Avuncular American

Angels, Monsters, and Bastards

It's not too difficult to spot the bastards in Deborah Perkin's documentary of that title.  And they certainly aren't the little angels who didn't ask to be born out of wedlock.

"Bastards" played to a capacity audience at the Legation last Friday, its premiere in Morocco, prior to its official presentation tonight at FIDADOC - the Agadir International Documentary Festival - where Perkin's film opens the festival. On May 4 at 9:30 PM, Moroccan TV network 2M will air an edited version.

Perkin's 2014 documentary shouldn't be confused with the 2013 Claire Denis film "Les Salauds," whose international title "Bastards" accurately conveys the sense of "despicable person."  We flinch at the word - our post-film interpreter used "monsters," a good substitute for the reference to these extreme deadbeat dads - and I even hesitated to use it in this blog post title line, for fear of censorious filtering in internet browsers.

If you think that the idea of stigmatizing "illegitimate" children is a phenomenon limited to Morocco or other Muslim countries, think again; activist group "Bastard Nation" in the US fights for the rights of millions of adoptees.  And an Englishman in our audience recalled the opprobrium that was the lot of single mothers in the England of his youth, where concerns of "what will the neighbors think?" outweighed considerations of humanity toward the women and their innocent children.

Deborah Perkin is at pains to show the strides that Morocco has taken - in particular with the reforms of the mudawana or personal status law - to regularize and modernize the institution of marriage.  But it's hard to overcome centuries of tradition, where in the past, a sense of honor and a simple recounting of the "fatiha" or opening sura of the Koran sufficed to create a marriage bond.  And in many remote parts of Morocco, the practice continues.

The strength of Deborah Perkin's film is its simplicity, in subtitled Moroccan Arabic with no narration and a few explicative captions.  The film's main subject is a courageous young woman, Rabha El Haimer, whose arranged marriage at age 14 is at the root of her problem.  The traditional or "fatiha" marriage with a cousin has no legal standing, and her pregnancy coincides with her eviction from her husband's home.  The code of honor no longer suffices; now it's "no papers, no recognition."  Her baby is born a "bastard."  Other cases are followed, but the core of the film is Rabha's quest for legitimacy - for her marriage, and therefore for her daughter.

And that's the magic of the film; daughter Selma (who is pictured in the poster), is a little angel, and gives lie to the archaic notion of illegitimacy and "bastardy."  Deborah Perkin reminds us that the dictionary definition of bastard does more to describe the people who got girls like Rabha into their plight and then abandon them to their fate.

Rabha El Haimer (without headscarf) and admirers (photo: Rachid El Mziryahi, ALC Tangier;

More photos here)

The emotion generated by Bastards, in the presence of filmmaker Perkin and especially heroine Rabha El Haimer, was palpable among the Legation audience.  Composed largely of the women from our Arabic literacy program and members of "100% Maman," a Tangier NGO for single mothers, our audience could identify with the ordeal of Rabha and women like her.

A particularly moving comment during our post-film discussion, in halting English by a young woman whose pregnancy led her to leave Marrakesh for Tangier - "we are your daughters, your sisters... we are good women" - led our event partner Mark Holbrook of the American Language Center to offer her a scholarship on the spot to follow courses to improve her English.  He went on to offer the same to the women of "100% Maman."

Were it not for associations like 100% Maman and Darna in Tangier, and Casablanca's Association Solidarité Féminine (ASF), the lot of these single mothers and their children would be even more dire.  For many children, it can be a death sentence: babies abandoned in the elements, or street children prey to disease, drugs, and a short, brutal existence.  "It is a long, slow road," says ASF founder Aicha Ech-Channa, of changing the mentality that leads to exclusion.

This validation of her film by scores of Moroccan women was especially gratifying to Deborah Perkin.  She knows that her film isn't going to rake in the big royalties, but if it can help change minds, then it will be all the compensation she needs.

US readers: "Bastards" will feature at the Lincoln Center's New York African Film Festival on May 9 and May 12.

