TALIM Director's Blog

Welcome to TALIM Director's Blog: Tangier American Legation Institute for Moroccan Studies

The Tangier American Legation Institute for Moroccan Studies, TALIM, is a museum, cultural and conference center, and the only US National Historic Landmark abroad.  TALIM is the research center in Morocco of the American Institute for Maghrib Studies - AIMS.  TALIM and AIMS, in cooperation with the American School of Tangier, administer the State Department's CLS Arabic language scholarship program in Morocco for US university students on behalf of CAORC, the Council of American Overseas Research Centers.

TALIM Director's Blog is an informal way of keeping up with our activities.  We welcome your comments!

Professor Nile's Public Speaking Formula

 

As a preventive measure, I had to slip this slide into Professor Nile Stanton's excellent presentation on persuasive speaking.  Try as we might, a few individuals in his Legation audience of master's business students from Tangier's HEM (Haute Ecole de Management) were not persuaded to turn off their infernal machines.

But hey, if some students couldn't be parted from their cell phones, weren't paying attention, and missed Professor Stanton's helpful advice, that's their problem: they have to make their own presentations - in English - this Friday, in front of a jury.  You snooze, you lose.

You can watch a segment of the presentation on this YouTube link, and also access Prof. Stanton's slide show.  And please excuse my brief appearance playing with the lighting.

Despite the distractions, it was a very effective presentation.  Nile Stanton, professor at the University of Maryland University College (UMUC), is a pro, and he knows of what he speaks.  A trial attorney in his former life, Nile Stanton peppered his lecture with real-life anecdotes from the courtroom, where his powers of persuasion were applied to convincing juries of the innocence of his clients.

To the amusement of his audience of students, Nile recounted how some of his own clients could not be restrained from blurting out self-incriminating evidence.  Credibility, it turns out, is one of Professor Stanton's key elements of his "Three Golden Keys" to persuasive speaking: "relate experience, respect audience, establish common ground," according to one of his slides.

We all learned much from Nile Stanton.  I had never come across "Monroe's Motivated Sequence" - known to those in the world of advertising - but see that its progression from getting an audience's attention to spurring it to action could be a powerful tool in any presentation.

Nile Stanton's presentation at TALIM was one of several we have offered to HEM students, whose school engages English as a Second Language (ESL) teachers provided by the British Council for a six-week immersion course.  Earlier, Dr. Peter Limbrick of UC Santa Cruz gave the students a primer on film appreciation, with examples from his work on Middle Eastern/North African cinema.

At TALIM, we believe in making the most of our limited resources.  Which, in the case of professors Stanton and Limbrick, means getting pro bono services of educators who are either resident in Tangier (the case of Nile Stanton), or here for research (Dr. Limbrick).  We might not offer an honorarium, but we've gotten some great talent "singing for their supper."

Nile Stanton, whose UMUC work is mostly of the distance-learning variety, has been a stalwart in the local community's support of the Tangier American Legation Institute for Moroccan Studies.  His volunteer work at TALIM is proof that there is a wealth of knowledge to be tapped right here in our back yard.  Thank you, Professor Stanton.

Now my question is: would some benefactor please get us a mobile phone jammer?

UPM, UMA: Mediterranean Dialogues, Post-Arab Spring

That white sea in the middle, as the Med is known in Arabic, has for millenia been the scene of strategic juggling.  So it was particularly helpful to have as erudite an analyst as Dr. Bichara Khader of Belgium's UCL (Université Catholique de Louvain) as the latest speaker at Tangier HEM's Université Citoyenne.  Khader, who comes from a family of Palestinian patriots, is a visiting professor at HEM.

I would do him no favor if I tried to summarize in this short blog post the encyclopedic analysis Dr. Khader provided.  He traced the genesis of institutions like the Union for the Mediterranean, UPM in the common French acronym, putting them in their European political and geopolitical contexts.  But more than historiography, he concentrated on today's renewed interest, in Europe and beyond, in the democratic ferment on this Southern side of the Mediterranean.

"The Arab Spring has earned this region new respect," said Bichara Khader.  He sees this in the post-Arab Spring pronouncements by European leaders, in the renewed interest in supporting democratic change, in the falling out of favor of autocratic rulers who might happen to sit on large reserves of petroleum.  "Oil is no longer a defense" against charges of misrule.

