Like the 1st Muharram of the Hegira year or New Year’s Day of the Gregorian calendar, the Amazigh New Year or Yennayer is now established as an official paid holiday, a royal decision which has brought great joy to the components of the Amazigh cultural movement.
For Ahmed Assid, head of the Amazigh Observatory for Rights and Freedoms (OADL), King Mohammed VI’s announcement on Wednesday to declare the Amazigh New Year a national holiday and a paid public holiday is ” a historic decision in all respects“.
The activist for the Amazigh cause clarified, in a statement to MoroccoLatestNews, that the royal decision comes within the framework of the constitutional consecration of Amazigh as an official language in accordance with the Constitution and in accordance with the regulatory law promulgated since 2019.
Thus, Ahmed Assid considered that the royal decision “has a strong symbolism in terms of identity, given that it will allow Morocco to find itself and define its identity in history as a cultural and human diversity interacting with the world“.
Assid added that the formalization of the Amazigh New Year is ” a celebration of the identity of land and geography, as well as historical nobility that has its roots in the depths of history“.
The Amazigh activist also pointed out that the royal decision “ should result in the adoption by political and civil elites of a new political lexicon that stems from Morocco as an independent sovereign entity, and an African country that is not affiliated with either East or West, and is directed with all its might towards the future, relying on its genius and specificity shaped over the ages and eras “.
In conclusion, Assid asserted that this approach “ give deep meaning to national development programs and establish a new civic awareness that will make all Moroccans feel a balanced sense of belonging to Morocco with all its components“.