70 One Woman Writes An(Other)
6 "Mais ce qui est encorc i blaner davantage, elles ne sont pas seulement esclaves du monsenge en paroles, ains aussi en l'irtdricur par le voile d'une belle apparence. Je veux dirc conure la voluptd mesme bien souvent se couvre du DE-oRTEXTELIZINGTHE ATA manteau de la vertu, aussi voit on la femme impudique historier son nanrrel par AND RE-ORIENTING THF. SHIKHAt' I'Cmail d'une pidld, le plus souvent conFefaicte . . . ." Olilver, 98. o' Frangois-Timoldon de Choisy. MCmoires de I'abbi de Choisy habillC en femme, ed, Ceorges Mongddien (Paris: Mercure de France. 1966), o" On Choisy's cross-dressing. see Harris, chapter seven, "Transvestite Teldencres: AlessRmoRA CIUcq, Francois-Timoldon. abbd de Choisy," 2l l-32. COLUMBIA UNTVERSITY " 'Enfio, lon qu'elle en eot tild une vdritE, qui ne lui fit plus douter que je ne fusse Scanderberg . . . et vit bien queje lui rendais nalice pour malice . . . voulant aussi bien que moi sortir de cette aventure avec tout le plaisir que nous nous attendions d'y rencontrer " Villedieu, 47-50. 70 "AmuEl oublia afursi toutes les marques d'amour qu'il avait dormees e Servilie, Aira is a sung poetry by professional female singer-dancers pour m'honorer de ses passions les plus violentes . . . Je me trouvais I la fin Practiced (singular, a female leader) along the I'Amant de sa Maitresse et par cons€quent son Rival, comme Crisolis," Villedieu, known a.s sftikiat shikha, literally the 60_ Moroccan Atlantic plains and adjacent regions. By focusing on ?r (i'ada al-i'tibar)' of '?our l€ bomper . . . il fut rdsolu que je serais toujours Crisolis ferurle juive et discourses and politics-ethnographic employed in thc rcvalorization que j'irais aux appaftements des auhes Sultanes porter des meubles prdcieux . . . ." the 'aita, this investigation2 will show how the official Villedieu, 60. incorporation of the 'aita into the Moroccan heritage (al-tutath al- " "elle ne songeait qu'a b fahir et a se faire aimer du Sutlan. Depuis qu'elle avait magiribi) has affected the sung poetry and its performers. In the search for s0 la violente qu'il pour queUe inclination avait elle et marque il avait dtd pret de a icw and national oral poetry, a number of men intellectuals and lui €D donner, I'Ctatrt venu pfen&e pouf I'honorer du glorieux rang de Sultane, specialists of the 'aita, directly or indircctly assmiated with the USFP auquel son ambition aspirait . . . ." Villedieu, 254. (Union Socialiste des Fotces Populaires) and the IJEM (Union des '" "L€ ddsir d'Ctre dlevde dans un rang si glorieux, I'emporta sur sa tendres8e et sur narrative that presents theil view on celle de son Anant, sans considdrer quels dtaient les plaisirs et les biels qu'ellc Ecrivains du Maroc), havc produced a 'aita. narrative' avaia requs de I'un et de I'autre . . . Elle cacha si adrcit€ment ce qu'elle pensait, what is the "appropriate" way of experiencing the This gue Musulman ne s'en appercut pas." Villedieu. 29. along with the 1997 elections that brought the USFP to the head of the '" "ll fut pdndtrd de la plus vive douleur, qu'on puisse sentlr, lorsqu'il le s0t, gov;nment and the formcr hesident of the UEM to the head of the Scande6erg essayait en vain de le consoler, l'itfidelitd dtait trop rdcente et lui tlop Ministere de la Culture, influenced the political culture of Morocco and amoureux." Villedieu. 3 14. 'aita. ?s laid the groundwork for the re-valorization of the "la we de Thamar l'avait sensiblement rouchd I'esperance qu'il et avoit d'Ctrc I will begin with a discussion about the shikhat and the 'aita, calling le maitre de toutes ses b€autds." Villedieu, 234. 76 attention to d;bates on historiogaphy before analyzing the re-valorization "I-e lendemain or appdt qu'elle avait ddjA un gand nombre d,Esclsvcs . . . in reference to culturally establGhed views of female sexuality. Sexuality,3 qu'oo lui rcndait les memes honneurs qu'a la Sultane Favorite et aue le Sultan ue and resistance given la quittait presque poht." Villedieu, 314 in fact, is central to colonial relations of dominance modes " "Elle regardait l'inconsrance d'Amurat sans ere dmue." Villedicu, 314. that the reDresentation of othemess is also achieved through sexual 'o Dout.hwaile,52. of differentiation.a I will conclude that the re-valorization of the 'aita has 7e Although the reign of l-ouis XIV is traditionauy cited as thc fullest imposidon of called for its de-orientalizing, and, consequently, for re-orienting so-called absolute monarchy, examining the balance of power between l,ouis XIV ambiguous fcmale performers, such as the shikhat, into a moral system in and the nobility places this in doubt, See Roger Mettam, Power and Factioh ln which the reputation of women---+xpressed in the cultural equation of Iauis XN's France (Qxford: Basil Blackwell, 1988). 80 Patricia Francis Cholakian, "Rewriting History: Madame de Villedieu and the Wars of Religion" Arms and Wontoa: lVar, in the Gender, and Literury ' I would like to thank Ana Maria Ochoa, huise Meintjes, Ellen Gray' Amanda Represenration, eA. Helen Margaret Cooper, Adrienne Munich, and Susan Merrill Minsk, and Jennifer Woodruff for generously reading and commcnting on earlier Squier (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolim zt4. Press, 1989), drafts of this article. De-orientalizing the Aira and Rc-orienting the Shik:hat Alessandra Ciucci
female chastity/purity and social worth-needs to be materialized and The guests listened attentively to the v'ords as they Sently rocked their confirmed every day in a wornan's behavior.s heads and upper torso to and fro, waved their zrms, clapped their hands' or ululated to incite the performcrs. Khadija and Khoucin, for their pdrt, ambience with their genfu shimmies. Their performing The Shikhat as Professional Singer-Dancers heightened lhe bodies projected sensuality to intensify the performance and worked with like In Morocco today, the shikhat perform in rural and urban milieus, for the emotions of the audience to the unlolding mood since dnnce, nuch the humble and the wealthy, for different audiences (all-male, all-female, poetry, is connected to an aesthetic of suSSestion. had or mixed), in different venues (such as private homes, nightclubs, and Almost 27 mimttes into the perfomwnce, the time for dancing judging atmosphere, the festivals), and for different types of occasions (private, public, and arrived, and, from the emotionally-charged experience, an ideal official). As symbols that produce action and as focuses of interaction, the guests were ready to move from a shared emotional shikhat stimulate emotions with their bodies-to which participants ihat bound them together, to an intense involvement in the emotional 'efperience to respond with gazing or by physically participating in the performance- itself. The focus of the celebration hqd shifted from listening to an and with their voices-to which participants respond by listening, dancing, from a fast to a slow temPo, and from an intemalized in rhythm and imagining/remembering their sociocultural and historical experiences extemalized response. It did not take long for the change intermingled and juxtaposed with eroticism in theverses. This is illustrated tempo to affect the atmosphere, beqan by the role of the shikhat at a mixed wedding celebration held in the Khoucia and Khadija, now facing one another, to Sentlt side to the coastal town of Safi ol 13 July 2003: bounce their hips shifting the weilht of their bodies from one place. The thick embroidered belts tied around the Stepping onto the roof of the two-story house felt like stepping into a other as if walking in orSanza material of the difierent world, Covered by a white impermeable tent on the outsid.e, on waists emphasized their Senerous hips while the With their aftns away the insde the rcof was clothed by a sort white polyester fabric whose caftans accentuated the flow of their movements. neck and head pleats undulated to the gentle summer breeze. Eurgundy drapes were from the body and their forearms bent upward, their shikhat arranged around the walls of white cloth, while modem red Rabat-like standing tall, their chest and shoulders held back and broad' the sensual movements as they opened up their carpets were spread on the floor. At the other end of the roof, directly ht faced the guests u,ith their front of the entrance, two huge and ichly adomed white thrones mounted bodies to the celebrants. chqnges in the nood on a pedestal had been set up for the bride aM the groom The female Suests were the rtr$ b respond to the the and the The performers positioned themselves on one side of the thrones; the of the celebration. One by one they began to crowd corridor groups among male instrumentalists sat on the chairs with their bacl6 against the cloth area in front of the