And while the principal focus was on North-South relations in the UPM, the 5-nation UMA or Union du Maghreb Arabe has also seen a flurry of activity, witness the visit of Morocco's new foreign minister to Algeria and travel by Tunisia's president to Morocco, Algeria, and Mauritania.  Suddenly, UMA is back as a potential regional actor, which Khader sees as bolstering the position of the Maghreb vis-à-vis Europe and the UPM.

This alphabet soup of North-South and regional groupings wouldn't be complete without mention of NATO and its Mediterranean Dialogue, which got its start in 1994 when then Secretary General Willy Claes started to become aware of nascent dangers in the post-Cold War Mediterranean.  A different kind of dialogue - this time to rescue the Libyan opposition in Operation Unified Protector - ensued in the wake of Kaddafi's 2011 attacks on protesting civilians.

The presence of eminent political scientists like Dr. Bichara Khader among the business students at HEM is indicative of their seriousness of purpose, intent on creating Morocco's "citizen managers" of tomorrow.  Not bad for a "business school."  Being a good, informed citizen is everbody's business.

Scenic View of Europe's Market: Renault in Tangier

 

Tangier, the Strait, Spain & Gibraltar

 

This week saw the grand opening of Renault's massive Tangier factory, inaugurated by King Mohammed VI of Morocco.  His Majesty went on to cut ribbons on other Tangier infrastructure projects, including the new Tanger-Med petroleum port.  Tangier, Boom Town. Photo courtesy Renault.

As Time Magazine's "Global Spin" blogger Bruce Crumley writes, the factory presents a classic clash of globalization and politics - French politics:

Response to the inauguration of the $1.3 billion, 300-hectare plant in the Tangiers suburb Meloussa ranged from subdued grumbling to piercing indignation—particularly from politicians on both sides of the political divide facing presidential and legislative elections this spring. With unemployment nearing 10% as the French economy grinds down toward recession, proposals on job creation, re-industrialization, luring off-shored companies back home, and even patriotism-rousing “Buy French” campaigns have crowded to the top the list of positions staked out by leading politicians on the left and right alike.

In export-driven Morocco, at Free Zone Tangier and elsewhere, the vicissitudes of the world economy - especially the European economy - are always a concern.  Renault has built its factory not for the Moroccan market, but to export Lodgy - yes, the marketing department tells us that it is "redolent of the English word 'lodge'" - MPVs to developing markets.  An unfortunate byproduct may be low-priced competition for its France-based manufacture of Renault's existing MPV, the Scenic.

Just as Renault executives attempt to reassure nervous French political candidates that this latest offshore factory is good for French jobs too, so too do US companies of their cross-border maquiladora factories in Mexico.

But as a recent NPR report on American near-foreign factories shows, these Mexican sites can provide a much-needed "rapid response manufacturing" option to American firms, something that truly delocalized Western industries in faraway China cannot do.  And in the case of the Mexico-Texas Rio Grande border, the benefits have often spilled back over the border, spurring investment on the American side of the river.

It might be a bit more difficult to do that across the Strait of Gibraltar and the Mediterranean, but the parallel inauguration of a dedicated import-export terminal at Tanger-Med, which will import French and other made components and export the finished product, shows that the trade is two-way - the best kind possible.

Midnight Spotlight: Paul Bowles Returns to Moroccan Airwaves

As a very nice spinoff from last week's Radio Tangier interview, tonight Thursday 9 February will feature a special two-hour Paul Bowles program, midnight - 2:00 AM (Morocco time or GMT; this would be 7:00 to 9:00 PM Eastern Standard Time).

Listeners across the world can tune into Moroccan National Radio Alidaa-Watania and/or Radio Tanger (you may need to install plugins) on the internet, or through satellite radio, on Hot Bird 13^o East (10872 Vertical; Symbol Rate 27500).

We are told that this late-night program is a favorite of MREs - marocains résidant à l'étranger - overseas Moroccans in places from LA to Lisbon.

TALIM Director will be part of a panel discussing various aspects of Paul Bowles and his 52 years of residence in Tangier, during which time he became almost synomymous with the City on the Strait.  We don't know the makeup of the panel yet, though it is likely to include some Tangier literary figures.

