Avuncular American

Re-Mapping Tangier: National Geographic Workshop

 

 

1924 Map of Tangier (TALIM library)

Under the direction of Dr. Luiza Bialasiewicz, University of Amsterdam, scholars from Europe, the United States, and Morocco joined the inter-disciplinary workshop "Re-Mapping Tangier: Fractured Mobilities, New Borders," held at TALIM on May 31.

 

Sponsored by the National Geographic Society under its Global Exploration Fund, the Nederlands Instituut Marokko (NIMAR) also provided support.

From the project précis:

"This research project will look to the ways in which Tangier is being re-positioned with an emerging Euro-Mediterranean space as a cosmopolitan border city 'at the gates of Europe'. Adopting a range of innovative methodologies including mobile ethnographies and multi-site interviews, it will attempt to map the complex geography of 'mobilities' that are currently transforming this metropolis, from labour migration to domestic and international tourism, to a range of other cultural, ideational and material flows that extend far beyond the immediate border region and connect Tangier to other European cities. In thus 're-mapping' Tangier and its multiple connections, the project can hopefully shed important light on the changing nature of Europe's borders, no longer a neat demarcation line between a European inside and a non-European exterior. What is more, by examining the diverse 'mobilities' that make Tangier what it is today -- and connect it to other places -- it can hopefully also yield important lessons for understanding the shifting geographies of identity and belonging in today's Europe."

Well, as Xavier Ferrer-Gallardo of the Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona showed in his presentation on Europe's southernmost point, Punta Tarifa, just opposite Tangier, there is a demarcation very visible to all who approach Tarifa by sea: the Las Palomas migrant detention center.

Crossing what Ferrer-Gallardo calls the "limboscape" of the Strait of Gibraltar, those lucky enough to survive might make it to this bit of Europe jutting out towards Africa.  There's no Statue of Liberty to mask the immigrant quarantines of Ellis Island; instead of a lookout point to make the most of the site's tourism potential, there's just a locked gateway to the old fortress at the end of the causeway.  Who would have known that there are rescued migrants incarcerated behind the wall?

Others presented their research on Tangier's rapidly-changing landscape, which has moved so quickly that it defies cartographers and demographers to define the outlines of the city and its true size.  Attempts by authorities to channel growth to certain areas and by applying some norms are overtaken by neighborhoods mushrooming like replicas of the medina across the hills of the city, but with muddier "streets."  People just can't wait for the planners.

 

Brussels Metro by Luiza Bialasiewicz

The hype about Tangier - many overseas Moroccans or "MREs" living in Europe are enticed by real-estate ads in Brussels and Amsterdam - has led to speculation, further squeezing the low-income Moroccan families looking for shelter.  MREs might see a second home in Tangier as a symbol of their success, but the sight of block after block of unlit apartment buildings (except for the summer vacation influx of Belgian, Dutch, and other European licence plates) are a source of friction.

Dr. Lauren Wagner of Wageningen University in the Netherlands is working on a multi-year project to analyze the impact of such "semi-citizen" populations, and the nature of migrants with footholds in Europe and Morocco. 

Participants voiced concern about the impact of large infrastructure projects, with "Gucci" shops slated to welcome tourists arriving at the new port currently under construction.  While the real Gucci might have some tough competition with the fake reproductions currently on sale in the souk, the question is how this big-ticket Casablanca-style glitz will sit with a population that strives to deal with a galloping cost of living.

This workshop provided scholars with similar areas of interest to meet each other for the first time, and may result in a special issue in a scholarly journal like JNAS, the Journal of North African Studies, the publication of AIMS, the American Institute for Maghrib Studies.  Several of the participants will again collaborate in a panel at this year's MESA (Middle East Studies Association) conference, initiated by workshop participant and longtime TALIM researcher, Janell Rothenberg of UCLA.

Gerald Loftus

Where Are the Maghrebi Artists?

