Avuncular American

Minister Gummere & Teddy Roosevelt's Big Stick In Morocco

Samuel R. Gummere, First American Minister to Morocco (Tangier, 1898 - 1909)

Note: This guest post by Mehdi Zainoune, summer intern en route to studies at Sciences Po in Paris, is part of our series of vignettes from the history of Morocco-United States relations.  Samuel René Gummere (February 19, 1849 - May 28, 1920) was posted to Tangier at a particularly complex time in relations between Morocco, the United States, and Europe.  Gummere, who spent 1898 through 1905 as Consul General and then was elevated to Minister when diplomatic relations were established, presided over the Tangier American Legation during a time of gunboat diplomacy triggered by the kidnapping of Ion Perdicaris.  His long experience in Morocco was key to his selection as adviser to the US delegation at the 1906 Algeciras conference, which was to decide the fate of a Morocco increasingly prey to European colonial intentions.

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"A diplomat of polish and ability, a brilliant conversationalist and raconteur." 

Entry on Samuel René Gummere, Dictionary of American Biography, 1932

1898: Samuel R. Gummere, appointed U.S. Consul General in Tangier, starts a uniquely event-filled 11-year assignment, during which Gummere was named the first American Minister to Morocco, and his Tangier Consulate General elevated to the status of Legation, the mark of diplomatic relations.

As one of a handful of Americans in Tangier, Gummere was a frequent guest of the wealthy and controversial Ion H. Perdicaris.  Earlier, in the 1880’s, the relationship between the two Trenton New Jersey natives had already touched politically charged topics when Samuel Gummere joined Ion Perdicaris in protesting to the Secretary of State against the practice of issuing certificates of American citizenship or protection as carried on profitably but illegally by the United States Consulate in Tangier (also known as the Protégé System).

Perdicaris is a name that might be familiar to film buffs.  John Milius’ 1975 Hollywoodian epic The Wind and the Lion revealed both Gummere and Perdicaris to the American public.

However distorted the film’s historical details may have been (Perdicaris, an elderly male, was played by a young Candice Bergen; US Marines shooting at Moroccans and Germans - sorry, it never happened, though Marines did wind up guarding the Belgian Legation), it highlighted the crucial position of Tangier in the early 20^th century, when European nations were jockeying for influence in and power over a chaotic Moroccan kingdom.

The original May 1904 event, where Perdicaris was kidnapped for ransom by Moroccan warlord Raisuli, revealed how tense the relations between Morocco and “the Powers” had become, and came to be known as the “Perdicaris Affair.”

In this highly politicized incident, President Theodore Roosevelt, already known for his “Big Stick” through actions in Latin America (Venezuela, Santo Domingo, and the Panama Canal), was handed another opportunity to exert his robust foreign policy, backed up by the threat of military force – the US Navy and Marines – if required.

Roosevelt dispatched seven warships from the Atlantic fleet to Tangier – followed by the stirring telegram “Perdicaris alive or Raisuli dead” – despite the fact that Gummere's quiet diplomacy was on the verge of securing the captive's release. This high-profile incident, among others, like the puzzling 1901 “Ezegui Affair” – when the Moroccan government threatened to keep moving the kingdom’s capital (!) if Gummere (backed up by an earlier use of an American cruiser) insisted on visiting the Sultan for apologies over the accidentally assassinated American citizen Marcus Ezegui – proved Gummere’s diplomatic worth.

Gummere was rewarded by appointment as the first Minister of the United States to Morocco in March 1905, reflecting the two countries’ establishment of diplomaticrelations after more than a century of consular and commercial relations.

Gummere’s presence at the Algeciras conference in 1906 - which aimed to settle European differences regarding Morocco - was due to his wide knowledge of the local situation and was appreciated by the other American commissioners.

Roosevelt, despite his saber-rattling reputation, feared a continental war and the disruption it would cause to American trade, and ensured that America played an important role in reaching a successful conclusion in Algeciras. Through Gummere and his other mediators, he offered a compromise plan which the European powers accepted. The proposal granted Morocco a greater deal of autonomy and allowed for all European nations to trade with Morocco.

Alas, it was to be short lived, as France and Spain declared their respective Protectorates over Morocco in 1912.  A non-career appointee, Gummere returned to private life after Tangier.

Mehdi Zainoune

CLS Tangier: Language, Culture & Heritage

TALIM's Fatima Benguerch with CLS students and women's literacy group

As the State Department funded 2011 Arabic Critical Language Scholarship (CLS) program in Tangier draws to a close, it's time to reflect on what makes Tangier a special place to learn Arabic.  Tangier is but one of several sites for CLS Arabic programs; there is our sister AIMS institute CEMAT in Tunis, but also programs in Fes, Muscat, and Amman, administered by CAORC, the Council of American Overseas Research Centers.