Journalist and poet Abdellatif Ben Yahia will moderate, and a good choice he is: he knew Bowles personally, and was a close friend of Bowles' fellow writer Mohamed Choukri.  Most panelists are likely to focus on what Bowles is best known for here in Morocco, his voluminous writing on this country, including such well known works as The Sheltering Sky.

We will focus on an equally important but oft-forgotten aspect of Bowles, Renaissance Man.  His music - not only his numerous compositions, but his monumental work in 1959, criscrossing Morocco to record its traditional music for the Library of Congress, what Bowles described "as diversified a body of music as one could find in any land west of India."

A Proverb A Day To Keep Corruption Away

The old adage about prevention being the best cure can clearly be applied beyond the healthy diet.

In the case of Transparency Maroc, it's the very title of their book.  The Morocco branch of the anti-corruption NGO Transparency International - Morocco appears to be the only Maghreb country with such an independent watchdog - has published a unique book, "Proverbs Against Corruption."

An imaginative collection of traditional proverbs, in classical Arabic, Moroccan darija, Amazigh, and French, the book features artwork - posters, photos, calligraphy - all on the theme of corruption.  "If I don't put my hand in the gutter, the rats won't bite me..."

Recently the Secretrary General of Transparency Maroc, Dr. Rachid Filali Meknassi, professor at the Faculty of Law in Rabat, spoke at a gathering at one of Tangier's several "quality" bookstores, Page et Plume.  Dr. Filali Meknassi is an engaging speaker on a tough subject, able to inject humor and irony into a topic that is ultra-serious.  He says that corruption probably costs Morocco in the neighborhood of 2 percent of its annual GDP.  And does that include opportunity costs - investment scared away by corrupt practices?

Transparency Maroc also screened an anti-corruption ad, plus Le Sac, a short film by Tangier film maker Farida Benlyazid, a series of vignettes showing corruption in daily life.  A payoff to a hospital employee to jump the queue to see a doctor.  Bribing the teacher to guarantee good grades for your child.  Want that apartment?  Then you'll have to pay a special fee to the fixer.  And so on.  Some aspects of corruption are so rampant in daily life that people simply don't even think of it as such.  It's just the cost of doing business, a fee to save time, an inevitable annoyance.

Whether the informal economy is an emanation of corruption, or simply a sign of the desperation of millions who cannot find regular employment, cash is king on the street.  How do their goods come into Morocco (or whose house are they stolen from?).  No one really expects these "merchants" to pay tax, and shoppers shouldn't expect receipts.

In other countries - the US with its Consumer Reports, France's UFC Que Choisir - a report on the pharmaceutical industry and the impact on the price of medicine would be a cause for consumer advocates.  In Morocco, it's a question for Transparency, which devoted its entire December newsletter to outlining why locally manufactured drugs are almost as expensive as imported medicines.

In a country where millions have absolutely no medical coverage, and where doctors are rarely seen by large swaths of the population, the local pharmacist is the closest that most people ever get to a health care professional.  You feel sick, you plonk down your dirhams, and the person behind the counter will dole out a pill.  At profit margins that are astounding.  Why?  Because it is that way.

Transparency Maroc is fighting an uphill battle.  Morocco's place in the worldwide corruption index is down at the "very poor integrity" category, the bottom half of the international ranking.  The fight against endemic corruption extended even to the award ceremony for Transparency Maroc's 2010 "Integrity Award" to anti-corruption whistle blower Chakib El Khiyari, the head of the Rif Human Rights Association, freed during a post-February 20 amnesty.  The ceremony was delayed well into 2011, and the venue was changed at least four times following successive refusals to allow the ceremony to take place, which prompted Transparency to "cage" its statuette.

It now graces the back cover of "Proverbs Against Corruption."

The 2011 Transparency Maroc Integrity Award went to Mourad Kartoumi, a Casablanca fruit and vegetable merchant, perhaps a nod to Tunisian Jasmine Revolution hero Mohammed Bouazizi.  The citation on the award says that Kartoumi braved personal risk, and endangered his livelihood, by breaking the "code of silence" governing corruption in his sector.

That is exactly what Transparency Maroc does in its pioneering work.

