Avuncular American

Recognizing propaganda

American "soft power," so often undermined and derided by the current occupant of the White House, is on display in Brussels right now, at the European Parliament's "Parlamentarium," its exhibition area for outreach to European and other publics.  I'm sure that Trump loyalists would see it as another emanation of the so-called "Deep State."

On loan from the USHMM, the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, "State of Deception: The Power of Nazi Propaganda" is a montage of posters, images and other documentation, expertly explained to a public - there are lots of school groups - used to getting its information through a hand held screen.

As you stroll by the exhibits, tracing the rise of Nazi antisemitism in the aftermath of World War I, through the outbreak of World War II and the Final Solution, and finally to Nuremberg and denazification, you can't help but see parallels to our current situation.

Just consider one of the questions posed by the USHMM:

Q: Is propaganda what you think it is?

A: Propaganda is biased information designed to shape public opinion and behavior.

Propaganda:

• Uses truths, half-truths, or lies
• Omits information selectively
• Simplifies complex issues or ideas
• Plays on emotions
• Advertises a cause
• Attacks opponents
• Targets desired audiences

See what I mean?  Can't help thinking of a certain tweeter...

As Hitler said in 1924, "Propaganda is a truly terrible weapon in the hands of an expert."  Of course, he's the one who also coined the term "the Big Lie."  No fact-checkers were left alive to counter him.

Now, fast forward to April 2018, and look at the Goebbels-lite effort of Sinclair Broadcast Group to impose Trump Think throughout its vast network of local television stations in the United States.

Suggestion for the US Holocaust Memorial Museum: after "State of Deception" finishes its run in Brussels next month, repatriate it to be shown in all of the nearly 200 broadcast markets served by Sinclair.  American audiences deserve all the tools they can get to recognize - and counter - the propaganda onslaught that has only just begun.

 

 

Nos années Marocaines

Farewell party: Marie Hélène and Jerry Loftus with Moroccan friends Mohammed and Majdouline

No need to tell readers what we've been up to from July 2010 through June 2014 - there are four years of posts to read from TALIM Director's Blog, when I headed the Tangier American Legation Institute for Moroccan Studies.

But those were unforgettable times, when we were given a chance to shape a cultural program at America's only National Historic Landmark in a foreign country.  "Our Moroccan Years."

It isn't possible to sum up in one blog post what this place means to us, and though we have now returned home to Brussels, we'll always have a special place for Tangier and the people we got to know thanks to the Legation.

Like Mustapha Temeli (photo, right), who, with his attention to detail and wide-ranging skill set, helped make the Legation museum's exhibits stand out.

Today in Morocco, people are celebrating King Mohammed VI's 15th anniversary of his accession to the throne.  Throne Day - we always looked forward to the Moroccan Air Force feats of acrobatic prowess over the Bay of Tangier.

As international media continues to bombard us with bad news from what seems to be an entire swath of the world, from Libya through Syria and Iraq and over to Afghanistan and Pakistan, let's pause to reflect on the good news country that you rarely hear of - Morocco.

While things aren't perfect there (and where are they perfect?)... lopsided income distribution, high levels of un-or-underemployment, etc. ... Morocco after 15 years of "M6" can be a happy place to live.  And that's thanks to Moroccans and their enlightened monarch.  There's something to be said about a royal tradition dating back centuries, and a sense of nationhood that pre-dated the short lived colonial era.

And while Morocco too is concerned about the inroads made by radical Islam and the potential for blowback among volunteers for the myriad wars inflaming the region, it has taken steps to reinforce Morocco's traditionally moderate form of Islam.

Yes, Morocco made its mark on us.  Our long goodbye - the car ferry trip over to Tarifa and Spain, Tangier fading into the distance - continued after we arrived in Brussels.  When we went to pick up our footlockers sent by a transporteur, we had to smile at what was an outpost of Morocco in the capital of Europe.  Among the excess baggage sent via long distance bus was a watermelon - loose, with a name taped to its undented skin.

Someone had sent a expatriate relative a watermelon - with love from Morocco.