Gerald Loftus

An American First: Major Musa's Moroccan Degree

Major Jamil Musa (center) and his graduating class

The following is a guest post by US Air Force Major Jamil Musa, a C-17 instructor pilot assigned to Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Washington.  A couple of years ago we wrote about his experience as an Olmsted Scholar and a friend of the Legation.  Major Musa studied at Mohammed V University from 2011-2013 earning a master’s degree in the immediate history of Morocco - the first American to do so.  We congratulate him on his achievement.

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Having spent over two years living in Morocco with my family and studying history at Rabat's Mohammed V University as part of the Olmsted Scholar Program, my recent return to Rabat to defend a master’s thesis spurred an unusual homecoming.

Considering my post-fellowship reintegration as a pilot in a U.S. Air Force flying squadron, there has been adequate passage for the development of perspective.  Many factors including hard work, persistence, and a healthy bit of luck, no doubt contributed to my successful completion of a degree predominantly instructed in Arabic and thus becoming the first American to graduate from the Faculty of Letters and Human Sciences at Mohammed V University.  However, the key-contributing factor is tied to the notion of embrace.

Jamil Musa at his thesis defense

As an American student and non-native Arabic speaker in a Moroccan setting, I experienced many highs and lows throughout my time at university.  Honestly, the fear of failure and a smidgen of cognitive dissonance surrounding the daunting goal of earning a degree led me to often reference Mark Twain: “I’ve never let school interfere with my education.”

Although there is certainly wisdom in Twain’s dictum concerning the peripheral lessons associated with immersion and study in a foreign society, earning a degree is ironically a pleasant physical reminder of such intangibles.

More than a piece of paper, the degree is a material representation of the welcome and patience demonstrated by all of those who provided assistance along the way.  That is, it denotes an embrace… an embrace from my Moroccan classmates, faculty, neighbors, and friends… an embrace by the generous people affiliated with organizations such as TALIM, MACECE, the US Embassy and the Olmsted Foundation.  For this, I am quite thankful.

Of course immersion and study in a foreign country is not something unique to my family or me; it is something multiplied across the globe and experienced by people from a myriad of nationalities and various walks of life.  However, it seems appropriate to perhaps reduce such profound occurrences to the simple concept of embrace.

Fittingly, the venue for such a revelation is itself a symbol of this plain yet powerful gesture: Sultan Moulay Suleiman's 1821 gift of the American Legation not only signifies the 1787 Moroccan-American Treaty of Friendship and Amity (also more than a piece of paper), it epitomizes the very embrace experienced by an Air Force officer and his family in Morocco nearly two centuries later.

Text & photos by Major Jamil Musa, USAF

Tangier Seen Through Different Lenses

Is Tangier still the haven of The Aesthetes, as Andrew O'Hagen of the NY Times Magazine would like us to believe?

Much as many of the individuals depicted in "The Aesthetes" are talented and likeable people, and in many ways represent the concentration of culture and creativity that has typified Tangier for decades, there is nevertheless a ring of the recycled in Mr. O'Hagen's piece.

"It’s an old story — as old as sailing and sex..." so begins this umpteenth ode to Tangier's collection of expatriates.  At least we have O'Hagen's fine writing, and nice photography of what are quintessentially cozy interiors, rich in color and light.

But we've read this before, in fact, writers have been churning this out for decades, The Lost World of Naughty Tangier.  Get a new story line, please.

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Le Parisien's recent travel piece gives a plug to the Legation, and it is nicely illustrated with drawings by Reno Marca (though they depict a building other than ours).  This is straightforward travel writing.

TV5 Canada's "Ports d'Attache" episode on Tangier can be seen through 29 April.  Though aficionados will recognize scenes shot at the Legation, we don't get mentioned as such.  The program (in French) is nevertheless well done, and shows Tangier, warts and all, as it is today.