shikhat sensually dancing in small male guests, their parl, had also gotten up and had wall while the shikhat stood a few feet away in front of the musicians anl themselves. The for qlso by close to the audience. Hafida and'Aicha, the two lead vocalists, situated sturted to dance; some of them were busy rewarding the dancers The themselves in the center reith the two dancers, Khadija and Khoucia, tucking money into their belts or on to the neckline of theircartans. respectively on their sides. floor became increasingly crowded wilh Suests u/ho seemed unable to stop It was about 3:00 a.m. when the second set of the wedding celebration moving; the music was afiecting everyone, even those who had remained dancing began. As Hafida and 'Aicha sang the lines of the poem, they took the seated. The shik,hat ulere novt practically suftounded by the audience into a joumey where history, geography, lore, memory, bodies of the participants. imagination aM eroticisnwere recalled line after line: A group of young nen had formed their ovln circk and, as they dnnced, they seemed to be panicularly involved when the lyrics of the If you are from the 'Abd.a [region], saddle nry horse for me. I'll ofer poem tamed. to the imaSes of horses and horsemen; after raising their mytelf as your semant. I accept ml destbry and the gowen stirrup. I've arms into the air, one of them began to mimic galloping movements in his cried for the separation from the loved ones. I cry, I have no patience. I dance- become quiet, I don't heal. I think too much. We are in [the shrine ofl When the hostess of the celebration approached Hafida in the midst of Ialla Mennana, it belongs to the loved ones. Our lord to is here stay6 her singing, the shikhat looked at her in a stupor. The hostess spoke into Alessandta Ciucci De-orientalizing the Aila and Re-orienting the Shikhol
of licentious scx reflects how part, made between thc Oricnt and the freedom Haf.da's earwho, for her nodded with her head. At the sane time the clmm9d.t(y::, "Orienral sex" was considered to be a freely accessible musicians of another troupe walkcd into the room and advanced toward rn wesrcm Houdl's writings exempliff the t)?c of discoursc tound the performers to set up their instuments and begin to play. The shikhat, and and ethnograptries such as that of Jean Mathieu laken aback, did not waste time singing a few more verses and quickly "of,rniuip.-U. "-fttoni"f"tl the renowned closcd quartcr in Casablanca' rs ended the performance in compliance with the wishes of the hostess, who, t'tuuty on Bousbir, and framework of the two doctors preoccupied by the excessive excitenent, had asked another band to go on the moraiistic Political "it,l;; "i"i"a'Uv;;;d ;", ; studv for the Sirvice cle la S^antd Publique du Maroc in order to cool the tempereture of the celebration. 13 the musical ift" auspices of tihe Protectorate in l95 l Describing uni". the assert that "cvcry street takes part in As professional singcr-dancers who display their voices and their iiu"ti"", of tire shikhat, they ptosliut.t sing wilh..a high-pitched voice while bodies in the context of public celcbrations, the associations of the shikhal ffi;. t;;;. *rn" with the ta nJa''''" Characterizing th€.event as with public space are different than those of respectable women in ui"u.nunuine themselves its musical elements and exemPlilics ttlased dlscourse Morocco.T Their interactions with unrelated men, th{r sensual dances they un uprn- i"nigru,"s ls and prostitutes Some Wcstern scholars- may perform, the fact that they solicit money ftom their gucsts for their ,rt"i'"."n"* ?rt" shikhat of a singG corporation of shikiat as sound-evidence services, associate the shikhat with prostitution. J.*iO-"t',ft" pt"t"ncc ;;;;;J",i"" with prostitution, bur there are Moroccan scholars.who It is a complex task to determine whcther or not the shikhat were ever that the ur" ,n" ,ua" evidencc io butuess the counterargument -shikhat considered to be respectable performers in Morocco, a difficulty that the. lollowing ;;* l";;;J into prostitutcs by colonial Practices .as results panly fiom available documentation. The Westem narrative of the 'aita indicates: ri"r"*""iUy fa4-occan intellccrual and specialists of the nineteenth and early twentieth centurics was tainted by a moralistic and " political framework with a biased interpretation of prostitution. Eroticism until colonization' As all the shikhat were [respected hy men and women] was perceived as one of the main a.spects of the exotic Orient, and the lne *tr"n u lo"ul law banned them from singing except in bordellos fascination with allegedly licentious women dancers provided a means to lrom tnere - amalgam shikha-prostirute came first and foremosl express what Karin van Nieurkerk designates the "difl'erentness and sensuality of the East."o In the early part of the twentieth century, the and its This dichotomy reflects the ambivalence of available evidence joumalist Christian Houel aBributed an inexhaustible eroticism requiring interpretati----' on . no material sustenance to women performers attached to the sources army: ilthougtr the prcsencc of the shil Tounia: function may have bcen to entertain their patrons with sung poefy and dancc through performances emphasized courtship, companionship, or We do not know anything about the life of this shikha from Marrakech socialization rather than sex, could have been caught in a downward spiral except what the officials of the nall.zen (certral govemment) reveal . . . that called for a greater sexualization of their profession. But even if such Oral accouots tell us that she was one of his lHassan Il concubines a debasement did take place, oral testimonials of some of the old shikhat (nahdiyat), . , Based on the correspoodence of the rrnkfven and their can be just as ambiguous as they retell their glorious past. details it is clear that Hassan I knew her very well because of hcr Although they p€rformance, were revered and appreciated artists, and b€cause she would accompany him on his expeditions . . . as the shikhat also lament the What confirms Hassan I's solely anistic admiration is the fact that when hardship of their profession, carefully avoiding specific details as they she committed a mistake with one of his employees she was jailed and he recount the unkindness of the patrons, hinting at how the profession ruins confiscated some of her property. Funhermore, she was available for a.ll of those who practice it. Whether or not dictated by a sense of propriety and the families and notjust for the sultan.2o appearances, this ambiguity makes it difficult to establish whether the - shikhat were ever considered or treated as respectable performers. Najmi's statement on the relation between Sultan Hassan I and shikha al_ Another cause of the profession's infamousness and its association Tounia illustrates the ambiguity of wdtten sources that, in this casc, with prostitution is connected to religious ideology and how approval and question- the_ oral accounts and present what may be a politically safe disapproval of performers is related not only to genre but to contexts of perspe€tive that is not necessarily more reliable. performance. According to Islamic views, at the bottom of the hierarchy of Discussing prostitution in the Maghreb, Christelle Taraud advances permissibility is "sensuous music that is performed in association with the hypothesis that prostitution was not an exclusively colonial construct, condemned activities, or that is thought to incite such prohibited practices but a uniyerse that was already in place: as consumption of drugs and alcohol, lust, prostitution, etc,"a Because lhe musical practices of the shikhat fall into what is considered as the lowesr For a century, between 1830 and 1930, we find official prostitutes . . . and form of music and dancing, particularly since they express sexuality cout€sans, more or less clandestine, waiting in their homes for their clients before men rather than in front of an all-female audience where sexually or for clients recruited outside, offering sexual services but also food. tea. explicit behavior is acceptable, the shikhat are treated accordingly by bathing water, and, if necessary, even entertailment and hosDitalitv for the ..ouldaled,' society whose ideal standard femininity emphasizes and nighr. Ambivalent cou esanerie. symbol of other ideas about of modesty prostitution and types distancing from sexuality. _of otler of sexual relation negotiared prior to colonization , . . In this sense, by confusing the traditional hiera;hies of prostitution and by place setting in a rcal professionalization of gostihrtion, The and the Past the colonial?dministration profoundly changed the Maghreb's universe ot 'Aita orosutunon-_ The tirne when the 'aita was at