Avuncular American

Of Gods and Men and Algeria

Des Hommes et des Dieux

Though this film portrays terrorism and its victims, this is not another "post 9/11 film."  In fact, the events it portrays transpired between 1993 and 1996, and had nothing to do with America, George W. Bush, or Iraq.  The victims were French, and the perpetrators Algerian.  But which Algerians?  One of the film's characters even gets to utter the question raised by countless Algerians and outside observers, "Qui tue qui?" (Who is killing who?).

Image: Why Not Productions

For the monks of Tibhirine, that question may never really be answered with certainty.  What is certain, however, is that Xavier Beauvois has given us a unique film - the Cannes 2010 Jury Grand Prize winner.  A film that is very difficult to categorize, neither a "thriller" nor just a film about monks or terrorists. That said, it has plenty of suspense, even if pretty much everyone knows of the eventual fate of the monks.

Our time spent with the monks gives us a sense of their world, before Algeria's decade-plus of bloodshed intervened to change their pastoral idyll forever.  It is the portrayal of the monks' lives, and their anguish over the violence taking over their adopted country, which is so powerfully rendered in Des Hommes et des Dieux.  The spectator is transported to Algeria in the mid-Nineties, and the sigh that a monk utters over the sheer beauty of the landscape of the high steppes and forested hills is something that one can almost feel.  And the sense of impending loss.

Beauvois has given us a beautiful film, and the casting is perfect.  Lambert Wilson as Brother Christian, the Prior of the monastery, has an ascetic intellectual steel behind wire-rimmed glasses beloved of French priests.  He resents the intrusion of the warring factions on the monks' work, though his decision to stick it out in the isolated mountains causes him constant anguish.  Olivier Rabourdin as Christophe is riven with doubt, and closeups of his eyes replace any need for extraneous dialogue.  Brother Luc, played by an avuncular Michel Lonsdale, has seen it all - literally.  During Algeria's war of liberation in the Fifties, Luc was taken prisoner by the FLN, only to be released when they realized that Dr. Luc Dochier was treating Algerians - both FLN fighters and civilians.

Despite the difficulty of treating such a subject, Olivier Beauvois gives us a very subtle film, one that hints at the ambiguities of the record.  The monks recoil at the violence perpetrated by both sides, and their stubborn insistence at staying with the villagers who depend on them for employment, for medical treatment, and for intelligent conversation becomes an annoyance to the combatants.

A hovering helicopter gives a premonition of the fate that may have befallen the monks, the loud, whirling blades audible as they pray in their chapel.  Is it Army protection, or something else?  In 2009, former French military attaché in Algiers General François Buchwalter testified that the monks were in fact killed in a botched attack on what the Army took to be an Islamist group.

Of Gods and Men is an ode to a group of incredibly brave men, beautifully acted and filmed.  A fitting memorial to the monks buried on a hillside in their beloved Algeria.

Tangier's Plague of Black Mold

Once, in a doctor’s office, as he paged through a dermatology manual, I was in the uncomfortable position of discovering the incredible variety of freckles, moles, beauty spots, rashes, cancers, ulcers, and growths that can appear on the human body.  Luckily, whatever I had was in the benign category, but those pictures were indelibly seared into my memory.

That what it was like during the visit to TALIM by Pamela Strangman (foreground) and Patsy Knappett, sent from London by the State Department’s Overseas Buildings Operations (OBO) office of Culturally Significant Properties, of which the American Legation in Tangier is the oldest.

Patsy and Pamela revealed the ugly world of mold – the kind that attacks our collection of ancient maps and prints behind glass – and the varieties were extremely colorful.  Reds, yellows, browns, greens... and the dreaded black mold, whose spores, if inhaled, cause dire health consequences.  Hence Pamela’s facemask.

Our two English women came with their specialized high tech equipment: soft brushes, cotton swabs, Q-Tips®, Dettol®, and of course face masks.  And the Conservac®, a small vacuum cleaner which can be adjusted to minimal power to clean delicate areas, which they kindly left behind for our museum.

A friend of the Legation from the art world said that Tangier, with its constant extreme humidity (last week there was a 90% day) is the world’s worst place for paper.  Of course, TALIM has plenty of paper: hundreds of valuable maps, etchings, and prints in the museum, and thousands of books – many of which are rare – in our research library.

Hard as they worked, Pamela and Patsy would be the first to admit that they could only tackle the worst, the gallery of horrors that I wrote about when I arrived at TALIM a few months ago.  Gibraltar may no longer be shrouded in fungus, but the Redcoats must still struggle with the slime.

