Out of curiousity - how are social relations between Arabs and Berbers, Zouregs etc. in Northwest MENA ? Elementary question I realize but that is the best level to start asking.

Sorry, typo - Touareg - i'm drinking a " cuban product" at the moment.

Cuban products.

I miss them.

Arab-Berber relations.

An interesting question, one which is not easy to answer really.

First, my JV parnter is a Chleuh Berber, so I have some biases.

That being said, the question of Arab-Berber relations really is relevant in two countries (maybe three, Libya being an odd case), Algeria and Morocco.

Algeria there is certainly real tension. Especially between the Kabyle Berbers and the central authorities. That is partly ethnic, partly regionalism, partly the effect of general popular revulsion against the robber regime.

Morocco largely doesn't have this. Some tensions exist, but nothing on the order of what is seen in Algeria.

One can read a lot of nonsense online by ethnic actvists ranting on and asserting either total Arab-Berber solidarity or the converse, ancient enimity.

My observation on the ground is that among "Arabs" - recalling that without any doubt almost all "Arabs" in the Maghreb are of Berber descent (in whole or in part, not that many "Arabs" from Arabia ever came to the Maghreb)- there is little sensitivity to Berber cultural sensitivities. Of course, again, most Maghrebine Arabs are well aware their own heritages is in whole or part Berber, and one does here, from some Arab identified, now and again that as a reason differentiating "themselves" from the "Middle East."

Among Berbers there are, I would say, mixed feelings. There is a beginning of an identity movement, but it would strike me as mostly existing among intellectuals. At the same time, many Berbers will, in my experience, describe themselves as Arab as a synonym for Muslim in the context of say Europeans.

Certainly one thing I would lay to rest is the concept of significant ethnic discrimination as such. Where it exists, it is more an issue of urbanite snobbery (as urbanism is "Arab" by identity in general). Like, perhaps, New Yorkers attitudes towards Mid Westerners.

On the other hand the ethnic jokes told tend break out in funny ways.

As an example, the Chleuh - who dominate the retail commercial trade - have a reputation for being penny pinchers, and jokes about them told sound rather like old ethnic jokes about Jews and money. Some are rather amusing (there is one I like to tell about the Chleuh merchant on learning his mum died in city X, can't the funeral attend because he's busy, but takes out a memorial ad in the paper in her honour. After dictating the advert to the paper's agent, the agent tells him he has a few lines left. The Chleuh ponders and adds line, "3 Room Appartment for Rent, call Family.").

>As an example, the Chleuh - who dominate the >retail commercial trade

Any particular cultural or historical reason for this? I notice ( upon looking it up ) that Cheulah is supposedly spoken in the Anti-Atlas and southwestern oases. Was it a derivation from the southwestern oases having once dominated the trans-Saharan trade routes? A result of the agricultural prominence of the Souss valley? Or is it a more modern, urban development?

I have no idea, but I would presume it is a modern phenomena, in part prob. driven by population pressures in the South.