Journal of North African Studies

Abstracts of articles in Issue 8.3

Introduction: Indigenous Rights and a Future Politic amongst Algeria’s Tuareg after Forty Years of Independence

The article serves as an introduction to the other seven articles in the volume, by describing the broad geographical, political and demographic situation of the various Tuareg groups and explaining the nature of the relationship between Algeria’s Tuareg and the Algerian state over the 40 years of Independence. The article focuses on the question of indigenous rights and concludes that if the two main instruments of indigenous rights legislation, the ILO Convention and the UN’s Draft Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, were to be enacted in Algeria at this moment, Algeria would be found to be in compliance with the majority of clauses, and far more than neighbouring Tuareg states (Niger and Mali). The article shows that most of the problems facing Algeria’s Tuareg today stem from general problems of modernisation, along with the impact on the region of Algeria’s ‘Islamist problem’, rather than any abuse of their human or indigenous rights. Indeed, the major criticism of Algeria is not of its policies towards the Tuareg but rather the quality of its governance. The article concludes by suggesting that the Central Sahara, or at least that part of it which traditionally belonged to the Tuareg, has reached a critical watershed. This is because the key issues underlying the current complex state of affairs in Algeria’s extreme south, namely the loss of tourism resulting from Algeria’s ‘Islamist problem’, the ‘invasion’ of the region by les gens du nord, the threats being posed to the region’s cultural and environmental heritage, the poor quality of local governance, and the security weaknesses exposed by the recent hostage crisis, have coalesced in a way that will almost certainly herald the development of a new politic, not only in the Algerian Sahara but throughout all Tuareg regions.

From Tit (1902) to Tahilahi (2002): A Reconsideration of the Impact of and Resistance to French Pacification and Colonial Rule by the Tuareg of Algeria (the Northern Tuareg)

This article attempts to capture and analyse key elements of the pre-colonial and early colonial period of Tuareg history before they become lost or fixed forever in what is a predominantly French and imperialistic perspective. This perspective, which provides the sole literary record of this crucial era, has contributed not only to a very distorted notion of the social structure and dynamics of Tuareg society at the time of the French arrival in the Central Sahara, and what is meant by ‘traditional’ society, but also, because of the Tuareg’s own lack of written records, to the Tuareg’s own increasingly misconstrued notions of their history. The article shows that the picture of Tuareg society that France presented to the world after the final pacification of the Algerian Sahara in 1920 was a semblance – almost a caricature – of traditional society.

Ethnicity, Regionalism and Political Stability in Algeria’s Grand Sud

The article analyses changes in the socio-ethnic and political landscape of Algeria’s extreme south, notably the Tuareg regions of Ahaggar and Ajjer, since Algerian independence in 1962. It argues that the ‘Tuareg problem’ of today is not only a conceptually different social construct to the ‘Tuareg problem’ of the 1960s, but that its continued use as an analytical tool is of questionable value. The article explains how new social and political currents, notably a sense of regionalism and the potentially inflammatory notion of Le Grand Sud, are replacing the more traditional ethnic social categories in shaping the region’s social and political terrain. The conclusion is that unless more democratically inclusive development policies are adopted in the region, the emergence of these new social and political forces may come to threaten the political stability of this strategically important part of the Sahara.

Dressing for the Occasion: Changes in the Symbolic Meanings of the Tuareg Veil

The veiling of Tuareg men has been their most distinctiveness custom and the most dominant symbol of ‘Tuaregness’. This article describes the many aspects of the veil and veiling and provides a summary review of the literature and the many explanations that have been given for Tuareg veiling. The last such analysis was undertaken in 1971, a decade after Algerian independence. It explained the many values and symbolic meanings that were attached to veiling, especially in relation to changes in both the traditional magico-religious belief systems and aspects of their social organisation. It concluded by saying that the acceleration of the prevailing changes in Ahaggar society may lead to further considerable changes in both the traditional belief systems and social structure of Tuareg society, with the possible disappearance of the veil in its traditional form and meaning. This article examines the changes that have taken place in both the deportment of the veil and its many symbolic meanings and values in the light of the complex changes that have taken place in Tuareg society over the last 30 or more years. The article shows how a dominant and multivocal symbol, such as the Tuareg veil, can act as a society’s weathervane, often indicating subtle and sensitive changes taking place in a society’s complex array of values and beliefs.

The End of the Matriline? The Changing Roles of Women and Descent amongst the Algerian Tuareg

This article examines the changing roles and significance of descent and matrilineality in the social organisation of the Kel Ahaggar Tuareg from traditional, pre-colonial times to the present, a period in excess of a hundred years. The article explores how changes in the meaning of descent, alongside such radical changes as sedentarisation and various other aspects of modernisation, notably the intrusion of certain Islamo-Arabic influences, have not only ‘downgraded’ the importance of both descent and the matriline in recent years, but have also resulted in a considerable degradation of the position of women in social life, while posing serious threats to their health and general well-being. The article also includes a detailed analysis of changes in marriage patterns amongst the Kel Ahaggar over the last 40 years. The analysis, based on the comparison of all marriages undertaken since the 1960s by two descent groups belonging to different social classes with marriages undertaken by the two same groups prior to the 1960s, reveals that both groups have adopted a new range of marital strategies to manage and cope with the dramatic changes that these groups, and their society as a whole, have experienced over the last two generations.

The Last Nomads: Nomadism among the Tuareg of Ahaggar (Algerian Sahara)

The Tuareg of Algeria, the Kel Ahaggar and Kel Ajjer, were traditionally nomadic pastoralists. In 1962, at the time of Algerian independence, an estimated 90 per cent of them (Kel Ahaggar) were living a predominantly nomadic existence. A decade later, that figure had fallen to an estimated 50 per cent. Today it is estimated at 10–15 per cent. The article explores the nature and survival of nomadism in Ahaggar (and Ajjer) from traditional, pre-colonial times to the present day. It reveals that the fundamental nature of nomadism in Ahaggar has been its almost continuous process of change, through pre-colonial, traditional times, through the colonial period, and again over the 40 or so years of Algerian independence to the present day. This dynamic reflects an almost continual adaptation to new impediments and opportunities, manifested in the almost continuous search for and acquisition of new resources and means of supplementation and an almost perpetual ongoing transformation of the associated social relations of production. Field research over the last four years into the way in which the remaining 3–4,000 nomads are surviving, suggests that we may currently be witnessing a modest revival in the nomadic economy. There is a certain irony, not lost on the Tuareg, that this revival owes much to the current policies of the Algerian government, which only 30 years ago had succeeded in bringing nomadism to its knees.

The Lesser Gods of the Sahara

Following a highly publicised expedition in the 1950s, the Tassili-n-Ajjer mountains of the Central Sahara (Algeria) were presented to the world as ‘the greatest museum of prehistoric art in the whole world’. Many of the claims of the expedition’s leader, Henri Lhote, were misleading, a number of the paintings were faked, and the copying process was fraught with errors. The ‘discovery’ can only be understood within the political and cultural context of the time, namely the Algerian Revolution, France’s attempt to partition Algeria, and the prevailing views of the Abbé Breuil, the arch-advocate of foreign influence in African rock art. The expedition’s methods caused extensive damage to the rock art while the accompanying looting of cultural objects effectively sterilised the archaeological landscape. Any restitution process must necessarily include a full recognition of what was done and the inappropriateness of the values.

Contested Terrain: Tourism, Environment and Security in Algeria’s Extreme South

Tourism has for a long time been an integral part of the nomadic economy and the Tuareg’s domain, and is seen by them as providing them with their rightful place in the world economy. However, the way in which tourism has developed in the Sahara in recent years has brought the Central Sahara, in the opinion of many Tuareg, to the brink of what they see as an environmental catastrophe. This article examines the struggle over the last four years between a small, but rapidly growing, number of ‘enlightened’ Tuareg who are battling for an alternative, environmentally sustainable form of tourism and the short-term financial and political interests of mass tourism, unregulated tourisme sauvage and professional looters. However, during the course of these four years, another struggle has been waged by the forces of the state, smugglers and bandits of various kinds and, if some of the intelligence services are to be believed, al-Qaeda itself, for sheer physical control over this vast terrain. During the course of 2003, through the strange coincidence of a number of events, these two levels of struggle have been fused. The result is the possible development of a new politic, emerging from the fact that local people, notably the Tuareg, now realise that their governments have not only been inept in both safeguarding their regions’ cultural and natural heritage and developing an environmentally sustainable tourism industry, but also that they can no longer ensure the region’s security.

Abstracts of articles in Issue 8.2

Politics of Le passé simple by Ellen McLarney

The uproar incited by Driss Chraibi’s Le passé simple resulted from the political climate at the time of the novel’s publication in 1954, skewing the interpretation of the text. The novel allegorically describes tensions between different political groups in terms of family conflict. The hero Driss’s rebellion against his father ‘Le Seigneur’, hence assumes the dimensions of a revolt against the king, as he tries to rally his brothers to a ‘coup d’état’. The author’s images, both historical and novelistic, are modelled on the French revolution and the family romance novels that were its literary complement. Le passé simple draws a historical blueprint for the Moroccan nation, one that was not executed in the short run, but was partially realised over time. The novel dramatises (and predicts) the conflict between the monarchy and elites such as the intelligentsia, symbolised as a father–son conflict. Most analyses have reduced the work to its psychoanalytic dimensions, eliding its political substratum.

A Writing in Points: Autobiography and the Poetics of the Tattoo by Andrea Flores Khalil

This article is about a semi-autobiographical novel by the Moroccan writer Abdelkebir Khatibi. In this novel, the memories of childhood during the colonial administration intermingle with the author’s reflections on how the social sciences shaped knowledge of Moroccan space and society. The novel La Mémoire tatouée is at first a conflicted narrative, torn between a critique of the patriarchal social structure of his father and an equally oppressive colonial relation of opposition between and within peoples. The conflict is eventually resolved through a poetic release from these ideo-spaces: the poetics of the ‘dot’, or the ‘tattoo’, liberates the script from antagonistic, dialectical system of meaning. The poetic event of the tattoo re-materializes in the cultural reference to a distant, romanticised, but intimately familiar past. This poetics of the abstract tattoo refers to the space of the desert, and to the time of the pre-Islamic love poets.

