Avuncular American

The Morocco of I. William Zartman

The following guest post by Mrs. Marie-Danièle Zartman is the story of one man's - or one Franco-American couple's - love affair with Morocco.  Dr. Zartman, professor emeritus at Johns Hopkins University (SAIS) and author of countless books on conflict resolution, negotiation, and Morocco, recently stepped down after a quarter century of presiding over TALIM's board.  The Zartmans met when he served in the US Navy in Kenitra, the former Port Lyautey base that dated back to the Operation Torch landings.  It was the late Fifties, and Morocco had just regained its independence from France.

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When I met William Zartman, 53 years ago, he was a young Navy Officer serving in Kenitra. Anyone who knows him knows that when William Zartman has an idea he has an idea…so I became THE ONE. We were married by the Caïd in Kenitra in 1960.

While serving in Kenitra, he met 2 young Moroccan officers belonging to the first graduating class of officers after Moroccan independence, and thanks to them, he gained even more understanding of the country he likes so much.

They took us on one of our most adventurous and funny experiences in the country. These new friends invited us to meet them in Azzi Tantan, far down in the desert, to attend a big celebration organized to welcome King Hassan II at the base. We left toward the Sahara from Kenitra in our Morris Minor and arrived alone in the desert at a point with many and all roads leading to nowhere!! Which one to take? In the end, we arrived in Tantan just as a sand storm began to blow and found ourselves in the camp where an enormous boat made of concrete was sitting in what was supposed to be a oued. An astonishing sight to say the least, but then the big celebration began and to our surprise we turned out to be the honored guests as we made it to the base but the King did not, as his plane could not land!!

We lived 2 years in Rabat, and returned to the United States where William maintained his interest in North Africa and particularly Morocco. Many years passed and life was lived…

In 1987, with his profession and passion still involving him in Morocco, he became the President of TALMS, now TALIM, and put a lot of energy, time and organization in this beautiful place.

With the help of then director Thor Kuniholm and his wife Elisabeth living in the American Legation of Tangier, they organized many memorable conferences including the annual “The April Seminar," some of which I attended.

One of the most elaborate, I recall, was organized to celebrate the Bicentennial of the American presence in Tangier, for which the 6th Fleet came to port. To the surprise and delight of the Tangerois, a concert was given in the Grand Socco followed by dancing under the stars.

During our life we have travelled intensively in Morocco crisscrossing the country many times visiting the well known sites of Fes, Marrakech, and to many other historical and beautiful sites off the tourist maps, such as a small village called M'Zora, the "Stonehenge of Morocco," about 2 hours from Tangier.

In brief, there were many years of challenging work with many rewards.  One very great reward, as a matter of fact, came in June 2000, when His Majesty King Mohamed VI recognized the work done on behalf of Morocco by William. He recognized his publications on The Moroccan Sahara and his work with the Legation benefiting the city of Tangiers among others. William was then elevated to be Commander of the Order of Ouissam Alaouite, a great honor well deserved.*

All these activities through these 40 years contributed to a profound understanding, respect, and love for this wonderful country; this wonderful country of Morocco, which in my opinion, should serve as an example of political and economical success to the rest of the Middle East.

Marie-Danièle Zartman

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*Wikipedia has a nice entry on the Order of Ouissam Alaouite, noting that it was awarded by Sultan Mohammed V after Operation Torch to General George Patton.

Un Prince à Casablanca: Ralph Toledano

In our occasional series of book presentations in cooperation with the Librairie des Colonnes, TALIM hosted Ralph Toledano, author of the novel Un Prince à Casablanca.

For Toledano, who grew up in Casablanca but whose family has roots in Tangier (and obviously, further back, in Toledo), this is a first effort in writing a novel.  He's a respected Paris and Jerusalem-based art historian, specializing in Italian art, and has written non-fiction works on Jewish Morocco.

Un Prince à Casablanca (2013, Editions de la Grande Ourse) has received enthusiastic reviews (La République des Livres, France).