its apogee, "at hundred per cent of its tase" (miya f-L-miya diaL duq), when the shikhat were highly respected According to Taraud, colonialism not only rearranged the Magbreb system (kan 'andhum al-'iu katir) and iie texts of the poems truly appreciated, of prostitution, but also patterns of sexual behavioi so that, in-the effon of was recalled in most of the conversations I had with practitioners, co rolling women's sexuality and maintaining the social order, brothels specialists and, to a certain extent, everyone who listened to this sung were licensed and closed quarters instituted. In a similar vein to what poetry. Their accounts invariably evoked a period that appeared to be Timothy J. Gilfoyle assens about the history of prostitution, I posit rhat in rooted in names and, more significantly, in forms of patronage rather than Morocco all categories of courtesans and prostiiutes may havi inevitably dates. Karbou'a recounts: melted into the same standardiznd type of sex trade in which erotrc gr:-atification supplanted social fulfillment and a .,more genitally oriented I was a guest of 44rd Mekki, together with my mother and my brcther, for [for men] form of prostitution replaced one emphasizinq sociabilitv.,,2 quite a long fme. Qaid Mekki used to always invite different troupes to Much as had taken place in Egypr with femaie singei_dancers,2i rhe enteflain him and his friends, and he would always ask me to perform with shikhat, who may have been first and foremost poets and whose principal the other shikhat. Qaid L'ubi, fromKhouribga, was also there and he too Alessandra Ciucci De-orientalizing the Aira and Re-orienting the Shiklat wbere thcy in Casablanca and other meuopolitan centers' perform him Mekki. who was very most 'i;;;iynumerous always warted us to fot Qaid the Ville Nouvelle' the new part of town evenings " ;;; located in generous, used to even buy us the best caftans for thcsc the typical cabaret Jeslened ana Luilt by Europcans Much as today' women were aontla,.a of urbanized Moloccan men; alcohol and Just as other shikhat, Karbou'a reminisced either about qads, pashas, "uaiZnaa The association of the 'aita with the radio and' sulbns, or other powerful and wealthy patrons associated with a period itt" "ti"irt"i ""*"ments.2twith comic skctches was also crucial' These sketches that extended from the nineteenth ccntury to the French Proleclf.rate Qaid ."t'. tp.[il*irv, because they employed colloquial Atll:-*d Mekki and other governors of the regions in which the 'aita was thc main *ere eitremely'popular ouity tif" with a didactic and an entertainmcnt musico-poetic tradition were known to support Performers whom they J*i","0 t""n"t'oi of rot- oi tt proposed a mass-med,iated vcrsion regularly invitcd to entertain. This may have been particularly- truc tor n i"il""."*iiti. the halqa_.a"ut"t g"tht'ing in the form of a circle around shikhat iuch as Karbou'a who, thanks to her voice and beauty, had been ;;;;".; i; uJuallv in a market place or at a citv gate or after shikhat of the region. ffiil;;;i;;ilii. ,.,iing. one of thc most sought with storytellers' jesters' and olher Karbou'a started i-'^"a^i in" 6ld cityl-aisociate the French administration's Service des Arts IndigDnes (which functioned these intellectuals and specialists have selectively emphasized a bipartition ftom 1920 until protectorate), the end of the describes a Derformance ol between "them" and "us"-the degradation and maryinalization of the the shikhat: 'aita was causcd by its association with performers who were portayed as loose women and cast as prostitutes by the Protectorate--and shaped a We will meet the libertine and sensual ..face', Morocco. This is Dleasant narrative that, in response to that of the former colonial power, is based on looking, but whar makeup on lhe cheek, what kohl on rhe eves. and whar the notion ofnational honor and identity. real or false shiningjewels around ir: what a profusion of bright colors and what a|l excess of ornamentJ among the anesthetizing perfumes that emanate from them! And I'm rea y afraid, alas! that undemeath there's The Intellectuals and Specialists of the 'Aita nothing but a froor and lide face, a pallid and wriDkled pleasure-seeker, who.is consumed by the punuit of an impossible sensual bliss. In the quite In recent years, thc 'aita has cafved out a place for itself thanks to the mediocre poems she sings, therc is always a cruel female who obstinatelv efforts of a number of academics, intellectuals, politicians, and other refuses to glanr anything to a suiror who is eternally rejected. . . . Here it is, public-figures involved. in one way or another, with the USFP and the thercfore, this music so attractive and so deceiving at once. . . .This laugh UEM." These efforts have culminated in the creation of the festival of the and this joy blend and bursa io the rhyhm, dizzying rhythm, enchanting 'aita, the inclusion of three CDs of the 'aita in the Anthologie de la rh).thm thar lulls wonies and sorrows; vampire-rhythm wbose winps flunei to anesthetiz€ the paiD caused by iS fatal bite.s musi4ue marocaine, a collection of 31 discs in seven volumes produced by the Ministbre de la Culture, and in the recording of two CDs, yet to be released, by the Institut Mondc Arabe in Paris. The 'aita has also been As Chottin's phantasmagorical narrative transforms the sensual female du ,aita's the subject documeniaries, theat cal works, scholarly and non-scholarly perfonner into a wrinkled pleasure seeker and the enchantrne of publications, Performances the 'aita are now included a number rhyhm into one of vampires, so the interchange between thc academic ani of in of summer festivals Morocco, presented the theaters Rabat and the-imaginative meanings of Orientalism is constant; Orientalism, after all, in in of Casablanca, and programs discussing genre broadcast the had given a scholarly foundation to the fantastic otherness of tre East.rT the are by national television stations. Furthermore, the proliferation In opposition to Chottin's description, which encapsulates colomal recent of .aita, Internet sites and the upcoming film on the lifc of a shikha should all be views on the shikhat and the Mohammed Bouhnid (1939_2002) a .aita, viewed as tcstimonies of the revalorization. leading figure in advancing the re-valorization of the adopB a stance taken unanimously by the intellectuals and specialiss of rhis su;g poeby: The emcrgence of specialists of the 'aita can be traced to 1981 when the UEM organized a conference on traditional culture. Influenced by the ,aita ideas put forth by intellectuals who, particularly in the 1960s and During colonialism the Frcnch wanted to get rid of the because it left-wing could mobilze people, carry the nationalist message everywhere, It was the 1970s, took snong anti-colonial stances calling for the re- the French that during the Protectorate created brothels where soldiers appropriation, rcdiscovery and re-habilitation of the national culture,{ and could be enteflained by the shikhar. Thal is how rhe poeric lansuaso of rhe by European intellcctuals such as Roland Barthes,ar Moroccan intellectuals 'aita changed from a language of rhe people to an erorij-c ianeuase proposed a new approach to traditional culture, which they no longer associated witl alcohol and prostitutioo.r8 viewed as archaic but as a thriving element of Moroccan life. In this context, a new horizon began to open for the'aita. More influential, By emphasizing the poetry .ait4 of the which Chonin had practically however, may have been the effons made by Mohanrmed Bouhmid- ignored and discarded as mediocre, and by blaming the hotectorate for school teacher, writer, membcr of the UEM, practitioner and specialist par the changes that occurred in ,aita, the Bouhmid set ihe standard for a rs_ excellence of the 'aita-in revalorizing this sung poetry. Although valorization that n€eded to argue for a reconstruction of the past resdng on Bouhmid's interest in the 'aita can be traced to the 1970s tt[ough public the existence of the historically-accepted context ofcolonialiim. debates, radio and television broadcasts, I was only able to obtain the The intellectuals and specialists ,aita of the have develooed an copies of a four-part special, Kunuz ("treasures"), on the 'aita recorded for account-of history that explains present the by recognizing rhe concems of the Moroccan teleyision in 1992. In Kunuz, a program dedicated to the public with its collective heritage. In their debites on historiography, Moroccan traditional arts and hosted by the researcher 'Omar Amarir, 82 De-orientalizing the Aira ard Re-orienting thc Shikhat Alessandra Ciucci 83 Mohammed Bouhmid traces a history of the 'aita before discussing the humanizing rather than brutal principles, one tactic used to justify its musical and poetic featurcs of some of its styles. Bouhmid emphasizcs two ptesence.4o As Said obseryes: critical points for the re-yalorization of rhc 'aita. Firsr, that thi aasiclasa2 of the 'aita stcmmed from the past and rhat therefore ir was impossihlc to The Odent existed as a place isolated from the mainstream ol European Otiental create new poems. Second, that because Morocco had always been a rural progress in thc scicnccs, alts, and commerce. . . . Theses of with the west most easily society. this sung pocky from the countryside was truly Moroccan backwardness, degeneracy, and inequatity associaled themselves early in the nineteenth century with ideas about the (na g h ri biy an haq i4 i ya n S.