Algeria’s Political Economy (1999–2002): An Economic Solution to the Crisis? by Iván Martín

This article provides a detailed critical analysis of the economic policy implemented by the Algerian governments between 1999 and 2002 (under the presidency of Abdelaziz Bouteflika), of its results, and of the advance of their structural reforms programme. In this context, the social base of these reforms and the degree of social and political consensus about them are considered. Finally, the article reviews the principal aspects of economic policy that will determine how far this policy will contribute to offering a solution to the serious crisis that Algeria has been undergoing since 1988 and to deactivating the risk of social instability that haunts the country: the issue of employment, the creation of a free trade area with the European Union and its impact, the role of the private sector and export diversification, foreign investment, and the regulation of the nation’s principal economic sector, the hydrocarbon sector. Within this framework, the matter of the viability of the reforms is raised, in a country dominated by the informal economy and the circuits for rent appropriation and realisation that are parallel to the market, as well as the matter of the interaction between economic reform and political reform.

Foreign Direct Investment, Capital Accumulation and Economic Growth in the Maghrib: Empirical Findings and Implications for Regional Integration and Political Stability by Abdelaziz Testas

This article uses an empirical growth model to test for the hypotheses that Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) is crucial to Maghrib long-term economic survival, and that (ii) the magnitude of the impact of this investment depends on its interaction with the stock of human capital available to the region. Using data on capital accumulation and economic growth for the period 1972–96 for three AMU (Arab Maghrib Union) countries, Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia taken as one, the findings reinforce such arguments in favor of FDI with important implications for Maghrib–EU economic integration and political stability in the AMU.

Nostalgic Lives: Memories of Maria in Sidi Ifni, Morocco by Annarose Pandey

This article examines the relationship between nostalgia and understandings of place through memories of Maria, the ‘last of the Spanish’ in the former Spanish enclave of Sidi Ifni in southern Morocco. The old sections of town have largely fallen into ruins and yet the practice of storytelling about this one particular woman and the remaining Spanish buildings are alive and well. I argue that through the pointed use of nostalgic memories, inhabitants of Sidi Ifni are making pointed observations about the Moroccan nation and their place in it. The bricolage of spatio-temporal experiences is part of the construction of the social life of the town itself. People use nostalgia to make sense of the very complicated and uncomfortable relationship of the past to the present while simultaneously imagining a new future for themselves and this town that has been largely left behind by both the Spanish and the Moroccans.

Research Note: Qala’at al-Mahdi : A Pre-Almoravid Fortress in the Moroccan Middle-Atlas by Michael Peyron

The exact location of Qala’at al-Mahdi, heart of a medieval semi-independent state in the Moroccan Middle-Atlas, captured by the Almoravid leader Yusuf Ibn Tashfin towards the close of the eleventh century, has for long been a matter of conjecture. After giving a brief historical account culled from medieval sources, the author examines evidence on the ground pointing to Zawyat Ifran as being the likeliest site. Oral tradition tends to be of little assistance when it comes to bridging a time gap of ten centuries. Meanwhile, rival sites will need to be visited before the enigma can be considered as solved.

Book Reviews

Abstracts of articles in Issue 8.1

Special Issue: Nation, Society and Culture in North Africa

Editor: James McDougall

Introduction. History/Culture/Politics of the Nation by James McDougall

Algeria/Morocco: the Passions of the Past Representations of the Nation that Unite and Divide by Benjamin Stora

Algeria and Morocco are the two largest countries, the two principal states of the Maghrib. An Algero–Moroccan partnership has the greatest potential as the motor of dynamic economic and political development for the whole region. However, at the beginning of the twenty-first century, the development process, its aspirations embodied in the Maghrib Arab Union, is blocked by the impasse in Algero–Moroccan relations. This paper examines how, beyond the crucial Western Sahara dispute, other factors, differential contemporary relationships to space and to history, influence this problematic relationship. Different constructions of nationalism in the two cases are revealing, as is the relation of each country to its national space. These two major states of North Africa, similar and divided by so many things held in common, must seek in their recent history the means of a rapprochement. However, it is not at the level of the state, but at that of civil society that such a rapprochement is now taking place.

Ideologies of the Nation in Tunisian Cinema by Kmar Kchir-Bendana

This article offers an overview of the different ways in which Tunisian artists have produced images of their society and nation, its recent and more distant history, its regions and social problems, through the first 40 years of cinema in independent Tunisia. Each discernible trend in political orientation, use of language, aesthetic considerations, and characterisation is discussed against a theoretical background which takes film as an aspect of cultural production in which the imaginary relation of individuals to their real conditions of social existence may become visible. The paper also considers the location of Tunisian cinema in the regional and world market, and the significance of the ‘national’ cinema as a category of expression and analysis.

Stories on the Road from Fez to Marrakesh: Oral History on the Margins of National Identity by Moshe Gershovich

Post-colonial discourses tend sometimes to belittle or even ignore altogether individuals and groups that collaborated with the colonial order. However, their unique position between the colonised society and the colonising power merits attention. This article examines the collective profile of Moroccan veterans who served in the French army. It examines their backgrounds, career patterns, relations with their peers and commanders, as well as their reintegration within post-colonial Moroccan society. Through the use of oral history it gives representation to an otherwise silent group and it critically evaluates certain perceptions and stereotypes that prevailed on both sides of the Franco-Moroccan military symbiosis in the colonial era.

Echoes of National Liberation: Turkey Viewed from the Maghrib in the 1920s by Odile Moreau

The distant aim towards whose fulfilment this paper hopes to contribute is that of elucidating the emergence of ideas of the nation, and the structures of the ‘nation’ state, in North Africa, a process whose beginnings ought to be situated in the early 1920s. The more immediate goal is to investigate some of the ways in which North Africans saw, and responded to, the Turkish nationalist movement between 1919 and 1924, and the radical institutional transformations undertaken by the young Turkish republic in this brief and turbulent period. The paper suggests that, while the victory of Turkish nationalism against the European powers offered inspiration to North Africans, the abolition of the caliphate effectively removed one important link which had, until then, subsisted between the Maghrib (especially Tunis) and the Middle East.

Libya’s Refugees, their Places of Exile, and the Shaping of their National Idea by Anna Baldinetti

This article focuses on the history of Libyan exiles during the colonial period, tracing the history of the Libyan refugee associations in Tunisia, Egypt and Syria and analysing their early political activities. It argues that the refugees’ activities between 1911 and 1951 can be regarded as the first nucleus of Libyan nationalism. Exploring certain key issues and problems concerning the history of Libyan nationalism, the article also gives a brief overview of the historiography on colonial Libya more broadly, seeking to set the country within its broader historical framework in both the Maghrib and the Middle East.

Martyrs and Patriots: Ethnic, National and Transnational Dimensions of Kabyle Politics by Paul Silverstein

One of the many facets of the 1990s civil war in Algeria has been the renewed importance of regional dynamics within the Algerian nation-state. This essay focuses on this aspect of the conflict and the consequences it entails for the reinvention of Kabyle political subjectivity. Placing the current conflict – as it has been experienced in Kabylia and in the Kabyle diaspora – in a longer history of struggles for cultural, linguistic, and political representation, the essay explores the tensions between the ethnic, national, and transnational dimensions of Kabyle politics. With a particular focus on the representation and enactment of Kabyle struggle in the diaspora, the study attempts to understand these dynamics through the changing image of the martyr-patriot as successively victimised by forces of colonialism, Islamism, and the independent Algerian state. It is argued that, while Kabyle politics has become progressively transnationalised, it nonetheless remains firmly ensconced in local-level concerns over the social and economic conditions of a future, post-war Algerian nation.

Moroccan Women’s Narratives of Liberation: a Passive Revolution? by Liat Kozma

Feminist research often presents national and feminist historiographies as essential, static, ahistorical and isolated entities. In this article, I examine Moroccan national historiography as a site of hegemonic struggle, in which various versions of the past continuously confront each other. First, feminist historiography is considered in the context of the political and social reality of the 1980s and the 1990s, a reality which enabled the visibility of women as historical subjects. Next is shown how feminist thinkers used the struggle for national independence in the formation of an indigenous genealogy for Moroccan feminism, one which would legitimise their egalitarian ideology. Finally, how tension and dialogue between national and feminist historical narratives led to a transformation of national historiography and the incorporation of women within it is examined. At the same time, however, the criticism embedded in the feminist historiography was undermined by its inclusion in the dominant historiography.

Citizens and Subjects in the Bank Corporate Visions of Modern Art and Moroccan Identity by Katarzyna Pieprzak

This essay examines the rhetoric around the creation of a contemporary art gallery within arguably the largest private-sector bank in Morocco, Wafabank. In proclaiming itself a modern citizen with duties to the modern arts of Morocco, the bank constructs an image of Western modernity for both itself and its clients, using art to narrate and attest to Morocco’s inclusion in a global economic community with shared values. Through an analysis of the discourse surrounding the opening of the gallery and a reading of its exhibition practices, this essay explores how the bank negotiates its identity between global citizen and local subject, promoting values of modernity while simultaneously embracing Moroccan political and social structures that often contradict them. Unlike the national museums, the bank gallery does not present a glorious vision of the past, but rather, through art it narrates a contemporary and often schizophrenic late twentieth-century Morocco.

The Nation’s ‘Unknowing Other’ Three Intellectuals and the Culture(s) of Being Algerian, or, on the Impossibility of Subaltern Studies in Algeria by Fanny Collona

This article examines the position of the humanities and social sciences in Algeria over the past 40 years, taking the work of the Subaltern Studies collective, and more generally the question of voices and modes of resistance ‘from below’, as a foil. The absence of any comparable development in Algeria is taken as a sign of the extremely powerful hold exercised by the political field, in ideological and institutional terms, over any and all expression of ‘algérianité’. Taking the paradoxical example of three major authors whose works reflect, each in his own way, much more complex conceptions of nationhood than that constructed in official discourse, it is contended that these figures nevertheless do not succeed – and have not sought – to produce an image of Algerian society, its past, its culture and its struggles, which could be held in common by all Algerians. Each is trapped in a chauvinistic vision of a country which he jealously cherishes, each rejecting the images advanced by the others, in a situation of permanent mutual ostracism which reflects the language question, itself a symptom of a deeper, older, and still unresolved socio-cultural and political fragmentation.

Abstracts of articles in Issue 7.4

France’s Mare Nostrum: Colonial and Post-colonial Constructions of the French Mediterranean by Paul A. Silverstein This article explores the ways French colonial constructions of the ‘Mediterranean’ as a cultural category have been appropriated in contemporary identity politics in North Africa and the North African diaspora in France. Focusing on colonial Algeria, I examine the relationship between two different constructions of trans-Mediterranean unity – primeval commonality versus hybridity – directed alternately at Berber tribal subjects and European settlers. I argue that these two visions continue to underwrite contemporary projects for regional economic and political integration, as well as a diverse set of social imaginaires outlined by Amazigh and Beur militants in their writings and cultural political activities.

