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The Pennsylvania State University The Graduate School College of the Liberal Arts CONNECTING NORTH AND SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA THROUGH LITERATURE, FILM, AND MUSIC A Dissertation in Comparative Literature by Ziad Bentahar © 2009 Ziad Bentahar Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy August 2009 ii The dissertation of Ziad Bentahar was reviewed and approved* by the following: Thomas A. Hale Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of African, French, and Comparative Literature Dissertation Advisor Chair of Committee Thomas O. Beebee Distinguished Professor of Comparative Literature and German Reiko Tachibana Associate Professor of Comparative Literature, Japanese, and Asian Studies Gabeba Baderoon Assistant Professor of Women‘s Studies and African and African American Studies, and affiliate faculty member of Comparative Literature Jonathan E. Brockopp Associate Professor of History and Religious Studies Mildred Mortimer Professor of French, University of Colorado at Boulder Special Member Caroline D. Eckhardt Professor of Comparative Literature and English Head of the Department of Comparative Literature *Signatures are on file in the Graduate School iii ABSTRACT An unresolved issue in African literary studies is whether North and sub-Saharan Africa are disconnected from one another, or whether they share elements that can further our understanding of the cultures from which they emerge. Since the mid-twentieth century, due to growing interest in Islam and the Arab world on the global scene, the Arab side of North African identity has been given paramount recognition. More often than not, North Africa is considered part of the Middle East rather than an integral member of an African community, although in spite of shifting political winds in recent years, the literatures that have emerged from North Africa have been firmly embedded in African literary traditions since antiquity, and share strong links with their sub-Saharan counterparts. Few literary scholars have connected North Africa to the rest of the continent, and those few have done so primarily, if not exclusively, from a francophone standpoint. This fledging scholarship needs to be extended and complemented by validating the inclusion of North Africa in African literary studies, taking into consideration both francophone and non-francophone perspectives, as well as other genres, such as film and music. This analysis of works from north and south of the Sahara demonstrates that, in spite of an academic tendency to divide Africa by the vast Sahara, the literatures and cultures of North Africa are in fact deeply connected to broader African literary traditions. Among the principal works under study are Driss Chraïbi‘s novel La Mère du printemps (1982), Assia Djebar‘s film La Nouba des femmes du mont Chenoua (1978), iv and a selection of Moroccan music. Chraïbi‘s fictional view of the Arab conquest of North Africa in the seventh century and Djebar‘s use of Arabic in cinema illustrate North Africa‘s relationship to Africa and the Arab World. The music of Gnawa communities in Morocco, whose origins are rooted in sub-Saharan Africa, points to strong historical ties between North Africa and the rest of the continent that date back at least to the sixteenth century, although evidence suggests that these ties were already developed as early as the twelfth century. That these diverse North African works show connections to sub-Saharan cultures invites us to view both regions as a whole. Although North Africa has also had intimate ties with the Middle East since the Arab conquests of the seventh century, the Sahara desert does not constitute a boundary to the transfer of cultural references from one side to the other. The study of North Africa should, therefore, take into account the larger context of Africa; and, correspondingly, scholarship on African literatures should include the Northern part of the continent. v TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF FIGURES ............................................................................................................ .vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ................................................................................................ vii INTRODUCTION............................................................................................................ ..1 Chapter 1 BETWEEN AFRICA AND THE ARAB WORLD: THE PARADOX OF NORTH AFRICAN LITERATURES .............................................................. .16 Chapter 2 HOW THE WEST WAS WON: THE SPREAD OF ISLAM IN AFRICA IN DRISS CHRAÏBI‘S LA MÈRE DU PRINTEMPS ............................ .49 Chapter 3 FILMS THAT SPEAK TO US: ASSIA DJEBAR‘S LA NOUBA DES FEMMES DU MONT CHENOUA AND OUSMANE SEMBÈNE‘S XALA ........ .86 Chapter 4 FROM GNAWA TO GHIWANE AND BACK: THE VISIBILITY OF AFRICAN IDENTITY IN MOROCCAN MUSIC ................................................ 118 CONCLUSION ................................................................................................................ 154 Appendix SONG TEXTS ................................................................................................ 159 WORKS CITED ............................................................................................................... 175 vi LIST OF FIGURES Fig. 1. Photo of gembri.. ..................................................................................................... 121 Fig. 2. Photo of qraqeb. ...................................................................................................... 122 Fig. 3. Photo of tbel.. .......................................................................................................... 122 Fig. 4. Gnawa musician playing a gembri on the streets of the city of Rabat. ....................... 125 Fig. 5. Photo of griot lute.. .................................................................................................. 130 Fig. 6. Some of the members of Darga playing qraqeb and a gembri during a concert. ........ 151 vii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am thankful for the support of my dissertation advisor and committee members. I am immeasurably grateful to Professor Thomas Hale for his expert advice and constructive guidance; to Professor Jonathan Brockopp for his generous and productive help; to Professors Gabeba Baderoon, Thomas Beebee, and Reiko Tachibana for their kind assistance; and to Professor Mildred Mortimer for her astute counsel. I am also thankful for the support of various institutions: AMIDEAST and the Moroccan American Commission for Education and Cultural Exchange; the Africana Research Center and the College of the Liberal Arts at The Pennsylvania State University; and the American Institute for Maghrib Studies‘ 2008 annual dissertation workshop at Willamette University in Salem, Oregon. I wish to acknowledge other people and institutions that have also helped in various ways while I was writing this dissertation: my colleagues Michelle Decker- Toumayants, Ipek Kismet, and Aaron Rosenberg; La Pensée Sauvage publishers, Amel Abou el Aazm, and Professor Thomas Hale for their permissions to reproduce photographs; Nass El Ghiwane and Hoba Hoba Spirit for their permissions to include and translate songs; and Ahmed Eljechtimi for his assistance with Berber translation. I would also like to give special thanks to other friendly Penn State faculty members: Sydney Aboul-Hosn, Jonathan Eburne, Caroline Eckhardt, Djelal Kadir, Sophia McClennen, and John Riofrio from the Department of Comparative Literature; Hülya Yilmaz from the Department of Germanic and Slavic Languages and Literatures; Juana Celia Djelal, Aldon Nielsen, and Iyunolu Osagie from the Department of English; viii Joan Landes from the Department of History; and Richard Schuhmann from the Engineering Leadership Development Program; as well as former Penn State faculty members Pius Adesanmi, now at Carleton University in Ottawa, and Inas Messiha, now at North Carolina State University. I would like to express sincere thanks to our wonderful office staff, particularly those with whom I have had the most interaction: JoElle DeVinney, Irene Grassi, Mona Muzzio, Lynn Setzler, Bonnie Rossman, and Sharon Laskowsky from the Department of Comparative literature, as well as Rebecca Bressler from the Department of French and Francophone Studies. I am also indebted to my previous professors from the Department of English Language and Literature at the Mohammed V University in Rabat, Morocco, especially Fatima Bouzenirh, who first introduced me to the study of African Literature, and encouraged me to approach it comparatively. Most significantly, I would like to thank my beloved wife Narjis for her undying support and unfaltering patience, as well as our sons, Saad and Karim, who contributed to this project by inspiring and motivating me in a most efficient manner. INTRODUCTION Both the products of research and popular imaginative views of Africa in the last few decades have tended to leave out the northern region, even when they ostensibly speak of the continent as a whole. ―Africa‖ now stands for sub-Saharan Africa, while North Africa is considered in many academic disciplines to be part of the Middle East instead. The division between North and sub-Saharan Africa is particularly problematic in literature. Although North Africa does share some important connections with the Middle East, the literatures that have emerged from North Africa are in many ways part of a broader tradition that includes sub-Saharan African literatures. Today, the literatures of