Theatre Triangulation: Tangier, Tetouan, Fez

George Bajalia, Fulbright Scholar in Tangier, provides us this guest post on his adventures in theatre at the outset of his year-long research program in Morocco.  At TALIM, we believe in making the most of limited resources, and the semi-miraculous juxtaposition of Fulbright theatre scholar, American film festival in Tangier, and American Voices "Broadway in Morocco" workshop in nearby Tetouan was an opportunity to leverage cultural assets.

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Researching theatre in Morocco is often a contradictory affair. When I talk about my research with people, they often ask me why I came to Morocco to study theatre. Wouldn’t I have been better off somewhere in Europe, or perhaps in Egypt, they ask. Other times, I meet people involved in local improv groups, write plays for small troupes, or grew up reading classics of theatre translated into Arabic or French.

My first time in Tangier, I was waiting at Café de Paris waiting on a potential research contact to show up. I must have looked anxious because the man seated next to me asked if everything was all right. We struck up a conversation, and before I knew it the time for my meeting had come and gone. When I started lamenting that to my new friend, he stopped me and said, “a coincidence is worth a thousand appointments,” he said. How true.

Several weeks ago, I was at TALIM and ran into Jerry. As I explained what I was working on, his excitement grew. As it turned out, my move to Tangier from Fez came at the perfect time. Mrs. Karla Rais el Fenni, a longtime Tangier American, had recently received a grant from the US Embassy to organize an English language film festival and theatre performance. However, she still needed someone to help with the direction of the play. As a theatre director, that seemed to be something with which I could definitely help.

Jerry had also heard about another Embassy program run through the international cultural organization American Voices, who were running a series of workshops throughout Morocco on acting and theatre marketing.  I turned out to be in a perfect position to connect the two events. The workshop was heading to Tetouan for a three-day program in the North. So, I squeezed into a grand taxi to Tetouan, walked into a building full of artists young and old, and introduced myself to the American crew.  They appeared a bit surprised to meet a countryman who works in the same field! For the most part, I just sat in the back and watched.

At one point, I watched as a group of budding dancers moved in unison on the upbeat of a song, in the exact opposite rhythm of most dancers in the US. To an outsider, that might not seem remarkable, but Michael Parks Masterson (a director who works with American Voices) and I were intrigued. Most dancers have trouble finding the upbeat, but instinctively move on the downbeat. In all of his workshops, all over the world, Michael had never seen dancers immediately find the upbeat, but struggle to find the downbeat. After some reflection, he deduced that something in Moroccan music must focus on the upbeat. Several days later, at a Gnawa music session in a friend’s home, I realized he was exactly right. Traditional Moroccan dance emphasizes movement on the upbeat, not the downbeat.

In the marketing workshop, Joanie Pelzer, a New York actor and producer, related a story from her time in Rabat. A theatre had produced a play about women’s issues in Morocco, focusing on rape. The word “rape” was in the title, and featured prominently on the theatre’s signage. When she arrived, they told her how the theatre had trouble filling the house with their target audience - women. They changed the advertising, removed the word “rape,” and noticed an increase of women in the audience. Apparently many women hadn’t wanted to be seen entering a theatre that seemed to be featuring rape so prominently. They were interested in the play’s subject, but the advertising had actually prevented them from coming.

The team was working under a tight schedule and wasn’t able to take up our invitation to come to Tangier, but we agreed to meet up a few days later in Fez, where I had some business to take care of. I was able to introduce them to a good friend of mine who is working to start a non-profit organization, Zanqa Arts (literally, “Street Art”), dedicated to organizing workshops and performances for youth in the Old Fez Medina. Coincidentally, Zanqa Arts was hosting a dinner party that weekend for their own artists, and several of the people from the Embassy and American Voices, including artists from the theatre workshop that morning, were thus able to connect with this very active group of street artists from Fez.

