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The Imazighen people wishes you a happy new year 2959!
Imazighen people around the world celebrate this week the Yennayer, their traditional calendar's New Year day. Celebrations are hold to mark the beginning of the year 2959 between January 12 and 14, depending on the Imazighen territory. Their calendar, which is different from that of Islam, is widely used in the North of Africa. Year after year, Imazighen organizations have been calling for Yennayer to be declared official bank holiday in the South Mediterranean states.
The online newspaper Kabyle.com has published a detailed article about the claims to officially recognize Yennayer in the states where it is traditionally celebrated, such as Morocco or Algeria. Despite the steps being taken for its recognition, Yennayer, unlike Islam's New Year Day, is not yet considered bank holiday. Imazighen organizations have also taken steps so that UNESCO includes Yennayer in the list of Intangible Heritage of Humanity. They argue that currently the feast is not only celebrated in Maghreb but also in other places across the globe where there is a large number of Imazighen immigration (as it would be the case in Occitania and the Catalan Countries).
The movement for the autonomy of Kabylie demonstrates
The Yennayer demand is not only centered on cultural terms, as there is also a political aspect to it. In Kabylie, the territory with Imazighen majority in Northern Argelia, the Movement for the Autonomy of Kabylie (MAK) demonstrated last Monday. Pro-MAK demonstrators called for self-government for Kabylie, education in Amazigh -which is constitutionally recognized as a national language of Algeria, but excluded from official purposes- and urged the Algerian government to stop withholding resources from Kabylie and impoverishing the territory.
A Latin calendar with Egyptian chronology
The word yennayer, as January, stems from the Latin word januarius. This is so because the traditional Imazighen calendar is the same as the Julian calendar used in Europe until Pope Gregorius XIII introduced his reforms. In fact, all names of months in the Imazighen calendar come from their respective Latin names, which shows the influence of Roman rule in Northern Africa: yennayer, furar, meghres, yebrir, maggu, yunyu, yulyu, ghusht, shtember, tuber, nunember i dujember (forms in Kabylie dialect; with slight variations depending on the Amazigh dialect).
The Imazighen calendar aligns year 0 with the approximate date in which Pharaoh Shoshenq I came to the throne (about 950 BC), since the king came from an Imazighen tribe from the Roman province of Cyrenaica, currently Libya. Therefore, the year 2009 from the Gregorian calendar, with the additional 950 makes it year 2959 for the Imazighen people.
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