Can't Stop Curating

New "name cloud" exhibit of Paul Bowles and literary & artistic friends drawn to Tangier

Can't stop curating?

Well, I do have to stop - we're getting on the ferry to Spain Friday morning!  Friends have joked that I'll still be at it tomorrow morning, mounting yet more exhibits while my wife waits in the car.  Not true; I stopped this afternoon.

At the French Consulate's 14 Juillet reception after we arrived in 2010, a Moroccan friend introduced me as the "nouveau conservateur" in what people in Tangier only knew then as the "Musée de l'Ancienne Légation Américaine."  I joked that I was no conservative... I was a Democrat!

But the point is that conservateur or curator was the way people thought of this position in this city.  I thought that was a bit limiting - how about our research library?  Our seminars?  The Arabic literacy program?  Etc.  I also didn't like that ancienne thing - made it sound like we were closed.

Over the past four years, I've waged a branding campaign, using our award-winning logo on business cards and throughout the building, and our no-longer-new appelation of TALIM to convey the message that though we have a museum, we are much more than a museum.  Now, it's quite common to see references to "TALIM" in the press, and it always pleases me to hear us described as an institut.

That said, it has really been fun, that curating stuff.  In 2010, when we mounted what has become one of our biggest attractions, the Paul Bowles Wing, replete with musical soundtrack and illustrated story of Bowles' treks through Morocco for the Library of Congress, someone asked me who had curated the exhibit.  I replied, well, that I had.  That was the first time someone described what I had done as curation.  It felt pretty good.

A couple of years later, when we put on Dorothy Weems' one-woman show of her mother's stories during the Legation's wartime years, the actress referred to me as her "producer," just for organizing the venue and helping her with rehearsals.  Not to worry: I'm not about to embark on a Hollywood career at this stage.  But "producing" what was a very memorable recreation of a special period in the place where it all happened was a joy.  I learned later that it was called, in academic circles, "site-specific performance."  And how.

It's been quite a whirl, these past four years, and Marie Hélène (who has worked tirelessly, helping me in everything I do, plus teaching French in our women's literacy program and helping shepherd the other volunteers) and I wouldn't trade this experience for anything.

So it's not adieu, but only إلـى الـلـقـاء.

Gerald Loftus

Introducing the New Mudir - John Davison

Almost four years to the day, I wrote about my predecessor Thor Kuniholm and his long tenure at the Legation.  Next week, it will be my successor, John Davison, who will be coming in after Marie Hélène and I head off to greener pastures.

I was an early and strong supporter of John's candidacy, among a very competitive field of applicants for this job.  He had visited us at the Legation after learning of the job opening, and we were impressed with his enthusiasm, imagination, and his knowledge of Morocco.

John has known Morocco since his days in the 1980s as a Peace Corps Volunteer, and has kept his links - and his knowledge of Moroccan Arabic - alive in the intervening decades, when his diplomatic career took him to other countries in the region (Tunisia, Egypt, Niger) and beyond.

This sentiment of leaving the Legation in good hands has only been reinforced by a period of overlap, where we had plenty of time to discuss the range of activities that is TALIM.  And John was able to witness first hand many of these in a particularly busy May and June, meeting many in our network of supporters in the bargain.  It's been optimum preparation for his taking the helm.

So this is not yet goodbye - we'll save that for the "last post" - but rather Welcome to the New Mudir (Arabic for Director).  I daresay John will fall in love with this venerable building as we have.  As those of us who know it best will appreciate, it deserves all the loving care we can give it.

Gerald Loftus

The First Farewell

Drawing by Lawrence Mynott, graphic design by Anthea Pender

The eagle - hats off to artist Lawrence Mynott and his American eagle balloon on our invitation cards - has taken off, or almost.  Actually, we're still here for a couple more weeks, so last night's farewell was the biggest but not the last farewell.

Thanks to the generosity of Madison Cox, we were sent off with full flying colors by our Tangier friends, a cross section of this multidimensional city, with donors, staff members, artists, artisans, academics... everyone who has helped us make this place a livelier, more open venue for our wide range of activities.