+' biological bases of facial incquality . Orientals were rarely seen or One particularly notable aspect of the program is that somc of the looked at; they were seerl through, analyzed not as citizens, or even peop]e, most impo ant shikhat were present always in thc studio. They wcre, but as oroblems to be solvcd or contined or-as the colonial powers however, only recognized when Bouhmid would ask them to Derform in openly ioveted their territory-taken ovcr.tT order to illustrate various points of his discussion with Amarir. ihc rcst of the time the shikhat sat silently opposite Amarir and Bouhmid and away ln Morocco, the culture that had come to symbolize the backwardness from the camera. In his effort to carry out a scholarly discussion Bouhmid describcd by Said was that of the rural population and the urban had divested the shikhat of thc 'aita that was their an, posing himself proletariat. Collcctcd and studied by Europeans, this cultuc was regarded instead as the specialist and custodian of the sung poetry, which hc did not with suspi'.rion and cvcn rcjccted as the "bastard product of colonization"a8 embody or perforrn. Just as Bouhmid's account sct the standard for other hv Morocean nationalist leaders.4'The re-valorization and rchabilitation of specialists to follow, his conduct with these female performers has been fblk culture was lhcrcforc dependent on Moroccan politics and on the emulated by most specialists as tie shikhat are called upon as pcrtbrmers, politics of the Ministdre de la Culture as a whole' but silenced in the public debates about rhe 'aita. Ironically, this The appointment of Mohammed Ach'ari50-poet, member of the objectification of the shikhat that deprives them of their own volition and USFP and former President of the UEM-as Ministe d€ la Culture voice is akin to the othering of Orientalism, which assigns the shikhat signaled a moment of changc in the political culture of the ministry.5r meaning on the terms of the Orientalist rather than her own. In a similar Unlike those of his predeccssors, Ach'ari's agenda has focused on thc manner, Bouhmid, by directing the shikhat ar his discretion, himself constxction of an all-inclusive national culture, encouraging the fabricated an art that was ostensibly, but only partially, theirs. democratizailon of culture through the establishment of an artistic infrastructure thoughout the counLry and, most germane to this discussion, The Re-valorization of the ,Aita on promoting festivals celebrating rcgional cultures and identities The Fhst National Festival of the Art of the'Ajta (al-mahraian al- As the continuation of ideas elaborared by 1960s and l9?0s left-wing Iwatani al-lwwal li-fann al-'aita) was organized in Safi by the Ministdre intellectuals, the re-valorization of the 'aita should be analyzed in the de la Culture et de la Communication together with the Province de Safi context of the re-habilitation of folk culture (thaqafa sha,biya).ao Becuuse and the Rdgion de Doukkala-'Abda in 2001. The festival was supponed by the Orientalist discourse on the 'aita played a crucial role in the the USFP, the PPS (Partie du ProgrDs ct du Socialisme), and the PSD rediscovery of Molocco's own culture and self image,as thc process of re- (Paflie Socialiste Democratique), but osracized by thc Istiqlal (Panie de valorization and re-habilitation is thus indissociable from that of de" I'Inddpendence), the Islamist PJD (Partie de la Justicc ct du Ddveloppement), orientalization, since Orientalism was s0uctued by the relationship thc Islamist movement alTawhid wa al-Islah (Mouvcmcnt Unitd et between politics, culture, and histor;. Riforrne). and the PADS (Panie de I'Avant-Garde Ddmocratique et Overlooked and relcgated to the status of tblklore (fann sha,bi) by the Socialiste). Although the UEM had been the driving foroe bchind the Moroccan and French elites, folk culture had been linked with Eurobean organization of the festival, its support had not been officially tourism or with Europeans' intercst in discovcring how Moroccans acknowlcdgcd. Those in favor argued that the festiYal was a cultural, thought. The collection, cataloguing, and study of folk culture wcre means oconomic, and social event that would stimulate Safi's economy, cultue, for the Protectorate to present itself to the rest of the world as based on and tourism, that the 'aita was an artistic aod popular exprcssion that nccdcd to be respected, and that if there were something amoral in the De-olientalizing the Aira and Re-orienting the ShikJut Alessandra Ciucci 'aita it was the byproduct of colonialism. Those against it claimed that the of irc qasidas as being old, possibly to ascribe them authority'53 may be festival would encourage amorality in the city of Safi, ruin the reputation viewcd as an interpretative construction of the origin of poems that are of a city of warrior saints (mujahidin), and that fte festival, focused on said to derive from the oral epics of the Beni Hilal tribe, wlrich migrated to dance and pornography, honored prostitutes. The controversy surrounding North Africa in the tenth and eleventh centuries.sa According to the festiva.l led to the prohibition of the shikhat's dances, an essential spccialists, today we are left only with poetic units or fragments (habbar). element of their performance, and the exclusion of their testimonials liom Hencc, because the poetic decline caused by the Protectorate produced a the two-day conference. Furthermore, although three of thc most period of forgetting, the lask to restore the poems has focused on the renowned shikhat were honored during the opening ceremony, an invisible fiagments and on the reconstruction of an original or authentic version. but angible wall separated the specialists from the performers. Similar to Allal Raggoug exhorts: what had taken place on Kunuz, tle performers were called upon to demonstrate at night what the specialists had discussed among themselves It's time that we documcnt the original texts by collecting them from the ,aita - during the day. The festival had thus presented the through the mouths of their holders so as to investigate and publish them in their linal a bodiless voices of the shikhat and silenced their testimonies. form . . . This task cannot be accomplished by one rcsearcher; it needs team of different specialists who can work together so a-s to establish a new method for publishiry these texts.rr The Moroccan Narrative The shikhat supposedly lack authority and thus thcy are ostensibly To re-valorize the 'aita and hrrn it into an honorable anistic unqualified for the project of restoration proposed by Raggoug. Instead' expression, it has been necessary to change its image, or at least the way in the historian calls for the intervention of a team of sPecialists to extract the which popular opinion perceives it. As discourses focused on the de- texts from the mouths of the perforrners in order to publish in fixed, orientalization of the 'aita and on its presentation accordance in with the wrinen, and thus authoritative forrL the final versions of the Poems of the Moroccan moral system, tbree crucial poitrts were reiterated at festivals, 'aita. conferences and in the media: The effort to establish that lhe qasidos stemmed ftom ancient times 1. The Protectorat€ ,aita has been blamed for the degradation of the relics on internal evidence of the fragments, characteristics of which and for associating it with debauchery, an association caused by the way in include figurative language, narrative episodes, and narrative motifs, which the 'aita was utilized by the colonizers who, since they could not similar to what Richard Bauman and Charles L. Briggs discu-ss in undersland its texts, focused on presented tle dances of the shikhat. as a rcference to a Sconish national epic, as a warant of authenticity.ro For form of counter-colonial resistance, the ,aita revalorization of the has thus example, according to Naimi, the line "wint mazi murda l-khayl u rjaliya" purged Moroccans of any responsibility for the -Mazi5t- status of this sung poetry J"Thc source of lquenches) the thlst of the horses and foot and, more importantly, of its performers. This view is encaDsulaled on the (soldiors)"1 dates from the time of the sixth expedition of Hassan I, which ofticial website ofthe city of Safi: took place in the summer of 1877 in the south of Morocco "o By locating this and other poetic units in the past, the texts of the qasilas arc tj.rrned The 'aita generally finds itself given up to rhe hasty appraisal of the non- into enduring historical objects whose significance rests frst and foremost specialists, because its pejorative side hides other aspects and values. The on the unchangeability ofthe texts. 