Though he paints a picture of the life of Jews in Morocco around the time of the abortive 1971 coup against King Hassan II, Toledano took an approach diametrically opposed to his usual intensive research for his monographs on Italian artists.  This is not a historical novel, though it evokes an era.

In an interview in Canadian Jewish News, Toledano says (informal translation)

I didn't open a single book to write this novel.  That said, ever since I was young I've devoured dozens of books on Moroccan history and the history of Morocco's Jews.  But the principal raw material to write this novel was purely personal memory.  As a child, I would constantly ask my family questions, and their answers are still imprinted in my brain.

A distinguished French historian friend told Toledano that he was a "living archive."

The author says that he had just graduated from secondary school when the coup took place, and that several family friends were among the 100 victims.  For the Jewish community, the news is a rude awakening, a sign that their lives may never be the same.

For "palace Jews," as Toledano describes his principal character Semtob and his entourage, would the protective (to the dwindling Moroccan Jewish community) monarchy survive?  The 1971 coup attempt was followed by another the following year.  Was this the end of the (relative) good days?

Dr. Michael Laskier, scholar of Jewish Morocco, wrote in Middle Eastern Studies (October 1990)

For the Jews, popularly identified with the Palace, this was a difficult period.  The president of the Conseil des Communautés, David Amar, hurriedly left the country, along with the Secretary General of the Casablanca community and several other notables.

Toledano was introduced by Yaëlle Azagury, a transplanted Tangeroise in New York.  Dr. Azagury, who formerly taught at Columbia University, is an author in her own right, and publishes a blog for her eclectic writing on art, literature, and culture.  Her deep reading of the novel provided for a lively discussion.

For the Moroccan Jews of the upper class, with one foot in the Judeo-Arab world and the other in Europe, a premium is set on the stability that the monarchy represents.  All places change, so the nostalgia for bygone eras and places of memory will always be with us.  Along with the sense of end-of-era is the fear of the unknown to come.  Gone are the days when Moroccan Jews could count on the foreign consuls for "protégé" status.  It's either the king, or possibly having to join their co-religionists who have already emigrated.

With authors of the stature of Ralph Toledano, and with a thoughtful panelist like Yaëlle Azagury, we had a capacity audience at the Legation.  A nice way to ease out of summer.

Good news to come: Ralph Toledano has just finished writing his second novel, set in Tangier in 1977, year of Sadat's trip to Israel, leading to the Israel-Egypt Camp David Accords.

Gerald Loftus 

Putting Tangier In the News

Just a quickie to note a couple of news items where Tangier and/or TALIM were the focus recently.

For the next week, you can listen to a BBC Radio 4 (cultural and public affairs radio for UK audiences) sound magazine special "Queer Tangier" (we had no say in the title), which goes over territory familiar to many such reportages on the Dream City:

During much of the first part of the twentieth century, Tangier was an International Zone, controlled not by Morocco but instead by a number of foreign powers. During that period - and for some years afterwards - it became a magnet to scores of writers and artists, many of whom were gay. Paul Bowles arrived in the 1930s...

Our part was to provide some historical background on the International Zone, especially the tumultuous World War II years of Tangier as a center for espionage.  At least the Legation got serious mention and a decent amount of air time.

The program was hosted by Professor Andrew Hussey of the University of London's Institute in Paris, who was revisiting Tangier since his introduction to the place in 1984, and who reminded the audience that Tangier's racy reputation was set by Samuel Pepys in the 17th century: "a latter day Sodom."  Luckily, the program ended with a reminder by Tangier-based French writer Simon-Pierre Hamelin, who has a way a bringing things down to earth: "Bowles, etc. - they are all dead."

The BBC program was the height of seriousness compared to a recent CNN effort, the "Anthony Bourdain Parts Unknown" program on Tangier, which aired earlier this year.  We have restrained ourselves 'til now from commenting on this program, which thankfully chose not to air the considerable footage shot at the Legation, where we also provided lots of historical and cultural background.