Four years seems like a brief snippet of time to many who have made Tangier their home, but we wanted to inject as much activity and innovation into those 48 months as possible, and then leave on a high note.

Speaking of notes, we were also graced by the presence of Gospel ensemble the Campbell Brothers, who joined us prior to their open air concert on the Grand Socco, Tangier's lively square which is the transition between medina and modern city.

"Amazing Grace," sung a capella to a hushed audience, was the perfect preview for what was a rousing performance post-party organized by the US Embassy and the American Language Center.

This is not "the last post," so stay tuned for a few more under this byline in the next couple of weeks.  And heartfelt thanks to Madison Cox for putting on a great party, and helping us celebrate this great institution and our brief moment helping more people get to know it.

Gerald Loftus

Global Voices, Chicago and Tangier

Tangier Global Voices group, plus ALC Tangier staff: IT wizard Rachid El Mziryahi,
teacher Rabia el Antaki, and Director Mark Holbrook

Their voices came wafting up over the Legation courtyard, a springtime Friday evening.  Intrigued, I paid a visit to our group of high school English students enrolled in the Global Voices Initiative program, thanks to our partnership with the American Language Center (ALC) Tangier.  You can watch the videos on the ALC website.

It was practice for their upcoming presentation of a set of three plays, which they developed, wrote in English, and then performed for their audience of American students in Chicago, via a Google + connection.

Meanwhile, the Chicago students were doing the same thing - in Arabic.  Here's how George Bajalia (he's smiling from the corner of the screen in the photo below), former Fulbright scholar in performance studies in Tangier, described the scene in Chicago:

Global Voices Initiative's Chicago end operates in public schools, with elementary, middle, and high schools all focusing on arts exchanges with partner schools across the world. With Morocco, students in Chicago write plays in Arabic, French, and English. Lindblom Math and Science Academy is a public school flagship Arabic program, drawing in students from across Chicago's south side. Lindblom students have two choices for their language learning: Arabic and Mandarin Chinese. GVI connects these students with partners in Morocco, Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, and China to practice their languages through playwriting exchanges.

A few of Lindblom's Arabic language students were chosen by the Qatar Foundation to travel to Doha to participate in an international Arabic language debate, and some will be heading back this summer for a language program. Another student in this year's senior class traveled to Morocco last year for a high school study abroad, spending 6 weeks traveling across the country. Though the focus of the program is Modern Standard Arabic, students get exposure to Arabic dialects in the video conferences and many start their university studies with a full four years of Arabic behind them.

 

Another one of GVI's programs in Chicago is at Kelly High School, where students of English as a foreign language practice their English with playwriting and exchange plays with students with a similar level of English at public schools in Casablanca. The Chicago classrooms are full of native Spanish and Mandarin speakers, and the play topics range from stories of forbidden love in Chicago high schools, to border-crossing travels based on the students' own family histories. Photos and videos of the student's performances are on GVI America's Google + account, located here.

GVI - the Global Voices Initiative - is another great idea coming out of the State Department's embrace of social networks and the need to stretch its cultural diplomacy dollars.

Although I didn't get a chance to see the American students in action - with the time difference, they had to go off to another class, while our Tangier students were doing this on Friday evenings - I was impressed with the level of English of our Moroccan students.

 

Not only did they work to get their English as natural as possible, but they chose subjects that hit home with their concerns about growing up: the play I saw, "The Perfect Bride," dealt with the role of a very assertive mother in the choice of potential marriage partners for her son.

 

How often was Mom initially taken in by a seemingly wholesome future daughter-in-law, only to be confronted by a critical young woman with thoughts of her own.  In the end, the son just marries for love, and Mom will just have to make the best of it.

 

Global Voices, as the State Department puts it rather ungraciously, is a "cheap way" to connect young people.  But that economic argument - probably necessary when dealing with Congressional budget cutters - only tells part of the story.  This is an ingenious idea, and one that is applicable wherever internet connections permit.

 

So TALIM was very happy to host this program - all for the price of a few hours of electricity.