The Failed Liberalisation of Algeria and the International Context: A Legacy of Stable Authoritarianism by Francesco Cavatorta

This article attempts to challenge the somewhat marginal role of international factors in the study of transitions to democracy. Theoretical and practical difficulties in proving causal mechanisms between international variables and domestic outcomes can be overcome by defining the international dimension in terms of Western dominance of world politics and by identifying Western actions towards democratising countries. The article focuses on the case of Algeria, where international factors are the key in explaining the initial process of democratisation and its subsequent demise. In particular, the article argues that direct Western policies, the pressures of the international system and external shocks influence the internal distribution of power and resources, which underpin the different strategies of all domestic actors. The article concludes that analysis based purely on domestic factors cannot explain the process of democratisation and that international variables must be taken into more serious account.

Government Policy and Economic Growth: A Comparative Analysis of the Maghrib Experience by Ali Abderrezak

Subsequent to a post-independence era beginning in the late 1950s – a period characterised by government dirigisme, debt crisis and economic stagnation – decision-makers in the Maghrib region reluctantly reexamined their policies and agreed to implement economic reforms and International Monetary Fund (IMF) debt stabilisation programmes in the mid-1980s. Yet, despite significant progress toward market liberalisation and stabilisation since that time, growth in the region remains below expectations. Using a time-series regression growth model, this study offers a comparative analysis of the effects of government policy on economic growth from 1970 to 1999 in Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia. While there is strong statistical evidence of a downward convergence towards a steady state level of output in all three countries, government spending in particular has been detrimental to economic growth in these North African developing economies. However, the findings regarding monetary policy, trade openness and export promotion are mixed.

Civil Society in Transition: The Experiences of Centres for Abused Women in Morocco by Laryssa Chomiak

This article reports on the experiences of two centres for abused women in Rabat, Morocco. Through in-depth surveys and interviews of the centres’ participants, victims, staff and other organisational personnel, it seeks to identify the changing nature of civil society in Morocco. In particular, it investigates the way in which the transformation of private and public space is permitting a formerly underrepresented segment of civil society to find a voice on important social and personal issues. This transformation is supported and strengthened by a number of activist individuals, in this case mainly women. Through their mostly voluntary efforts, such activists are working to gradually integrate otherwise abused, neglected and underrepresented women into mainstream society. In so doing, they are creating an opportunity for the resolution of critical personal, psychological and social issues within the broader Moroccan socio-political landscape which may be a precursor to an expanding process of political democratisation.

Colactation and Fictive Kinship as Rites of Incorporation and Reversal in Morocco by Remco Ensel

Based on anthropological research in an oasis community in Pre-Saharan Morocco, this article examines the contemporary practice of colactation and milk kinship. It is argued that the creation of colactation or bilateral milk kinship arrangements was, and still is, a significant mechanism for the creation of lasting multi-stranded exchange relationships between people of unequal status. Besides acting as a rite of incorporation, the gift of mother’s milk may be applied as a prophylactic or curative substance in a rite of reversal. In both senses, milk kinship testifies to the double-binding relationship between people of unequal status.

‘I am a Real Slave, a Real Ismkhan’: Memories of the Trans-Saharan Slave Trade in the Tafilalet of South-eastern Morocco by Cynthia Becker

Each year in south-eastern Morocco, descendents of enslaved Sudanic Africans, called Ismkhan, hold a festival in honour of their ancestors. The festival overflows with people who wish to be healed by their baraka, or ‘divine blessing’. In south-eastern Morocco, memories of the trans-Saharan slave trade are still vivid, and the descendents of people enslaved and carried across the Sahara continue to recognise their slave status by using the term Ismkhan, the plural form of the word ismkh or ‘slave’ in Tamazight, to refer to themselves. This article focuses on the dress, dance, music and healing practices of the Ismkhan and includes personal recollections of the slave trade to demonstrate how the Ismkhan have taken the pejorative term ‘slaves’ and attempted to turn it into a term of positive empowerment. The article concludes that the Ismkhan are a diaspora population that uses language and material culture to create a sense of solidarity and an identity that is the same yet different from those responsible for their enslavement.

RESEARCH NOTES

Digital Imagination and the ‘Landscapes of Group Identities’: the Flourishing of Theatre, Video and ‘Amazigh Net’ in the Maghrib and Berber Diaspora by Daniela Merolla

Privatisation and the Internet in Morocco: A Rabat Case Study by Joseph Benach

Book Reviews

Abstracts of articles in Issue 7.3

Political Parties in the Maghrib: Ideology and Identification. A Suggested Typology by Michael J. Willis

Maghribi political parties and the party systems in which they operate are clearly different from those in the West. One difference is the weakness of traditional western-style ideological divisions between parties. Ideological divisions do nevertheless exist between political parties in Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco but relate to different issues. They can be summarised as differing viewpoints over the role of religion in the state; the role of minority identities in the state; and most importantly, the continued centralisation of political power in the state. It is differences on these questions that provide a general typology of political parties that distinguish themselves from each other on these points. On this basis the paper examines firstly, parties based upon Islamist ideas, secondly, parties associated with the Berber population, and finally and most importantly, parties that are either supportive of or in opposition to the existing political order and rulers. It is argued that it is this final division between ‘regime’ and ‘opposition’ that is the most crucial and overrides all other distinctions. Having established this basic typology, the paper will also look at more general issues such as party structure and social and geographic bases of support of parties.

‘Race’, Slavery and Islam in the Maghribi Mediterranean Thinking: The Question of the Haratin in Morocco by Chouki El-Hamel

Certain tenets are shared in North Africa that articulate Maghribi Mediterranean patterns of conceptualisation of power relations in Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Libya – one Islam, one nation (al-maghrib al-‘arabi), one culture, one language, and a silence. This culture of silence – the refusal to engage in discussions on slavery and racial attitudes – is the subject of this article. Internally, in the name of hegemony – Arab–Islamic hegemony in North Africa – this issue is concealed and, externally, Mediterranean slavery has been largely ignored by historians. It should be noted that we find a similar silence along the northern shoreline of the Mediterranean. Jacques Heers, a specialist in European history wrote, in his study of slavery in medieval Europe, that this silence reflects an embarrassment felt collectively throughout the centuries. The North Africans must have felt a similar embarrassment in questioning interpretations of Islam and its ethics when confronting the matter of slavery.

Morocco: The Last Great Slave Market? by John Wright

During the nineteenth century the trans-Saharan slave trade moved its focus steadily westwards under the pressure of European abolitionists. As a result, Morocco, where the trade was never formally banned before the French colonial period began, became the last great North African slave market, with Marrakesh at its centre. It is more difficult, however, to establish the number of slaves involved, as the resources of the Sahara were relatively inelastic and significant increases in slave numbers crossing the desert could lead to disaster. Large increases in sales of slaves at Marrakesh were, however, reported at the end of the trade in the 1890s, and it is not clear where they came from.

Law on a Wild Frontier: Moroccans in the Spanish Courts in Melilla in the Nineteenth Century by C.R. Pennell

The frontier between the Spanish enclave of Melilla and the surrounding territory of Morocco was disorderly for much of the nineteenth century. On the Moroccan side the control of the Sultan was often ephemeral, and the border itself was marked by raiding, and even more frequent smuggling. On the Melillan side, conflicts between individual Moroccans and Spaniards had to be mediated through the legal system. An examination of the particular cases illustrates the extent to which Spanish law was a tool that Moroccans used to protect their interests, rather than an ideological marker, or nationalist symbol.

Nos Goumiers Berbères: The Ambiguities of Colonial Representations in French Military Novels by Driss Maghraoui

Since the beginning of French military expansion in North Africa, the experiences of North African colonial troops have inspired much writing about their lives, character and their ‘attachment’ and accommodation to the French military regime. The ‘exotic’ fighters of the Berber mountains were written about with admiration and fascination for their ‘rustic’ qualities and exploits under French military officers during the period of colonial expansion between 1912 and 1934. Today in the High Atlas Mountains of Morocco, elderly Berbers still carry with them the silent memories of their exploits under French command. Many of these Berbers served in the goums – North African military levies under French command – and have astonishingly vivid memories of their fighting in Tunisia, Italy, France, Germany and Indochina. Yet their memories have been predominantly captured in printed materials which silence them and inscribe them in a particular mode of colonial and paternalist discourse. In order to bring back the voices and lives of such subaltern groups, it is important to analyse how they came down to us through a colonial literary culture. This article looks at the ways in which French officers represented the goumiers and Berbers in the colonial military novel. By unpicking the narratives of the novels, light will be shed on the colonial cultural logic of the officers who used the goumiers as cannon-fodder during the Second World War.

The Dynamics of State and Civil Society in Morocco by James Sater

Since King Hassan II started to soften Morocco’s hard stance towards allegedly subversive organisations in the late 1980s, the formal sector of civil society in Morocco, in particular that of politically active non-governmental organisations (NGOs), has seen a great increase in activities. Likewise, since the King’s decision in 1998 to select a government consisting of former opposition parties (USFP and Istiqlal) under USFP leader Abderrahmane Youssouffi (‘alternance’ in Moroccan political terminology), and especially since the accession to the throne of his son, Mohammed VI, in August 1999, NGOs have become even more active, enjoying a freedom of activity that Morocco had never before witnessed. This article seeks to illustrate the dynamics that have been created within this developing space, marked, as it is, by its relationship to both political parties and to the monarchical state (referred to as the Makhzen). By analysing these underlying dynamics, this article argues that the free engagement of civil society in political affairs is by no means guaranteed. Instead, civil society is confronted with both a changing state and a changing political party system, both of which have been redefining their position vis-à-vis each other and vis-à-vis civil society. These two entities, relying on a historical, cultural, and political consensus, continue to suppress and alter the free engagement of civil society if they consider their power bases as being threatened.

Access Regulation in Islamic Urbanism: The Case of Medieval Fes by Said Ennahid

Islamic urbanism is characterised by a clear-cut separation between the public and private domains. This demarcation permeates both the architectural and social structure of the Islamic urban society. In this article, four hierarchical levels of settlement will be studied: 1) the courtyard house, 2) the house compound, 3) the quarter, and 4) the city. Each hierarchical level of settlement will be examined in terms of the social, ethnic or occupational group that resides in it, and the structural manifestations of access regulation. Medieval Fes offers an excellent case study of this type of investigation. It was the object of numerous studies by archaeologists, historians, ethnographers, and architects. Furthermore the city epitomises the Islamic prescriptions of access regulation in an urban setting.