"Converging Territories," Lalla Essaydi

Dr. Carol Solomon of Haverford College, Pennsylvania, in Morocco on a Fulbright grant, was intrigued by that very question: in many of the textbooks and survey courses of African art, the art of North Africa was always given the shortest chapter.  Odd, as the region's recorded history goes further back than much that is available on sub-Saharan Africa.  She set out to find out "where were the Maghrebi artists?" 

In Algiers a few years ago for the opening of MAMA, the national museum of contemporary art, Carol Solomon heard the lament of a number of artists about the general lack of galleries and facilities for artists.  In Morocco, only Tetouan (Beaux Arts) and Casablanca (Design) offer art schools.  "How do I survive as an artist in my country?"  Many choose to emigrate, and it was this vein which Dr. Solomon has mined.

For her presentation at TALIM yesterday, Dr. Solomon chose to focus on "Women Artists of the North African Diaspora," a subject rich in diversity.  Indeed, such descriptions as "third space," "limnal," "edge," and "hybridity" pepper Carol's vision of the art of the daughters of Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia who not only fly back and forth between the Maghreb and Europe or North America, but whose art inhabits that in-between territory.  She shares Edward Said's view of the "plurality of vision" of these multi-state citizens.

Said, whose book "Orientalism" informed and shaped much study of West - MidEast cultural relations, might be surprised at the lingering popularity of much Orientalist art, and not just among European art collectors nostalgic for sepia-toned views of harems and fantasias.

No, as Solomon says, Orientalist works are the rage too in places like the Gulf, where wealthy sheikhs buy up art to populate new museums and galleries, and 19th century Orientalist paintings offer a measure of "topographic, ethnographic, and historic" accuracy, along with nostalgic appeal to buyers whose grandfathers were Bedouins with little contact with the Seraglio.

Carol Solomon presented the audience with the works of a hometown star, Yto Barrada, who might be better known in Tangier for her pioneering work in restoring the historic Cinema Rif and turning it into a respected and much-appreciated institution, the Cinémathèque Tanger.  But Yto Barrada is also a prize-winning photographer, and her "projects" like the "Strait Project" involve photography but also sculpture, often providing a biting commentary on the rampant over-development that not only wipes out historic vestiges of Tangier's rich architectural past, but endangers the unique flora and fauna of this zone that is Africa's closest point to Europe.

 

Les Femmes du Maroc, No. 14, Lalla Essaydi

Another Moroccan, who has settled in the United States, Lalla Essaydi, has been recognized as worthy of a Smithsonian exhibition, "Revisions."  Carol, who curated an exhibit in 2008 at Amherst College, introduced a work by Essaydi that received a review in her native Morocco.  Essaydi later told Carol Solomon that the picture of her work was the first time that any of her images was seen in Morocco.

TALIM - thanks to a grant from the Moroccan American Cultural Center (MACC) in Washington - will soon be mounting a new permanent exhibit at the Legation Pavilion, entitled "Moroccans in America," featuring talent from across the spectrum of the arts, literature, academia, and public service.  We will be featuring, thanks to Lalla Essaydi, one of her works from "Les Femmes du Maroc," currently exhibited at the Banque al-Maghrib.

Back to the Orientalists.  Today's women artists from the Maghreb will often do what Lalla Essaydi terms "neo-Orientalist" takes on works like that of Delacroix's "The Women of Algiers," even naming their works with more than a nod to the 19th century exoticists.  Franco-Algerian Zoulikha Bouabdellah, whose performance art "Dansons," or the Marseillaise, belly-dance version, turns Orientalism on its head, and would make both Front National and Front Islamique partisans equally livid with its cross-cultural identity-blurring juxtapostion of bleu-blanc-rouge "nationalism" and sequinned hip-swiveling.

But that's what the women artists of the Maghreb diaspora do best: challenge stereotypes, mix media, and generally get their native Maghreb on the stage of the world.  Carol Solomon gave us a taste of what is out there, and we appreciate the wisdom she imparted.