I came away from the experience with a network of contacts that I know will prove crucial in my research here, as well as quite a few new friends. Finding performance, and performers, in Morocco seems daunting at times and these workshops proved invaluable. In time, hopefully TALIM and foreigners such as myself will be able to participate in and contribute to a vibrant performance community that isn’t always the easiest to find. I’ll be sharing the lessons I learned from the workshops, and the presenters, with the young actors I’m working with this spring through Karla’s festival and we’ll certainly be inviting the artists I met in Tetouan. The key to my research here, I’m learning, is embracing coincidence and being ready to work at any time. I had walked into the TALIM library expecting to spend the day buried in books, and walked out energized by a new possibility, but incredulous that so much was happening – the trick is just learning about it.

As I had learned at Café de Paris, a coincidence may indeed be worth a thousand appointments, but the key to making these opportunities count is following up on them and pulling together ideas, resources, and people to create new possibilities out of them. In this case, Jerry connected groups of people who didn’t know about each other and events that were unrelated but extremely relevant to one another. The impact of the American Voices program will last beyond the workshops themselves, and the festival will be better because of the workshops. A community of people, active amongst themselves, now has the possibility to connect with other likeminded artists. In an age of social networking sites, connecting online is easier than ever. However, serendipitous occasions such as this prove that we still need to reach beyond the easy access of email and Facebook. Sometimes all it takes is a chance meeting and a cramped taxi ride to make the connection.

 

 

This Is Radio Tangier, Calling the World

The radio audience thought that it was a chance to learn about TALIM and the programs of the American Legation in Tangier.

Yes, my interview (stay tuned for podcast, though it will be in a mix of Arabic and French) on Radio Tangier was that.  But for me, it was a discovery of another historic landmark in this city.  And to learn that it was founded by an American.

The amazing Herbert R. Southworth, described by the LSE's Paul Preston, in the American Historical Association reprint of a Guardian article, as the "scourge of Franco" for his dogged determination to tell the truth about the Spanish Civil War, went on to Morocco in the aftermath of the November 1942 Operation Torch landings in North Africa.

Because of his knowledge of the Spanish situation, he was posted to Rabat in Morocco to direct Spanish-language broadcasts to Franco's Spain. At the end of the war, he decided not to use his demobilization air passage home but to stay in Rabat, partly to await the fall of Franco but largely because he had fallen in love with a powerfully intelligent French lawyer, Suzanne Maury. When both were free to do so, they married in 1948. Knowing that there were no controls on broadcasting from Tangier, Suzanne advised him to buy a quantity of U.S. Army surplus radio equipment with which he founded Radio Tangier. During that time, he traveled regularly to Spain in search of material for what would become the largest ever collection of books and pamphlets on the Spanish Civil War. The radio station was nationalized by the Moroccan Government in 1960.

Southworth moved on, but his legacy remains.  Soon after Moroccan independence, while the station was still in Southworth's hands, King Mohammed V visited the station.  The fading grey photo commemorates his 1957 visit, to honor the radio station whose shortwave broadcasts, from his exile in Madagascar, kept the king informed about the growing resistance movement in Protectorate Morocco which eventually brought about his triumphant return to the country in 1955.

Radio Tangier director Abdelilah Elhalimi tells of the coded messages contained in the radio's transmissions, which could pass the word from Tangier International Zone to Moroccans in the French and Spanish Protectorates, and beyond.

That international vocation continues.  Thanks to online streaming and satellite radio, Radio Tangier's audience covers the world.  Bahija Chaibi - my interviewer (photo at right) - told me that comments come in from the worldwide Moroccan diaspora; her nighttime broadcasts are appreciated by Moroccans in places like California, who are just starting their day.  At night, Radio Tangier becomes Morocco's Chaine Internationale, broadcasting to the world.

In the independence-era studios, a veritable treasure trove of recordings of broadcasts - all digitized, by the staff of Radio Tanger.  A music studio with two pianos - rare commodities in this town - and photos from a variety of Moroccan musical greats who have performed live over the years.  Most of Radio Tanger's programs are in fact live.

Tangier has always been an important radio location.  As Brian Edwards writes in Morocco Bound, stations like RCA, Mackay, and VOA were important Cold War assets.  Then there's Pan American Radio in postwar Tangier, run by another American.  But that will have to be another story.

The 1952 Tangier Spring

 

 

"... are standing by in case they are needed in Tangier."