Book Reviews

Abstracts of articles in Issue 7.2

Political Parties in the Maghrib: The Illusion of Significance? by Michael J. Willis

A large part of the academic and media attention that has focused on political developments in the Maghrib is concerned with the place and role played by political parties. These parties are portrayed by both outside observers and the regimes in the countries themselves as being at the centre of supposed moves towards ‘liberalisation’ and ‘democratisation’ in the region. However, it is argued that the role and significance of parties in Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco is in reality fairly limited and certainly different from the role played by political parties in Western Europe where they play a dominant role. The article examines the role played by parties in the political systems of the three countries and sets out some basic characteristics of both the parties and the party political systems in which they operate. Control and interference from the regime is found to be the main characteristic both of parties and the party political system in the three states. Other main common features include the prevalence of single dominant leaders (the phenomenon of the zaïm) in parties, the importance of patron–client networks and the parallel absence of Western-style ideologies.

Bouteflika’s Reforms and the Question of Human Rights in Algeria by Youcef Bouandel

Since January 1992 when the Algerian military nullified the results of the first round of the legislative elections, Algeria experienced an unprecedented level of violence and human rights abuse. While the situation is still very critical, the levels of violence and human rights abuse have decreased since Bouteflika became president in April 1999. This article assesses the state of human rights since that date. It looks at the Law on Civil Harmony, reforms of the judicial system and the provisions to improve the socio-economic conditions of the average Algerian citizen. The article concludes by making some recommendations about future developments of human rights.

Maghrib–EU Integration and the World Economy: Quantitative Estimates of the Trade Diversion Effects by Abdelaziz Testas

This article estimates empirically the economic costs of Maghrib–EU economic integration to the world economy. The estimates from the viewpoint of a single member country, Algeria, show that membership in the Arab Maghrib Union (AMU) alone does detract from the commitment to global economic integration. It is recommended that integration with the EU is a way to solve this problem and reduce the negative welfare effects of Algeria–AMU integration to the rest of the world (ROW).

Changing Human Rights Discourse and Practice as Crisis Management: Insights from the Algerian Case by Rolf Schwarz

In recent years, academic work in the field of International Relations has tended to concentrate on the impact of norms and ideas on the changing behaviour of states. Constructivism has evolved as the main challenger to rationalist theories. Constructivists emphasize that state behaviour is not primarily determined by economic or military conditions but by internationally held norms and ideas, such as human rights. According to this approach, changing state behaviour with regard to human rights is determined by transnational human rights networks, which exert moral pressure on states which violate human rights so that they comply with international standards. This paper challenges these theoretical assumptions with regard to the reality of human rights in Algeria between 1962 and 2001. The empirical analysis of the Algerian case demonstrates that Algeria has not been vulnerable to moral pressure from a transnational human rights network. The various changes in the human rights record of Algeria during the period examined can best be explained by existing rationalist approaches which concentrate on socio-economic and political interests. This paper proposes an alternative explanation regarding changing state behaviour in the field of human rights. In the Algerian case, these changes should be seen as a means of the ruling elite to secure and maintain its power.

Hydrocarbon Price Shocks and Uncertainty: Implications for Algeria’s Economic Growth by Ali Abderrezak

This study examines the effects of hydrocarbon short-term price shocks and long-term price uncertainty on Algeria’s economic growth. Throughout its post-independence era, hydrocarbons have been used to promote rapid economic growth and industrialisation. Algeria’s pronounced reliance on a volatile primary commodity market makes the analysis of price uncertainty and shocks pertinent to other countries. Since 1986, the beginning of a prolonged downturn of the international oil market, Algeria’s state of affairs unveiled severe imbalances: high inflation and unemployment rates, declining international revenues, a heavy foreign debt burden, and political unrest. Annual data from the 1965–98 period reveal a significant relationship between hydrocarbons and economic growth. Statistical evidence depicts a direct relationship between short-term price shocks and real per capita growth rates. In addition, a counter-intuitive relationship is found in the positive correlation linking ex ante uncertainty in the international hydrocarbon sector and per capita real output growth rates. Moreover, government monetary and fiscal interventions as well as political instability may have been detrimental to economic growth.

Images of Another Tunisia: A Film Trilogy by Moncef Dhouib by Andrea Flores Khalil

This article examines a film trilogy by Tunisian Moncef Dhouib in light of contemporary image production in Tunisian society. The analysis is based on a contract between an ideological production of the image by the state, on the one hand, and oppositional images of religious and mystical practices, on the other. The ‘ideological’ image is linked to the political situation from Bourguiba until the present time. The secular image is characterised, in content, by a forces visibility of the human body. In mode of production, it is characterised by an appearance of liberation and a reality of political and economic benefit for the authorities. The films of Moncef Dhouib were selected as an example of an oppositional image that is simultaneously resisting political and religious uses of the image and visuality. Short summaries are provided given the difficulty of viewing the films both inside and outside Tunisia.

Abstracts of articles in Issue 7.1

Obstacles to Privatisation of State-Owned Industries in Algeria: the Political Economy of a Distributive Conflict by Isabelle Werenfels

This analysis seeks to explain why privatisation of state-owned industrial enterprises in Algeria – a process pushed by the IMF and the World Bank and launched in 1994 – has not led to a single complete divestiture of shares of corporatised public enterprises by 2001. Privatisation of these enterprises has been impeded by (1) intra-elite struggles and violent conflicts between state elites and armed groups over the distribution of rents, rendering decision making and coherent reform strategies impossible; (2) military and bureaucratic elite clans that profit from import monopoly and oligopoly rents and display little interest in increased domestic production; (3) the role of industrial enterprises in (clientelist) social networks; (4) the strong remnants of a nationalist, étatist, socialist and collectivist ideology.

The Role of Violence within the Algerian Economy by George Joffé

Morocco’s Invisible Imazighen by David Crawford

This paper asserts that Morocco’s Imazighen (Berbers) are often ignored in current academic literature. When they are not ignored Berbers tend to be presented in historical or apolitical terms. This situation is in striking contrast to the French colonial fascination with Berbers, which was often expressly political; it is also at odds with contemporary Amazigh (Berber) activist contentions about the relevance of Berber identity politics. This paper suggests that undervaluing and misrepresenting Morocco’s linguistic diversity skews our scholarly conceptualisation of the nation as a whole. This in turn stands to undermine governmental and non-governmental policy, especially in terms of rural development and education.

The Employment Implications of the Euro–Med Free Trade Agreements by Diana Hunt

The free trade areas currently being established between the EU and individual economies of the southern and eastern Mediterranean (SEM) are expected to lead in the short run to production cut-backs in SEM economies as well as welfare gains to consumers. The production cutbacks in turn imply loss of employment, at least in the short-run, with negative welfare implications for those affected and, depending on the scale and duration of these, possible adverse implications for policy sustainability. The main purpose of this paper is to assemble and assess the available data on likely employment outcomes in the first two SEM economies to establish free trade agreements with the EU: Tunisia and Morocco. Elements of the CGE models which are the main source of employment impact predictions are questioned, focusing chiefly on sectoral definition and disaggregation; potential constraints on labour absorption within both the farm sector and the non-farm informal sector – two sectors which might otherwise be expected to cushion adverse employment effects – are identified. The paper concludes that there is not only an urgent need to identify new export market niches for the SEM economies, but also to review the scope for labour absorption in different branches of agriculture and to monitor the employment effects of the free trade agreements as these are implemented.

The Advantages of an Intra-Maghrib Free Trade Area: Quantitative Estimates of the Static and Dynamic Output and Welfare Effects by Abdelazis Testas

This article uses an economic growth model to estimate the static and dynamic output and welfare effects of the 1989 North Africa Arab Maghrib Union (AMU). The estimates as seen from the perspective of one single member country, Algeria, indicate that whilst the existence of such effects can be demonstrated, these are likely to be very small. It is therefore concluded that whilst the smallness of the AMU integration effects does not necessarily mean that intra-Maghrib integration is harmful or detrimental – that is only apparent in the long term – the AMU governments cannot rely on the AMU alone to achieve sustainable development. Participation in other international integration schemes, namely with the European Union (EU), is highly desirable.

Transforming Brain Drain into Capital Gain: Morocco’s Changing Relationship with Migration and Remittances by Mara A Leichtman

Morocco has depended on migration and remittances for much of its economic survival, but recent migration restrictions and decreasing remittance transfers have questioned such a strategy. This article divides Morocco’s relationship with remittances into three stages: high hopes for developing Morocco through their investment; a lack of positive results; and a new solution in the free trade agreement with the EU. By examining past Moroccan migration and development policies, this paper addresses agricultural development, changing family structure, return migration and the brain drain, concluding with policy implications for Morocco.

Book Reviews

Abstracts of articles in Issue 6.4

Moroccan Immigration in the Mediterranean Region: Reflections in Ben Jelloun's Literary Works by Yehudit Ronen

Like an inexhaustible fountain, the emigration of Moroccan citizens to Europe, mainly to France, has steadily gathered momentum since the end of French-Spanish colonial rule over Morocco and its subsequent independence in 1956. This phenomenon has reached such a high proportion as to become a central issue not only for the Moroccan state and society, but also for the Mediterranean coasts, 'hosting' the millions of Moroccan (and other) immigrants. This massive migratory movement has considerably affected almost every facet of Moroccan life both within the country and abroad, leaving a profound imprint on Moroccan literature. The most prominent Moroccan writer to have intensively discussed the various issues embodied in this phenonmenon and its consequent inter- and intra-cultural affects is Tahar Ben Jelloun. This article sheds light on one of the weighty affairs and paramount concerns preoccupying the countries and societies of the Mediterranean region – Moroccan immigration to Europe. It discusses a broad cluster of issues affecting migration throughout the period of Morocco's modern history, including the last decade of the twentieth century.

Seignorage and Hydrocarbons in Algeria by Ali Abderrezak

This study examines whether excessive levels of seignorage have been a residual source of government revenue in the Algerian experience over its post-independence era. This question is particularly pertiment to the Algerian economy given its profound dependance on a volatile international market for hydrocarbons. Acting on the assumption that oil-price deviations from the expected trend would be short-lived, the country's policy makers may have increasingly relied on seignorage. Since 1986, a year that marks the beginning of a collapse of world oil prices, Algeria's state of affairs unveiled severe imbalances: high inflation and unemployment rates, declining international revenues, a heavy foreign debt burden, and political unrest. Data from the 1964-97 period provides statistical evidence supporting the hypothesis that variations in hydrocarbons revenues, real government expenditures, and political polarisation have been significantly associated with variations in seigorage. In particular, higher levels of seignorage have coincided with periods of declining international revenues from hydrocarbons.