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Perhaps Tangier is simply a good place to do research for budding US scholars, of the likes of Ayla Amon (George Washington University), Graham Cornwell (Georgetown U.), and Emily Albrecht (Dartmouth College), who have recently written about their experiences at the Legation.

So over to our young Americans.

Ayla Amon, former TALIM intern, has done double duty, first by writing a comprehensive piece on the Legation and its library and museum collections in the art and architecture blog Stambouline, and then with Graham Cornwell (who did research for his dissertation at TALIM), a podcast in "Tajine."

Amon and Cornwell discuss the challenges of maintaining the TALIM collection, and present the myriad opportunities for scholars which our holdings represent.  This is very helpful for people contemplating research in Morocco.

Finally, Emily Albrecht reports on her Dartmouth group's time at TALIM, where they were able to attend our anniversary lecture on Sultan Mohammed V's historic speech in Tangier in 1947.

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There's room for every kind of coverage of Tangier, and while we like exposure for this city and for our unique institution, it's gratifying that of the recent articles devoted to Tangier, those with the most depth come from our young scholars.

Gerald Loftus; photo of Legation door detail by Christiane Delongueville

Mapping Tangier's Literary World

As Josh Shoemake puts it, his book started off as a map.

Landing in Morocco as a young English teacher at the American School of Tangier, he started plotting the haunts of the city's literary greats as a way of keeping track of their references.  He even provides an electronic version of his map (you have to drill down, but there's lots of good detail).

Josh, appropriately seated among the Legation's collection of ancient maps, regaled the audience last weekend with many of these details that he so well illustrates in his book.  We were treated to anecdotes about some of the eccentrics that made Tangier such a draw, and continues to do so.

Who now remembers Alfred Chester and his wig?  We thought we knew a thing or two about the American writers who gravitated to Tangier, many coming to visit Paul Bowles.  But Alfred Chester was news - mostly forgotten here it must be said.

I had read and reviewed Josh's book earlier this year, but it was great to listen to this born storyteller recount some of the best.  Josh shares my weakness for tales of the weird from the Legation, and with upwards of two centuries to work with, there is plenty there, including Crazy Consuls shooting at their replacements.

With his canny crafting of a literary guide for travelers, Josh Shoemake has written a book that is likely to last, and will provide many a cultural tourist with plenty of material for Tangier exploration.

Gerald Loftus; photo courtesy Sandra Shoemake Zwollo

Big Men & Women On Campus: Tangier's UNE

This week's dedication of the Tangier campus of the University of New England brought a number of dignitaries to Tangier, including Maine Governor Paul LePage and new US Ambassador to Morocco Dwight Bush (both men also visited the Legation).

We had reported back in January on the "soft opening" of UNE Tangier, where the pioneer group of students and faculty started using a facility that was still getting its finishing touches.  Well, the paint has dried, and what a beautiful campus it is.

Much of the credit goes to two people: Dr. Anouar Majid, born in Tangier, whose "crazy idea" was pitched to his boss, Dr. Danielle Ripich, President of UNE.  Getting a small, private university to break new ground and become the first American university to have its own campus in Morocco was no mean feat in normal times.

But Majid managed to convince President Ripich to take the gamble during the uncertainty surrounding the Arab Spring.  No wonder the amusing dedication ceremony video compared Majid to Zorba the Greek - "a man needs a little madness" - getting his boss fired up to bouzouki music.

Now comes a different kind of hard work.  The impressive building was put up in record time, but there's the long haul of populating the program with waves of students, developing courses to take advantage of their unique setting on the Strait of Gibraltar (UNE Maine has a Marine Science program), and building on partnerships with local and regional institutions.

This is where TALIM comes in.  We've already welcomed UNE volunteers to help our in our research center and women's literacy program, and UNE staff and students are regulars at our cultural presentations.  We'd like to see even more of this in future, and are thrilled that this center of American higher education is just up the road.

Not bad for a "crazy idea."  Congratulations to visionaries Dr. Majid and Dr. Ripich.