'aita, which speaks of the longing and the asptations, the pleasures !6 wcll same notion has also motivated textual scrutiny, an example of as the pains. becomes a song- gazelte, a refuge , , . Today. its enrcnajninc The composef, and and sometimes erotic side kkes precedeoce over the song's real meaning,iz which is explained by Ahmed Aydoun*a musicologist, the former hcad of the music division at the MinistCro de la Culture- From this persp€ctive, the superficial estimation of the non-specialist regarding somc of the decisions that he made while producing three CDs functions as a reminder of the attitudes of rhe colonizers who m.istook this of the 'aita issued by the Ministdre de la Culture. "song-gazette" for erotic entertainment. we tried to limit, as much as possible, the 2. The re-valorization of the 'aita has focused on the aastdas. whrcn we had to make a comFomise. risk of errors. But there will be errors; there are texls with which evcryone are said to stem from the past. In this contexr, the identification of the texts De-odentalizing the Aia and Re-orie[ting the Shikhnl Alessandra Ciucci 87 will not agsc . . . I worked between thc two [studios] and I anived each In the re-valorization of the 'aita as a national heritage, the shikhat are time to rectify what was going on, where the problem was . . . if therc was tansformed into a medium through which the patriarchal nation a repertoire that was not working very well then we decidcd there with the articulates its desircsand fears while asserting its honor and pddc in the anists to makc changes. I proposLd thal thcy change the teyl, lhe song . . .5e face of the Protectorate. Hence, in the process of re-Yalorization these women pedormers have come to cmbody an arena in which issucs of the past performers judged If in one another with respect to lhcrr scxuality, narration, and national idontity are debated. knowledgc and personal interpretation of a rext, this was essentially an insider's practice that reflectcd multiple views and traditions. Howevcr, Aydoun's idca of an authentic or conect version, dictated by the cultural Orientalism and PatriarchY politics of the Ministbre de la Culture, may affect attitudes to the point of Oricntalism and indigenous should not be considered as fteezing the interpretive freedom of the shikhat. Patdarohy two separatc issucs.s Therefore it is essential to analyze what men In Moroccan cultural politics the 'aita has been the object of claims of intellectuals and spccialisLs sclected from colonialist thought and why they cultual authenticity that have been accompanied by efforts to discover or The process of re-valorizing the 'aita had been motivated by the restore authentic pasts as foundations for contemporary identity. ln this did so. this is the principal musico-poetic practice of thc population of conlext, the shikhat are vessels carrying ancient poefty in fragmontary fact that the Atlantic plains, a rural population has been politically, form. Through the intervention of the intellectuals and thg spccialists of o'--that economically, and culturally marginalized. The 1998 asccnsion of the t.he 'aita, who can recognize and comprehend historic and acsthctic value, USFP to the head of the gevcrnment marked a historic changc in the the ftagments can be rccorded, preseNed, and perhaps reasscmbled into political and cultural life of Morocco. As members of a party whose their full form. In this context, tle re-valodzation is grounded on support was most significant among thc rural population and the urban discourses based more on national political aspiations than on artistic politicians of the USFP were no practices. lower classes, the intellectuals and thc longcr associated with the urban elites but instead anchored in the rural 3. Re-orienting the shikhat, or changing their popular perception has milicu. It was this change that promptcd folk culture to reemerge at the been crucial for the re-valorization of the 'aita. In this contexr, the centcr of a political and cultural debate, for thc new class of intellectuals discourse produced by the revalorization has simultancously presented the was cagcr to prove that culture was not just an urban or an elitist shikhat as un^sung hcroes----comparing them with bards, chanteuses or phenomcnon. blues singers--and as women whose everyday life is not too ditTerent For many, the re-yalorization of the 'aita camc to cmbody a political, ftom that of olhers----emphasizing their rolcs as daughters, wives, and and struggle. Though the 'aita, the men intellectuals and mothers.o' According to Najmi: cultural, moral specialists could validate their moral worth and thcir authority though two sources honor: gtorious deeds and the control of women. According to We dismissed (rafadna) ftom the bcgioniog any mix-up (,t/Mr) between of the honorable (i'tibar, professional status of the shikhat qnd the Steven C. Caton: ^nd, sexual hadc (al-mutajara al-jinsiya) of thebody that prostitutes practice.6l what is imponant for our analysis of the oral tradition is Meeker's concepl that this concept contains an Tho re-orientation of the shikhat has aimed at dispelling the notion of of the glotious deed of honor. He argucs implicit logic or structurc for action, For example, it imPlies thc conccpt ol thcse women as dishonorable pertbrmers by focusing on scxuality or, the Other against whom a glorious dccd is perlormed as well as the,C)ther more precisely, by erasing their sexuality and advancing them as natioml who will rccognize and acknowledge the honorableness ofthe dccd.- symbols. Women have often been the ground on which discourses to constuct The re-valorization and lhc incorporation of the 'aita into the national a national identity and, consequcntly, a national honor are Notable built. heritage exemplilics Mecker's concept of the glorious deed ofhonor, since eleme[ts of national honor, just as lamily honor, are bilsed on ideas and it defines colonialisrn as the Other against whom the glorious deed is practices that reside in women's behavior. Debates ovcr prostitution, real performed, and thc urban elites as the Other who needs to recognize and and 6l metaphoric, are thus central te notions of national honor and identity acknowledse thc honorableness of the action Thc intcllcctuals and 88 De-orientalizing the ?ta and Re-orienting the Shikhat Alessandra Ciucci 89 specialists of the 'aita have thus validated their moral worth by porforming into a code of honor which the malc intellectuals and specialists need to a glorious dccd; the re-appropriation of the 'aita from the colonizcrs and negotiate thet own value and that of the patriarchal nation in the face of ,aita from the way in which they used it, lcading to the restoration of the rn the Protectorate. its supposed authentic form and function in society. This glorious deed of honor, however, could have nevcr bocn fully accomplished without Conclusion attempting to tansform the imagc of tho shikhat hom being associatcd with hshuma to hshumiya. Il Orientalistn Said observes how Kuchuk Hanem never spoke of In Morocco, for individuals to earn respect rhey must personify thc hcrsclf, never represented her emotions, prcsence, ot history; it was ideals of a moral sysl,em defined in adhcrcncc to the principles of honor Flaubcrt who spoke for her, represented her, and told his readers in what (sharafl (hasham). and shanc Cenerosity, honesty, sincerity, loyalty to way she was "typically Oriental."" In thc rcvalorization of the 'aita, the friends, keeping one's word, pridc, sclf-control, courage, physical shikhat have also remained silent. In re-orienting these performers the glorious saength, reason, deeds, and thc confol of women are all elemenh male intcllcctuals and specialists speak for them, reprcsent them, and tell of the code of honor for men. As long as men demonsrale these qualitics Moroccans how thc shikhat embody the national heritagc. The shategy of they are entitled to the respeca that validates their moral worth and, reversal employed in the process of re-valorization may have remained consequently, to the authority that is gcnerally associated with havrng locked