Re-visualising Beur Identity in Sebbar's Trilogy by Nicole Kaplan

In the novels of the Maghribian francophone author, Leïla Sebbar, the voices of Beur – the second-generation Magribian born (or brought up) in France – and immigrant women are given centre stage in her stage in her work to draw attention to the problems of pictorial and literary traditions of European Orientalism. Sebbar's main aim is to force the reader to rethink the colonial process and its aftermath in light of new paradigms. This essay examines the diverse strategies of reappropriation used by the author to undermine and subvert the Westernised topos of female representations dating back to the colonial spaces. The focus is on Sebbar's most famous work, the Sherazade trilogy, to show that the author promotes a new feminist social writing in which Maghribian women's roles are redefined and new visual codes are constructed. Rather than being a vehicle for the imprisonment of Oriental women, the Oriental pictorial tradition of the West becomes for Sebbar's female protagonists the impetus for their journey of self-discovery and path toward freedom.

National Security, the Political Space, and Citizenship: The Case of Morocco and the Western Sahara by Nizar Messari

Morocco is currently engaged in a very complex moment of political liberalisation. One of the most influential aspects on the future of this political transition is the issue of the Western Sahara. The legitimacy of the new king depends to a very large extent on how he manages to solve – or not – that critical foreign policy issue. Stuck between domestic and international pressures, he has to act soon and smartly. The article argues that the best outcome for the king's political forture might be in the politicisation and democratisation of Morocco's handling of the matter of the Sahara. This is a condition sine qua non for deeper democratisation and stabilisation of Moroccan domestic politics.

Women Entrepreneurs in Morocco: A Preliminary Investigation by Kenneth R Gray

In the global marketplace, women entrepreneurs are a vibrant and growing economic force. As the number of women in self-employment is increasing in most countries, typically entrepreneurial women are still a small proportion of the total population. This article examines women entrepreneurs in the Kingdom of Morocco. Factors enhancing and inhibiting Moroccan women entrepreneurs discussed include socio-cultural and religious; family background; education; and work experience. Challenges women face in the informal sector are also surveyed. The conclusions drawn from the article include the objective of increased self-sufficiency as a central goal of intervention programmes. Strong women's organisations and networks must be an important part of any strategy of empowerment.

Libya and Europe by George Joffé

Contemporary Libyan relations with Europe are still marked by the radical origins of the Quadhdhafi regime, as they are by a much older historical record. The radicalism of the past has, however, now been subdued by commercial realities and European and American hostility. Nevertheless, despite the Libyan leader's professed desire to make Libya the 'Kuwait of the Mediterranean', strains in the relationship with Europe remain regardless of the resolution of the Lockerbie and UTA affairs.

Book Reviews

Abstracts of articles in Issue 6.3

Personalities and Politics: Qadhafi, nasser, Sadat and Mubarak (1969-2000) by Yehudit Ronen

Various factors have shaped relations between Libya and Egypt since Mu'ammar al-Qadhafi's advert to power in 1969. Differences in geo-strategic location, social and economic conditions, demographic processes, political structures and national resources, as well as contrasts in regional and international outlook, were substantial in generating bilateral conflict. On the other hand, a common denominator of religious and cultural identity and the supreme interest of both countries' regimes to combat the challenge posed by radical Islam, were significant in supporting rapprochement. Not surprising, therefore, were the oscillations in ties between tension and affinity. Notwithstanding the major effect of these factors on the moulding of bilateral relations, the impact of the personal leadership in each of the countries during this three-decade period should not be overlooked. The article examines, therefore, the role and effect of the wide scope of factors responsible for shaping the course of relations between Tripoli and Cairo, as well as their implications, which have transgressed the bilateral context, reaching the broader regional and international arenas.

Persistence in Hydrocarbon Shocks: The Algerian Experience by Ali Abderrezak

Fluctuations in the market for energy resources have a significant impact on macro-economic performance of modern economies. OPEC member economies are exceptionally susceptible to such variations given the dominant role of hydrocarbon resources in their exports. This study examines the persistence of shocks to Algeria's hydrocarbon sector and its implication for the country's international debt and development strategy. The method of analysis consists of the unbiased median estimator technique rather than least square estimates of the autoregressive/unit root models. Results show that shocks to the hydrocarbon sector are long lived, implying that counter-cyclical economic policies relying on foreign debt to bridge the gap between domestic output and consumption may not be an effective development strategy for Algeria.

Contested Identities: Berbers, 'Berberism' and the State in North Africa by Bruce Maddy-Weitzman

The emergence of the Berber/Amazigh culture movement, in Morocco, Algeria and in the Berber diaspora poses important questions for North African regimes and societies as they enter the twenty-first century. Moreover, it provides fertile ground for students of nationalism, collective memory and identity. The Berber experiences in Algeria and Morocco have been quite different from one another, and thus pose different sets of questions to the respective regimes, societies and Berber communities. None the less, these experiences have resulted in an increasing self-consciousness among Berbers as Berbers in both places, which increasingly includes a more explicit political dimension. The Kabylian Amazigh coexist uneasily with state authorities within a situation of overall uncertainty as to the future nature of the State. The Moroccan case is more amorphous, and less overtly political, but is no less part of the new Berber 'imagining'. The process of reshaping and redefining the meaning of Moroccan and Algerian collective identities has already began and will surely be fraught with tension and difficulties. The way in which growing Berber collective self-consciousness interacts with the Moroccan and Algerian states, and with other segments of their societies will do much to determine the future course of North African affairs.

The Ethics of Cultural Representation: The Maghribi Novel in English Translation by Michael A Toler

Maghribi novels are literary productions coming from a complex cultural landscape in which multiple languages interact. Unfortunately, few translations of the Magribri novel, be it from French or Arabic, seem to take these issues into consideration when producing their English language texts. In overlooking these cultural negotiations, the translations not only fail to represent much of the artistry and innovation of the original texts, but also skew, alter or misrepresent critical and subversive dialogues in which these works are engaged. This paper is a call for an ethics of representation in translation.

Economic Crises and Democratisation in Morocco by Abdellatif Moutadayene

The question that motivates this paper is whether there is any relation between the economic crisis and the process of democratisation? We will study this in the light of the Moroccan case by formulating two hypotheses. Depending on the vulnerability of a political system, an economic crisis stimulates the political changes and creates consequently the conditions for the acceleration of the economic and democratic demands. This hypothesis does not exclude the indifference of some actors in one context or another. The repercussions of the economic crisis urge the government to react, which reaction will depend on two variables: the degree of the crisis and the capacity of the government to react. Applied to the case of Morocco, these hypotheses suggest to us that it is the economic crises seen by Morocco at the beginning of the 1980s and 1990s which stimulated economic and political demands within trade unions and opposition parties. These demands, expressed in various forms, urged the government to react in various ways, from repression to democratisation.

Book Reviews

Abstracts of articles in Issue 6.2

Issue: Morocco 2001: In Memoriam – Essays by David Hart

David Montgomery Hart: An Obituary

Lineage, Genealogy and Practical Politics: Thoughts On David Hart’s Last Work by C R Pennell

Authority in Morocco has often been based on lineage. Thus genealogy has been a crucial part of dynasty and regime legitimation, as David Hart has shown. However, discourse based on genealogy is neither history nor an accurate description of socio-political order as the genealogical memory rarely extends beyond six generations. As a result, alongside this ‘great tradition’ of genealogical authority is a parallel little tradition based on power, as demonstrated by the role of ‘arsh and sanctuary as well as by the maraboutic tradition of resistance to foreign occupation in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. For David Hart this linkage between ideology and practical politics was the key to his interests in Morocco and the wider Muslim world.

Making Sense of Moroccan Tribal Sociology and History by David Hart

The concept of tribe has long been contentious in North African history and anthropology and the idealised concept of segmentary lineage theory is inadequate. Segmentation, however, is a useful concept as it corresponds to tribal self image and cohesion although it undermines chronology. Nonetheless, tribal groupings can be of great antiquity, as patterns of tribal migration make clear, although it is only as a result of the colonial period that their toponymic realities have been permanently determined.

The Saint and the Schoolmaster, or Jbala Warlord and Rifian Reformer Revisited: Conflicting Views of Islam in a Confrontation and Power Clash in Colonial Northern Morocco, 1924–1925 by David Hart

Resistance to Spanish occupation in Northern Morocco was personified by two personalities, Mawlay Ahmad al-Raysuni and Si Muhammad bin Si ‘Abd al-Krim al-Khattabi. One, conscious of his sharifian descent from Mawlay ‘Abd al-Salam bin Mashish, saw himself as an embodiment of traditional Muslim values although he was characterised by opportunism and self-interest whilst he despised the Rifian rebellion against Spanish rule in 1921. The other, Muhammad bin Si ‘Abd al-Krim al-Khattabi, was salafiyyist and anti-colonialist and, ironically enough, had as good sharifian lineage as al-Raysuni, although he ignored it. In the end it was Si Muhammad bin Si ‘Abd al-Krim al-Khattabi who was to remove al-Raysuni and typify North Moroccan resistance to Spanish colonialism – just as he miscalculated his own strength by invading the French Protectorate in Morocco.

Muslim Ritual Models in Two Pre-colonial Moroccan Berber Societies: Covenant, Conditional Curse, Shame Compulsion and Sacrifice by David Hart

Westermarck was one of the finest ethnographers of Morocco, despite the prejudices of his time and his preferences for the local, not the great traditions of Islamic ritual. However, in dealing with the question of animal sacrifice he had concentrated on its role within the context of the immolation of a sheep in the ‘Ayd l-Kbir, and thereby overlooked its role in the local contexts of shame compulsion and covenant amongst Rifian and wider Imazighen tribes in Morocco.

Moroccan Dynastic Shurfa’-hood in Two Historical Contexts: Idrisid Cult and ‘Alawid Power by David Hart

The Idrisids, the founder dynasty of Fas and, ideally at least, of the modern Moroccan state, owe much of their status today to the idealisation of their sharifian past by the Marinids in the fifteenth century. This, however, has to be seen against the reification of sharifian descent as a pattern of legitimisation through Mawlay ‘Abd al-Salam bin Mashish, Iman Shadhili and Sidi Muhammad bin Sulayman al-Jazuli. The ‘Alawid dynasty, on the other hand – despite its own claims to sharifian descent – attained and retained power through its competence, rather than through shajara and silsila.

An Awkward Chronology and a Questionable Genealogy: History and Legend in a Saintly Lineage in the Moroccan Central Atlas, 1397–1702 by David Hart

Patterns of descent and sharifian status are important tools of legitimisation for shurfa lineages within Moroccan tribes. However, whilst Idrisd lineages based in Fes or to its north are correct, those to the South of the city often contain spurious claims. This is particularly true for the Zawiya Ahansal as is demonstrated by an analysis of its myths of origin and a comparison with known historical fact.