Despite Bourdain's awareness of the "Tangier Sin City" trap that has befallen scores of journalists who continue to rehash the old stories, his final cut of the broadcast does that very thing, and the self-consciously need-to-be-hip delivery comes across as embarrassing: almost every segment has sophomoric references to kif consumption, including a pretty incredible - for prime time American TV - "recipe" session showing the audience how to prepare majoun, a Moroccan cannabis concoction.

Yes, just as well the Legation was too staid for this broadcast.

Speaking of staid, graduate student Yulia Shalomov of the GWU Elliot School of International Affairs has written up a summary of my presentation at DACOR in Washington on April 30.  You can also listen to a podcast of it here.

Gerald Loftus

Quasi-Monopoly On the Legation Brand

Google the word "legation" and you'll come up with close to a million results.  That crucial first page will include our own legation.org website as well as what you're reading - TALIMblog.

But there is another legation museum - one that also comes up on Page 1 of the Google search - and it's located in the United States: The French Legation Museum in Austin, Texas.

Texas?

With its setting in the heart of Texas, Austin's oldest building is a "historic house museum" in the former French diplomatic representation to the Republic of Texas (1836 - 1846).  The charming building, pictured above, was originally the home of the French chargé d'affaires of the Legation, and today is owned by the state of Texas, and administered by the Daughters of the Republic of Texas.

I remember "the Texas Embassy" in our neighborhood of Algiers in the early '90s, but that was a temporary phenomenon, basically the work of a proud Texas oilman - his excuse to throw a costume party with the Lone Star flag flying over his villa.  But I digress.

We understand that the Austin French Legation Museum is "covetous" of our website's URL, but hey, we registered "legation.org" first!  Seriously, we encourage readers who might have the opportunity to travel to Austin to visit the French Legation Museum.

The only other legation still in the register of historic US diplomatic properties is a lovely building, the old Legation in Seoul, Korea, now used as a guest house on the property of the US Ambassador's residence.  In Beijing, you can visit the Legation Quarter, the former home of the American Legation, converted by the Chinese into a home for upscale restaurants.

Since the term "legation" is new to most of our visitors to our museum, this is what we provide in answer to the inevitable question, "What is a legation?"

Originally, an embassy was often a temporary mission, a diplomatic delegation under an ambassador on a trip to a foreign country.  Countries would establish legations as permanent diplomatic missions, under the leadership of a minister, a diplomatic rank.  Legations largely disappeared after World War II, with most countries establishing permanent embassies, headed by ambassadors.

And here, a definition from a dictionary published when legations were still in vogue.

I remember reading somewhere that the US and other countries used to prefer legations because they could pay ministers less than ambassadors.  In these days of austerity and the sequester, maybe it is time to bring back this budget way of diplomacy.  May be a way of clawing back posts for professional diplomats.  After all, what political campaign donor would go to the trouble of bundling millions of dollars for the title of "minister" at a "legation?"

Gerald Loftus

Legation Legacies

Almost from its very inception, the museum and research library at the Tangier American Legation (now TALIM) has received donations-in-kind from art, map, and book collectors, Tangier residents, and artists.  Though we are not out looking to acquire more works of art, they somehow find their way to us.

There's something reassuring about art finding its natural home.  Michael "Mickey" Raymond's donation of a Maurice Romburg work - "Pig Sticking in the Diplomatic Forest, Tangier," circa 1931, pictured below - is a case in point.  Mickey, a longtime Tangier British expat, was a family friend of the subject in the painting, British Minister of Legation Hugh Gurney.  Mickey was given the painting by the son of the British diplomat, himself born in Tangier when the pigsticking scene was painted.  He felt it should return to Tangier, and now Mickey - who know's we're interested in pigsticking and other Interzone pursuits - has ensured that it will remain here, on display at the Legation.

Similarly, the Raïda family, after the recent death of the last Tangier-based member, was loathe to see the portrait of Marie Carmen Raïda (top of this post) by George Apperley (1952) leave Tangier.  Painted by the British artist (who died in Tangier in 1960), it is a wall-sized portrait of a beautiful young woman who met an untimely death.  When we were shown the painting, we felt that there was a place for it in the museum.  Now people ask if it was specifically commissioned for its place on our walls!