Thanks to Trove, the "Digitised Newspapers and More" service of the National Library of Australia, we find the above clipping from the 05 April 1952 Sydney Morning Herald.  From what I can determine, those "British troops at Gibraltar" were not in fact needed in Tangier, though the "Moorish troops from Spanish Morocco and armoured cars from the French Protectorate," as the 4 April 1952 Tangier Gazette put it, were necessary to quell the riots.

 From the Tangier Gazette at the TALIM research library:

The riots which broke out in Tangier last Sunday seem to have taken the authorities completely by surprise.  Lt-Colonel Artous was on leave and the police arrangements were inadequate. [Note: This refers to the tabor or Tangier's small force of Moroccan police, commanded by a Belgian officer].  It is hard to understand why greater precautions were not taken as all followers of Moroccan affairs were aware that trouble was possible on the anniversary of the Fez Treaty.  [Note: In 2012, retrospectives have been going back 100 years to 1912 and the Treaty of Fez which established the French and Spanish Protectorates over Morocco.  Sixty years ago, in the spring of 1952, the situation was less of historic inquiry and more of using the anniversary to militate for Morocco's independence.  At the time, Tangier was still the International Zone].

Professor Mohamed Elkouche of the University of Oujda, in the 2004 "Writing Tangier" conference, reminded us of Paul Bowles' view of the events of 1952:

In the Introduction he added retrospectively to Let It Come Down (in 1980), Bowles notes that this novel “was first published early in 1952, at the very moment of the riots which presaged the end of the International Zone of Morocco. Thus even at the time of publication the book already treated a bygone era, for Tangier was never the same after the 30th of March 1952. The city celebrated in these pages has long ago ceased to exist, and the events recounted in them would now be inconceivable.”

Bowles would stay on in Tangier for the rest of his life, chronicling the evolution of his adopted city from International Zone, through reintegration with Morocco under Mohammed V, to conscious disregard under Hassan II.  Bowles died within months of King Mohammed VI's 1999 accession to the throne, so never experienced the city's rebirth under his enlightened rule.

Tangier's Arab Spring began 60 years ago, in 1952.  The beginning of the end of Tangier, International Zone, and a hint of the impending independence of Morocco in 1956.

Tangier Filmmaker Finds His Dream Audience - at TALIM

 

El Ayel - A Muslim Childhood - Le Gosse de Tanger

Poster by AST Head Librarian Serena Epstein

"They accuse me of making 'intellectual' films, so the presence here of so many women from the medina - from our Beni Idder neighborhood where Le Gosse de Tanger is set - is extremely important to me."  So Moumen Smihi, veteran Tangier and Paris filmmaker, greeted our very respectable gathering on Wednesday, on the margins of Morocco's National Film Festival, in Tangier for the 13th year running.

"Respectable," not only in terms of the quality of the people attending, but in their number: we had literally just gotten the word out less than 24 hours before, and our posters (above) were only distributed hours before our showing.  But most importantly, the women that Moumen Smihi were referring to were "our" women from the TALIM-FTAM women's literacy program housed at the Legation.

Why was this so important, to us and to the filmmaker?  Well, it was a first.  Smihi is used to appearing before cinéphile audiences, congnoscenti who know what he means when he compares his returning references to the Tangier of his youth to Woody Allen's use of New York as a setting for his films: "it's the place I know best... with its multiplicity of languages and cultures, and the destiny of people to live together, whatever it takes."

And it was that aspect of Le Gosse de Tanger (2005, 90 minutes) that spoke most strongly to the women of our literacy program.  Several of the older ones (Smihi's film takes place in the 1950s, when Tangier was still the International Zone) vividly remember this very neighborhood in the days when Muslim mothers brought in Spanish seamstresses to make trousers for their sons, or a Jewish matron sought advice from a Muslim sage, or Christian prostitutes shared the street with their colleagues from the other communities.

Sure, the x-rated language of the Fifties-era street kids did shock some in the audience, and some of the mothers regretted that they couldn't show the film to their children.  Of course Moumen Smihi understands this, but explained that his goal was to portray the reality of growing up in a time and place where the respectable lived next door to the rejected, and the tempations of the street were a danger to boys even from the happiest of families.