Gerald Loftus

Saharan Crossroads: Views From the Desert-Edge

Herein we broadcast the Call for Papers (CFP) from the joint AIMS (American Institute for Maghrib Studies, of which TALIM is the research center in Morocco) WARA (West African Research Association) conference for June 2013.  Please note that the deadline for submission of applications and abstracts is December 30, 2012.

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CALL FOR PAPERS

Saharan Crossroads: Views from the Desert-Edge

An AIMS-WARA-CRASC Conference

22-24 June 2013 - Ghardaïa, Algeria

This conference is part of a series of activities organized by the West African Research Association (WARA) and the American Institute for Maghrib Studies (AIMS) aimed at strengthening the cultural, artistic and historical links among the peoples living within and across the Sahara Desert.

The 3rd international conference « Saharan Crossroads: Views from the Desert-Edge » is planned to be held in Ghardaïa, Algeria June 22-24, 2013.  The Centre d’Etudes Maghrébines en Algérie (CEMA) is partnering with the Centre National de Recherche en Anthropologie Sociale et Culturelle (CRASC) in planning this conference to be held at the University of Ghardaïa.

This conference’s theme is “Mapping information flows within and across the Sahara.” Throughout the ages, Africans circulating in Saharan regions engaged in cultural, intellectual, religious and political exchanges. Through oral and scriptural media, and by way of foot, caravan, truck and other traffic, people conveyed information and ideas that transformed and connected societies across distances. The committee is interested in studies focused on Saharan and trans-Saharan exchanges of information and ideas, past and present. Ghardaïa, in the heart of the Mzab region, is a propitious locale to hold this conference. This ethnically and religiously diverse oasis town was once a major center of exchange, and a northern terminus of caravans originating from markets such as Timbuktu, Agadez and Kano.

Proposals for papers and panels are invited for the following suggested themes:

1.       Circulation routes and information nodes

2.       Art, music and stylistic trends

3.       Cultures and ritual traditions

4.       Centers of learning and scholarly circuits

5.       Religious and Sufi networks

6.       Legal opinions and jurisprudence

7.       Political movements and ideological waves

8.       Evolution of communication technologies

9.       Migration and information flows

10.    Water management technologies and oasis agriculture

11.    Urban and architectural design

12.    Comparative Saharan archaeology

Applications and Abstracts of no more than 200 words should be submitted by December 30^th, 2012 at the following website: http://fs9.formsite.com/westafricanresearchassociation/form10/index.html.

For further enquiries, you may contact the conference organizers at [email protected].

Conference Organizers:

Ghislaine Lydon (University of California, Los Angeles)

Robert Parks (Director, CEMA-Oran)

Jennifer Yanco (Director, WARA)

Aomar Boum (Vice-President AIMS, University of Arizona)

Sidi Mohamed Trache (Université d’Oran et associé CRASC)

This conference is partially funded by a grant through the US Dept of State Bureau of Education and Cultural Affairs.

1942 - 2012: Operation Torch, 70 Years On

Today, Remembrance Day in Britain, Armistice Day in France, and Veterans Day in the US, has a special resonance here in the Maghreb.  70 years ago today, American and British forces were in the midst of a battle to free Vichy-held French North Africa.  Operation Torch.

70 years ago today, General Patton's representative in Fedala, Morocco, negotiated a truce with French Resident General Nogues, which blossomed into a cessation of hostilities later throughout French North Africa.  It was the beginning of getting France back into the Allied fold after the Vichy years.

Today in Tangier, Remembrance Day poppies were much in evidence at St. Andrew's Anglican church, where representatives of the Royal Navy, Royal Air Force, and British Army presided over a very dignified service in honor of the war dead, some of whom are buried in the church's graveyard.

Down the street, the French Consul General led the annual commemoration in front of Tangier's monument aux morts.  His speech honored not only French but also the numerous Moroccan fallen.