We are particularly excited about Christopher Gibbs' donation of three copper plates (detail, right) by Wenceslas Hollar, the 17th century etcher who chronicled Tangier when it was British, 1661-1684.  The Legation already has an extensive collection of Hollar etchings, largely from the earlier legacy of the Donald Angus collection.

Quite apart from their rarity and mint condition, the Hollar copper plates may be the kind of gift that keeps on giving.  If we find a means to have prints made, there should be collectors who would happily buy them and help us fund further art preservation projects.

Finally, to show that we continue to show works by contemporary Moroccan artists, we are pleased to have received Elena Prentice's gift of one of Mohamed Raiss El Fenni's "Day Dreamer" series.  Raiss El Fenni is a Tangier friend and neighbor, and an accomplished miniaturist with a gallery that he and his American wife Karla own in the kasbah.

And Elena Prentice is an artist in her own right (whose work is also represented at the Legation), and whose connection to this institution deserves a post of its own.

Thanks to our benefactors - those who provide us much-needed funds with a discreet check, as well as those who part with valuable family possessions so that others can appreciate these works of art.

Photos by Mohammed Jadidi, TALIM.

Gerald Loftus  

Revolution, King, and People: Morocco 1953

Tangier Gazette 4 September 1953, TALIM research library

In this month of August, it's hard to keep track of all the holidays, whether religious (end of Ramadan and the Eid al-Fitr) or national.  Today's "Revolution of the King and the People" day is the anniversary of the 1953 event that sparked a new stage in Morocco's struggle for independence, which came two years later.

Exactly 60 years ago today, 20 August 1953, the French Protectorate authorities deposed then-Sultan Mohamed V.  He and his family were sent into exile, first to Corsica, then to Madagascar.  The installation of a puppet sultan only further inflamed nationalist passions, and Mohamed V continued to militate for independence via broadcasts on Radio Tangier.  His return to Morocco in 1955 sounded the death knell for the Protectorates, French and Spanish.

In those days of Cold War across the globe, it was easy for both sides to see the nefarious hand of "international communism" or conversely "American imperialism" behind all events.  The US, from the days of the Casablanca Conference in 1943, had kept lines of communication open with Mohamed V and indeed with Moroccan nationalists, so it's hard to see any American role in the events of 1953.  Izvestia's accusation shown in the Tangier Gazette headline - "they want to convert (North Africa) into their chief base of combined operations" - was hardly justified by the US base at Port Lyautey (later Kenitra in independent Morocco).

Sixty years later, in a regional context of upheaval stemming from "the street" and its Islamist and military permutations, it is intriguing to consider Morocco's celebration of revolution (or reform) coming from the top.

Gerald Loftus

Historic Fixer Upper Job Open June 2014

 

Legation Pavilion by Christiane Delongueville

Note: this seems odd - announcing my own job opening - but why not?  What follows below is the official announcement of the job that I will be vacating in June 2014, which will have been four years since starting in summer 2010.  While the text does mention "tending to the maintenance of the building," that understatement is shorthand for spending considerable hours of every day dealing with all of the troubles that an almost two-century old building (or array of buildings) can develop.

A former ambassador and good friend, when she saw the range of activities involved in this job - and using US Embassy terminology - said "Jerry, this is a combination of GSO and PAO" (General Services Officer & Public Affairs Officer).  Translation: you do all the nice cultural events and educational exchange things, along with the coordination of gardeners and maintenance staff.

So in addition to all the good regional experience and language skills, the sense of outreach (and reaching into donors' pockets!), and the multifunctional or interdisciplinary "cultural diplomacy" approach of the ideal candidate, applicants for this job should be ready to welcome the sound of hammers as a sign of progress, and to scale down expectations on the speed of accomplishing even the most urgent projects.  But accomplishments are nevertheless sweet to behold, and this gem of a historic building is too important to let succumb to the elements.