The flavor of spoken Arabic in each of these sites will be different, but the strength of the CLS approach is that it gets the students to use their Arabic, and perhaps worry less about distinctions between classical and colloquial.

The Tangier program has for years conducted its classes at the American School of Tangier, providing the students with a leafy campus and air-conditioning for their sessions with teachers, speaking partners, and tutors.  AST, despite its new-town location, is a venerable institution, having just celebrated its 60th anniversary in 2010.

For the students who want to go a bit further back with American institutions in Morocco, there's the American Legation in the medina: you can't get more historic than that.  We at TALIM are their local AIMS host.  Beyond helping to make logistical arrangements, the Legation provides the students unique opportunities to engage with Moroccans they might otherwise not have met, and to participate in other TALIM programs.

CLS students learn Moroccan cuisine from women's literacy participants

Last year, we took initial steps to bring TALIM's other Arabic program - our women's literacy program - into proximity with CLS.  Thanks to TALIM Associate Director Yhtimad Bouziane's efforts, this year has seen a blossoming of those linkages.  As she did last year, Arabic women's literacy teacher Fatima Benguerch (top and bottom photos), a permanent member of the TALIM staff, has used the summer break to teach American CLS students, and is a valued speaking partner.

This year, when Yhtimad and Fatima enrolled the women of the literacy program for joint sessions with the CLS students, the excitement was palpable on both sides.  Already, the medina women are "regulars" in these historic surroundings, and many CLS students appreciate the chance not just to tour the Legation during their orientation, but to return to it for a series of cultural and educational activities.

These have included the initial meeting over tea with their host families, lectures by leading Tangier experts on the city's history and the environment of the surrounding region, participation in Legation activities such as our July fundraiser and our reception for an American film maker.  We have encouraged contact between CLS students and visiting AIMS Maghribi Grantees.  Finally, a strong delegation of CLS staff, teachers, and students attended the annual Ramadan concert.

 
After this strong showing in 2011, we hope to involve even more students with TALIM's other programs next year.  Already, students have shown a great interest in our research library, and a 2010 CLS graduate has plans to return to Tangier to work intensively with our women's literacy program.  Of the 2011 cohort, one student is hoping to present a paper at next year's AIMS conference in Tangier on Berber language and culture.

When it comes down to it, that's the beauty of the CLS Tangier program: tapping into the language expertise offered by the faculty recruited specifically for this program; absorbing Moroccan culture in Tangier, a city ideally situated to offer a wide exposure to art, literature, and music; and partaking of the American-Moroccan heritage embodied in the Tangier American Legation, America's oldest diplomatic building, a symbol of its engagement with the Arab world going back to the late 1700s.

Arabic, it would seem, is in our DNA.

Gerald Loftus; Photos furnished by Tangier CLS Site Director Michael Allan

Ramadan Notes 2011

Photo by Rachid Tefersiti

Perhaps I should say Ramadan Notes 1432 (A.H., not A.D.).

We marked Ramadan in the traditional ways the Legation has ever since my predecessor Thor Kuniholm established the pattern.  We started the week with our Moroccan NGO partners FTAM (the Fondation Tanger al-Madina) and the distribution of foodstuffs to needy families in the medina.

And then last night, with our Andalusian music concert at the Legation.  It was a real crowd-pleaser.  As last year and years previous, it was Nabil Akbib (photo, with violin at left) and his ensemble that provided the music.  This year, the lineup was only slightly different, with an electronic organ (!) but minus the qanun and the rebab.

We were very happy to have as part of the ensemble the rising Tangerois oud player Younes Fakhar, whose solos got warm applause.  Younes Fakhar, on the right in the photo above, is apparently as at home with jazz as he is with the tarab Andalusian tradition.

And we got several minutes' worth of national Moroccan TV coverage on the nightly news (interviews, views of the Legation, and of course the music).  Helps burnish our cultural diplomacy credentials, and end the first week of Ramadan on an upbeat note.

Gerald Loftus

Sidewalk, Street, Souk: It's All the Same

The Wall Street Journal tells us that some Americans suffer from "sidewalk rage," which sometimes triggers "intermittent explosive disorder."  Well, they better stay away from Morocco, or at least Moroccan cities.  Better to stretch out on some secluded beach in Agadir than get stressed out walking from A to B in downtown Tangier.

In the year that we've been here, we've seen a muddying of the distinction between space for vehicles (a.k.a. streets) and for people (sidewalks).

