Why Even the European Looking Amazigh Are Not Welcomed?
In an unprecedented occurrence, Morocco experienced a record-breaking temperature of 50.4°C (122.7 Degrees Fahrenheit) on Friday, August 11, 2023. This marks the first time in the country's history that a temperature above 50°C has been reliably observed, and it is expected to be even hotter this year! Morocco’s General Directorate of Meteorology (DMN) issued a bulletin expecting a rise in temperatures in the southern and central regions of the country again in 2024 as a result of the continued effects of climate change.
Gen Z Youth in Morocco grow up with a desire to migrate, with an imagination of going to a land elsewhere, seeking greater opportunities, social security, and a sense of freedom. According to the Arab Barometer report, nearly 70% of Moroccans under 30 express a desire to leave the country.
Morocco has a low human development index, ranking 121st out of 189 countries in 2020. High unemployment rates, especially among young people and women, contribute to climate migration.Some people spend years trying to get to Nador, Morocco — a city in the northeast of the country, bordering the Spanish city of Melilla.
Nador is Europe's southernmost border, and a gateway for many migrants in search of a better life. Border guards line a four-tiered, 20-foot fence that stretches for miles along the border. migrants wait there for months, for the best time to climb over the fence. According to NPR article by Ari Shapiro "Officials have made the city of Nador uninhabitable for migrants, who are mostly Black. Shopkeepers have been pressured to not sell them goods, hotel owners who have succumbed to pressure from Moroccan police don't rent them rooms."
Ironically more than 60% of the population of Morocco lives on the coast, and flooding and sea level rise are expected to significantly affect these populations. These effects are expected to have the largest impact on economic activities, including tourism, agriculture, and industry. Combined with the effects of extreme heat many scientists believe parts of Morocco will be uninhabitable before the end of this century. The latest research estimates more than 250 million people could migrate from their countries as a result of climate change by 2050.
Most recent climate models tell us certain regions are likely to exceed those temperatures in the next 20-to-30 years. The most vulnerable areas include South Asia, North Africa, the Persian Gulf, and the Red Sea by around 2050; and Eastern China, parts of Southeast Asia, and Brazil by 2070. France, Italy, Belgium: are the European regions most at risk from floods and sea level rise. One Scottish county is forecast to have its climate change damage risk triple by 2050 from 1990, the biggest jump in Europe. All continents will be affected Even the majority of the world's warmest and wettest regions have a wet bulb of no more than 25 to 27°C. In 2050, scientists estimate that it will be very difficult to live in South Asia and the Persian Gulf, i.e. countries such as Iran, Kuwait and Oman.
The average annual temperature in Morocco has increased in recent decades and this is more pronounced in the hottest and driest months (from April to June). Climate projections indicate that the rise in temperatures will continue to the end of this century, with more frequent, intense and widespread heatwaves.Morocco has become progressively more arid and the decrease in mean annual precipitation in the country may continue, especially in a high-emissions scenario. Climate projections also show that more frequent and severe droughts could occur in central and southern Morocco. Morocco's average temperatures are expected to rise between 2 and 5ºC by 2070, while rainfall is predicted to decline 20 to 30%.Morocco is broadly recognized as a climate hotspot. Average temperatures have increased by 0.2°C per decade since the 1960s.
Morocco has had six years of drought and the trend is continuing and expanding in reach. "We have entered a critical phase after five consecutive years of drought that our country has never experienced before," said Mr. Baraka at a press conference. Rainfall has fallen by 67% in recent months compared with a year considered normal, and "the last three months (from October to December) show that we are heading for another year of drought", the minister added. In Morocco, agriculture employs a third of the working-age population and accounts for 14% of the country's exports. Once 1.5 degrees of warming is reached, the next countdown will be to 2 degrees Celsius of warming, which will likely occur in the 2040s, according to the most recent UN study presented by UN Secretary - General António Guterres. Just half a degree more of warming will lead to even more disastrous climate-related disruptions, scientists say.
Amid new waves of arrests of migrants, Spain provides another 30 million Euros to Moroccan authorities for migration control on top of hundreds of millions from the EU. The International Organization for Migration (IOM) documents thousands of lives lost on the Atlantic and Mediterranean as the death toll continues to rise. Italy increases funding to the so-called Libyan coastguard as protests against cooperation agreement continue.
While Spanish and Moroccan authorities have yet to ensure a thorough investigation of the deadly tragedy at the Melilla border, Morocco has responded with waves of arrests of migrants. Reportedly the crack-down continues with activists on the ground seeing repression towards black people on the move and days of attacks, imprisonment and deportations by authorities in the northern border region. The migrants believe they will have a better life in Europe not realizing climate will hit Europe much harder than Sub-Saharan African nations that many Europeans and Arabs are seeking land purchases in because of the abundance of underwater aquifers and access to solar power in a temperate climate.
Climate change isn’t just coming for Europe. It’s coming for the European Union in a big way. Despite the fact Africa will warm at twice the rate extreme heat is not unknown to Africans and with renewable energy growing without a need to dismantle old infrastructure Africa is at an advantage. Europe’s north will struggle with floods and fires. “The whole European population doesn’t have a clue understanding of this yet,” said Piers Forster, director of the Priestley International Center for Climate at Leeds University. “They don’t know how climate change will affect them personally.” Forster, who is a lead author on a section of the IPCC report, was commenting without knowledge that POLITICO had obtained the leak.
