Episode: 20 — "Libya: The Civilisation" · Full Episode #20
Date: 12 March 2020
Language: Libyan Arabic, English, Tamazight references
Audio: MP3
Tewa Barnosa (تيوا ابوبرنوصة) was 21 at the time of recording. She is a Libyan Amazigh artist and curator, and the founder of Waraq Art Foundation. She was based in Berlin on a relocated artist visa. Her name, "Tewa," means "bridge" in Tamazight — a fact she carried as both identity and mission.
Tewa's central argument was that Libya is not merely a modern nation-state — it is an ancient civilisation. The territory that became "Libya" contains layers of Amazigh, Phoenician, Greek, Roman, and Arab history. She rejected the flattening of Libyan identity into a post-independence Arab nationalist framework. Libya existed before Arabisation, before Islam, before the borders drawn by colonial powers. The cave paintings in the Acacus Mountains — among the oldest art on earth — were her evidence.
She stated it plainly: "I'm not Arab, I'm Amazigh, and I'm proud." She described the trilingual street signs in Zuara — Arabic, Tamazight, English — as a small but significant act of recognition. She also described the backlash: people who had never visited Zuara, never learned a word of Tamazight, objecting to its visibility. The resistance to Amazigh identity, she argued, came from ignorance rather than conviction.
See: I Am Amazigh
Walking through Cordoba, Spain, Tewa smelled wet earth. The scent transported her instantly to a Libyan mountain — the Nafusa range, where she had spent time as a child. At that moment, Nass El-Ghiwane was playing through her headphones. The Moroccan band's music, the Andalusian architecture, the Libyan mountain in her memory — all collapsed into a single sensory instant. She described it as proof that geography does not contain identity. "People forced from their geography see new horizons."
See: The Cordoba Moment
Tewa described language not as a communication tool but as an operating system — a structure that shapes thought, perception, and worldview. Losing a language, in her framing, was not losing vocabulary. It was losing a way of seeing. The near-extinction of Tamazight under Gaddafi was therefore not a cultural inconvenience. It was an attempted civilizational erasure.
She founded Waraq to create space for Libyan and North African art outside institutional gatekeeping. The name means "paper" in Arabic — the most basic surface for creation. The foundation operated across borders, which was both a necessity (Libya's infrastructure could not support it) and a statement (art does not need a state to exist).
Berlin was not a choice made from comfort. Tewa was there on a relocated artist visa — a programme designed for artists who cannot safely remain in their home countries. She did not romanticise the city. She described it as a functional base from which to continue working.
"People forced from their geography see new horizons." (EP 20)
"I'm not Arab, I'm Amazigh, and I'm proud." (EP 20)
"Tewa" means "bridge" in Tamazight. She carried the name as both identity and mission. (EP 20)