Gerald Loftus 

Ibn Battuta Returns to Tangier

Yesterday's screening of the film epic Journey to Mecca: In the Footsteps of Ibn Battuta was a first for Tangier, the city where "IB" was born and from which he set off in 1325 on the first of what would be three decades of world travel.

Ibn Battuta has the city's airport named after him, and intrepid urban explorers can seek out his tomb in the medina, but there is precious little else here devoted to this Arab Marco Polo.

So it was time to bring IB back to his birthplace.

Yesterday's crowd at our Cinémathèque show was appreciative, and the film showcases the kind of spectacular Moroccan scenery that can depict a medieval pilgrimage from Tangier to Mecca, with every type of setting in between.  The film's producers have put together a great Educator's Guide (Download JTM_Educators Guide), and we were pleased to see a good number of Moroccan students in the audience.

Four years after I originally saw the film and reviewed it for IMDb, we "repatriated" IB to Tangier.

Gerald Loftus

Showing the Consular Flag in Tangier

It's been a while since there were American Consuls in Tangier.  The US Consular Flag (left) dates back to 1777, which happens to be the year that the Moroccan Sultan took note of "les américains" among Morocco's trading partners.  The first American consuls appeared in Tangier in the 1790s.

The Consulate General of Tangier closed in the 1980s, so the American community of Tangier was pleased to attend the Town Hall meeting at the Legation last Thursday, where Casablanca Consul General Brian Shukan brought Consul Mark Ellis and Regional Security Officer (RSO) Stefan Merino to explain services offered to American citizens.

The Legation also served as a venue for the meeting of OSAC, the Morocco chapter of the Overseas Security Advisory Council, a State Department initiative which serves as a clearinghouse for security information and best practice for American companies and institutions abroad.  For the American citizens he addressed afterwards, the RSO offered advice on security awareness for the generally safe streets of Tangier.

Consul Mark Ellis briefed the group on the wide range of services offered to American citizens in Morocco, and even did a few notarizations for attendees.  The American community here is very heterogeneous, and ranges from young NGO volunteers to business professionals to retirees, some of whom have lived here for decades.  An important segment of the community includes Moroccan-Americans.

As Consul General Shukan - active in AMCHAM, the American Chamber of Commerce in Morocco - outlined, with the growth of major industrial infrastructure linked to Tangier Med Port, the Free Zone, and the forthcoming high speed train (TGV) line, the concentration of Americans in Tangier is likely to increase.

We're glad that the Legation can still serve as a meeting place for "AMCITS," and that the US Embassy in Rabat and the Consulate General in Casablanca see the Legation as a natural venue for a wide variety of programs, from cultural to commercial to consular.

Gerald Loftus 

The Sultan's Declaration of Independence

Sultan Mohammed V with members of Tangier Committee of Control, International Zone

9 April is not a Moroccan national holiday, but it is nevertheless remembered in Tangier and beyond, marking that day in 1947 when Sultan Mohammed V traveled to the International Zone and made a speech which was an important milestone in Morocco's road to regaining its independence.

So it was fitting that Dr. Bernabé López Garcia of the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, eminent scholar of modern Morocco, chose April 9th to present his research into the context and the impact of the Sultan's speech.

And the venue of the Legation was highly appropriate, as the United States had already, in the early 1940s, made clear its support for the Sultan.  Roosevelt's dinner invitation to Mohammed V during the January 1943 Anfa or Casablanca Conference brought the Sultan to the table with the US President and Prime Minister Churchill, and American diplomats at the Legation incurred the wrath of French officials for opening their door to Moroccan nationalists.

Roosevelt's memory remained dear to Moroccans after the President died in 1945, and the aircraft carrier bearing his name visited Tangier to great fanfare (there was even the creation, in several Moroccan cities, of the "Club Roosevelt al-Moghreb" in honor of the late President).  The Sultan also paid his respects at the second anniversary commemoration of Roosevelt's death.

López Garcia spoke of the largely hostile Spanish reception given to the Sultan's plans to travel to Tangier.  Some imagined a nefarious French hand trying to undermine the Spanish position, and others suspected the US of wanting to extend its influence.