within the same logic. lf self-essentialization, as noted by Dirlik, these virtues. Although women share some of the same values, their lower may serve the cause of mobilization against Western domination, it also status do€s not permit them to realize these ideal forms of behavior; thus, consolidates Western ideolo_gical hegemony by internalizing the historical one way for them to access honor is to show deferencc to those in assumptions of Orientalism.'' authority. That is_where, similarly to what Lila Abu Lughod has argued for Although it can be argued that in the past few years a handful of fie the Awlad 'Ali," the concept of hasham becomes central. In Moroccan best known shikhat have been included in television programs devoted to daily parlancc the tc;rrn hshuma rcfcrs to shame and it is used to reDrimand music, have panicipated in a number of public debates, and that their daily someone who is acting inappropriatcly, while the rerm ftsfiamiya iefers to lives have been portrayed in documentarics, '' it is also critical to understand woman a who is modest and who avoids any behavior that publicly that their role has been overwhelrningly symbolic. Refashioned to suit suggcsts her to be disobedient and insubordinate to hcr husband or male cultural-political agendas and turned into objecls of folklore, the shikhat kin. In this context, a woman's denial of sexuality is inevitably critical to brcak their silence to replicate the values upheld by the men intellectuals defercnce. Women who comply with the values inherent b hd sham are nor and spccialists of the 'aita. As shikha Khadija Margourn observes: only honorable but are also part of the honor code. It is critical also to stress that hasham is tied to the social conceot of A shikha is like a horse, she must always be armored. If shc is like a horse 'qal (te4son) and what is dehned as the self-conuol of an honoiable she should never do something that is bad in front of her loved ones [i.e. person.68 Hasham and 'qal, in fact, are inherent to the notion of the ideal thc audicncal, she should be ready to do things right, to intcrpret [the 'aita] woman, since the adjcctive 'qlc describes a woman who is well behaved, well, people must see a bcautiful being in her. When a shikha takes off her modest, and who knows when to speak and when to listen.6e In othcr drtna lorrg muslin tunic with long sleevcs wom on top oi the 4missl and she is left only with thc tunic of light material wom undemeath words, a woman who is '4la is a woman who knows her place in socicry. 4rni.rs Uong ,,forcel.ul" the .rtn4l, people say that a real shikha must ncvq take off the dfna, that In a negative sense a woman who lacks 'qcl can be described as shc must rcmain as a horse; these aie the little things that cause a shikha to (qawiya) or as a whore (qahba). ttlhercas qahba rcfers specilicslly to take good care of herself and not to make errors in ftont of the public or se$)ality, qawiya rcfcrs to a woman who, although she is io a Dosition of people. She has have straight conduct, take carc of the aita and of t0'poctrv othgr to dependency, isjudgcd to act with inappropriate asseniveness. i" u her audience. She has to know what to say, dress nicely, treat people form of symbolic powcr. The verbat ability of a poer allows him ro ieacn nicely, and show respect for herself.?1 high status in a community, but, social ascendancy is problcmatic fbr women. In re-valorizing of the 'aita it has been necess:uy to strip irs A pcrformance of the shikhat is haditionally associated with the fantasia inte4)reters of their authority, to re-orient thom and to reintegratc them or tburida. This event, which takes place in a long ficld cncircled by the 90 De-orientalizing the ?ita and Re-orienting the Shikhat Alessandra Ciucci 9l 6 spectators, consists in the free running of the Arabian horses that are "ya baba ila kunti 'bdi ya shanajli 'awdi a wlidi wa ra nahdi 'bdi man 'andi wlidi abruptly stopped as they reach the edge of the field. It is at this moment wlidi radia bl-maktub u dhab rkab wa siadi ra bkit 'la fraq l-hbab ya baba ra nabki that the riders shoot their long rifles into the aA. An important part of the ma nsbar wa nskut ma najbar wa siadi ra shalla natfakar a wlidi wlidi ra fi fantasia, however, is also the display of the horses, which are adorned mannana wa dial l- hbab wa siadi ra l-baoi mulana." 7 "Poems 'Aita with beautifully decorated saddles. The male horsemen take great pride in See my of Honor, voices oi Shur", The and the Moroccan Shikhaf' (Ph.D. dissertation, The Craduate Ccntcr of the City University of New the horses that symbolize their honor. The association between the shikhat York, 2008); Hassan Najmi, Ghina al-'aita: al-sh'ir al-shafawi wa al-musiqa al- and the is reiterated lgics, the images used for album fantasia in in taqlidia bi al-maghreb (Casablarca; Editions Toubkal. 2007): Fanny Soum- covers, and concert promotions, and in the course of performance. By Pouyalet, "Femme et marginalitd au Marcc: l,e cas des cheikhat" (Ph.D. presenting themselves as horses whose beauty and proper conduct upholds dissertation, Ecole des Hautes Etudcs en Sciences Soqiales,200l); l-ahcen the honor of men, the shikhat also embody the established image of Haddad, "Women and the Sacred Capital: Women Singen (Shikhat) and thc respectable women whose upright behavior grounds the honor of her male Notion of Nashat in Moroccan Popular Culture" (unpublished paper presented at kin, her family, and society as a whole. the Annual Conibrence of the American Institute for Maghrib Studies, Fes, As the voice of the 'aita had to be linked to the chaste female body, Morocco, 3-5 June 1999); Deborah Kapchan, Gender on the Market: Moroccan (Philadelphia: the shikhat have interiorized a new perforrnance practicc of the 'aita in its Women ahd the Ret'oicing of Tradition Univenity of Pennsylvania Press, 1996); Khadija Abdeljamil, la populaire staging at festivals or on telcvision. At the same time, however, the "L'Cnonciation dans chanson arabe de lemmes au Maroc (chikiat)" (Ph.D. dissertation, Universitd Lumidrc, 1993); number of shikhat performing thc 'aita has dramatically diminishcd as an and Philip Schuyler, "A Repenory of ldcas: The Music of the Rwais, Belber incrcasing number male performers have of become the voice of a new Professional Musicians from Southwestern Morocco" (Ph-D. dissenadon, pop form of the 'aita, which, ironically enough, seems to require the silent University of Washington, 1979). image of the shikhat for validation. " Karin van Nieuwke*, A Trade Like Any Other: Female Singers and Dancers in Egy2r (Austin: University of Texas Prcss, 1995), 22. ' "Ce que nous tenons e souligner chez ces prostitudes militaires, c'est lcur Notes incroyable endurance. Apres avoir marchd toute une joumde en plein soleil, Presque sans rcpos et ceftainement sans nourriture, car les mehallas en marchc ne I I have adopted a highly simplified system of transliteration lor rnodern srandatd mangcnt pas, elles dansent encore le soir sous le tentes oi elles sont invitdes et Anbic and colloquial Moroccan Ambic. All diacdtics have beerl omitted except finissent la nuit dans les oeuvres de I'amour, sans que la moindre fatiguc sc for the a)., (')- Since so many French transliterations in Morocco have become manifcstc cn cllcs." Christian HouEL Marot:: Maiage, adultire, prostitution- standad, I have chosen to employ these translitemtions tbr placc names, tribes, Anthologie (Pali.s: H. Daragon, l9l2), 138-39. and proper names as they morc commonly appear in writing. Spellings used by "' Beginning in 1880, the image of "traditional Morocco" presented by oflicial and other authols are retained when I refsr to or quote from their publications. Unless unotlcial writings in French provided a tcmplate for thc colonial statc. See otherwise noted, translations from French and Arabic are my own. Edmund Burke, "The Creation of the Moroccan Colonial Archive, 1880-1930," 2 This essay is based on lield research conducted in Morocc; from Septcmber 2000 History and Anthropology 18.1 (March 2007): 2. to Decembe.2004. Research was funded by the Fulbright Foundation, the " Burke. 