70 years ago, when President Roosevelt came to Morocco in the wake of Operation Torch, he paid homage to the American and French soldiers buried in a battlefield cemetery on the Moroccan coast.

At TALIM, we are focusing on this important period in history, in part because of the role that the Tangier American Legation played in Operation Torch, but also because of the special place of Interzone Tangier in the strategic balance of World War II.

Seven decades on, we are taking rare documents and artifacts out of our file drawers and sharing them with visitors to our museum.  And we welcome researchers into this period, when Tangier was a locus for wartime espionage and sabotage.  Recently we welcomed Superintendent Rob Allen of the Gibraltar Defence Police, who is doggedly researching a mysterious explosion in Tangier harbor in 1942, which killed several of his predecessors in the Gibraltar Services Police.

Superintendent Allen may not fit the profile of our usual researcher - "'Four guys died and very little was known about it,' he told the Gibraltar Chronicle.  'I'm a detective, and I quite like an investigation.'"  We wish him well, and hope that our research facilities will help open doors to this 70-year old mystery.

(Top image: the British Legion Poppy Appeal)

Gerald Loftus

Radio Medi 1 Across the Maghreb

Though its studios are in a pleasant old villa in central Tangier, Medi 1's antenna farm in Nador, near the Moroccan-Algerian border, points east (photo, right).  Medi 1 is shorthand for Radio Maghreb International, and its broadcasts in Arabic and French cover a wide audience all across North Africa.

With US presidential elections only weeks away, yesterday's monthly "La Question de l'Heure" program focused on the role of US foreign policy in the 2012 elections, especially prospects for US policy in the Middle East and North Africa.

Host Cyrille Arnoux welcomed American studies Professor Anne Deysine of the University of Paris Nanterre (Paris X) and TALIM director Loftus for a one-hour discussion touching on the respective positions of the candidates on regional policy.  Discussion in the studio was augmented by reports from Medi 1 correspondents in Washington, Jerusalem, and Ramallah.

Medi 1, a commercial Franco-Moroccan radio (and TV) operation founded in 1980, has an impressive editorial team in Tangier, plus a wide range of correspondents or stringers in major capitals in Europe, North America, the Middle East and North Africa.  With its audience of up to 25 million listeners across the Maghreb and Mediterranean Europe, Medi 1 is an important media outlet for the Maghreb.  We were happy to be invited.

You can listen to the 50-minute podcast by clicking here.

Anne Deysine & Gerald Loftus at TALIM

Gerald Loftus

RIP, Ambassador Christopher Stevens

 

 

 

 

 

Ambassador Stevens (State Department photo)

In the numerous commentaries mourning the loss of life at the American Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, one elegy came particularly close to home.  It is by Valerie Staats, Country Director of the Peace Corps in Sierra Leone, who was a colleague of the late Ambassador Christopher Stevens at the Tangier American Legation almost three decades ago.  

We join her in mourning the loss of someone who dedicated his life to creating bridges between the United States and the Arab and Muslim worlds. 

"In our 1983 TEFL stage in Morocco, there was a tall, blond kid who was known, among other things, as the one with the unfailing old-school courtesy toward all. He and I did a summer project together in 1984 at the American Legation Museum in Tangiers. He learned well both foshah (classical Arabic) and dareja (Moroccan Arabic). Chris always said he wanted to be an ambassador, and we didn't doubt him. Thanks to the Internet, we could keep in touch, and so we were all very proud when he was appointed Special Envoy to Libya, and later, the U.S. Ambassador. And we teased him, truthfully, that he hadn't changed one bit since our PCV days almost 30 years ago. Chris devoted his career, and life, to improving relations between the Arabic/Islamic world and the West. May he rest in peace."

Valerie Staats
RPCV Morocco 1983-85
Country Director, PC/Sierra Leone

Bold lettering added.  Thanks to Friends of Morocco and its Peace Corps Morocco alumni for sharing this moving speech.

