Avuncular American

Domesticating Foreign Ads or Translating the Maghreb

 

 
Foreignization, domestication, transmutation... Karima Bouziane has mastered the vocabulary of her topic. At today's presentation at TALIM, the audience caught on immediately to this specialized world of semiotics, which has to do with the study of signs and communication.

The capacity audience (09:00 on a Friday morning - a major feat!) was composed largely of students and faculty from the King Fahd Translation School of Tangier/Tetouan's Abdelmalek Essaâdi University.

We thought that we had hosted the last of the Maghribi Grantees in Tangier last December, and in a sense, we had - Karima Bouziane was a summer 2011 grantee in Tunisia.  Her research topic: "Foreignization and Domestication in Outdoor Advertising in North African Countries: The Case of Tunisia."

Based at  Chouaïb Doukkali University in El Jadida Morocco, Ms. Bouziane conducted her work in Tunisia in the summer of 2011.  Due to timing considerations, she hadn't been able to present her findings (Download Powerpoint Presentation) to our colleagues at the AIMS sister center in Tunisia (CEMAT).

So TALIM and its guests benefitted from her excellent presentation.  Actually, the audience was perfectly targetted: the students had conducted their own research in the translation of ads on Tangier's main commercial thoroughfare, Boulevard Pasteur.

From their comments and questions, our audience knew the topic.  As might be expected from Masters students at Morocco's premier translation school, Karima's choice of English as the language of her research and briefing posed no problem.

 

 

And, just like Karima's shot of the backside of a Tunis bus, with its dodgy mutant "carnivore" ad for a fast food outlet (above), the Fahd School students had plenty of examples of advertisements that had been lost in translation.  There was a lively exchange about whether images could be "translated" (as opposed to text), and socio-political positions taken on the desirability of publicizing luxury goods available to only a minute portion of the population of the Maghreb market.

In all, Karima Bouziane's presentation was further proof - not that any was needed - that the demise of the Maghribi Grant program (apparently the US Government is short of the $25,000 it takes to fund the 10 grants awarded annually) is a travesty.

We thank Karima Bouziane and the dozens of other Moroccan, Algerian, Tunisian - and Libyan and Mauritanian - scholars who have shared their work with the three AIMS centers over the past decade.  And we hope - and are actively campaigning - for the identification of the twenty five thousand dollars that it would take to enable the program to be continued in 2012.

Gerald Loftus

2011 to 2012: Another TALIM Transition

To our usual languages in the little "card" above, we wanted to add a New Year's greeting in Tamazight, also known as Amazigh or Berber.  But we couldn't find it in tifinagh, the Berber alphabet.

The world's most complete list of holiday greetings has just included (with our prompting) an entry for the language spoken by millions of Moroccans, Algerians, and other people in the Maghreb.  Thanks to Omniglot, here it is, Happy New Year in transliterated Tamazight:

Asgwas amegas!

For all of our readers, and to the people who have supported TALIM with their financial contributions over the past twelve months, our heartfelt thanks.  To those who contributed their time, or shared their archives with us, thank you so much.

Likewise, to all those who used our research library, who introduced friends and family to this national treasure, or who addressed our audiences of interested citizens and fellow specialists, all our best wishes for 2012.

To our neighbors, including the women of the $10,000 a year TALIM/FTAM literacy program, we say "Kul aam wa intum bikheer."

The new year will be, to say the least, challenging.  In a climate of budget cuts, even small change but big impact programs like the $25K annual AIMS Maghribi Grants are ending.  The trick will to be to plumb new sources of funding, explore new areas of endeavor for this two-century old site.

So from all of us pictured below, Happy New Year.  If you haven't been able to visit the Legation in 2011, we hope that you can join us in 2012.  There are lots of events, exhibits, conferences, and activities in store.

Gerald Loftus

The Last of the Maghribi Grantees?

Algerian scholars Amina Leghima and Lila Chabane, 2011 AIMS Maghribi Grantees at TALIM's Ambassador Joseph Verner Reed Library

I hope not; I hope this is not the end of a small, effective scholarship program.  I hope that someone in a position to do something - say a senior US Government Executive Branch official - will connect "A" (the Arab Spring and consequent US engagement with civil society) with "B" (budget slashes in the wrong places, garnering ludicrous "savings") and decide that something has gone horribly wrong.