 

Gerald Loftus

Ten Years of "Performing Tangier"

Several other intervening events prevented me from properly congratulating Dr. Khalid Amine and his circle in the International Center for Performance Studies on the tenth edition of "Performing Tangier."

Anyone who has put on one academic conference knows the preparation that goes into it.  Now think of that done on an international, multilingual scale, ten years in a row, and with publications to boot, all in Tangier.

The Legation's role in this for 2014 was limited to providing a venue for the launch party, and as you can see from the photo above, the participants got into the swing of things, even though the oud player was properly sedate.

Previous editions of "Performing Tangier" also featured a Legation role, our high point being in 2012 when we did a "site-specific" performance of daughter playing mother at the Legation during wartime Tangier.

And thanks to Khalid Amine and George Roberson for crediting the Legation in the latest edition of their "Performing Tangier" series.  But all congratulations go to them for persevering over the last decade, putting Tangier on the map for drama studies scholars and practitioners from Europe, North America, and Australia.  Happy Tenth, and may there be many more to come!

Gerald Loftus

Arabic Literacy and Much More

Hundreds of Tangier medina women have graduated from the literacy program which TALIM does in partnership with FTAM, the Fondation Tanger al-Madina, a Moroccan NGO.  The basis is teaching them to read and write in Arabic, but we also offer cooking, sewing, and foreign language classes, thanks to a number of volunteers from the expatriate community.

Recently we hosted two more events with the women, where their horizons were further widened.  The above photo shows Mitchell Chanelis of Stories Exchange, where, thanks to a hookup organized by Rachid El Mziryahi of the American Language Center, and interpretation provided by two student interns from the Fahd School of Translation, the women were able to converse with American playwright and storytelling coach Robbie McCauley, currently doing a residency at the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles.

Here is a video link to the storytelling session.

"Our women" - we tend to say that in reference to the students in the literacy program - represent rich ground for the storyteller, and Robbie's and Mitch's encouragement elicited a number of touching tales of parental loss, early marriage, divorce... the stuff of life.

One woman, who hesitated because "she didn't have anything interesting to say," turned out to have a fascinating story.  There we were, sitting in a room we've begun to set up as a "community museum" (within our own museum), dedicated to the women's stories of living in the medina.  And the woman who had nothing to say proceeded to show us a photo on our wall which featured her grandfather, who was an official in the employ of the pre-independence Sultan of Morocco!

The women also participated in a presentation by Mohammed Abid, director of research at the Institut Pasteur in Tangier.  Abid had given a presentation on food safety at the AIMS Public Health conference in Tunis in 2011, and this time it was tailored to the concerns of women trying to keep their families safe and healthy.

Abid - who brought along two medical colleagues to form a panel for the questions that followed - was very impressed with the level of awareness of the women.  He wants to return to take up other subjects of interest: diabetes, hypertension, gynecology.  This is really of great benefit to the women, who don't always have the possibility of getting expert advice - for free.

Gerald Loftus

Mission in Tangier

"Mission in Tangier" isn't the title of a fifties movie, though it could be.  We're talking about US Mission Morocco.  We've just finished hosting the offsite teambuilding and brainstorming meeting of the leadership of the US Embassy in Rabat over the past two days.

The idea of an offsite was that of the new US Ambassador to Morocco, Dwight Bush, who also had the great idea of holding it at the Tangier American Legation.  About to preside over the one of the newest US embassy buildings when it opens in Rabat later this year, Ambassador Bush has been a consistent supporter of the oldest US diplomatic property, the Legation.  And he wanted his staff to get to know the Legation and its importance to the US - Moroccan relationship.

Only 7 weeks into his ambassadorial post, Amb. Bush comes from the private sector, hence his natural reflex to build his team early on.  Inclusiveness was the order of the day - all sections of the Embassy, all agencies represented, American and Moroccan employees alike.  It was impressive to see how everyone pitched in to offer frank, informed opinion on how to move the agenda forward over the next several years.