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Update 5 October: "Post Grad Mel," a current Peace Corps Volunteer in Morocco, has written this moving post about her recent visit to Chris Stevens' village of Ouaouizerthin the Atlas Mountains, where he served during his Peace Corps assignment.  Beautifully written, with stunning photos.

Gerald Loftus

Berber Societies: AIMS Conference 2012 at TALIM

After three days of conferencing, the Legation's fountains and birds are again audible in the relative calm of the medina.  Not that we're complaining: a better group of participants couldn't be found.  We have just hosted an illustrious group of experts on Berber Societies, the theme of this year's AIMS - American Institute for Maghrib Studies - conference.

Subtitled New Approaches to Space, Time, and Social Process, the conference organizers sought to provide a voice to

Recent scholarship on Amazigh populations [which] provides important correctives to the nationalist narratives that have long shaped understandings about both the region's populations and their relations to the nation-state.

Academic organizers Jane Goodman of Indiana University and Katherine Hoffman of Nortwestern University devised a lively format for discussion, where conference participants read each other's submissions in advance, and each session was presented in pairs.  This allowed for maximum give and take, and avoided dry reading of papers or endless Powerpoint slides.

More than one participant noted the truly pan-Maghrib nature of the program.  Though Morocco and Algeria, with their large concentrations of Berber-speaking populations and web of state institutions (Morocco's IRCAM; Algeria's HCA) devoted to Berber matters, provided the bulk of the participants, what particularly enriched the proceedings was the presence of scholars from Libya, Tunisia, and Mauritania, who are less frequently heard from in Berber studies fora.

One Tunisian Berber is constantly challenged by her fellow citizens' incredulity; for them, Berbers are in Algeria and Morocco, or if they acknowledge a Tunisian link, place it in a distant past.  "You're Berber?  Prove it!" - daring her to say something in her language, which in some southern Tunisian villages is all children under five can speak.

Berber identity in Algeria has had its political manifestations - parties like the FFS and RCD are largely populated by Kabyles - which has not necessarily been the case in Morocco, where Amazigh culture and language has been the focus of Berber associations.  Even Morocco's important independence movement in the 1920s, the Rif War, led by Abdelkrim el Khatabi, was not necessarily for Berber freedom, but rather to rid northern Morocco of Spanish and French occupiers.  But that hasn't kept some modern Berber activists from canonizing Abdelkrim as a Berber icon.

Pan-Maghrib Berberism is made difficult by the incredible multiplicity of language variants, where Algerian Berbers in the eastern Aures Mountains might have an easier time of understanding the language of the Moroccan Rif than that of their neighboring Kabylie.

In Libya, where under Gaddafi their language and culture were suppressed, Berbers joined the struggle early on, and their intervention was often decisive in the west of the country.  In newly-liberated areas, Tamazight language media began to flourish, and people were finally free to give their children Berber names.

Language was central to our discussions.  In the area around Agadir in south-central Morocco, communities might promote use of their Berber language Tashelhit, without necessarily feeling part of some wider Amazigh movement.  Some experts are concerned with the effect of homogenization of Berber, with the centralizing tendency to create a sort of "modern Berber," a standardized hybrid that may be rootless and ignore the rich variety of Berber across this huge expanse of North Africa.  

We included several cultural events as part of the program.  By a stroke of good luck, this year's Tarab Tanger festival - dedicated to Moroccan and world traditional music - featured Moroccan Berber ensemble Inouraz from Agadir, led by singer Khalid El Berkaoui.  This Amazigh spiritual music - El Berkaoui's lively vocals accompanied by a quartet playing traditional instruments - got the crowd going, with lots of young fans exhibiting their three finger salute.  This was even a revelation to some of the experts: it's a Berber symbol of akal, awal, afgan - land, language, man.