But as I wrote last month, one of the most effective "bang for buck" ($25,000 for 10 scholars) programs that the US Government has going on in North Africa, birthplace of the Arab Spring, is ending on December 31.

So the two women in our photo, Algerian Maghribi Grantees doing their research in Morocco, may be the last.  What a pity.  Their work is typical of the kind that the AIMS grants have funded over the last ten years.  Amina Leghima is here to compare the automobile parts supply industry in her native Algeria to that of Morocco.

Think that an obscure topic with little impact on the United States?  Tangier, with its huge new Renault factory in its last stages of completion, is a major center for car and car component export to Europe.  There are several American firms here, with which we have put our scholar in touch.  For Tangier is a major manufacturing and shipping hub, not only for the European market, but increasingly, with the port of Tangier-Med, for the entire Asian-Atlantic transshipping market.

Likewise for Lila Chabane, who is studying urban transport systems in Algeria and Morocco.  We've put her in touch with a network of architects and urban planners, just like we did last year for another Algerian researcher in urban environmental planning.

Sure, we also get scholars delving into what non-academics may term "obscure" topics, but that's not the point.  The importance of the AIMS Maghribi Grant program is that it fosters intra-Maghrib academic research, under the auspices of TALIM, CEMA, and CEMAT, respectively the three American Institute for Maghrib Studies centers in Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia.

The incipient end of the Maghribi Grantee program - short of some munificence from an unexpected source - comes at a particularly bad time, and not just because it sends confusing signals about the solidity of the American commitment to Maghribi interaction.

It also comes during the best year yet for Moroccan scholarly interest in the program.  In recent years, while Morocco had been by far the preferred destination for Algerian and Tunisian (and the few Libyan and Mauritanian scholars who obtained grants), relatively few Moroccans applied for the grants.

In 2011, perhaps in part by our getting the word out, but possibly because they were inspired by events east of Oujda, Moroccan applications skyrocketed.

Sorry to curb your enthusiasm, my Moroccan charges, but you'll have to wait and see.  Which is what I am doing: when will the lightbulb click on in Washington D.C.?  When will someone see that, after all, the United States Government can find $25,000 to make ten scholars - and their universities, and their Ministries of Education, and their host insitutions - happy?

$25,000 amidst the billions and trillions? Sure, we can.

Gerald Loftus

Maghribi Scholars Need Not Apply

Geography lesson (image from Kidsmaps.com)

The Maghrib (or Maghreb) is the accepted term for North Africa.

The Maghrib was the birthplace of the Arab Spring (Tunisia).  Its latest blossoming of freedom was in Libya.

The Maghrib is where AIMS Maghribi Grantees come from.  Or came from.

Click on the above link, and this is what you will see:

AIMS Research Grants for North African Scholars

 Note: Due to funding, this program has been put on hold until future notice; please check this page again in the near future for updates. Thank you.

That's right.  Just when spring is breaking out all over the Maghrib, a valuable American program that has been funding dozens of North African scholars' research projects for the past ten years, is under a big funding cloud.

Actually, while the cloud is big, the amount in question is not: the program costs $25,000 annually, and allows (allowed, past tense) ten Tunisian, Algerian, Moroccan, Mauritanian, and Libyan scholars the chance to conduct research in each others' countries.

This $25 K program, of course, is not even worth a decimal point in the larger scheme of things, though the grants that it used to provide do (did) make a difference to the scholars concerned.  If you were a Libyan, newly able to travel to say, Morocco to conduct work in your field, wouldn't you appreciate a US Government-funded program that allows you to do so?

Conversely, might not an Algerian social scientist jump at the opportunity to look at post-revolutionary, post-election Tunisia?  These grants covered every imaginable subject, and we at TALIM have welcomed scholars in fields as diverse as fine arts and water resources.

Part of even larger cuts to international educational exchange, the Deparment of Education reaction to Congressional appropriations prompted a petition garnering thousands of signatures.  The cuts will threaten the work of TALIM and other American overseas research centers, and even such programs as Fulbright/Hays.

"Maghribi Scholars Need Not Apply."  Is that the message that the US intends to give to North African scholars?

Gerald Loftus

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

Deciphering Moroccan Arabic, 1911 - 2011

"Shnoo the Hell is Going on H'naa?" - the subtitle to Aaron Sakulich's book Moroccan Arabic (Collaborative Media International) - probably captures the bewilderment of many a foreign student of darija or Moroccan colloquial Arabic.

