Berber people

There are about 10 million Berbers; they call themselves Imazighen, meaning "free men". While some Berbers live in the West, most live in Morocco, Algeria, and Libya. While Berbers  are increasingly asserting their identity, education remains primarily in Arabic or European languages.

Morocco has traditionally supported the use of Arabic, French, and English to the exclusion of Berber language and identity, but they recently changed reversed course out of a fear that the country could swing to Islamic extremism.

Algeria also has a considerable Berber population; while Algeria permits Berber language use, Berbers recently protested the perceived lack of government protection against attacks by fundamentalists.

In Libya, Gaddafi decreed that all citizens were Libyans, forbidding the Berber language and requiring children be given Arabic names. After years of cultural repression, the Berber community was key in the skirmishes before the Battle of Tripoli that expelled Gaddafi from power. 

For more information, see http://bbc.in/8CCdR (Morocco), http://bit.ly/oBIgl8 (Algeria), and http://bit.ly/jf7WM6 (Libya).