I grew up surrounded by memories of WWII—not my own of course, since it officially ended more than 30 years before I was born. My grandparents’ military service was common knowledge among those who knew them. Films like Casablanca and War and Remembrance were familiar. In school, we studied Holocaust accounts.
Later, when I lived in Morocco and Egypt, I found a disconnect between the WWII memories that are circulated in the US and the lived experiences of the peoples of North Africa.
In honor of Salma Khadra Jayyusi, who passed away earlier this year, I’d like to revisit Juha the famous trickster character. I was fortunate enough to study Arabic langugage and literature during the years when Jayyusi’s PROTA project was bringing many works to the attention of readers in English. One of these works is published as Tales of Juha: Classic Arab Folk Humor (Northampton, MA: Interlink, 2007). This is a great compilation and rendition of many classic Juha stories.
Guest Post by Houda Elfchtali | Meknes, Morocco Arabic version here | انظروا هنا للنسخة العربية
Houda Elfchtali
Long excluded from the world of music–history makes no mention of female Moroccan artists before the 1940s–Moroccan women had to fight to be able to express their talent. There were eventually some developments in this arena, with national music conservatories opening to women in the early 1940s in Fez, Tetouan, Marrakech, Rabat, Meknes and Casablanca.
Houston | Photo by Vlad Busuioc
A few months ago, I picked up Black Water Rising (2009, 1st in the Jay Porter series by Attica Locke) and I was plunged into a world of daily struggle–the struggle to survive, to stay true to one’s principles, to take care of one’s family–often against the odds. I don’t find myself in the perspective of a Black man providing for his family very often, but this opportunity to view the world through someone else’s eyes for a time is a gift.
In this post, I’m delighted to introduce you to some embroidery textile arts happening today and some of the people who are currently at work in these fields in the SWANA/MENA region (Southwest Asia and North Africa/Middle East and North Africa). We’ll be looking at Palestinian, Egyptian, and Moroccan examples, in that order. This post is not comprehensive – feel free to contact me if I’ve failed to include a person or topic you’d like me to add!
Map of Morocco courtesy of David Rumsey Map Center, Stanford Libraries | Source
انظروا هنا للنسخة العربية Guest Post by Meriem Sahli | In the following post, guest writer Meriem Sahli outlines important developments in education in Morocco and identifies remaining areas for improvement.
INTRODUCTION The Kingdom of Morocco is situated in the North-Western part of Africa. Its geographic location makes it both an African and an Arab-Muslim country; it is a member of the African Union and the Arab League.
Atlas Studios. Source
Two Film Industries (Separate, Not Equal) It would seem that there are two very distinct film industries in Morocco: the films produced by Moroccans, and the films produced by foreigners. In fact, they are linked to one another by political economy. Consider the following scene. Moroccan filmmaker M. A. Tazi was trying to reconstruct a fourteenth-century urban environment in Salé for a film based on a Moroccan novel.
Scene from Tazi’s Looking for My Wife’s Husband (1995). Source
This mini-series consists of two posts. The first provides a historical introduction to the film industry in Morocco. How did it get started? What are the big issues that shaped, and continue to shape, this industry?
The Foreign Origins of Cinematography in Morocco Both domestic and foreign production are best understood in the context of Moroccan history. The history of film in Morocco, like that of modern technology in most of the world, begins with colonialism.
This series seeks to map shifting levels of language dominance in Moroccan history in order to investigate contemporary developments in government policy. The previous post focused on Colonial Language Policy.
Nationalist Language Policy of Arabization The Moroccan constitution of 1956 names Arabic as the sole official language, and by the end of the 1950s, a project of Arabization was swiftly in place. A key component of Morocco’s Arabization project was a five-year plan for transforming the school system left by the French Protectorate.
This series seeks to map shifting levels of language dominance in Moroccan history in order to investigate contemporary developments in government policy. The previous post presents a Brief Linguistic History of Morocco.
Street sign, includes French and Arabic
Colonial Language Policy French Morocco’s first resident-general, Hubert Lyautey, relied on ethnological research to guide Protectorate policy. Georges Hardy, head of the educational service from 1920 to 1926, supervised the research. He sought to adapt Protectorate schools “to the specific characteristics of Morocco’s Muslim population,” based upon a psychological approach (Segalla 172).