When priority roof and wall work commences, we will have to ensure that both workers and occupants are protected from the Black Mold, the nasty growth that you want to keep away from your lungs.  More than just facemasks, we’re going to have to deploy a series of filtering drapes to keep spores from wafting over the property.  Our neighbors too are just a few feet away.

Though the extent of our damage was daunting, we were nevertheless encouraged by the can-do approach of our English visitors.  They shared some of their expertise with Mustafa, Yhtimad, and Marie Hélène, who will be lovingly applying Dettol® and the Conservac® to our treasures.  Passing on The Knowledge: Patsy and Pamela’s greatest contribution.

Gerald Loftus

TALIM's Moment In the Sun?

Good publicity is almost as good as cash in the bank.  So we were very pleased to be listed in the top 10 organizations to be highlighted in the upcoming "Summit" in Washington on Citizen Cultural Diplomacy.  If it brings us much-needed funding, all the better.  If not, well, we can bask in the glory.

Here's the blurb:

TALIM's citizen diplomacy program proposal has been selected as a Top Program by the Business Task Force and the U.S. Center for Citizen Diplomacy (USCCD) and as such will be highlighted as a key component of the upcoming U.S. Summit for Global Citizen Diplomacy, to be held November 16-19, 2010 in Washington, DC.

Business Task Force, chaired by Keith Reinhard, President of Business for Diplomatic Action and Peter Tichansky, President & CEO of Business Council for International Understanding will present key opportunities for the private sector to stimulate and facilitate greater citizen involvement in international relations through programs both within their corporate structures and in collaborative programs with the non-profit sector.  The session(s) will also address a number of challenges that impact private sector involvement in promoting global citizen diplomacy relative to funding.

This is good stuff.  BDA and Keith Reinhard have been laboring for years, ever since the "why do they hate us" drivel was the only thing coming out of the 2001-2009 White House, to bring private sector resources to bear on "Rebuilding Brand America."

The White House attitude may have improved, but the challenges to re-brand the United States remain as great as ever.  TALIM is well-placed to put the best face of America forward.  Glad that they can see us way out here in the medina of Tangier, and put us in the same league as the Kennedy Center and the Alvin Ailey Dance Group.  Not bad for a shoestring operation!

Gerald Loftus

Tangier in the N.Y.Times

Thanks to an alert friend who spots everything to do with Tangier, here is "Lost in Tangier," the recent New York Times travel piece by Matt Gross.  It's mostly about Matt Gross and his penchant for trying to get lost and always finding his way, which is an achievement in the medina of Tangier.

He does mention the American Legation and its museum and provides a link to our website, for which I am thankful.  But there's no indication that his wanderings ever took him to our part of the Rue d'Amérique.  Matt, next time you're in town, let me know!

Gerald Loftus

Saints Preserve Us From "Doctor" Terry Jones

Tangier, Morocco, September 11, 2010

Yesterday, September 10, was the Aid al-Fitr, or the feast day after the Muslim month of fasting and prayer, Ramadan.  The RFI correspondent in Tangier gave a nice image of the place on this festive day, which, according to one interviewee, consisted of "eating all day." Sounds like American Thanksgiving day.

Cut to September 11 in the US, where apparently all the world's media have camped out in front of a 50-person church in Florida, waiting to see if the Bible Koran burner will carry out his act, or not, as he has said of late.  Keep us in suspense, Terry, while you've already done your damage.

You see, there's been enough coverage worldwide - especially in the Muslim world, on its special feast day - to have done more damage to the American image.  The country founded on religious freedom, unable to come to grips with the establishment of a Muslim center in downtown New York.  Tolerance for the Terry Joneses, who already burned his bridges in Germany before he thought about burning holy books, but not for the "Imans" (as he calls imams).  Maybe he was going to see Iman.

So here's the point of this post.  Should the "Reverend" Jones renege on his latest promise and in fact carry out his act, I want to put it in print that I will resent being immolated in return by a mob looking for an easy American target.  It's no secret: the American Legation in Tangier is in the middle of the medina, a labyrinth of alleys that the police rarely frequent.  We are on our own.

And I thought our days of fear-inducing September 11 memorials were over.  Where for years, it would be a chance to ramp the "fear up" campaign to further war plans.  This time, the fear is not emanating from the White House or from Cheney's bunker, but from a small church in Florida.

So Terry, stay away from those matches.  Go back to running your business-cum-"church," in the time honored tradition of American hucksters.  And let the press cover something important, like how it is that the country that has room for the Dove World Outreach Center cannot accomodate the Cordoba Faith Initiative, named after a Spanish city whose reputation under centuries of Muslim rule was as a light of religious tolerance.