Book Reviews

Abstracts of articles in Issue 6.1

Special Issue: North Africa, the Sahara and the Sea from the Almoravids to the Algerian War

Edited by: Julia Clancy-Smith

Liminal States: Morocco and the Iberian Frontier between the Twelfth and Nineteenth Centuries by Amira K Bennison

This article surveys the history of Morocco as part of the story of the fluctuating frontier between Christianity and Islam in the Western Mediterranean which involved the Christian kingdoms of the Iberian peninsula and the Muslim states of al-Andalus and Morocco. It begins with an analysis of the frontier, followed by an account of the similar cultural, religious and political developments which occurred in Christian and Muslim societies during the formative twelfth to sixteenth centuries of active conflict and the subsequent seventeenth to nineteenth centuries when the frontier had greater ideological than politico-military significance. It traces the development of strong warrior ethics, devotion to the religio-political concepts of crusade and jihad respectively, cultivation of a sense of a local responsibility to maintain religious orthodoxy and the use of such concepts in early modern state formation in Spain and Morocco. Its aim is to suggest that light can be shed on Moroccan and Spanish history by investigating their responses to their shared geo-political situation rather than by assuming that Spain conforms to European paradigms or Morocco to Maghribi paradigms of historical development.

Trading Through Islam: The Interconnections of Sijilmasa, Ghana and the Almoravid Movement by James A Miller

The economic relations forged between Sijilmasa, the northern terminus of the trans-Saharan gold trade, and ancient Ghana, the southern terminus, were accompanied by the implantation of Islam into the western Sudan. As Sijilmasa flourished as an independent city-state founded by religious heretics on the edge of the Maghrib, Ghana entered world history as the source of gold traded northward. Sijilmasa’s role in the islamisation of the western Sudan was strategic but minor until it was incorporated into the territorially vast and spiritually reformist empire of the Almoravids in the late 1000s. The Almoravids used Sijilmasa as a source of wealth, enlarging the gold trade and Sijilmasa itself. At the same time, the Almoravids transformed the gold trade, establishing new routes to connect to places more firmly within their grasp. Ghana was attacked by the Almoravids to further their militant spiritual goals. Ghana declined in significance and disappeared from history as new West African entrepots more fully engaged with Almoravid designs emerged. This article presents evidence for the sustained significance of Sijilmasa’s role in the islamisation of the western Sudan from three perspectives: the nature of Islam in Sijilmasa itself; the impact of the Almoravids in Sijilmasa and Ghana; and archaeological evidence from the site of Sijilmasa and related sites in the western Sudan. Findings from current field research undertaken at Sijilmasa illuminate the changed nature of the city before, and after, the arrival of the Almoravids north of the Sahara.

Re-Thinking the Almoravids, Re-Thinking Ibn Khaldun by Ronald A Messier

The rise and fall of the Almoravids is sometimes seen as conforming to Ibn Khaldun’s paradigm for the rise and fall of dynasties. As the Almoravids moved from desert to city, a virtue to corruption narrative seems to unfold and, to some degree, their story does fit the pattern. According to Ibn Khaldun, dynasties originate among desert tribes because the desert breeds those qualities that a ruler needs: the virtues of discipline and endurance, courage and combat, temperance and loyalty. These were the virtues for which Yahya Ibn Umar and his brother Abu Bakr were chosen to be the first commanders of the Almoravids. The tribe provides both the need for royal authority and its base of authority. During its first generation, royal authority relies on the tribe for protection and shares its glory with the tribe. Asabiya (tribal solidarity) is preserved. The second generation moves from the desert to the city, from privation to luxury and plenty. But since the second generation had direct contact with the first, and with the desert, it retains many of its virtues. Royalty, at this point, moves beyond its struggle for basic needs toward maturity. It seeks sedentary or urban existence, luxury and ease and the security of city walls. In this phase of Almoravid development, the ruler Yusuf Ibn Tashfin built the walled city of Marrakesh. The wealth of this urban civilisation and the power of the dynasty peak simultaneously. The dynasty claims glory for itself, and the vigour of asabiya is strained. The third generation – among the Almoravids, that of Ali Ibn Yusuf – has no contact with the desert. It has forgotten desert life and toughness and knows only the luxury and ease of city life which corrupt desert virtues and contribute to the dynasty’s decline. The drive for affluence eventually exhausts resources and corrupts the regime itself. It then narrows its base in hopes of holding on to what it has; asabiya is lost. Ibn Khaldun explains the decline of dynastic states in terms of this loss. The narrative that follows, however, demonstrates the opposite. It is argued that the Almoravids were trapped by asabiya; they were unable fully to make the transition from desert to urban life. These new interpretations are based not so much on new texts as on re-reading all of the textual evidence largely in light of new numismatic and archaeological research, including recent excavations under my direction of the medieval city of Sijilmasa. The new reading has led to important new interpretations: the impact of the Almoravids on the urban development of Sijilmasa, the importance of their role in the African gold trade, their alleged intellectual repressiveness, their initial success in winning the support of the masses but their ultimate failure to hold it. Finally, the story calls into question the validity of Ibn Khaldun’s paradigm on the rise and fall of empires.

Maghribis in the Mashriq During the Modern Period: Representations of the Other Within the World of Islam by Mohamed El Mansour

Representations of the ‘Other’ are invariably associated with European or Western perceptions of Islam, Muslims and the Orient. However, as this article argues, the world of Islam was never monolithic and Muslims held widely differing views of each other. Even among ‘fellow’ North Africans, such as Egyptians and Maghribis, collective regional or local identities developed and furnished the material for self-identification built upon perceived differences among the ‘others’. In discussing the religio-cultural bases for these differences, the author examines Malikism, Maghribi Islam as practised in the Mashriq, including Sufism, as well as varying ideas regarding urbanity and cosmopolitanism. He concludes with an analysis of how the Moroccan state and its representatives often sought legitimacy in the Mashriq despite the fact that the Sharifian Empire was a rival of the Ottomans and that Moroccan ulema often saw the Mashriqis as lax in the practice of their religion.

The Mahalla: The Origins of Beylical Sovereignty in Ottoman Tunisia during the Early Modern Period by Dalenda Larguèche

By tracing the evolution of an ancient North African institution, the mahalla, a mobile military camp and royal progress, Dalenda Larguèrche offers fresh insights into the process of state formation in early modern Tunisia. Employing a comparative methodology, her chapter unravels a paradox in Maghribi history – the development of a locally based monarchical regime, the Husaynid dynasty, during the period when Tunisia was formally a province of the Ottoman Empire. She argues that by combining the Ottoman office of bey with a re-invigorated local institution, the mahalla, a new pattern of political power and legitimacy emerged. Particularly under the Husaynids, the multi-function mahalla became the principal mechanism for transmitting legitimate sovereignty from ruler to prince or heir apparent. Thus Tunisia’s political trajectory differed markedly from that of Turkish Algeria or of Morocco.

The City and the Sea: Evolving Forms of Mediterranean Cosmopolitanism in Tunis, 1700–1881 by Abdelhamid Larguèche

This article traces the evolution of the city of Tunis from the seventeenth through the nineteenth centuries. It argues that, relative to other North African cities in the same period, a unique manifestation of ‘cosmopolitanism’ emerged in Tunis from the reign of the Muradid Beys (1631–1702) on. Characterised by ethno-religious diversity and pluralism, the capital region replenished its population and institutions via the corsair/privateering economy, principally through its ability to integrate Christian renegades into urban social relations and structures. For most of the eighteenth century, the Regency of Tunis experienced a sort of urban golden age due to its rapidly expanding population, its intense participation in the Mediterranean exchange system and the absence of war, disease and famine. In this period too the capital of the Husainid dynasty (1705–1957) welcomed ever more diverse peoples from around the Sea, although as was the case in other Ottoman cities, these immigrant groups tended to cluster into autonomous communities. From the late eighteenth century on, however, the city entered into a series of demographic and socio-economic crises, reflecting the larger forces at work in the country. Despite, or because of, increased trans-Mediterranean immigration and settlement in the Tunis region from the mid-nineteenth century on, the nature of the capital’s cosmopolitanism was utterly undermined and transformed even before 1881.

The Mediterranean Before Colonialism: Fragments from the Life of Ali bin Uthman al-Hammi in the Late Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries by Edmund Burke, III

How might we re-imagine the Mediterranean before colonialism? The social biography of Ali b. Uthman al-Hammi, who as a young man from the Jarid oases of Tunisia joined the Napoleonic expedition to Egypt in 1798, and went on to serve as a member of Napoleon’s Mamluk Imperial Guard for 14 years before rejoining his village of origin, provides a vehicle for this purpose. Based upon Tunisian and French sources, this micro-history forces us to question the stable dichotomies that dominate the literature on the modern Mediterranean. It introduces us to a world in which people – some people anyway – circulated more or less freely in a Mediterranean of cross-cultural encounters.

The 1907 Mauchamp Affair and the French Civilising Mission in Morocco by Jonathan G Katz

The murder of the French humanitarian doctor Emile Mauchamp in Marrakesh in 1907 was among the first in a series of events that culminated in the French conquest of Morocco. Mauchamp’s life and death here serve as the focus for an examination of the French civilising mission on the eve of the Protectorate. By emphasising the concept of ‘honour’ – a term that looms large in the French discourse surrounding Mauchamp as a martyr of civilisation – this article argues that the French and the Moroccans should be seen as interlocutors attempting to negotiate the terms of their cultural encounter. This approach stands in contrast to prevailing interpretations that views the relationship between the two groups primarily in terms of domination and resistance.

Decolonising ‘French Universalism’: Reconsidering the Impact of the Algerian War on French Intellectuals by James D Le Sueur

The French-Algerian War (1954–62) offers one of the most striking examples of the Maghrib’s influence upon Europe. The war in Algeria transcended military and political considerations and influenced debates about intellectual legitimacy and identity in France. Furthermore, the war forced a fundamental reconsideration of the notion of ‘French universalism’, and, in consequence, a reconsideration of critical notions of selfhood in metropolitan France. This article re-evaluates the war and decolonisation’s impact on French intellectuals by focusing on two key examples of intellectual engagement during the war: the creation of the Comité d’Action des Intellectuels contre la Poursuite de la Guerre en Afrique du Nord and the ‘Jeanson Network’. These two movements illustrate how intellectuals attempted to either come to terms with the diminishing status of French culture and/or reasserted the universal principles of the ‘Rights of Man’ ideology vis-à-vis the Algerian question.