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TALIM Resident Director position available June 2014

The Tangier American Legation Institute for Moroccan Studies (TALIM), located in the only US National Historic Landmark outside the United States and the site of the American Overseas Research Center of the American Institute for Maghrib Studies (AIMS) in Tangier, Morocco, invites applications for the position of Resident Director.  TALIM is housed in a spacious historic building in the Tangier medina, given as a gift to the US in 1821. It functions as a museum, research library, conference facility, and community center, and hosts a language program.  TALIM’s director serves as liaison between American and Moroccan scholars and administers AIMS grants and programs in Morocco, and also cooperates with other AIMS centers in North Africa.  The Director needs to act in a representational capacity in Morocco and abroad, to conserve and operate a historic building, to activate and direct community outreach programs, to fund raise, and to interact effectively with the international academic community.

The Resident Director shall have a sufficient understanding of US embassy operations to interact with the US Embassy on matters of visitor and representational programs, grant opportunities, maintenance, and other issues. TALIM is supported by private contributions and by AIMS; maintenance of the building is funded by the US Embassy in Morocco and tended by the Director. The Director supervises a staff of an associate director and librarian, curator, admin assistant, Arabic literacy teacher, and 3 maintenance men, and is responsible to a Board of Directors and an Executive Committee centered in Washington. The successful applicant should have academic and management skills related to the Maghrib and be fluent in English and French. Arabic is highly desirable.

Salary is low and the applicant should have a comfortable retirement package already in hand as the position does not provide pension or medical benefits. Housing is provided without cost in the Legation. Travel to Board meetings in Washington D.C. is paid twice a year. Please send a statement of interest and qualifications and a current CV to [email protected], TALIM secretary. The position is open as of June 2014.  Review begins on 9 October, 2013. Applications should be submitted by 30 September 2013, but will continue to be accepted until the position is filled.   TALIM is an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer and has a strong commitment to diversity.

Gerald Loftus

When Tangier & Gibraltar Were "Tan-Gib"

With the current diplomatic fray between the UK and Spain over the British enclave of Gibraltar, thoughts go back to the time when there was yet another enclave on the Strait of Gibraltar - Tangier, International Zone - and ties were much stronger between the two outposts.

And of course you can't talk enclaves without mentioning Ceuta, that bit of Spain on African soil, just across from Gibraltar.  Now that their respective military or geo-strategic importance has withered, all three share a "free zone" or mercantilist attitude.

When Westerners first ventured south to Africa, their Orientalist travelogues often took them from Gibraltar to Tangier, the gateway to Morocco and the rest of North Africa.  19th century American travel writer Dr. Henry Field ("The Barbary Coast," 1893) wrote

... the sky was without a cloud, and the atmosphere so clear that we heard distinctly the guns of Gibraltar, though it was more than thirty miles away.

Today's background noise of bustling Tangier would probably drown out the cannon fire, and to get to Gibraltar directly from Tangier (perhaps a good idea if Spanish authorities continue their slowdown with border crossings), you have to trek some 30 km east to the port of Tangier Med, which has a couple of ferry crossings per week to Gibraltar.

We also might want to revisit the days of the heliograph.  From "Our Mission to the Court of Morocco" (1881) by Captain Philip Trotter, 93rd Highlanders, from the British Minister's residence in Tangier:

Before sunset we tried from the roof of the house to communicate with the signal station at Gibraltar by means of the heliograph, but a slight haze rested upon the rock, and there were, unfortunately, no means of replying to us.

Gone are the days - celebrated in the 1953 film "Captain's Paradise" - when steamers linked "Tan-Gib" on a daily basis.  Up to 1988, there were even direct "Gibair" Viscount flights across the Strait between the two cities.

Taxis to the airport and taxiing on the ground probably took three times as long as the actual flight - reader Graeme Steel recalls "The flight publicized itself as the shortest international flight in the world - 15 minutes!."