Spanish authorities came up with various plans to delay the trip, citing security and logistical concerns ("where will they all stay?").  Morocco's multiple borders (French Protectorate to Spanish Protectorate to Tangier International Zone) created multiple roadblocks to restrict mass movement on the international city, and Spanish authorities also feared that the event might be exploited by Spanish Republican dissidents who had escaped to Morocco from mainland Spain after their defeat in the Spanish Civil War.

Dr. López Garcia's anniversary presentation revealed a few nuggets about the Legation as well, including Chargé d'Affaires John Goodyear's successful insistence on US precedence in the diplomatic lineup, a not inconsiderable advantage when symbolism meant everything.

According to a contemporary Spanish diplomatic source, Sultan Mohammed V paid an incognito visit to the American Legation after his historic speech to thank the US for its crucial support.  Note to researchers: it would be interesting to check American sources (US National Archives) for confirmation of this historical footnote of interest to scholars of Moroccan - American relations.

We had a capacity audience for Dr. López Garcia's excellent presentation, and are happy that history can be recounted with such verve in the very building where a part of it took place.

Gerald Loftus

Calling from Rota: What's a Legation?

At the end of last week's Andalusian triangle trip (Arcos de la Frontera, Jerez, and Cadiz), I spent a half day from my vacation at the US Naval Station (within the Spanish Navy base) of Rota, across the bay from Cadiz.  I came equipped with Legation posters, which I hope are now beckoning Rota R&R travelers to come our way. 

The Navy leadership on base was very welcoming, and Captain Greg Pekari and XO Tim McGarvey invited me to speak to their assembled department heads on the Tangier American Legation and its museum.

Prior to my visit, during the initial arrangements for base access ("no, I don't have a CD car or diplomatic passport anymore," and while a legation used to be headed by a minister, well, now it's just a director... of a nonprofit institution), I realized that some explanations were in order when I spread the word about TALIM.  A common question - "What's a legation?" - resulted in a pretty concise soundbite from me: "an old word for embassy."

There was also an interview with The Coastline, the base newspaper (article forthcoming), and an impromptu live on-air interview on Armed Forces Network (AFN) Radio, with budding historian and host MC2 James Cellini (studio photo, above). The interview is in the two podcast links below; for inexplicable technical reasons, Part 2 is crystal clear, whereas Part 1 sounds like ship-to-shore radio of the 1950s.  Oh well, we're a bit retro at the Legation...

Be sure to turn on your computer's sound button.

AFN Interview Part 1

AFN Interview Part 2

Thanks especially to Mr. Roberto Fuertes (photo, right), the perfectly bilingual English/Spanish speaking Protocol Officer at Rota, a retired US Navy man now a civilian. Rob has hosted a long list of visitors much more VIP than me, showing up as I did in the best wardrobe that I could muster from my suitcase selection of clean jeans.

In a perfect use of his time and mine, the "windshield tour" (I had almost forgotten this favorite expression among the military) combined briefing, amazing vistas across the sprawling base, and a chance for Rob to conduct business in what is very clearly a busy and wide-ranging portfolio.

Rota, located as it is on the bay of Cadiz, commands a strategic position on the Atlantic approaches to the Strait of Gibraltar.  Moroccan commandos have taken advantage of the training opportunities offered by FAST Marines at Rota, and now we're trying to show that Rota personnel might enjoy traveling in the opposite direction and discover America's only National Historic Landmark in a foreign country, in the surprising location of the Tangier medina.

And they live in a place intimately linked with that history.  After all, it was the just-seeing-if-you-care Moroccan corsair capture of the American brigantine Betsey in 1784 off the coast of Cadiz that eventually led to those same historically friendly relations between the two countries.

Thanks to the men and women of US Naval Station Rota who made this visit a worthwhile investment of my time.  Hope to see you in Tangier!

Text and photos: Gerald Loftus