Abstracts of articles in Issue 5.4

Special Issue: The Walled Arab City in Literature, Architecture and History: The Living Medina in the Maghrib

Edited by: Susan Slyomovics

Introduction by Susan Slyomovics and Susan Gilson Miller

Orientalism as Irony in Gérard de Nerval’s Voyage en Orient by James E Housefield

Recent studies of literary and visual representations of the traditional Islamic city (medina) have relied heavily on Edward Said’s definition of Orientalism. Some works, including Gérard de Nerval’s nineteenth-century Voyage en Orient, employ irony in ways that challenge typical use of the term Orientalism. Nerval’s tales of life in Cairo and elsewhere are shown to include elements that debunk Orientalist fantasies, adding levels of complexity to the narrative that have remained unrecognised in recent scholarship. An understanding of the complexities of the architectural and social space of the medina today may be enriched by a willingness to question or debunk previously held ideas, including the preservationist notion of the medina as a living museum that perpetuates medieval ways of life.

Watering the Garden of Tangier: Colonial Contestations in a Moroccan City by Susan Gilson Miller

In the late nineteenth century, Tangier became the site of competing ideas about how to modernise the city. Foreign residents wanted to create new kinds of public services unknown in the traditional medina, while Moroccans resisted efforts to wrest away control of their municipality. This clash is explored through a discussion of the water system of Tangier and efforts to modernise it. Moroccans opposed innovation not only to thwart European political and economic interests, but also to preserve a system of values threatened by technologies beyond their control.

The Social Context of Working Equines in the Urban Middle East: The Example of Fez Medina by Diana K Davis and Denys Frappier

The purpose of this article is to provide an overview of the historical significance of working equines in the cities of the Middle East and North Africa and to demonstrate the contemporary importance of working equines with the example of the Fez medina. Research was conducted in Fez, Morocco, including interviews and documentary research. The results show that a significant proportion of the inhabitants depend on the work of equines for their income and many more depend on them to supply the basic needs of their daily lives. An alternative agenda for the revitalisation of medinas across the region is proposed based on a plan that works with the existing equine labour network instead of replacing it with noisy, polluting vehicles such as automobiles and motorised scooters which require expensive infrastructure modifications.

The Role of the Medinas in the Reconstruction of Algerian Culture and Identity by Djilali Sari

The survival of most Algerian medinas was precarious. French colonial conquests reduced the urban core by fire and the sword. Conquest by destruction was followed by a brutal and generalised deculturation during the long and dark colonial years. How does this situation, which contrasts greatly with neighbouring Morocco and Tunisia, relate to the revitalisation of culture and identity? When and what are the ways in which the movement to save a nation’s heritage, especially its architectural and cultural patrimony, was espoused by an early modern elite as demonstrated in examples from the devastated medinas of Nedroma, Mazouna, Cherchell and Biskra?

Geographies of Jewish Tlemcen by Susan Slyomovics

This article discusses the nature of collective memory represented in descriptions of the Jewish experience of Tlemcen and the ways in which a collective construct is translated into a corresponding spatial one. Often, individual and social memory of a particular place may be reproduced, replaced, supplemented or complemented by commemorative ceremonies at a new site. What have been the ways for the Tlemcen Jews of France to replicate Tlemcen the place? How are images and recollected knowledge of a destroyed past transmitted spatially? This particular community has responded by a physical recreation of the Jewish quarter of Tlemcen that reconstitutes in Paris at least three physical losses: the tomb of the miracle-working Rabbi Ephraim Al-Naqawa located outside the city walls, the synagogues of the Jewish quarter of Tlemcen, and the annual spring pilgrimage that linked the synagogues of the medina to the rabbi’s tomb.

Neighbourhood Notes: Texture and Streetscape in the Médina of Tunis by Justin McGuinness

Every resident in one of North Africa’s old cities knows his and her houma (neighbourhood). The concept is difficult to pin down, being more than just houses and streets in a quarter of the city. Jacques Berque in his 1962 Le Maghreb entre deux guerres, explores a houma, the rue du Pacha district, of the Tunis medina. Thirty-five years later, I explore two neighbourhoods in the same district looking at the sights and sounds, which along with the people and buildings, make the identity of the changing streetscape. While the first part of the article revisits the ground covered by Berque, the second part draws on personal experience of the rue Marr neighbourhood. (An interlude looks at central souks.) Drawing on notions of space versus place, I explore the notion of ‘texture’ as a possible approach to the sensory richness and human diversity of medina neighbourhoods. An enhanced awareness of the ‘texture’ of the streetscape, it is argued, may have implications for future initiatives for the conservation of the city. The concluding section draws on recent literature on gentrification to explore issues of authenticity, taste and the (re)creation of texture.

Preservation and Self-Absorption: Italian Colonisation and the Walled City of Tripoli, Libya by Mia Fuller

This essay analyses Italian colonialists’ attitudes towards, and interventions in, the walled city of Tripoli (Libya), partly in light of the well-established scholarship on French colonial practices elsewhere in the Maghrib. It concludes that while Italian policy did relatively little permanent damage to the old city – in comparison to the French demolitions in Algiers, and to those of Italian administrators in Italy and in other Italian colonies – we should not necessarily derive from this that Italians were the ‘better colonisers’. Instead, the essay suggests that as Italian planners were more interested in Roman remains than in the vestiges of other eras, and more interested in creating new European quarters than in becoming familiar with how Libyans lived, the partial survival of the walled city was not so much due to an active preservationist agenda as it was an effect of Italian self-absorption.

Abstracts of articles in Issue 5.3

Estevan De Dorantes, the Moor or the Slave? The Other Moroccan Explorer of New Spain by Hsain Ilahiane

Unlike Ibn Battuta and other medieval travellers and explorers who rose to fame and still fire up much imagination and scholarship in North Africa today, Estevan, the first Moor or Black to set foot in the Southwest of the USA, is virtually unknown in his native land, Morocco. Although much has been written about his sense of adventure and exploration on this side of the Atlantic, the historical literature remains deficient in documenting the conditions under which Estevan left Morocco. This article deals with a rereading of Spanish accounts of New Spain and medieval Moroccan historical documents to better understand Estevan’s status and the circumstances that led him to join the Spaniards in their conquest of the New World in the sixteenth century, and why he still remains an anonymous character in Moroccan and North African history text books.

Reform and the Politics of Inclusion in the Maghrib by Azzedine Layachi

This article analyses the economic and political crises experienced by Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia in the last two decades. Using the notions of inclusion and exclusion, it compares the way these countries managed the crises and avoided a total breakdown. Tunisia narrowed the political sphere while widening somewhat the economic one; Algeria’s all-inclusive and unmanageable political opening was accompanied by economic reforms with a profound exclusionary effect; and Morocco’s graduated political inclusion has contrasted with its exclusionary economic policies. The notions of inclusion and exclusion can be correlated with progress in political and economic development, and can help explain social eruptions and rebellions against the state. When the economic crisis is managed with relative success, political inclusion tends to be minimal, and when the crisis and the reforms worsen social and economic conditions, relative political inclusion becomes necessary.

Algerian–Moroccan Relations and their Impact on Maghribi Integration by Yahia H Zoubir

Overall, Algerian–Moroccan relations have always been at odds, the existence since 1989 of the Arab Maghrib Union (UMA) notwithstanding. In fact, the UMA has not been operational due precisely to tension between the two countries. Strained relations derive from a historical and post-colonial evolution – dominated by power politics – of which Western Sahara is only one, albeit major, aspect. Thus, a definitive resolution of the Western Sahara conflict will not necessarily mean a definitive ending of the distrust that exists between the two neighbours. However, the core argument in this article is that resolution of the conflict in Western Sahara would greatly improve cooperation between the two countries, thus facilitating regional integration. Furthermore, given the complexity of both the Algerian–Moroccan relationship and conflict in Western Sahara, any foreign interference that is not balanced will continue poisoning relations and could potentially destabilise the entire region.

The Demand for Money in Algeria: An Error Correction Approach by Ali Abderrezak

This study utilises co-integrated series to estimate a model for the demand for money in Algeria with an error correction mechanism. In addition to expected income and inflation, long-term demand for money balances in Algeria are also determined by variations in the expected foreign exchange market. The short-term dynamics of money demand indicate that narrow real money balances possess a faster adjustment mechanism from previous year disequilibria than do broader real money balances.

Administering Identities: State Decentralisation and Local Identification in Morocco by Katherine E Hoffman

In Morocco, the contemporary emphasis on regionalisation and increased tolerance for ethnolinguistic diversity belie state attempts to dissipate pre-Independence ‘tribal’ allegiances among citizens for whom they hold sway. Ever-refined rural administrative boundaries and the new place names that accompany them suggest new models for group organisation – challenging indigenous understandings about the links between different locations, and about links between people and places. This article argues that Tashelhit speakers of the Souss region engage in information management by selectively revealing and concealing personal information, thus challenging state attempts to eliminate family and ‘tribe’ from place and personal names. Civil registries, school records, and national identity cards document the discrepancies between indigenous and state naming practices, raising difficulties for citizens who must increasingly rely on documents over oral testimony to pursue legal and administrative ends.

Book Reviews:

Imperial Identities: Stereotyping, Prejudice and Race in Colonial Algeria by Patricia M Lorcin
Men and Popular Music in Algeria: The Social Significance of Rai by Marc Schade-Poulsen
The North African Environment at Risk edited by Will D Swearingen and Abdellatif Bencherifa
Women in the Middle East and North Africa by Guity Nashat and Judith Tucker

Abstracts of articles in Issue 5.2

Construction of Identity in Twelfth-Century Andalusia: The Case of Travel Writing by Elka Weber

Both the form and content of travel writing make it an ideal vehicle for expressing ideas of Self and Other. The traveller edits his information according to his interests, and passes it on in a way that distinguishes him from the various Others he encounters along the trip. In order to explore some of the understandings of Self and Other in the multicultural world of medieval Islam, this article compares the travel narratives of two men who journeyed from al-Andalus across the Mediterranean at the end of the twelfth century. Ibn Jubayr, the famous Muslim traveller who lived in Granada, made a number of trips but only left a record of one that lasted from 578/1183 to 581/1185 and culminated in a hajj. Benjamin of Tudela was a Jew who lived in territory that shifted from Muslim to Christian control in 1115. He travelled from 1168 to 1171, though the motivation and nature of his trip are unclear. The two travellers were members of different communities. Ibn Jubayr was an insider – his family had been in Spain for 400 years, and he held an important government post. Benjamin of Tudela, a Jew under Muslim and Christian authority, was an outsider twice over. Though he wrote in Hebrew, there is reason to believe that he was a native speaker of Arabic who grew up in a Muslim-dominated society. In analysing both of these works, and particularly the ways in which the two writers relate to the texts they create, I hope to demonstrate the complexity of defining Self and Other in twelfth-century Andalusia. While the travellers do construct Others in reference to religious and political standing, these travel accounts show that Self and Other do not stand apart as two distinct poles, but are in fact fluid referents.

