You have joked us about your call.

Yes, my last name El Hankari, almost the same sound as the word “lehendakari” baitu.Kar, ha…

You are not president of Arrife, of course...

No, I'm an entrepreneur born in Arrif. I studied sociology, living in Cadiz (Spain), fighting for our identity and our culture, because I want improvements of all kinds for our country, a country accessible to all, a country that takes into account all the diversity of Morocco. Many do not imagine it, but there are many Moroccans within Morocco, there are endless identities and cultures. I would like to see a democratic country, a country in which everyone can enter.

All languages.

I don't like to have a main language, on the one hand, and a few centuries, on the other. Everyone – and all languages – has the right to live on equal terms. The situation is not comfortable, because there is great centralism in Morocco and the peripheries are discarded. The case of Arrife, however, is a special one, since it has never had a submissive relationship with the Moroccan Government. Arrif has its own history and path. There we have the republic proclaimed by Abdelkrim Jatabi in 1921, the first ever constituted in Africa, which lasted between 1921 and 26, or the struggle between 1958-59 and the genocide provoked by Hassan II.ak. And now, as then, we want nothing but to act equally, with our culture and with the minimum well-being of our language: infrastructures, hospitals, universities… After the revolt of 1958-59, Arrif was declared a militarized zone and remains with that denomination.

The writer Mohamed Xukri said he had made Arrife to Tangier because he had nothing to eat in the mountains.

Nothing. There's crops, but it only gives you to survive. There is not much land and, even if the sea is close, fishermen do not have enough boats to deal with fishing properly. Currently, cannabis and the money migrants send is the only source of income.

In Morocco, several languages are spoken.

On the one hand, classical Arabic, the standard language, which is not spoken, but is taught in school. You have a cult language that is used in informative, written texts, literature, etc. On the other hand, in the street, those of Moroccan origin speak a dahira between Berber and Arabic, and on the other hand, there are also three variants of the Amazon: tarifit Arrifen, tamazig have hemen and taxelhiyt Atlas.

What is the current situation in the Amazon?

Since 2011, it has been an official Amazon in Morocco, along with Arabic. This officiality, however, is a burnt paper, as, for example, you cannot go to court and talk about Amazigism. Along with this mediocre official, the Ircam Institute of Culture and the Amazon Language was created, which has served to make the language visible. If he is not recognized and even persecuted, he has become recognized and official in the Amazon.

The Ircam Institute was created, but instead of contributing to the standardization of language, the institute places obstacles on us, instead of choosing an operating, simple alphabet of use in the new technologies, which approved the Tefein alphabet, from the year 3,000 before Christ, which currently does not serve us, or which we would need to adapt to the new technologies.

It looks like a nonsense...

This is a decision by Morocco, adopted through the Ircam Institute, in which it also participated. The reason is also obvious. As the Algerian people's lobbyist had decided on the Latin alphabet, Morocco feared that the Amazon speakers would join, strengthen themselves. Five years ago, the teaching of the alphabet of Tefein was implemented in our schools, and children hate it, because it's such a complicated thing.

So what is your struggle?

I was born within social movements, cultural associations in the Amazon, feminist groups, human rights defenders… I was born within her and I am working within her. And in the meantime, I learn to amaze, because I can't read or write correctly. We use a type of Tariit in whatsapp and in the rest, nothing standardized.

What is your priority?

Standardize the Amazon to learn how to write correctly. We don't have twisted verbal knots. We also have monolinguals in Arrife. Look, I'll tell you. We have recently arrested some 55 detainees in Casablanca under the excuse of last year’s Arrif fights. The mother has gone to visit her son at the police station and, when she has started talking about fees, the guardians have refused to speak to her, screaming and screaming, in Arabic. Then the mother, who knows nothing but tariffs, was looking at her son with tears in her eyes, while the visit lasted. Official language, they say, Amazon in Morocco! Will it be possible? In the course of Garabide you have the story told us by Jon Sarasua: take the toad and put a pot in boiling water. Very soon it will make a leap. Instead, take the toad, put a container in the water and start to warm it up slowly. The toad will be sewn there. That is how we are.

Is everything lost?

No, in our case, hard transmission. In Nador and Al-Hoceima, for example, there is only talk of tariit. In Atlas, they speak in their dialect, and so do in the south. A lot of people talk to the Amazon, a lot of people. In the case of migrants, there is everything, some are aware of the language and transmit it to the Amazon. Others, on the other hand, no. We have been recognized as second-class citizens, they have wanted to get in the head that our language was not useful at all, that we do not value anything... The surnames also have them like this. When they set the record in motion, ours didn't know Arabic. Officials, on the other hand, did not know how to amaze. Officials must, however, give us the names of our names, but we do not call them ourselves. “Even if it’s a nickname.” And so we are, one “Herrena”, another “Burusoila”, this “Betoker”… and so different denominations have remained. The Arabiada we have suffered has been terrible, they have deformed the names of towns and cities. In our Tetour, that is, “eyes”, the Arab speakers have made in Tetouan a name that has no meaning. Or they've done it in Chedchaou, "branches." What it once meant no longer has meaning.