As my mother used to say, a souvenir from her old Ireland, "Saints preserve us."  From this man of "religion."

Image: Morocco Board News Service

Gem of Tangier

... is the title that State Magazine - the monthly magazine of the US Department of State - gave to my article in their September issue (click here for the interactive edition; my article is on pages 22-23).  Here's a screen shot, with the text below for the nearsighted among you.

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Historic facility still serves U.S. diplomacy

By Gerald Loftus

For the better part of two centuries, American diplomacy in Morocco was conducted from a collection of buildings in Tangier’s medina, or walled inner city.  This historic place still exists, long after the venue for diplomatic relations moved to the capital Rabat, and is now home to the Tangier American Legation Institute for Moroccan Studies, TALIM.

TALIM is a cultural and conference center and research library, a museum, art gallery and a venue for literacy, language and life skills classes for the women of the medina. To the people of northern Morocco, TALIM is still known as the “old American legation” on Rue d’Amérique, with its own entrance through the ancient walls of the medina.

Long History

A century ago, Tangier was Morocco’s designated city for foreign diplomatic representation.  The legations of the United States and other world powers maintained contact through the mandoub, the Sultan’s representative in Tangier.  For more than 40 years in the mid 20th century, a city council of foreign diplomats administered Tangier’s International Zone. The movie “Casablanca” reflects Tangier during World War II, when the precursor to the Central Intelligence Agency set up shop in the Legation.

Even earlier, in 1910, Maxwell Blake began his 30-year posting as consul general at the American Legation. Blake gave the Legation buildings the look they possess today - and what a look that is. Boston University professor Dr. Diana Wylie, in her forthcoming book about the Legation’s history seen through its art and map collection, summed it up with one word - “Enchantment.”

The only U.S. National Historic Landmark located outside the United States, the Legation is the oldest continuously occupied American diplomatic property.  The facility has been designated by the Cultural Heritage Program of the Bureau of Overseas Buildings Operations as its first Culturally Significant Property.  Program head Jim Wenzel said the site is so significant that he commissioned an experts’ report on its essential renovations.

The Legation was given to the United States by Sultan Moulay Suleiman in 1821, reflecting Morocco’s recognition of U.S. sovereignty in 1777 - during the American Revolution.  The Legation was a witness to the waning of the Barbary Wars, Spanish and French colonization, Tangier as an International Zone and Morocco’s independence in 1956.

After a period as the site of the U.S. Consulate General in Tangier, the “Old Legation” building housed the Foreign Service Institute’s Arabic language program and became a Peace Corps training center for Morocco.

But by the early 1970s, the future of the historic site was in doubt.  Spurred into action by the oncoming American Bicentennial, a group that included former diplomats and U.S. ambassadors to Morocco, academics and returned Peace Corps volunteers formed a foundation that saved the Legation and embarked on its restoration.  To give Washingtonians an idea of the Legation’s scale and beauty, the Diplomatic and Consular Officers, Retired (DACOR) Bacon House in June 2010 put on display the Legation’s massive 189-year-old cedar gate.

Today, as TALIM, the Legation houses the research center in Morocco of the American Institute for Maghrib Studies, which promotes Moroccan and American scholarship and hosts researchers from the five countries of North Africa.  Every summer, TALIM and the American School of Tangier host an AIMS-administered intensive Arabic language course for American university students, part of the State Department's Critical Language Scholarship program.

Long Association

When he recently completed 19 years as director of the Legation, retired Foreign Service officer Thor Kuniholm and his wife Elizabeth were honored by U.S. Ambassador to Morocco Samuel Kaplan during a farewell reception in May. The event was attended by a large number of people who had been touched by the Kuniholms’ long years of service.

Though he had met royalty and high-level leaders during his Tangier years, Kuniholm said that some of the people dearest to his heart were the women of the medina, the Legation’s neighbors.  Appropriately, TALIM –“education” in Arabic – has been organizing literacy classes for years, and its educational outreach to the medina now includes foreign language, sewing, cooking and handicraft instruction.

It is now my challenge to continue this legacy and maintain this unique example of American citizen diplomacy. As TALIM, the Legation remains integrated into its urban environment, proud of showcasing the myriad ways that Moroccan-American relations developed over the years and eager to involve young Maghribi and American scholars in this living example of people-to-people diplomacy. My blog on life at the Legation is at http://www.TALIMblog.org, and TALIM’s Web site is http://www.legation.org.

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 Gerald Loftus