John Blake, who grew up at the Legation in the Thirties when his father Maxwell was the Minister of the Legation, remembers "the particularly close ties between Tangier and Gib from the twenties to the mid fifties. It was a time when Gib was Tangier's PX where the diplomatic and consular corps could stock up with Pinch bottle whiskey and Dom Perignon from Saccone & Speed  at about $ 2.50 a bottle. Unfortunately the Bland Line daily ferries between Gib and Tangier weren't destined to last forever."

Regular TALIMblog reader and former Tangier American Marge King remembers this from her postwar childhood in Tangier:

Transatlantic passenger ships stopped in Gibraltar in the 40s and 50s, hence we traveled by way of Gib, with overnights at the Rock Hotel, every two years for our summer vacation in the USA. Usually we crossed the straits by ferry but I do recall one trip on Gibair. Thanks to a longshoremen's strike in late '49 or '50 which delayed Christmas packages, my Dad took the ferry to Gib several days before Christmas and returned by ferry with 2 fully assembled Raleigh bicycles. I've always wondered how he got on and off the ferry and through customs with those bikes!

During World War II, Legation-based OSS agents regularly nipped over to Gib to get a spot of demolition or sabotage training from their friends in the British Commandos or the SOE.  That's where anthropologist Carleton Coon and his OSS buddy Gordon Browne developed their famous donkey turd mine to blow up German tank treads.

At the Legation, we have lots of images of Gibraltar, especially maps detailing the Rock, that bastion of British imperial might for three centuries.  In fact, were it not for the row over concrete reefs and unhappy fishermen, we might be hearing more about the Tri-Centennial of the 1713 Treaty of Utrecht and the beginnings of British rule.

Then again, maybe it's the anniversary that has prompted all the noise about artificial reefs and border controls.

Gerald Loftus

The Ed Wood School of Museology

"Why, if I had half a chance, I could make an entire movie using this stock footage!"

Edward D. Wood, Jr., in "Ed Wood," 1994 film by Tim Burton

(right, image of Johnny Depp, ©Touchstone Pictures)

That discarded stock footage of stampeding buffalo does make it into one of his films, along with something involving a writhing octupus...  Tim Burton's affectionate take on Hollywood's worst-ever schlock film director (played with comedic brio by Johnny Depp) may not be everyone's inspiration for museum management, but I often think, "hey - Ed Wood wouldn't let this go to waste" when stumbling across some artifact or image connected with the Legation's long history.

I say artifact, but tangible items connected with American diplomats in Tangier dating back to the 1790s are extremely rare.  In fact, we have all of one such thing - a sword cane from 1945, left behind by the Legation's wartime Chargé d'Affaires.  We keep dropping hints with the State Department's US Diplomacy Center - building a museum of American diplomacy - that we could use some of their artifacts (diplomatic seals, uniforms... anything), to no avail.

So we keep on winging it.  Often this is simply creating crossovers from our research library to our museum.  Or repositioning seemingly unrelated pictures and maps to illustrate a theme.

Our new "Legation Room" (photo at left) was once the Minister's office, so we gathered together much of our US Government-issue Drexel office furniture, put in a few period touches like telephone and bakelite radio, a new paint job to highlight the 19th century architecture and voilà, recreation of an era.  It's among the first rooms that visitors now see, and it's replete with World War II stories and other anecdotes of diplomatic life at the Legation.

In response to my pleas for a scale model of the USS Olympia, someone sent me mini models (1250 scale, the kind that they used to push around table tops to plan World War II operations).  So what do I do with these cute little inches-long guys?  Put them on a chart of Tangier harbor to illustrate the Perdicaris Affair, where Teddy Roosevelt sends the Atlantic Fleet on a gunboat diplomacy mission.  Instant illustrated exhibit.

Of course, if we had a generous budget to acquire items, display cases, all the paraphernalia of big-name museums, we could do much more.  But there's something fun about the Ed Wood approach of do-it-yourself, nothing is wasted, museum management.  Now, what can I do with these vintage magazine covers from the Spanish-American War?  To be continued...

Gerald Loftus