For our impromtu showing, we even had the benefit of academic analysis - in French and Arabic - by Dr. Peter Limbrick of the University of California Santa Cruz (UCSC), Smihi friend and professor of Arab and Middle Eastern cinemas.  Be sure to read Peter's excellent "guest post" after the page break at the bottom of this post.*

There are touches of Cinema Paradiso here, and one of the most memorable images is of the little friend "Ouahrani" mesmerized in one of Tangier's old cinemas before the flickering black and white images of a world that he will never grow up to know.  Moumen Smihi has given us a loving, lasting work, one that would be a nice addition to any serious study of Tangier, International Zone, as seen by the Muslim population of the time.

*UPDATE 29 January: Guest Post by Dr. Peter Limbrick

A Muslim Childhood at TALIM: Putting le gosse back in Tangier!

One of best things about writing and teaching about film is getting to experience a film with new

1992-2012, Algeria-Morocco: Political Islam(s)

On a January night 20 years ago this month, tanks were rolling down the Avenue de A.L.N in Oran.  At first I was simply concerned that they would knock down our venerable building by mistake when one of them stopped to make a U-turn in front of the American Consulate, where we lived.

Then I realized what was happening.  Democracy was in the process of suffering a severe U-turn in Algeria, and the consequences of the January 1992 overturning of the Islamist FIS-won parliamentary election would be far-reaching and violent.  The Algerian army's move led to a lost decade through the rest of the '90s, and endemic insecurity in some areas means that Algeria is still on many countries' travel advisory lists.

How ironic, then, exactly two decades later, that the Moroccan Islamist PJD Minister of Foreign Affairs, Saad Eddine Othmani, has just accomplished his first trip abroad since his party won the parliamentary elections of November 2011 and parliament approved the formation of the PJD-led government this week.  His trip was to Algeria - the first for a Moroccan foreign minister since 2003.

Back in Oran, I remember an FLN loyalist opining in the early Nineties, "the Moroccans have yet to have their revolution."  As a proud Algerian nationalist, he obviously felt that things were just fine in his country, thank you, and that Morocco was changeless.  This was before the Islamist electoral victories of June 1990 and December 1991 challenged his complacency.

Okay, so now change has happened, peacefully, in Morocco.  Morocco in 2012 has done what Algeria refused to do in 1992: accept the results of elections which gave victory to an Islamist party.

That said, some observers still reserve judgement on the Moroccan dalliance with political Islam.  The country's population pressures and high unemployment make for a volatile mixture in a region where sparks fly.  And yet, the contrast with Algeria, faced with an elected Islamist majority in January 1992, is striking: in Morocco, no one appears to fear an Army backlash, or voices the concern heard in Algeria twenty years ago.  Those concerns? That the FIS would be a "one man, one vote, one time" party.  The FIS never got a chance to disprove that supposition.

Moroccan Minister of Communication, government spokesman, and PJD political bureau member Mustapha El Khalfi spoke January 27 at the Tangier HEM - Haute Ecole de Management - "Université Citoyenne," HEM's series of lectures on a variety of hot topics.  El Khalfi, who spent 8 months as a Congressional intern in Washington and was at Johns Hopkins SAIS (he also attended, in his previous role as a jounalist, TALIM's 2010 April Seminar), was to talk about democracy and political Islam.  He did, but in reassuring terms, preferring to talk about "democratic Islam."

In his view, the difference between Algeria in 1992 and Morocco in 2012 is that two decades ago, the Islamists in Algeria threatened the existing order, and presented themselves as a radical alternative.  Certain sectors of Algerian society - especially the military - felt threatened.  Whereas the PJD is a businesslike player, as well as being part of a wave of moderate Islamist parties in the mold of Turkey's ruling AKP.

Some Moroccan news outlets have created unrealistic deadlines for the Benkirane government, demanding tangible success within the usual 100-day grace period or political honeymoon.  After Algeria's FIS won local and regional elections in June 1990, their subsequent 18-month record of municipal governance was the subject of criticism by those looking for them to fail - but Algerians again gave the FIS their vote in December 1991.  Until the Army stepped in, cancelling the second round.

100 days, 18 months... Morocco's many challenges will take years of concerted effort at the national, regional, and local levels, and in a variety of key sectors: health, education, environment, employment, to name a few.  At least the current consensus is that Morocco's first freely-elected government is a "player."  Businesslike is a good point of departure.