The Contribution of EU Investment to Tunisia’s Economic Development by Abdelaziz Testas

This article examines two main effects of EU investment in Tunisia: higher levels of investment and economic activity. The main conclusion to emerge from the analysis is that these dynamic impacts explain rapid rates of economic growth experienced by the country for the post-investment liberalisation period and can serve as a rationale for further economic integration with the EU.

Democracy in Algeria: Continuity and Change in the Organisation of Political Representation by Frederic Volpi

The failed Algerian transition to democracy illustrates a main dilemma of authoritarian regimes in the Middle East and North Africa. The continuing inability of the powers-that-be in legitimating political institutions and transmitting the political authority so constructed over time, limit the prospects for democratic change in the region. In analytical terms, these predicaments exemplify old regional dilemmas which have been described by Ibn Khaldun and Alexis de Tocqueville. Algeria’s post-colonial regime’s recurrent failure to establish a secure political system stems principally from its inability to establish a dialogue between the demos and political ‘representatives’. The electoral process that the Algerian regime re-initiated in 1999 and the subsequent truce with the Islamic guerrilla offered unsatisfactory answers to this predicament and were ambiguous advances of the democratic agenda.

Anglo–Libyan Relations and the Suez Crisis by Alison Pargeter

The Suez Crisis of 1956 had a profound and long-lasting effect on British policy towards Libya and fundamentally changed the relationship between the two nations. From Libyan independence in 1951, Britain had come to rely on Libya as a vital part of its global defence strategy, and regarded its pro-Western monarchy as a means of offsetting the Arab nationalism that was fast sweeping the region. The Suez Crisis, however, was to shatter Britain’s perception of Libya as a compliant pro-Western state, to create tension between the Libyan King and his populace, and to highlight the vulnerability of the Libyan monarchy. All of these factors were to have a large impact on Anglo–Libyan relations, the consequences of which can be traced right up to the revolution of 1969. This article is based primarily upon documentation in the Public Records Office at Kew, press reports and interviews with British ex-foreign office officials who were posted in Libya during the period. It will attempt to demonstrate that the Suez Crisis had both short- and long-term effects on Anglo–Libyan relations and brought about a major change in the relationship between the two states.

The City’s Many Uses: Cultural Tourism, the Sacred Monarchy and the Preservation of Fez’s Medina by Geoffrey D Porter

How does something become heritage? By what process does heritage, a nostalgic, intangible vision of the past, come to be inscribed on a particular site, transposed from an ethereal notion into a bounded and mappable place? To what desires or longings, economic exigencies or political purposes are these processes answering? Fez, Morocco’s invention as a UNESCO ‘Cultural Heritage Site’ beginning in 1912 and culminating in 1981 affords us with one extended historical moment in which to examine these questions. The resulting study indicates that colonial and post-colonial politics, tourism and a general conception of the Morocco’s national past collude to produce and sustain a site construed outside of time, but one that is paradoxically bound to constructions of the nation’s presents.

Abstracts of articles in Issue 5.1

Morocco’s Next Political Generation by Mark Tessler

As in much of the Arab world, Morocco possesses a massive number of young men and women who are reaching adulthood and entering the social mainstream, or who have done so within the last decade. This cohort of young people, which may be described as a political generation, offers the country both hope and an important challenge. It remains to be seen whether, and if so how, the emerging political generation will differ from those that preceded it, and with what implications. The present research report focuses on these questions. It seeks both to contribute some preliminary answers and to stimulate further inquiry and investigation. The first part of the paper summarises the characteristics and formative experiences of Morocco’s next political generation. The second part presents the results of public opinion research carried out in Morocco in 1995–96. Data from this research are used to compare the attitudes and behaviour patterns of different age cohorts and also to examine normative cleavages within the younger generation.

The Road to the Israeli-Moroccan Rapprochement by Jacob Abadi

Morocco’s relations with Israel are noted for their moderation and cordiality. With the exception of former Tunisia’s President Habib Bourguiba, who called upon the Arab states to come to terms with Israel, King Hassan II was the only Arab head of state that favoured negotiations with the Jewish State. But unlike any other leader in the region, he agreed to meet Israeli leaders in an attempt to find a solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict. Observers and commentators on Middle Eastern affairs had often argued that Arab countries, which do not share common borders with Israel, tend to be hostile, because they have little to lose by doing so. As a country situated far from the focus of the Arab-Israeli conflict, Morocco was an exception to this rule. What were the reasons for such a conciliatory attitude on Morocco’s part and why did Hassan decide to embark on such a dangerous course of action, which exposed him to intense criticism from the Arab world, are some of the questions, which this essay attempts to answer. This essay argues that Morocco’s conciliatory attitude was a by-product of both domestic and external constraints, which were not dealt with in adequate depth in the preliminary studies written on this topic, and which profoundly altered Morocco’s policy toward Israel.

Comment – Plant Biotechnology in Morocco: A Priority Area by Philippe Goudail

Despite the efforts Morocco now employs for the development of its agriculture, it is nevertheless indispenable for the country to integrate technological and scientific progress in an overall strategy. Morocco can no longer content itself using modern technology to prolong traditional technology: biotechnology must become a priority within a framework of a deliberate policy of research and scientific popularization.

Designing Morocco’s Future: France and the Native Policy Council, 1921–1925 by William A. Hoisington Jr.

The Native Policy Council, created by Marshal Lyautey, only lasted for three and a half years. It was seen at its inception as the vehicle for transplanting Lyautey’s policies into action and had great influence on the development of Morocco until ended by the Rif War. However, despite hopes of it acting as a bridge between the two cultures, it remained, in essence, a colonial institution.

Amazigh Poetry of the Resistance Period (Central Morocco) by Michael Peyron

Poetic material in Tamazight, collected during the Protectorate period and now contained in the Roux Archive, Aix-en-Provence, provides a fascinating insight into the hearts and minds of Middle-Atlas Berbers as they strove to come to terms with domination by an alien conqueror. An atmosphere of inevitability, reinforced by alleged cataclysmic prophecies, pervades the dismal process of resistance, defeat, subjection and dishonour, with God as the ultimate arbiter.

Persistence and Change in Names on the North African Landscape: Berber Tribes in Ibn Khaldun’s Genealogies and as they Appear Today by David M. Hart

The issue is to determine just how much of, and to what degree, Ibn Khaldun’s Berber genealogies, as well as those culled by his Arab historian predecessors, as they emerge in the de Slane translation of the Histoire des Berberes, have stood the test of time: for in most cases those groups whose names are still extant represent at present much smaller units which are often far removed spatially from their original and medieval namesakes. There is, in addition, the possibility that the latter simply appropriated, for whatever the reason, the name of the former, given the lack of any demonstrable genealogical or filiative connection between the medieval group and its modern namesake or namesakes as well as the often considerable spatial distance between them.

Mosque at Ait Isman: Todra Gorge, Morocco by Lealan Swanson

In the summer of 1998, a grant from the American Institute for Maghrib Studies enabled me to travel to Morocco to begin research comparing the vernacular architecture of Morocco with that of Yemen. Some of the literature on North Africa assumes Arab, and sometimes specifically Yemeni origins for the architecture of Morocco. The tower houses of Yemen are sometimes seen as comparable to those of Morocco and a south Arabian origin has been suggested for cultural influences between the two areas. Presented here is a brief description of a small mosque in a tiny deserted village in the Todra valley between the eastern High Atlas and the Sahara. The small building at Ait Isman represents a type of mosque in the mountain regions of Morocco which is matched here with comparable examples from Yemen. From the comparison, it becomes apparent that beyond the requirements of Islamic worship, the Moroccan and Yemeni examples differ considerably.

Abstracts of articles in Issue 4.4

Rethinking Europe’s Conquest of North Africa and the Middle East: The Opening of the Maghreb, 1660–1814 by F. Robert Hunter In this article, the argument is made that during the second half of the seventeenth century, England and France began opening up the Maghreb to their economic and political influence, and that this thrust led to the conquest of the southern and eastern Mediterranean, culminating in the nineteenth-century Age of Imperialism.

Secularisation and Islamisation in Morocco and Algeria by Mary Jane C. Parmentier

The conflict between the state and the Islamic opposition in North Africa appears to represent a dichotomus, zero-sum confrontation between the religious and the secular. Yet the evidence reveals ambiguity in the religious–secular divide, and Burgat and others have suggested mutual influences resulting in an Islamisation of the state and a secularisation of religious politics. This article, based on the author’s dissertation, seeks to identify the religious and the secular elements of the political–religious competition in these two countries, and to assess the Islamising or secularising impact on the state and Islam politics during the final decades of the twentieth century.

The Dynamic Impact of Tariff Liberalisation between the European and Maghreb Unions: An Empirical Analysis by Abdelaziz Testas

This article estimates the dynamic effects of the free trade area between the European Union (EU) and the Arab Maghreb Union (AMU), which is set to be completed by the year 2010. The application of a balance of payments Constrained Growth Model to annual data on Algerian imports quantifies significant growth effects. In the long run, the country’s GDP growth rate is estimated to be almost seven times higher under free trade.

Liberatory, Nationalising and Moralising by Ellipsis:Reading and Listening to Lhussein Slaoui’s Song ‘Lmirikan’ by Jamila Bargach

The popular song of Lhussein Slaoui, Lmirikan, is presented in the larger historical and political contexts of its first appearance. Sung during the American landing in World War II, it records this decisive event in world history but also sings about the social reality of Morocco. A literal reading of the song’s lyrics conveys an acute sense of misogyny compounded with colonialism and racism, but a closer reading reveals a complex and highly politicised commentary on the contemporaneous sociopolitical atmosphere. Through his dexterous use of irony and innovation within a closed musical tradition, Slaoui offers by ellipsis a highly liberatory, nationalising and moralising tale. His remarks, then, concerning the implications of an overtly consumerist ethos and the subsequent erosion of social cohesion are even more pertinent today, making Slaoui thus a pioneer and his song prefatory to the social movement wary of American hegemony.

Parties, Parliament and Political Dissent in Tunisia by Michele Penner Angrist

The Ben Ali regime (1987–present) has disappointed the many who believed that the post-Bourguiba era would bring substantial political pluralisation to Tunisia. While the regime claims to have taken significant steps toward democracy, close examination of the current political landscape reveals a very different picture. The press is neith