Even in supposedly stable Europe. Where I live in Barcelona, Catalan society seems sometimes obsessed by its search for recognition and greater legitimacy both in Spain and abroad.

Yet except for language and a few (often stereotypical) idiosyncrasies, as a foreigner you can’t tell a Catalan from another Spaniard. When I was a student in Germany, some of my “Hoch Deutsch” speaking northern neighbors looked down on their Bavarian brothers as if they were from another country, or universe. Italy has its infernal north/south divide. In Belgium, Flemish and Walloons have put the Dr. Seuss’s Sneeches to shame with their world-record inability to form a government.

The examples are endless, and everywhere. In Mexico and much of Latin America, divisions often turn on the lesser or greater degree of indigenous blood in your veins. In Haiti, one point of tension simmers eternally between blacks and mulattos …

The truth is that modern nation states nearly always have populations divided into tiers. The higher tiers dominate, the lower ones would rather not salute the flag, thank you very much. And their reasons are almost always the same: they feel repressed, or disrespected, or discriminated against. Or they did once upon a time. And the scars run deep.