We were also treated to a showing of short film "The Red Apple," whose "making of" and analysis by graduate student Tilila Baida led to a lively debate over Berber symbolism and the meaning of what it is to be Berber to the youthful filmmakers.  Though the brief dialogue and voice-over, as well as the on screen text, were all in Berber, the filmmakers didn't hide the fact that they spoke to each other in Moroccan Arabic while shooting the film.  But the film is still a Berber film.

It hasn't always been easy to be Berber, whose language has often been suppressed, and whose communities have been subdivided by administrative boundaries, under both colonial rule and after.  But after years of Arabization and centralization, the recent flourishing of Berber languages, of cultural movements, of young people experimenting with new media, show a sort of "Amazigh Spring" that doesn't have to be political to make its impact.  In many parts of the Maghrib, it's okay to be Berber again.

Gerald Loftus

Focus on Theatre in the Maghreb

How appropriate to launch The Theatres of Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia: Performance Traditions of the Maghreb, a scholarly work by Khalid Amine and Marvin Carlson, at the Tangier American Legation.  Why?  Well, for one thing, the Legation property once housed a theatre.

"The Theatre Parcel" is noted on historic documents tracing the Legation's growth over the centuries (the property also included a brothel, we're told).  Though there's been plenty of drama in the long history of Moroccan-American relations as witnessed at the Legation, we have only dabbled in the occasional performance.

Professors Amine and Carlson presented their work at TALIM in the context of the 2012 "Performing Tangier" conference, a yearly gathering of international experts of the Tangier-based International Center for Performance Studies (ICPS), presided by Dr. Khalid Amine ofAbdelmalek Essaadi University in nearby Tetouan.  Marvin Carlson is Distinguished Professor of Theatre at the Graduate Center of CUNY.

The Theatres of Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia is a thorough work, but much more than a compendium of physical places and works by Maghrebi playwrights.  Proceeding chronologically between pre-colonial, colonial, and post-independence eras, Amine and Carlson analyze such themes as traditional forms of expression, the role of theatre in the anti-colonial resistance movement, and developing national traditions.

Though published in 2012, the narrative was wrapped up in 2010, before the momentous events of the Arab Spring.  But the gap was filled by this year's "Performing Tangier" conference, replete with presentations by Maghrebi scholars on highly topical subjects: self-immolation, the role of ridicule, "the Tahrir Square spectacle," etc.

ICPS continues its tradition of attracting theatre scholars and practicioners from the world over to Tangier, and we look forward to the proceedings of this year's conference, which will be an essential companion piece to Amine and Carlson's work.  And we're thrilled that The Theatres of Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia was launched at TALIM.

Gerald Loftus

The Andalusian-Maghrebi Cultural Bridge

 

The village of Gaucín 

 

Ronda

A week spent on the Andalusian coast, looking south, meant that Morocco was never out of sight.  So too it seemed further inland, where the whitewashed hilltop villages look much like they must have looked before the Moors were expelled from Spain half a millenium ago.

Based in Estepona, our best excursions were inland, to places like spectacular Ronda - a much-visited outcropping on the edge of a high plateau.  Ronda, where you can visit La Casa Del Rey Moro, with its "secret water mine" of endless steps through a fortified staircase down to the town's water supply.

Our day trips took us over the Ruta de los Almorávides y Almohades, retracing the steps of those Muslim dynasties who ruled Spain for centuries, and whose legacy is still very much a part of what has been called "the Soul of Spain."

What is fascinating is this modern embrace of the Moorish past, once reviled to the point where St. Michael's foot on a devil-dragon looks very much like the head of a Moor.  Blas Infante of Casares - called "the Father of Andalucia," and executed by Franco's Falangists during the Civil War - did much to turn this around.  A plaque in his hometown quotes his honoring of "our brothers, the exiled Moriscos."  Blas Infante, in his recognition of Spain's Muslim past, may have been ahead of his time, but then again, Franco too successfully recruited Moroccans to fight on his side in the Civil War.