Even though I own a car, the logistics of getting said vehicle out of a public garage (Is the watchman going to be there?  Can I wake him up by yelling his name or banging on the door?  How many cars will he have to move before getting to mine?) mean that most of the time I just walk or take a taxi.  So I write this as a pedestrian who sometimes drives.

And here's the problem: the sidewalks are increasingly the domain of vendors ("the informal economy"), pushing the pedestrians onto the street, where they have to vie for space with yet more vendors and, oh yes, cars.  Road rage sufferers should also steer clear of Moroccan cities.

One of our employees recently lost a family member to the confusion in the street-sidewalk-souk continuum.  When large metal objects have to navigate confined spaces with fruits, vegetables, wristwatches, and people, something is going to break.

And good Boy Scout or Girl Scout training (look both ways before you cross the street) only partially prepares you for the streets here: you might also need to look down (nasty holes) and up (liquids from balconies).  And don't be fooled by the One Way street; those ubiquitous motorized carts (photo above) can save gas by silently coasting the wrong way down one way streets.

Writing in Jadaliyya, the e-zine of Georgetown University's Arab Studies Institue, Professor Anouar Boukhars of McDaniel College in Maryland sees an explanation for this all this congestion, this fawda:

The exponential growth of roadside carts in the last few months has become almost unbearable. No longer harassed by the police, street vendors have ventured into “the busiest spots”, occupying whole neighborhoods of streets and severely disrupting traffic and affecting struggling small businesses. The sprouting of illegally constructed structures in several cities, which threaten to reverse the government’s gains of the last few years in eradicating this phenomenon, is also cited by many of my interviewees as examples of growing lawlessness in the kingdom.

Lawlessness perhaps, but perhaps too a conscious effort to avoid confrontation as in the case of the Tunisian street vendor.  The question is: how do you get the vendors off the streets, once they've set up their wares?  This could be a habit that will stick.

My sense is that my car is going to stay for even longer periods in the garage (I'll save gas!).  But I am worried about breaking my shins - or worse - as I negotiate the no-man's land of Tangier's sidesouks and streetwalks.

Gerald Loftus

Legation, Consulate, Diplomatic Agency: Tangier's American Presence

(click on picture to enlarge)

Among all the documents that are squirelled away in odd corners of the Legation's research library or administrative files, every so often an item of more than passing interest surfaces.

What we're looking at here is the unmistakable pink of the State Department "airgram" announcing in June 1956 that the American Legation in Tangier would revert to the status of Consulate General.  Rabat, heretofore a Consulate General, would be "elevated" to Embassy status.  Morocco was again independent, and Tangier would no longer serve as its diplomatic gateway to the world.

Over the course of the almost two centuries where Tangier was Morocco's diplomatic capital, America's piece of turf in the medina was known by a number of titles.  In the early years, in fact for the better part of a century, the US representative was a Consul, therefore the building was the American Consulate.

With the return of Tangier native and Civil War veteran Felix Matthews, Tangier's status was raised to that of Consulate General in the 1870s.  Then in 1905, when after more than a century of consular relations the US and Morocco finally established diplomatic relations, Samuel Gommere was named Minister, in charge of the American Legation.

The Legation nomenclature stuck in popular use, even when the US, finally bending to the reality of the establishment of the French and Spanish protectorates in Morocco, downgraded the level of the chief of mission to that of Diplomatic Agent.

In this short summary provided by the State Department's Office of the Historian, we see that over the years, Morocco has seen American diplomats or consuls in an amazing variety of places:

• Tangier earliest date March 31, 1791, closed early 1989. Tangier, which had been an international city (but still technically part of Morocco) was fully integrated into Morocco on October 29, 1956.
• Essaouira (Mogador) earliest date February, 7, 1817, latest open date December 15, 1920
• Larache and Asilah earliest date: May 11, 1852 latest date: September 25, 1896
• Tétouan (Tetuan) earliest date: May 11, 1852 latest date: June 14, 1896
• Casablanca earliest date: May 13, 1878 (currently Consulate General)
  
• Rabat (Ribāt, Salé, Sali, Sallee) earliest date: June 25, 1881. Became Embassy June 11, 1956.
  
• Safi earliest date: June 25, 1881 latest date: November 19, 1890
• El Jadida (Mazagan, Magazan) earliest date: July 28, 1882 latest date: November 5, 1896

Who, nowadays, would imagine that the US presence in Morocco not only was centered in Tangier for the better part of two centuries, but that for more than a hundred years the US also had a consulate in Essaouira?

Gerald Loftus