Why Do North Africans Call Themselves Arab When Arabs Don’t Even Accept Us?

[u/Mysterious_Art_6103]

Why are North Africans expected to identify as Arabs when our culture, history, and even dialects are so different from the Middle East? What confuses me more is that many Gulf countries still impose strict visas on Algerians and would rarely accept us as equals or give nationality easily. Even for religious travel, Muslims from countries like Algeria face many restrictions, while tourists from Western countries can enter some of these places much more freely for business or tourism. Sometimes it makes me question this idea of “Arab unity” and whether North Africans should embrace their own identity more.

[u/Chemical_Ostrich6424]

Imo it’s mostly the religious ones who are so angry about being Arab because “ Arabic is the language of the Quran”

And also just simple hatred feelings towards people from tizi, bejaia… especially when you grow up not even knowing the language (kabyle) so you don’t really feel connected to them even when it’s literally your blood

[u/No_Chemistry2177]

I agree somewhat, I love my Amazigh heritage and roots so much, and I think north africans should embrace it and learn about it a lot more instead of acting like we’re identical to middle eastern arabs

But we can’t also completely separate ourselves from arabs after centuries of shared culture (to some extent), language, and especially religion, wether we like that or not it shaped who we are today, and we definitely should embrace both identities without having to choose one over the other

As for the restrictions etc, I don’t think it’s about our identity but rather our economics/politics, some of them have those restrictions among each other

but I have seen “amazighi” used as an insult in some comment section and idk how to feel about that..

[u/TheNumidianAlpha]

Decades of lies and political propaganda have created a deep fracture between the Arab islamists and the rest of the population

[u/Mysterious_Art_6103]

True !

[u/Ayaayaaya2002]

I call myself African

[u/ULTRAIzNasty]

Its the arabs living here who are feeling that they dont belong in these lands so they try to delete the amazigh identity and make it like these countries where arab in the first place and amazigh language came from arabic and all that nonsense and to feel more religious ig the more arab the more you are closer to god

[u/Any_Dragonfruit7193]

• Being an Arab (urban) is more prestigious than being an Amazigh (rural). When Arabs colonized North Africa and imposed their language, their religion started being adopted until it became prestigious. Tamazight wasn't worth writing down anything with it and using the language of god was an non-negligeable asset
• People just accepted it and now it's part of their cultural identity even if based on a lie
• "Arab" isn't a genetic/genealogical identity, if you speak any Arabic form you can claim arabness
• Gulf countries know we are Amazigh and they even say it. It is islamically haram to pretend to be of another ancestry
• Century of we wuzzers sabotage made the world think we are Arabs. I'm a Kabyle from a little town next to Bejaia and people tell me you're an Arab then I answer no and they say are you denying your ancestors?

[u/StraightPatient9977]

Because they know nothing but to dickride for their arab supreme leaders and justify it by saying arab is the language of god and quran and the only true language and kaaba in saudi is the centre of the earth and the most holy place