In a nutshell the latest science reveals that everywhere in Europe will change at 2 degrees Celsius rise in mean temperature— even if appropriate countermeasures are not taken immediately — Europe can expect that those disruptions will deepen existing divides, with profound implications for life in Europe as we know it. It’s bad timing for an experiment in heat endurance. Not only are millions migrating from rural areas into cement cities; Europe is also getting older and more vulnerable. Better medicine and the increase in all European nations of falling birth rates mean the number of Europeans older than 60 is expected to rise to 40 percent by 2050, even as the overall population slowly declines. On 1 January 2023, the EU population was estimated at 448.8 million people and more than one-fourth (25.8 %) of it was aged 60 years and over.
The elderly are at high risk of dying from heat stress and heatstroke. Old bodies also get worn down by heat, making them more susceptible to asthma or cardiovascular and respiratory diseases. Hot days see spikes in hospitalizations for age-related complaints. Aging populations are also more likely to be diabetic; heat causes blood vessels to dilate, absorbing insulin and dragging down blood sugar.
The Effect of Temperature on Birth Rates in Europe
Infants and children under five are the next biggest endangered population from climate change. Several studies have demonstrated that post-conception exposure to hot temperatures increases the chance of pregnancy losses (Basu et al., 2016; Bonell et al., 2023; Davenport et al., 2020; Hajdu & Hajdu, 2021a, 2023,etc...The Arab World hasn't seen a baby boom since the start of the 20th century, this population explosion only recently ended for almost all Arab countries in the 2010s. Morocco is one of the Arab countries for whom the baby boom ended. Today, only three Arab countries, Egypt, Jordan, and Yemen, have a total fertility rate above three.
What ethnic groups exist in Morocco compared to the USA?
In the United States, the highest fertility rates (per 1,000 women ages 15-44) during 2019-2022 (average) were to Afro and Hispanic women (63.5), followed by blacks (60.2), American Indian/Alaska Natives (55.8), Whites (54.4) and Asian/Pacific Islanders (52.9).In Morocco the birth rates are falling as well but mainly in the European and Jewish populations the phenotypic population most recognized by people outside of Morocco. Morocco has various ethnic groups: Arab, Berber, Gnawa, white Moroccan/Arab (European), Jewish, and sub-Saharan African. However, Arab Berber is the dominant ethnicity in Morocco, accounting for about 98 percent of the total population. Arab and Berber are both terms to unify a more diverse range of phenotypically brown ethnic groups.
Why Are Europeans protesting Moroccan Migration?
Berbers like the Amazigh who look European. But culturally and genetically they are African. Africans because they have always been in Africa. Amazigh migrations were Africans returning to ancestral lands from the so-called Middle East 10,000 years ago when it was part of the continent of Africa before the Suez was dug to delineate it from the land mass for political reasons. The Amazigh DNA shows are an African people no matter the skin color. In many families, similar to African Americans they have very light complexioned members, but Amazigh skin can resist the sunlight and get dark suntans. Many may have light blue eyes like Melanesians, but the majority have light brown eyes. Most have brown hair, or black.
Understanding the wide variations in Africa of skin color is quite simplistic. Amazigh people, and other tribes (not all Berbers), who live in the mountainous regions like Atlas have mostly a light complexion because they were born and grew up from generation to generation (probably for more than 40 000 years) under a mild weather, with plentiful rain, mild sunshine, snow, fog, clouds and all the rest. The mountain people were rarely nomadic, and used to be, sedentary. Berbers from the south of Morocco (Ishilhien), have a very dark black or dark brown complexions, but they are all African people culturally and genetically with phenotype variations. They understand the Arab influenced language (Tamazight) better than the Amazigh understand theirs (Shilha).But traditionally they hold common beliefs, regardless of skin color.
They all have very old traditions culled from ancient African with animistic beliefs, although they have adopted religions like Islam, Judaism, and Christianity. They are guided by an African spiritual sense of what is right and wrong and thus the respect for the land and disdain for many modern practices which do not safeguard nature. The indigenous Amazigh nomads face the loss of their traditional lifestyle due to climate change, which has brought drought and decimated livestock numbers.
The three main values of the Amazigh are the importance of kinship (tribal solidarity), connection to the land, and their language as a source of identity not skin color. A large majority of Amazigh still live in remote mountain villages without modern-day conveniences like electricity and running water. The etymology of Amazigh languages derive from an African original language, but it is not related to Arabic. As a matter of fact, the kinds of Arabic spoken in North Africa are called dialects, and they are made of Arabic (Afro Asiatic) words mixed with Berber (African) influenced grammar. These dialects are mainly the result of the Islamization of North Africa.
Whether the Amazigh speak a Berber language or an Arabic dialect, they are almost all Berbers in many regions of North Africa, even the Tuareg's found in Mali, Chad or Burkina Faso; no matter their skin color. Most Amazigh have a light complexion because of the land and its weather, not because of a mixture with Eurasian ancestry as presented in the past by many racist European so-called anthropologists with a political agenda. Now that we can use mitochondrial DNA analysis, the Amazigh and others we know who they are, or where their ancestors might have come from, but it doesn't make us that different because of their cultural ties. And that land preserving culture that threatens a "profit at any cost mindset threatens the global minority.
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