2. t2 Amedcan Institute of Maghreb Studies and the Jewish Foundation for rne Edward W. Said, Onentaliszr (Ncw York: Vintage Books, 1979), 190, Education of Women. Excerpts from my field notes are given in italics. Jean Mathieu and P.H. Maury, Bousbir: Ia prcstitution dans le Maroc cobnial: i " The notion of sex[ality that I employ here is not one of a biological drive but ofa Ethnographie d'un quanier rasemi (A)x-en-Provence: IREMAM and Paris: Paris- social constructio[ that Foucault sees as a discourse, as a set social Dracdco$ M6ditenande, 2003)- constucted in relation with other discourses, Michel Fouc8ulr, The History of '' Mathieu and Maury, 76. Chaque ruelle pafticipe au vacarme, dans l'une Serrralif), trans. Robert Hurley (New York: Pantheon Books, 1978), quelques prostitudes chantent d'une voix aigue en s'accompagnant de La ta'ija. " For an hsightful discussion on the effects of colonial systems on thc conccptioo me tu'ija here refers to a single-skin clay goblet-shaped hand-drum and construction of sexuality see Joseph Massad, Desirizg Arabs, (Chicago: chaGctcristically playcd by thc shikhat. D University of Chicago Prcss, 2007). For a difibrent portrait of a corporation of shikhat in the city of Marrakech scc 'Fatima Memissi. Beyond the Veil: Male-F'emale Dynamict in a Modem Mushm Azouaou Mammeri, "La corporation des chikharcs a Manakech," L'Atlas (n|umero Socrer) (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987), 23+35. special, 1930). 'o "Comme l'dtaient toutes les chikhate jusqu'i la colonization, oi unc loi 92 De-orientafizing the Aira and Re-orienting the Shikhnl Alessandra Ciucci 93 coloniale les a obligos A ne chanter que dans les bordels. L'amalgamc chikha- (1995): 485-86; Philip Schuyler, "Entertainment in the Markct Place" in rveryla) prostitude est venu de li avant tout." Maris Daif, "Aida: Destin d'une chikha" Lifu in the Mid.dle Eart, ed. Donna Ire Bowen and Evelyn A. Early (Bloomington: TelQuel (19-25 July, 2003): 30. The article includes an interview with Hassan Indiana University Press, 1993), 2'7'1; Azouaou Mameri, "Musique et thdatre l_'{ajmi. populaire a Manakech," LTlas special issue (1930). " There are two types of written Arabic sources that Moroccan researchers have "' Ali Jihad Racy, "Rccord Industry and Egyptian Traditional Music: 19M-1932," used to establish the prcserce and the lole of the shikhat in Mo.oooo. Thc first Ethnomusicology 20.1 (1 97 6): 26. consists of thc writings of scholius amd historiogtaphcrs such as Al-Hassan Ibn '' Ahmed Hachlaf and Mohamed Elhabib, Anthologie de Ia musique arabe (1906- Muhammad al-Waz,zan al-Fasi (also known as L-€o Africanus lca. 1483-15541) 1960) Qaris: Publisud, 1993); Alexis Chottin, Tableau d.e kt musique nalocane and 'Abd al-Rahman Ibn Zaydan (1873-1946). The second consis(s of thc (Paris: Paul Geuthner, 1939); Odeon, Catalogue des disques marocains cofiespondence and other documents of courtiers, qa s (rural administrators), (Casablanca: Grands Bazars Marocains, 1930), pasrzr (civil or military authorities), sultans, or princes, Regarding rhe first sourcc " Schuyler, 97. type, Moroccan researchers have argued that: (l) due to the elitist views of Arat) " Scc Najmi; also Hassan Bahraoui, Faat al-'aita bi al- 4ghrib:musahamah fi al- scholars, the shikhat and other rural pertbrmers are denigrated, and (2) that rhe ta' l (R^bat: Publications de l'Union des Ecrivains du Maroc, 2002); Allal presence of the shikhat can be establishcd by considcring that other titles such as Rt4goug, al-Muqawamah wa-ahdath min al-taikh al-ijtina'; fi al-adab al- l'abat (a 8loldp of womcn who play), utniyat (female street enrcnainers), or shalawi al-Maghribi (1890-1956) (Rabat: al-Mandubiyah al-Samiyah li-Qudama ailarat (female singers ofthe 'aita) were used to indicatc thc samc class of fcmale al-Muqawimin wa-A'da Jaysh al-Tahrir, 2001); Mohammed Bouhmid, 'Tnnahum performers. riduna al-'aita ka dajijin li jam'i al-Hushudi. As-sulta fi al-maghribi lam tafham 18 ) Mohammed Ernaji, Sening the Master: Slavery and Sociey in Nineteenth- anna ihtirama al-'aita fi-hi ianibun min jawanibi al-hitdi 'la shaksiyatina," al- (New (April Century Morccco York: St. Martin's Press. 1999). It.tihad* al-lshtiraqi 15, 1995),6. " Hassan Najrni, Ghina al-'aia: al-sh'ir al-shafawi wa al-musiqa al-taqlidia bi Said employs the term "Orientalism" to describe the westem approach to the al-maghreb,2 vols- (Casablanca: Edidons Toubkal, 200?)- Orient, and the discipline by which the Oriert wa.s approached systernatically as a 20 Nalmi, l:172-74. topic of leaming, discovely and practice. h addition, he also uses the term to " "Pcndant un siErle, entre 1830 et 1930, on trouve ainsi des prostitudes officielles designate the "collection of dreams, images and vocabularies available to anyone - . . et des courtisanes, plus ou moins clandestines, attendant chez elles lc clicnt ou who has tried to talk about what lies East ofthe dividing line." (73) 35 les clients recrutds a I'ext6rieur, ofliant services sexucls mais aussi nourritute, th6, Meyda Yegenollu, Colnninl Fantasies: Toward a Feminist Reading o! eau de bain et meme, Ies cas dchdant, spectacle et hospiralird pour la nuit. O,ientdlisn (Cambidge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 23. Courtisancric ambivalente, symbole'dCpass6' d'aures conceptions 'o "Nous allons connaftrc lc Marcc libertin et jouisseur. Ce 'visage' est ag#able e prostitutionnelles et d'autres types de relations sexuelles negocides, antdrieures a la regarder, mais que de fard sur le joues, que de khol sous les ycux, quc dc bijoux colonisation . . . En ce sens, I'administration coloniale, en brouillant les cancs des vrais ou faux scintillent autour de lui ; quelle profusion de couleurs vives et quelle hidrarchies prostitutionnelles traditionnelles et en mettant en place une vCritable surcharge d'omements pa.mi les parfums anesthdsiants qui s'en ddgage lEtj'ai professionnalisation de la prostitution, a profonddment modifid I'univers bien peur, hehs! que le-dessous, il n'y ait qu'une pauvre et menue figure, palotte et p.ostitutionnel maghrdbin," Chdstclle Tanud. 14 prostitution coloniale: AlgCie, frip6e de viveur, qui se consume A pouNuivre un bonheur sensuel impossible, Dans Tunisie, Maroc (1830-1962) Caris: Payot, 2N3), 25-26. les poemes assez mddiocres qu'il chante, il y a toujou.s une cruelle qui se refuse " Timothy J. Gilfoyle, "Prcstitutes in History: From Parables of pomography lo obstinimcnt e dcn accorder A un soupirant €temellement dconduit. . . . Voili donc Metaphors of Modemity," Thz Ameican Historical Review 104. I ( 1999): 130. cette musique si attirante et si ddcevant i la fois. . . . Ce rire et cette joie fusent et " Nieuwkerk. 29-32. Cclatcnt dans le rythmg, rythme dtourdissant, ry'thme enchanteur qui endort les 'n Lois Ibsen al-Faruqi, "Music, Musicians, and Muslim Law," /,riaz Music lj,l soucis et les peines; ryhme-vampire dont lcs ailcs s'agitcnt pour anesthdsier la (1985):12. douleur causde pas sa mo$ure fatale." Alexis Chottin, "l,ei visages" de la 25 Excerpt from an interr'iew with Karbou'a, Rabat, Z July 2002. musique narocaine (Rabat: Imprimcric Nouvellc, 1928), I 1. '" Excerpt liom an interviow wirh Karbou'a, Rabar, 2 July 2002. '' Said.3. '' Schuyler,65. 33 Excerpt from an interview with Mohammed Bouhmid, Khoudbga, 13 April '?3 Ouzri Abdelwalred, Iz rhi^tre au Maroc: Structures et tendances (Casablanca: 2001. Editions Toubkat, 1997). 3e The USFP was particularly influential in the 1970s when it became the focus of " Khalid Amine, "Crossing Bordgrs: al-Halqa Performance in Morocco fiom the opposition to the King Hassan II (1929-99). In 1998, Hassan II asked the USFP Open Space to the Theater Building," Il?e Dramu Reviey,, 45,2 (2001)i 55-5j., and the Istiqlal to form a coalition govcmment in which the USFP was the leading Deborah Kapchan, '?c.formance," 'l'he Joumal of Anerican Folktore 108.430 party. Although the USFP has lost its premiership, it continues to have a role in the De-orientalizing the Aira and Re-orienting thc Shikhat Alessandra Ciucci 95 govemment. The UEM was creatcd in 1962 as an intellectual organization and has (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1969), 1,64. had a determining impact on the development of Moroccan culturc. The members '" Although the following discussion is concerned with the policies of the of the UEM, writers who mainly usc Arabic, and to a lesser extent French and Ministirc dc la Culture under Mohammed Ach'ari, those of the curent minister, Berber, as their expressive idioms, have always defbnded the speciliqity of Bensalem Himmich, have not fundamentally changed- Moroccan culture, privileged political militancy, and regardcd culture as a " Whereas the 1968 creation of a ministry in charge of cultural aflhirs marked the Iundameltal element in the ideological and political struggle. See Amina Touzani, desire of the Moroccan elites to correct thc political culturc ofthc Protcctorate and IA culture et la politique culnrelle au Marcrc (Casablanca: Croisdc dcs Chcmins, the years following independence, in reality the Ministdre de la Culture favored an 2003), l l2-13. a elitist culturc that continued to uphold lhe ideas put lbrth by the lbunding members These intellectuals were for the most part associated with the cultural/literary of Moroccan nationalism. SeeTouzani. rcview Anfas/Souffies (1966-'12), whose aim to redefinc national culture and to 52 "fa chanson Al Aita sc trouvc gdndralement livrCe a l'apprdciation prdcipjtde align thc cultural with the political was strongly influenced by Franz Fanon's rl!