Though the Legation is not technically part of the US Mission, the Ambassador's move to hold this offsite session here is reflective of his commitment to help bring attention to the Legation - our plight, when it comes to preventing deterioration of the historic structure, but also our potential as a showcase of American diplomacy in the Arab, Muslim, and African worlds since the earliest days of our republic.

A self-confessed history buff, the Ambassador encouraged us to tell lots of Legation tales, and during his interview at the Legation with Médi 1, showed that he is a quick study, leading the TV team through the museum as a knowledgeable guide to the Legation's collection, and highlighting our Arabic women's literacy classes that were in session.  He talked up the Legation to American tourists he met at his hotel breakfast buffet, and was seen chatting up visitors as he walked through the Legation.

Ambassador Bush, thanks for being the best diplomatic advocate for the Legation that we've had in a long time.

Gerald Loftus

Tangier Songbooks: Nahón & Cohen, Pomeroy & Paloma

Music image from the Yearbook of the International Folk Music Council

This is how we announced last Friday's event:

A handwritten songbook by Alia Isaac Cohen from 1934 Tangier and a recording from 1929 of two women from Tangier singing traditional ballads and speaking in Haketía will be at the core of the discussion between Dr. Hilary Pomeroy (University College London) and Vanessa Paloma Elbaz (INALCO – Sorbonne Paris Cité).

Eighty years ago Alia Isaac Cohen dated her songbook filled with Romances (Ballads) from the oral tradition. Dr. Pomeroy published an edition and commentary of her songbook in 2005, where she explores the connections that this Moroccan Tangerine matriarch had with the literary tradition from medieval and renaissance Europe.

In 1929, Zarita Nahón recorded Simi Nahón de Toledano in New York while a student of Franz Boas. This recording has been archived at Indiana University’s Archive of Traditional Music. Vanessa Paloma Elbaz (who finished her graduate work in Indiana in 1996) discovered during her research of the Romances of Northern Morocco that her alma mater housed this historic archive and secured a copy to bring back to Morocco to form part of KHOYA: Sound Archive of Jewish Morocco. This recording has never been heard publicly in Morocco and is a rare glimpse into the musical sound of Jewish women from the early twentieth century.

These two scholars will present the written and recorded traces of the Ballads from Tangier and discuss their similarities and differences.

For an eclectic group of scholars and the culturally curious, Hilary Pomeroy on Alia Isaac Cohen and Vanessa Paloma on Zarita Nahón took us through this world of Jews uprooted from Christian Spain, finding refuge in Muslim Morocco, and handing down traditional songs that still evoke the ancient Sephardic homeland of Toledo and Granada.

Thanks to schools like the Alliance Israelite in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, literate women like Cohen and Nahón took to transcribing the ballads or romances.  Even though many were Christian in origin, they told great stories: war, betrayal, adultery, and the accompanying human emotions.  Some were even sung as lullabies; the cadence was the thing, not the lyrics about adulterous, murderous women!

Surviving over the centuries thanks also to their use in specific religious ceremonies or festivals (though some rabbis tried to keep the more racy ballads out of the synagogue), transmission to the modern age was helped enormously by women like Cohen and Nahón.  Zarita Nahón, a Tangier native who studied philology at Columbia, had direct links to the Jewish intelligentsia of the city, whose education and knowledge of foreign languages had made them the ideal dragoman or interpreter/go-between for generations of diplomats in Morocco's diplomatic capital.

Using the metal tube recording technology of the time, Nahón's work resides at Indiana University.  The audience heard several examples.

Vanessa Paloma continues the work of safeguarding this oral tradition, citing her work with elderly women whose faulty memories are suddenly brought into clear focus on hearing Vanessa break into song.  Hilary Pomeroy cited another who recalled "there was always singing; we sang from dawn to dusk."

Making the link with our own lead soldier display from the Malcolm Forbes collection, Hilary Pomeroy spoke of the ballad by Moroccan Jews rejoicing at the death of Don Sebastian, King of Portugal in Morocco's Battle of the Three Kings.  His defeat and death meant that the Jews and Muslims in Morocco would not be forced to convert to Christianity.

Gerald Loftus, text; Mohammed Jadidi, photo