For modern day students trying to fathom how to transition from what they learn in Modern Standard or classical Arabic to the reality of the streets of Morocco, take heart.  This effort has been going on for at least 100 years.

Budgett Meakin, prolific turn of the 19th-20th century author (The Moorish Empire, The Moors, Life in Morocco, etc.) and former contributor to the Tangier Gazette, used to cater to "travellers and settlers" with his The Arabic of Morocco, cheap at 5 shillings or 8.5 pesetas (advert above from the Tangier Gazette).

Nowadays, American students of Arabic get both Modern Standard and Moroccan darija through the Critical Language Scholarship (CLS) program, a US State Department summer intensive course administered in Tangier through CAORC, AIMS, and TALIM.

TALIM lends its space for CLS orientation and occasional lectures, thereby continuing a tradition at the Legation - teaching Arabic.  Of course, we have our women's literacy program, which is going into its 13th year, teaching medina women the rudiments of Arabic reading and writing.

In its first reincarnation after ceasing (in 1961) to be the US Consulate General in Tangier, the Legation housed the Foreign Service Institute North African Arabic language program (FSI at the time had its principal Arabic school in Lebanon).  Several graduates of the first FSI Tangier class went on to become American Ambassadors in the Middle East and North Africa.

In the 70s, the Legation became the Peace Corps Morocco training center, again teaching Arabic, mostly darija, to several cohorts of volunteers.  Many of those same PCVs went on to careers in academia and government, and continue to use their Arabic language skills in their professional lives - some of them are on the boards of institutions which sponsor TALIM.

In the years before it became US practice to teach its diplomats Arabic, the Tangier American Legation employed a dragoman or interpreter.  At least one of them, Moses Pariente in the 1850s, became the Acting Consul during periods between American Consuls.  So I guess we can say that there's always been a premium on knowledge of Arabic here at the Legation.

Gerald Loftus

The Dressmakers Premieres in Tangier

Here's another example of how farsighted Senator William Fulbright was.

Fulbright, after whom the US Government scholarships for international exchange are named, probably didn't imagine that his program would be funding documentary films, but his intent - that funds from the disposal of surplus World War II materiel further international understanding - couldn't be better served by The Dressmakers.

This project, by Fulbright Morocco alum Shara K. Lange (who also received support from AIMS), covers the lives of artisanal clothes makers and those who cater to the world of international fashion.  Morocco has both; just go down the street and the shop windows will display hand-made caftans (above image from the film's official website) for local customers looking for something nice to wear during wedding season in pre-Ramadan Tangier.

At the other end of the spectrum, there's the collection of timeless Yves St. Laurent creations recently featured at the Jardin Majorelle in Marrakesh.  Morocco has always attracted the top names in fashion. 

Salima Abdel-Wahab, who in some sense is the "star" of The Dressmakers, is a native Tangeroise who chooses to live in a bucolic hacienda outside the city, but who is equally at ease in the world of haute couture.

(cover of The Dressmakers Paper Dolls, a book to accompany the film)

Shara Lange's camera spends most of its time on Salima, but we also see the offshore textile industry in Morocco, including European and local entrepreneurs, and meet some of the women who work at the bottom of the ladder (90% of the garment industry is female - "they don't smoke; they follow instructions more readily").

ESPOD, a Moroccan non-profit dedicated to providing women training in dressmaking, features in the film - you wouldn't want to cross their gutsy hidjab-wearing trainer, who wants some of her assertiveness to rub off on her charges.  Like TALIM's own women's literacy program, ESPOD helps provide skills that allow women to enter and thrive in the work force, a key pillar to family stability.

Not forgotten are the cottage tailors who can whip up a wedding caftan to order in their postage stamp sized workshops.  There's a very professional touch to this warm film about people who make the clothes that Moroccans wear, but also provide many of the "Made in Morocco" jeans or teeshirts that you may have lurking in your closets.

While I might wish that the colorful caftans beloved of Moroccan women feature cool, natural fibers instead of the hermetically hot synthetics that seem to be the fabrics of choice, there's no doubt that there's a pride in featuring traditional designs.  In the world of Moroccan clothes designers, there's a sense that they form part of the nation's cultural heritage - "it wouldn't do if everything people wore here were, say, American designs."