€ des non-sp6cialistes, parce que son c6td pCjoratif occultc d'autrcs aspccts et Wretched of the Earth. valeurs. qui plaisirs o' Al Aita, raconte la nostalgie et les aspirations, les comme les Roland Barthes was a professor at the UDivcrsitd Mohammad V Agdal-Rabat douleurs, devient une chanson-gazettc, un rcfugc Aujourd'hui, le cote from 1969 to 1970. divertissant parfois prend le dessus sur le vrai sens de ce chant." Ville a2 9t drotique When discussing the 'aita, the tetm qasida indicates a strophic poem in de Safi: Rdgion de Doukkla-Abda, "Divcrtisscmcnts & Culture; Musique," coUoquial Arabic with a numbcr of lines of iregular length, with verses tha( may h-ttp://www.safi -ville.com/Musique.php'llgl =fra. not b€ divided into two hemistiches, and that do not neccssarily have a single " Mikhail Bakhtin dcscribes the authoritative word as "loca(ed in a distanced zone, meter or rhyme scheme, organically connected with a past that is telt to be hierarchically higher. Its *"' Mohammed Bouhmid, inrerview by Omar Amuir. Kunuz, RTM. 1992. authority was aheady acknowledged in tho past. lt is a prior discourse . . . Its In Morcxco thaqala sha'bia (trom sha'b, folk or people) reters to both lblk and language is a special language." Michale Bakhtin,'l he Dialogic Inagination: Four poputar ,1he cultwe, indicating, as suggested by Ochoa for Larin Amcrica, Essays (Austin: University ofTcxas Press, l98l ), 342. ofestablishing 5a difficulty a complete or at least a clear sepamtion b€twe€n tmdition See Najmi, Bahraoui, Raggoug, and llouhmid, "lnnahum )uriduna al-'aita ka and modemity." Ana Maria Ochoa, "Garcia M6rquez, Macondismo, and the dajijin li jam'i al-Hushudi. As-sulta fi al-maghribi lam tafham anna ihtirama al- Soundscapes of Vallenato," Popular Music U.2 (2M5): 221. Throughout (his 'aita fi-hi janibun min jawanibi al-hifdi 'la shaksiyatina," al-lttihad al-lshtimqi, drscttssion thaqafa Jia'r;, is tftnslated as "folk culture" and is usctl to indicare 1995; Ahmed Aydoun, Musiques du Maroc (Casablanca: Editions Eddil 1995); what Moroccans identify as that culture which is based on oraliry and on colloquial 'Abd Aziz Ibn 'Abd al-Jalil, Madkhal ila tariW al-musiqa al-maghibiya Arabic or Berber language. (Kuwayt:^l: {s :neatlrds al-Mat'lis al-Watani lil-Thaqafah wa-al-Funun wa-al-Adab, 1983); ldrisi, Abdellarif Laaui, et dilemmes de la culturc ndtionate. l.' Idris bin 'Abd al-'Ali, Kashf al-ehita 'an sirr al-musiqa wa nataij al-ghina, l94O Anfsa./Soullles 4 (1966). http://www.searlleu.edu,/souffles/so4/2_ l.hrm. (Rabat: -" al- Matba 'ah al-Wakniyah). Mohamed Oukssissc, Anamie institutionnelle et politique au Maroc: lln essat " Raggoug, 18. d'interpfttation socio-politique (Villeneuve d'Ascq: presses Universitaires du '" Richard Bauman and Charles L. Briggs, yoicer of Modemity: Itnguuge Seplentrion. 2001).437. Also see Burke. Ideologies and the Politics of Inequality (Cambridgc: Cambridgc Univcrsity Prcss, "' Said, 206-7. 2003). 145-50. a3 57 "I-e produit bdtard de la colonisation." Ahmed Boukous, ',L€ champ culturei &u The spring of Mazi is located in the Chichaoua region on thc road between Maroc: De quelques contradictions" it L'intercuhurel au Maroc: Ans, lan6ues, Maraakech and Essaouira. littCratures et traditions populaires-Actes de la joumle d'Ctudes otgani#e par le tt Naimi. 1:171. G.E.M. et le D.LLF,, A h Facuhi des leures dc Rabat, Flwier.1992 (Casablanca: 5e Ex;erpt from an interview with Ahmed Aydoun, Rabat, 30 March 2002. Afrique Oricnt, 1994), 85. * Amal Kadiri, "Profession: Chikha-{hronique d'une vie peu ordinaire," ae The nationalist movement, which in practice began in 1925, constfucted culturol Femmes du Maroc (April 2000): 84-88. 6r continuity in defensc ofnational identity through selected Orientsl and Occidenr.ur Throughout Ramadan of 2003, .tt-lttiha.l ./l-ful,rira,ti published a series oi idcas relating to the notion of AndaLlusia. Consequentty, its learncd culture articles dedicated to the 'aita and its intcrprctcrs which ponraysd thc shiklat associated witl the imperial cities of northem Morocco, with the urban elites. with according to this discourse. 62 writing, alrd with classical Arabic-thg culturc that had in tact sullered thc mosr Na1mi, 2: 61. o' under colonization exactly because it did not retlect the imagc of Moroccan Bcth Baron, Egypt as a Woman: Nationalism, GendcL and Politics (Bcrkelcy: backwardness-began to be promoted as national culturc. See John p. Halstead. University of Califomia Press, 2005), 40-56. Rebirth of a Nation: The Origins and Rise of Moroccan Nationalisn, l9j2-1944 s YeEenoElu, l2l-26. 96 De-orientalizing the eira atld Re-orienting the Shikhat 65 Although rarcly shown io tourist advertis€ments or in the images of the refiaec coff€e table publicatioN oo the county's splendors, the 20Ol statistics published by the Haut Commissariat au Plan show that rural Morocco is where rcughly 45% PART II of the population of more thar 30 million people rcsides, and where rnany more Moroccan migra s co[tioue to have strotrg tics. Rural Morocco is quite different from the Morocco of the inperial cities, bastions of a refined urban culture oft€o IulcnrrNc rrrE ORTENT associat€d with the Andalusian past aad promoted as the country's culture par ex@llence. The history and the un€ven development of rural Morocco-weighed down by a political and administrative structue characterized by comrption, economic instability, and an inadequate infrastructure-have fostered tension and disparity between urban and rural populations and caus€d rural Morocco to come In L'argent (1891), the plot of which rakes place 1864-69, Emile to symbolize what is real and faditionat on the one hand, and what is unrefined in (184V1902) and archaic on the other, Z4la depicts the meteoric rise and catastrophic collapse of 6 the Parisian Steven C. Caton, '"The Poetic Consbuction of Self," A nthropological Quarterly fictional Banque Universelle. The bank is founded on Antoine 58.4 (1985): 142. Saccard's speculation of fabulous wealth to be unearthed through French 67 Lila Abu-Ie.rghod, Veiled Sentiments: Honor and Poetry in a Bedouin Society industry in the lrvant bas€d on information provided by Georges Hamelin (Be*eley: d UniveEity of Caiifomia kess, 1986). and his sister. Caroline. of whom Zola writes: Dale F. Eickelman, Moroccan Islam: Tradition aad Society in a pilgimage Cazrcr (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1976), 130-31. d And fiom the smallest nooks, from the silent deserts as ftom the geat Abu-Lughod, I 08. cities, she had brought back the same admiration for inexhaustible, The Awlad also use to '" 'Ali 4wi)a describe a woman whose assertiveness ts luxuriant naturc, the same anger against stupid and bad people. Such considerEd as inappropriate. Abu-Lughod l09. natural riches disdained or wasted! . . . the ignomnce in which millions of " Said, 6. men still stagnate even today, as idiot children stopped in their gowth. Arif Dirlik, 'Chinese History and the " Question of Orientalism," History and l,ong ago, the coast had pmven too small; the cities had touched each Theo 35.4 (199 6) : | 14. ry, other; now life has gone toward the Occident, it s€€ms that one crosses al1 '' See Ali Essafr, Dumu' al-sholkiar: l,es blaes des sheikJwtes (MISR immense abandoned cemetery. No schools, no roads, the worst of Intemational Films, 2004). govemments, justice sold, an execrable administrative bureaucracy, taxes 7a Excerpt from an interview with Khadija Margoum, Sali, 5 Juty 2002. too heavy, absurd laws, laziness, fanaticisq without counting the continual shocks of civil wars, rnassaqes that carried off entirc villages. . . . And in these depopulated plains, these desert paEses that our raiLoads will cross, you will see a rsunection, yes! Iields reclaimed, roads and canals established, new cities rising from the ground, life at last returning as it rctums to an ill body when new blood is stined to circulate in impoverished veins. ...' This is a paradigmatic Orientalist description of the L,evant as discussed in Edward W. Said's Oientdlism. In Said's analysis, canonic nineteenth- and twentieth-century French Orientalist texts cast the Orient as a once-great land of fabulous wealth now fallen to lazy and ignorant inhabitants, people who, without justice or right government, live in a state of continual lawlessness. In a heroic mission civilisatrice ['tivilizing mission"], the modefnization and indusfy of France would purportcdly revive the ailing East and provide what Zola's Saccard proclaims to be "the blow of the all- powerful wand whose science and speculation could strike this old sleeping land to awaten it."'