 

Casares, birthplace of Blas Infante

Gaucín, Ronda, Casares, and Istán - like the Spanish language itself, where close to a third of all words have an Arabic origin - are redolent of this past which continues to influence modern Spain.  Google "Andalusia and Maghreb" and you'll like come up with a bunch of results celebrating the musical and culinary crossover that centuries of common culture have created.  But the ties go much beyond that.

In the past week in Tangier, as we were returning from Tarifa - where the Muslim conqueror Tariq ibn Ziad landed 1,300 years ago, lending his name to nearby Gibraltar - on our car ferry, the closing ceremonies were being held for a conference on that same Andalusian-Maghrebi historical link.  Attended by academics and religious thinkers from Spain and Morocco to Scandinavia and Iraq, the Tangier conference was another reminder of the need to look at the Iberia and the Maghreb in a holistic fashion.

Much like the Spain-North Africa Project - SNAP - "a scholarly initiative to encourage the study of the Iberian Peninsula and the Maghrib as a unified region" among American universities.  In Spain, there is the Fundación Tres Culturas, which seeks to underscore the common ground among the three religions - Islam, Christianity, Judaism - which shared historic Andalus.  

We laud such efforts, and participate in our own way, hosting students from CIEE's Sevilla program, and welcoming Spanish and other researchers availing themselves of TALIM's rich library.

Europe is a continent away from Africa, but in these parts, Spain and Morocco are just the next mountain range across the water.  Long gone are the days of the land bridge between the two continents, but they're culturally much closer than many would place them.

From Istán, you can see Gibraltar and Morocco beyond, clear weather or not.

Gerald Loftus

 

Istán

UPM, UMA: Mediterranean Dialogues, Post-Arab Spring

 

That white sea in the middle, as the Med is known in Arabic, has for millenia been the scene of strategic juggling.  So it was particularly helpful to have as erudite an analyst as Dr. Bichara Khader of Belgium's UCL (Université Catholique de Louvain) as the latest speaker at Tangier HEM's Université Citoyenne.  Khader, who comes from a family of Palestinian patriots, is a visiting professor at HEM.

I would do him no favor if I tried to summarize in this short blog post the encyclopedic analysis Dr. Khader provided.  He traced the genesis of institutions like the Union for the Mediterranean, UPM in the common French acronym, putting them in their European political and geopolitical contexts.  But more than historiography, he concentrated on today's renewed interest, in Europe and beyond, in the democratic ferment on this Southern side of the Mediterranean.

"The Arab Spring has earned this region new respect," said Bichara Khader.  He sees this in the post-Arab Spring pronouncements by European leaders, in the renewed interest in supporting democratic change, in the falling out of favor of autocratic rulers who might happen to sit on large reserves of petroleum.  "Oil is no longer a defense" against charges of misrule.

And while the principal focus was on North-South relations in the UPM, the 5-nation UMA or Union du Maghreb Arabe has also seen a flurry of activity, witness the visit of Morocco's new foreign minister to Algeria and travel by Tunisia's president to Morocco, Algeria, and Mauritania.  Suddenly, UMA is back as a potential regional actor, which Khader sees as bolstering the position of the Maghreb vis-à-vis Europe and the UPM.

This alphabet soup of North-South and regional groupings wouldn't be complete without mention of NATO and its Mediterranean Dialogue, which got its start in 1994 when then Secretary General Willy Claes started to become aware of nascent dangers in the post-Cold War Mediterranean.  A different kind of dialogue - this time to rescue the Libyan opposition in Operation Unified Protector - ensued in the wake of Kaddafi's 2011 attacks on protesting civilians.

The presence of eminent political scientists like Dr. Bichara Khader among the business students at HEM is indicative of their seriousness of purpose, intent on creating Morocco's "citizen managers" of tomorrow.  Not bad for a "business school."  Being a good, informed citizen is everbody's business.

Gerald Loftus