I think Shara K. Lange has a very promising future as a film maker in front of her.  Watching a feature-length documentary about the clothing trade would not necessarily be my choice as a movie-goer or even TV-watcher, but the skills and research, along with the empathy and humor, that Shara and her team convey will stand her in very good stead whatever the subject.

Gerald Loftus 

Rebranding TALIM Starts With Its Logo

Some people, when confronted with terms like "branding" and "logo" think crass commercialism.  Well, there is an aspect of that in what I am trying to accomplish: I would like the Tangier American Legation Institute for Moroccan Studies to better "sell" its "products."  Here they are:

- Only US National Historic Landmark outside the United States
- Oldest American diplomatic building, and the first ever in an Arab, Muslim, or African country
- Research center in Morocco of the American Institute for Maghrib Studies (AIMS), with an 8,000 volume library
- Teaches Arabic literacy and life skills to women in Tangier's medina
- Organizes State Department-funded CLS Arabic for American students, administered by CAORC
- Hosts American and Maghribi scholars under AIMS grants
- Museum collection of Moroccan, American, and European artists, plus historic maps and engravings

The latter function gave its name to this place for years, the "Tangier American Legation Museum,"  TALM, with its corresponding private foundation in the United States, TALMS ("S" for Society).  The people of Tangier tend to call it the American Consulate (which it ceased to be exactly 50 years ago) or the "Old Legation."

TALIM, meaning education in Arabic, is of course much more than a museum.  Our mission is education in all its forms.  Cultural diplomacy, citizen diplomacy - we do that too, on the ground in a particularly important way: we are among and surrounded by Moroccans: our neighbors, our employees, our public.

That public now needs to identify logo with Legation with TALIM.  With the help of Abdel Latif, master plaster artisan at Tangier's official handicrafts center, we now have a fitting reproduction of our emblem for display.  Frank D'Astolfo of Rutgers University, whose TALIM logo design won the 2004 Logo Award, has combined Moroccan and American flags, the Legation's medina street and mosque, Tangier's sea blue and the Rif mountain green in a symbol of everything that links TALIM and the United States to Morocco and Tangier.

Migrating from TALM and TALMS to TALIM did not please everyone, but I think the move was a wise one.  Now we want to embrace it, and show the world our logo and what it means.

The Legation has a museum, but we are not just a museum.

TALIM - meaning education.

Gerald Loftus

Maghrib Triangulation: Guelma-Tunis-Tangier

Three profs from orient did come.  West, to Tangier.  Our visitors: three Algerian professors from the University of Guelma.

Guelma, located in Algeria's Far East, is about as far from Tangier as you can get in Algeria.  The University's name - 08 Mai 1945 - is a giveaway to its location, near the town of Setif, which on VE Day 1945 saw a massacre of Algerian nationalists demanding rights from the France they had just fought to defend.  It was the spark that a decade later launched Algeria's war for independence.

It was thanks to a suggestion by a former director of our sister research center in Tunis that Professors Ladi Toulgui, Hamid Boudechiche, and Abdelhak Elaggoune, of the University's American Studies program, sought out TALIM.

Always on the lookout for networking opportunities, we set up an impromptu brainstorming session on inter-Maghrib exchanges and the use of TALIM's research facilities by Moroccan, Algerian, and other scholars.

Responding to the chance to interact with their Algerian colleagues was an impressive gathering of Moroccan and American academics, based in both Tangier and Tetouan.  Familiar as they are with the Legation's strengths and weaknesses, we wanted to hear from them where we could improve.  Provide more research materials in Arabic (one of our interlocutors, Dr. Mhammed Benabboud and his Asmir Association, has an entire library of cultural preservation titles).  Reach out more to Tetouan, the half of Tangier/Tetouan's Abdelmalek Essaadi University where there is more of a concentration of the disciplines - history, art, social sciences - that have resonance at TALIM.

For us, the stress on inter-Maghrib exchange was a chance to encourage more Moroccan applicants for the AIMS Maghribi Grant program, which tends to see Morocco as a favored destination for Algerian, Tunisian, and other Maghribi scholars, but which has traditionally seen a disproportionately low number of Moroccan applications.

