Today marks the anniversary of the death of the Libyan Amazigh revolutionary, poet, writer and linguist Said Sifaw El Mahroug.

He was born on 18 April 1946 in Jado, an Amazigh town in the Nafusa Mountains of north-western Libya. At the age of fifteen, he began searching for his Amazigh identity and became one of the earliest voices calling for political and cultural change in Libya.

Long before Muammar Gaddafi came to power in 1969, El Mahroug’s revolutionary ideas had already brought him into conflict with the Libyan monarchy. While studying medicine in Egypt, King Idris’ government revoked his scholarship, reportedly because of his call to a “revolution”. Libyan diplomats offered him a choice: abandon his political activities or lose his scholarship. True to his principles, he refused to compromise and returned home to Tripoli. 

There enrolled in the Faculty of Law in 1967. After studying law in the United States, Sifaw returned to his country, where he was employed by an oil company.

After Gaddafi seized power, El Mahroug continued to speak openly and fearlessly, even though the military’s rise to power in 1969 made political and intellectual expression in Libya even more restrictive. Advocating a form of Arab social nationalism, Gaddafi’s totalitarian regime sought to homogenize thought and society by eliminating all dissenting voices.   
El Mahroug published his writings under his real name and openly defended Amazigh identity, language and culture.

As a dissident, he attracted the anger of the authorities and repeated police harassment. On 21 February 1979, while buying medicine for one of his children at a pharmacy near his home, El Mahroug was reportedly struck by a car in what he and many others believe to be an assassination attempt. He survived, but woke up with devastating injuries: a fractured skull and spine, severe damage to his left arm and thigh and paralysis from the waist down. In his final notes, he claimed that Libyan intelligence services had followed him on several occasions before the attack.

Confined to his bed during the last years of his life, El Mahroug devoted himself to writing *The Black Book*, an unfinished letter addressed directly to Muammar Gaddafi. In it, he documented the persecution, violence, and assassination attempts directed not only at himself, but also at many Libyan intellectuals and public figures. The work reflected his lifelong commitment to Amazigh identity and his progressive views on the Amazigh language.

El Mahroug intended to send the manuscript to international human rights organizations, but he died before completing it. Even in its unfinished form, the book remains a powerful testimony to his struggle. In one passage addressed to Gaddafi, he wrote:

“I thought that, after stopping me physically, my story had ended like that of those whom you silenced at home and abroad. Yet here you are. You control the whole world surrounding me me, even the crimes committed against me, my wife and my young children.”

Even though Said Sifaw El Mahroug died before he could finish his final work, his writings and his defense of Amazigh identity continue to inspire many people in Libya and beyond (including me). 

——  
*“Truth is the greatest (thing) in the world. But truth*  
*in our country Tamazgha is always obscured with fog;*  
*when we remove this fog, truth appears naked.*"  
Said Sifaw, 12/2/91.

Sources:   
www.Temehu.com  
www.mondeberbere.com

Said Sifaw El Mahroug | Remembrance🪽