A few years after Morocco’s much longed-for achievement of independence (1956), a new generation of intellectuals too young to have participated in what is widely called the nationalist movement burst onto the cultural and political scenes, and shifted the focus of debate from the “glorious” past towards social and international realities. The 1960s witnessed the appearance of a diverse group of political, scientific and especially cultural and literary journals that changed the course of intellectual life in Morocco. The creation of these new channels of expression out of the emerging institutions of independent Morocco meant a rupture with the prevailing patterns dominated by nationalist and salafī ideals. This article intends to highlight the role and spirit of these generally overlooked journals within their contextual and historical framework.
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See Waïl Hassan, “Postcolonial Theory and Modern Arabic Literature,” Journal of Arabic Literature, 33, no. 1 (2002): 50-61.
Elisabeth Kendall, Literature, Journalism and the Avant-Garde: Intersection in Egypt (New York: Routledge, 2006), 1. I will rely also on the ideas of Richard Jacquemond, who has devoted special attention to the state’s tendency in Egypt to “control the intellectual market” (Richard Jacquemond, Entre scribes et écrivains. Le champ littéraire dans l’Égypt contemporaine (Arles: Sindbad-Actes Sud, 2003), 32), in addition to Yasmine Ramadan, Representing the Nation: Spatial Poetics in the Literature of the Sixties Generation in Egypt (PhD diss., Columbia University, 2012).
In her book on Spanish literary journals, Las revistas poéticas españolas (1939-1975) (Madrid: Turner, 1976), Fanny Rubio tackles the double neglect of literary journals by academia and libraries. She emphasizes the crucial role played by these “unusual collective enterprises,” a medium that she considers unique for reconstructing cultural history, especially in situations involving a literary vacuum, such as postwar Spain, or, in our case, post-independence Morocco. Because of the real risk of even physical loss, some historians of Arab media have highlighted the urgency of rewriting the history of Arab newspapers and journals from before the age of online journals. See, for example, Tarik Sabry, “Introduction: Arab Cultural Studies: Between ‘Reterritorialisation’ and ‘Deterritorialisation’ ” in, Arab Cultural Studies: Mapping the Field, ed. Tarik Sabry (London: I. B. Tauris, 2012), 1-31. Historians of Moroccan culture, such as Abderrahman Tenkoul, have also complained that cultural journals have not been taken seriously in academic research, and that due to this prejudice researchers have disregarded crucial elements in the cultural and literary history of Morocco. See Abderrahmane Tenkoul, “Les revues culturelles,” Regards Sur la Culture Marocaine, no. 1 (1988), 10. I will be retaining the spelling of authors’ names as they appear when they publish in French or other languages.
See, for example, Ami Ayalon, The Press in the Arab Middle East: A History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995). See also the volume edited by Rosella Dorigo in the journal Quaderni di Studi Arabi, 18 (2000).
Dina Matar, “Rethinking the Arab State and Culture: Preliminary Thoughts” in Arab Cultural Studies: Mapping the Field, ed. Tarik Sabry (London: I. B. Tauris, 2012), 125. On the “multifaceted interplay of power, co-optation, and dissent” on the Moroccan cultural scene, see the special issue of Journal of African Cultural Studies: Contemporary Moroccan Cultural Production: Between Dissent and Co-optation, 25:3, (2013), coordinated by Karima Laachir.
Saʿīd Yaqṭīn, “al-Ibdāʿ al-adabī al-maghribī wa-tanwīʿāt al-huwiyyah wa al-intimāʾ,” al-Ḥayāt, November 14, 1997, 20.
Transferred to Rabat in 1913, al-Saʿādah became the official newspaper of the French protectorate.
See Amina Aouchar, La presse marocaine dans la lutte pour l’indépendance (1933-1956) (Casablanca: Wallada, 1990), and Amina Ihraï-Aouchar, “La presse marocaine d’opposition au Protectorat,” Hesperis Tamuda 20-21, no. 1 (1982-1983): 333-348.
Saʿīd Yaqṭīn, “al-Ibdāʿ al-adabī al-maghribī wa tanwīʿāt al-huwiyyah wa-l-intimāʾ,” Al-Ḥayāt, November 14, 1997, 20. Adria Lawrence engages in a more complex analysis of this period, which was characterized by a diversity of responses to French rule. She distinguishes reformist demands from sheer nationalist aspirations and proposes a “dynamic understanding of Moroccan anti-colonialism,” since it adopted multiple forms. Together with the nuances of this distinction, the ideological background of what is called the Salafīyyah movement in Morocco should be taken into account (“Rethinking Moroccan Nationalism, 1930–44,” The Journal of North African Studies, 17, no. 3 (2012): 475-490). In this respect see ʿAbd al-Qādir al-Shāwī, al-Salafīyyah wa al-waṭaniyyah (Beirut: Mu ʾassasat al-abḥāth al-ijtimāʿiyyah, 1985) and Mukhliṣ al-Sabtī, al-Salafīyyah al-wahhābiyyah bi-l-Maghrib (Rabat: Manshūrāt al-Majallah al-Maghribiyyah li-ʿIlm al-Ijtimāʿ al-Siyāsī, 1993).
Aḥmad al-Yabūrī, “Tajribat muʾassasah thaqāfiyyah,” Al-Ittiḥād al-Ishtirākī, October 25, 1996, 2.
Saʿīd Yaqṭīn, “al-Ibdāʿ al-adabī al-maghribī wa-tanwīʿāt al-huwiyyah wa-l-intimāʾ,” Al-Ḥayāt, 14 November, 1997, 20.
In 1967, Laroui published his influential L’ideologie arabe contemporaine.
Tenkoul, “Les revues culturelles,” 11. In the foreword of Kenza Sefrioui’s book, La revue Souffles : 1966-1973. Espoirs de révolution culturelle au Maroc, Laâbi states “Souffles avait un projet culturel, celui de la décolonisation des esprits, de la reconstruction de l’identité national revendiquée dans la diversité de ses composants” (8). On the problematics of and debates surrounding the definition of “national culture” at the time see Laura Casielles, Souffles: una apuesta política y poética, 59, and Farid Laroussi, “When Francophone Means National: The Case of the Maghreb,” Yale French Studies, no. 103, (2003): 81-90.
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A few years after Morocco’s much longed-for achievement of independence (1956), a new generation of intellectuals too young to have participated in what is widely called the nationalist movement burst onto the cultural and political scenes, and shifted the focus of debate from the “glorious” past towards social and international realities. The 1960s witnessed the appearance of a diverse group of political, scientific and especially cultural and literary journals that changed the course of intellectual life in Morocco. The creation of these new channels of expression out of the emerging institutions of independent Morocco meant a rupture with the prevailing patterns dominated by nationalist and salafī ideals. This article intends to highlight the role and spirit of these generally overlooked journals within their contextual and historical framework.
All Time | Past 365 days | Past 30 Days | |
---|---|---|---|
Abstract Views | 717 | 214 | 10 |
Full Text Views | 57 | 2 | 0 |
PDF Views & Downloads | 60 | 5 | 0 |