In the case of the Algerian professors, it was the University of Guelma which sent them to Morocco, without the benefit of AIMS or other international grants.  Guelma to Tangier, via Tunis - not the most direct route, but certainly an encouraging opening to the world of American Studies programs in the Maghrib, which should be a natural counterpart to study of the Maghrib by American scholars.

We thank Doctors Elaggoune, Boudechiche, and Toulgui for making the trek to Tangier and TALIM, but also for helping us focus on that rich area of potential collaboration, using one of our main strengths: our history, our building, and its original purpose.

American studies at TALIM... at the historic Legation which saw the first overtures by Revolutionary-era America to the Arab and Muslim world.  American studies with a difference: Maghribi scholars examining the long history of American involvement in Morocco and North Africa.

Sometimes it takes outsiders looking in to shine a light on a potentially rich stream of research topics.  TALIM welcomes Algerian, Moroccan, Tunisian, Libyan, Mauritanian - and American! - researchers in American studies.  We've got the stories - lots of them.

Gerald Loftus

Wired, Wireless, Haywire: Legation's Trimlines Get Sidelined

Twenty years ago, in the magical Belgian film Toto le héros, we saw a glimpse of the future: walking down the street, you're confronted with wiring, plumbing, and tubing coming out of the most unexpected places.  It's the Centre Pompidou effect, but without the discipline.

I've seen the future, and it's here in the medina. The Wired Effect.  It's even crept into the historic Tangier American Legation.  So I've declared the War on Wires.

That pile of tangled telephone line you see (only a representative sample) used to be on our walls.  Not "in" but "on."  Same principle applied to electricity.  Need a new plug for that stove?  No problem.  We'll just drill a hole in this nearby wall, string the cable through the 19th century courtyard, then drill another hole to get it back inside. Presto!

The impetus for this War on Wires has been twofold.  Thanks to funding from institutional sponsors AIMS and CAORC, TALIM has been able to retire its venerable Trimline™ phones.  For those who don't remember, here's the Collectors Weekly blurb:

The Trimline, like the Princess phone, was one of the Bell System's best marketing innovations. First introduced in 1965, the idea was to create a stylish, easier to use telephone. A huge success, the Trimline was copied by most other major telephone manufacturers. The Trimline's dial was located in the handset itself with the ringer and electronics inside the telephone's base.

Yes, and when combined with vintage 110v Radio Shack® intercoms (and lots of transformers), you had a means of paging Monsieur le Directeur through many parts of this sprawling place.  "M. le Directeur, Mr. Ben Shismu is calling," the intercom would announce, to all within earshot, including the caller.  "Who?" the Directeur would respond.  "Mr. Ben Shismu..." followed by information that one hoped the caller himself did not overhear.  Our new phones have an intercom function, but the caller doesn't get to listen in.

And the wiring is either in the wall or in a relatively unobtrusive track.

I'm going to have to flog the old phones on eBay.  They'll be treasures to someone.

The other trigger to our anti-wiring crusade has been our State Department funded roofing project, which has waterproofed selected - stress on selected - roofs and walls.  Somehow the application of fresh paint makes these eyesores even more visible, and also leads to new discoveries: many of the wires, long since superseded, were simply left to dangle in the breeze, snipped at one end.  Away they go.

In the bargain, we've not only installed new phones and additional extensions, but extended WiFi to most parts of the Legation.  Thanks to Morocco's excellent high speed ADSL and 3G coverage, it is the envy of most countries on the African continent in terms of internet access.  We still have a long way to go, but phone-wise and internet-wise, we have moved from the '60s to at least the mid noughts.  Not bad.

With all this modernity, we haven't forgotten our roots.  In fact, our newest acquisition is this vintage phone, purchased at a nearby antique shop for use as a prop in our budding "Legation Room," an attempt to recreate an office in our museum to illustrate that this was once a working American diplomatic post.

And we got it for a bargain.  Not trusting the price quoted to me, the Foreigner, we had our undercover shopper Yhtimad go there a few days later (she was already known to the shopkeeper as a customer) and get it for half the price.  Foreigner price, Moroccan price.

This antique dealer doesn't know me yet.  I once negotiated for two years with an Alexandrian mashrabiya dealer over a beautiful antique picture frame.  I was a good customer, and we became friends in the bargain, chatting politics etc. for long periods over mint tea.  In the end, my Egyptian friend just gave me the frame.

I'm going to have to sip some tea with my Tangier antique guy...

Gerald Loftus